I just bought a humidor! Now what?

According to Tobacconist University, "A humidor is any container intended to store cigars at the appropriate humidity." This provides you many options but don't use your refrigerator or freezer! Remember the 70/70 rule - cigars can become damaged if the get too cold or too hot. Also, refrigerating cigars slows (or halts) the aging process. What are the best options?

Travel Humidor

Travel humidors are typically made of hard plastic but can be of leather, wood, or metal. These are usually rectangular but can also be cylindrical. Travel humidors can carry from two or three cigars up to 60 or more. While a wooden travel humidor may need to be seasoned (see below), the others do not. Most come with some floral foam for passive humidification. We recommend you use Boveda packs to humidify your travel humidor. Depending on the size of your travel humidor, use either 8 gram or 60 gram packs. In Acadiana, we reccomend 69% RH (relative humidity).

Tip #2 - Desktop Humidor

This is the most common type of humidor purchased for home use. These are usually wooden and rectangular, but the lid is sometimes glass. Regardless, a desktop humidor is essentially a wooden box that you will use to keep your cigars humidfied. This wooden box, though, will be dry when you first go to use it - meaning it won't keep your cigars fresh! You need to season a humidor before using it for storing your cigars.

Seasoning is simply humidifying the humidor. You can use seasoning wipes but we recommend using Boveda packs. Simply put one 84% pack for every 25 cigars your humidor will hold. Leave the humidor closed for three weeks. Treat the humidor like a boiling pot of rice - not to be opened. At the end of three weeks, throw away the 84% packs, and put in your cigars with one 69% for every 25 cigars the humidor holds. You'll be good until those packs get hard.

I have a wineador. Do I need to season it? – Yes, if a windeador has wood trays and shelves, you should season the unit before adding cigars. Seasoning conditions the wood components inside the wineador. Using Boveda to season a wineador works just like seasoning a wood humidor with Boveda.

Other Options

Remember the definition from above? You can use almost any airtight container as a humidor - think Topperware. We've seen humidors made out of ammo cans and Yeti coolers. We know folks who won't buy a travel humidor but insist on using a Pelican case to store their cigars. We've had more than one customer try building their own - mixed results.

Whatever you use, make sure to include some form of humidification (a damp towel or sponge is not reccomended). Check out this video from Boveda on humidification. Also, you do not need to line or build your humidor out of Spanish Cedar.

Do whacha wanna! In keeping with our general approach, find and use a storage method that works for you, find and use a seasoning method that you like. Just keep things simple!

Cigar smoking is not about making things overly complex or hard!

Got an interesting storage or seasoning method? Tell us about it here!