Finish (?)

[yourchoice]

Okay...I just read a review and the finish was referred to as "clean". Any opinions on what a clean finish is?

[RevSmoke]

Originally Posted by dvickery

so let me get this straight...almost universally everyone agrees...what you wake up tasting the next morning...is finish???

sorry...still think of finish as something different than the "aftertaste".
derrek

Think what you'd like, but...

What you wake up tasting in the morning is not finish, that is something altogether different. What you taste then is what has been mixed with what you ate, sleeping and breathing from your mouth, and other things. Finish only lingers for a few moments after you expell a puff from your mouth.

Here's a definition from Cigar Advisor of finish. Or find it at: http://www.cigaradvisor.com/qa.cfm?id=62

The "finish" is the taste that lingers on your palate after you’ve blown the smoke out of your mouth. The term is also used for wine tasting. With regard to cigars, the length of the finish is usually dependent on the strength or and/or complexity of the cigar. Milder cigars tend to have a shorter finish, while heavier cigars will have a longer finish. Sometimes the finish is where you’ll pick up those nuances of "leather, cocoa, pepper, cedar," etc., but the aroma plays a big part in it, too. The more "flavors" your palate is able to detect, often the more complex the smoke. The finish can help you determine how well-balanced the cigar is, too.

A "clean finish" is one in which the smoke disperses the flavors on the palate long enough to be savored without lingering. You could say it’s a short finish with all the properties of a long finish. Moreover, after the cigar is put out, the taste doesn’t linger in your mouth.

Of course, like the flavor of a cigar, the finish is also subjective. To determine the finish of your cigar, take a puff, swirl the smoke around in your mouth a little before blowing it out, then concentrate on what you taste afterwards. Blowing some of the remaining smoke out through the nose will also help you define some of the flavors in the cigar.