Sitting slightly slouched in an oversized leather wing chair I gently puff on a very tasty robusto. The stress of my day drifts away with the gentle billows of blue smoke rising above me. My muscles rest, my head clears, ah there is nothing like relaxing with a good cigar. Then it begins... a little on the top, then on the side, next thing you know my perfect cigar is burning more uneven than the spread between this year's Denver Broncos and Washington Redskins.

An uneven burn drives me absolutely batty when I am trying to enjoy a good cigar. It is hard to express just how much an uneven burn can annoy me, and if it is really uneven it can actually ruin the cigar for me. The last thing I want to be doing is fighting a poorly burning cigar when I am supposed to be relaxing.

How even should the burn be? Good question... in a good cigar it should be near perfect so that when you tip the ash away the entire cigar face is nearly flat. Of course that is a rather tough standard, but most well made cigars will burn within 3/8" all the way around.

Common This is when the cigar burns quicker on one side than the other. This is the typical poor burn pattern we smokers experience, and the most easy to correct.
Runners This is where the wrapper leaf burns significantly faster on one side along a narrow strip. It looks like a fuse has been lit. This is caused by a vein in either the wrapper and/or binder catching fire and burning ahead of the cigar.
Coning This is when the wrapper and binder burn faster than the filler. The result is the foot of the cigar resembling a red-hot pencil point.
Tunneling This is when the filler burns significantly faster than the binder leaving us with a cigar whose center is far hotter than the exterior.

What causes the above problems? The reasons vary greatly but the common causes are mismatched tobacco, a poorly rolled cigar, stemmy or heavily veined tobacco, or uneven moisture content in the cigar. The only one of the above that is easy to correct is the last. The tobacco is moistened during the rolling process, so it is always a good idea to allow your cigars to stabilize and "dry out" after they have been freshly rolled. Typically allowing three months of humidor time will alleviate this problem.

Some might regard an uneven burn as being only cosmetic, but this is untrue. A poor burn affects the draw and the flavor of the cigar. The properly blended flavor of a cigar is achieved only when all the tobacco burns evenly. When one or some of the tobaccos burn faster than desired, it ends up skewing the flavors intended by the master blender.

Below are five techniques you can use in an attempt to correct an unevenly burning cigar as you smoke it. Sometimes they work, other times they don't. Simply put, not all poor burning smokes can be saved.

1.  Allow your cigars more time in the humidor prior to lighting. All cigars will burn better after they are allowed to stabilize from the rolling process. You would be genuinely surprised how many cigars self correct their poor burn when allowed to age for three months first.

2.  Rotate the slower burning side to the bottom. The bottom side of the cigar will burn faster since smoke does not inhibit the oxygen from feeding the burn. This is an excellent technique for keeping cigars burning even, but may not be drastic enough to completely prevent running.

3.  Drastically slow down your puffing. Typically runs occur from the burn igniting a thick vein in the wrapper or the binder, and each puff helps to fuel the fire. By slowing down your puffs it allows for the filler to burn faster since it retains more heat than the exterior surface of the cigar.

4.  Another action is to actually moisten the wrapper in front of the runaway burn with a little saliva on your fingertip. This basically creates a firewall of sorts - not exactly elegant, but it can be very effective, particularly against runners.

5.  And finally, use your lighter to try to force a corrected burn on the cigar. Sadly, this technique commonly leads to charring and an acrid flavor. This is much easier to do if you use a torch-style lighter.

In the end, if I am unable to correct the burn to some semblance of evenness, I typically ditch the cigar regardless of its cost or pedigree. I hate having to fight a cigar as I smoke it. I look to my cigars for serenity, and fighting a poorly burning cigar really ruins the experience for me. Hopefully some of these simple techniques will help you to improve the burn on an ill burning smoke and allow you to enjoy the relaxation afforded by a good cigar.