- A 6 by 60 sits on a US shelf now and nobody stares. The toro, about 6 inches and a 50 to 54 ring, is the size retailers name as the bestseller.
- At the Big Smoke in 2025, an Asylum April Fools at 9 by 90 felt huge until a JFR Lunatic Maduro 10 by 100 made it look ordinary. That 100 ring has a buyer.
- The giant isn't the market. The rest of this is how the center of the shelf moved, and what a fatter ring changes in the smoke.
Walk a US humidor today and a 6 by 60 doesn't turn a head. A 70 still gets a look from the guy next to you. An 80 gets the whole shop looking.
The size that leads that shelf is the toro, about 6 inches and a 50 to 54 ring. I can give you that in one line. The reason to keep going is the cigar that made a 90 look small, and what a fatter ring changes once it's lit.
The cigar that made a 90 look small
At the Big Smoke in 2025, somebody handed me an April Fools. It's Asylum's, a 9 by 90, and I thought that was as big as cigars get.
Then I saw the JFR Lunatic Maduro, a 10 by 100 from Aganorsa Leaf. The wrapper is a Mexican San Andrés maduro, and the bunch is Aganorsa tobacco. Next to that, the April Fools looked like a regular fat cigar.
I'd written that 100 ring off as a novelty. I asked Terence Reilly at Aganorsa Leaf, and he said it sells. Long-haul truckers like it. The size has a job.
So the monster isn't a joke. It also isn't the crowd on the shelf. The next part is how that shelf got wider in the first place.
Normal got wider in three steps
Ring gauge is the diameter in 64ths of an inch. A 32 is half an inch, and a 60 is just under an inch.
Double the diameter and you quadruple the cross-section, that's the round face of tobacco at the foot. A 60 isn't a slim cigar with an extra leaf. It's a different blend and a different build.
You'll hear the shift told as one change. I count three.
First, the corona and the lonsdale lost the center to the robusto and the toro. A corona is the older slim size, about 5.5 by 42. A lonsdale is the longer slim one, and the favored ones sat around a 42 ring.
A robusto is the shorter thick classic, usually about 5 inches and around a 50 ring. A toro runs longer, often 6 inches, and the ones selling now sit around 50 to 54.
Second, 54 to 60 became a normal ring, not a stunt.
Third, there's a smaller market up at 64, 70, 80 and past that. The 10 by 100 lives out there. It has buyers. It isn't the crowd.
From what I've seen, the favorite back then was that corona, then the lonsdale, then the double corona and the Churchill at 48. That was the center.
Ask retailers now and you get a different answer. In one survey, 66.2% named the toro as the bestseller, 16.9% named the robusto, and 10.8% named grandes. A grande, in that count, means the big sizes past the toro.
That's what those retailers report, it's not a count of every stick sold.
Vitola is just the name of the size, and the names don't match. One company's toro is a 50, and another company's toro is a 54.
Read the numbers on the box. The next question is who started rolling them that wide.
The Vitola Difference: What Every Cigar Smoker Should Know →Nobody invented the fat cigar
Diamond Crown showed up in 1995, and every size in the line was a 54.
La Gloria Cubana Serie R came in 1997 at 52 and 54, and the 6 by 60 got added in 2001.
Ernesto Perez-Carrillo has told his own account of that 60. Part of it was extra tobacco, and part of it was being tired of rolling 40 ring cigars, and he said that at a 2025 seminar on oversized cigars.
Inch came in 2012, and every size was at least a 58. Asylum went to 70 and 80, and La Flor Dominicana put out The Digger at 8.5 by 60.
A tasting category for grandes showed up the same year as Inch, and it had 12 grandes that first year and 31 in 2016.
More of them were being made. That still doesn't tell you how many sold.
Perez-Carrillo said Inch started because smokers asked for bigger rings. Matt Booth said the demand was real. Christian Eiroa said Asylum's huge sizes started partly as a factory challenge, and then smokers picked them up.
You can't ask for a size you've never seen. The factories rolled it, smokers got used to it, and the next size up stopped looking crazy.
A fatter cigar also looks like more tobacco for the money, even when the sticker is higher. Once it's lit, that bargain gets a real test.
What changes in the smoke
On a thicker cigar, you taste more of the filler and less of the wrapper. Filler is the tobacco bunched inside, and the wrapper is the outside leaf.
One comparison put a 6 by 38 at a wrapper-to-filler ratio 46% higher than a 6 by 60. Room for a complex blend isn't the same as a complex blend.
I spent a lot of years thinking a bigger ring meant a stronger cigar. I was wrong. Strength is the tobacco, not the ring.
A mild 60 can be gentler than a spicy lancero, and a lancero is a long thin cigar, so you get more wrapper in each puff.
“Smokes cooler” is a sloppy line. A wide ember and a slow cadence can feel less sharp, and you get more smoke per puff, and you can still overheat a 60.
Big rings can draw easy, and they can also tunnel if the bunch is wrong.
Draw means the air comes through without a fight, and tunneling means the center burns ahead of the wrapper.
A wide cigar still needs a good bunch.
"I spent a lot of years thinking a bigger ring meant a stronger cigar. I was wrong. Strength is the tobacco, not the ring."
A wide cigar is harder to make
Making them is harder, and the wrapper leaf has to be wide enough to go around the bunch.
Eiroa said newer strains made the biggest Asylum sizes possible, because the old wrapper leaves weren't big enough. That's his account, and it tracks with what a roller is up against.
The bunch uses a lot more tobacco, and a wider wrapper cut can waste leaf. Extreme sizes are a combustion test, you're asking a lot of leaf to burn even.
Less time, same width
People have less time, and the cigars got fatter. That sounds backwards until you split length from ring.
Length drives the clock. Ring drives the feel in your hand, and the amount of smoke in your mouth.
You can want a wide cigar and not want a two-hour smoke. A Petit Churchill is a 50 ring and about 4 inches. A Romeo y Julieta Wide Churchill is a 55, and it's shorter than a classic 7 inch Churchill.
The 4 by 60 gives you the width and cuts the time. The way I read it, new 4 by 60 releases in 2026 were getting treated as the trendy short format.
Cuba followed the customer, and stopped short of the US extreme. The Short Churchill at 50 came in 2006, and the Wide Churchill at 55 came in 2010. Later Trinidad came at 54 and 56, and Punch put out its first 50 in 2019.
Cuba's fat cigars live in the 50s, not at 70 or 80.
Habanos dropped a lot of lonsdales and panetelas while the thick formats grew. A panetela is a very thin cigar. Not every cut is about fashion, some are sales, some are tobacco, and some are just a shorter catalog.
A lancero lets you taste more wrapper, and a bad bunch shows up faster on one. Shops make less room for them. Tobacconists have said beginners sometimes grab a thin cigar and find it harsh, while a slightly thicker one feels easier.
Above 60, you've got fewer buyers, and the ones you have are loyal. One shop put it this way, the 68 and 70 customers are few, but they come back. That's one shop. It's the same idea as the truckers and the 10 by 100. A real buyer, not a crowd.
From what I've seen, the 6 by 60 is common now, and a lot of brands act like the line needs one. It doesn't lead. The real change was the center, not that 80 ring on the top shelf.
The US center moved from the corona and the lonsdale to the robusto and the toro. The 6 by 60 became a regular option, and the 70 and the 80 made the 60 look normal.
The 70 and the 80 get the looks. The toro gets the sales.
A thin cigar still reminds you that more tobacco isn't more flavor.
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