Cigar 101: How to Smoke in your vehicle without it smelling like an Ashtray – By Mike Holmes

This is a topic that I see discussed quite often on social media. Since I base my Cigar 101 articles on what the cigar community actually talks about, I decided to tackle this topic because I smoke in the car on an almost daily basis. Hopefully this will help many of you, who want to learn how to puff your cigars in your car and not leave it smelling like an ashtray and offending your non-smoking friends and family!

Lighting up Behind the Wheel

So you get in the car and fire-up your favorite cigar – because it helps with road rage. The first step you should take when smoking in the car is setting your AC unit on the setting that pulls air from out side of the car as opposed to the “recirculate mode” that just re-cycles the air that is in the car. This helps with some of the excess smell from the cigar smoke. You also should roll the windows down at least part way to pull even more smoke out of the vehicle while you are driving.

Some people will use an ashtray for the car, the most popular being the Xikar Ash Can. If you do use an in-car ashtray, do not leave cigar butts and ashes in your ashtray. The acidic smell that cigar butts give off, will cause foul odors throughout your vehicle and will not help eliminate the cigar odor. Make sure you take the ash can and empty it and keep it out of the car unless you clean it really well before putting back in the car. I personally do not use an Ash Can because it is too much work for me. I prefer to ash out of the window because it is quick and painless. Some people might argue that ashing out of the window would cause your cigar to burn weird which is somewhat true, but as long as you wait until there is a decent ash and you don’t hold the cigar out of the window for more than a few seconds, your cigar should burn normal. At least that has been my experience. Sometimes there are exceptions that we cannot do much about, except to try and limit the wind while smoking.  

Killing the Cigar Smell for Good

Now that we have covered the first step in keeping your vehicle from becoming stinky, now we will move on to odor removal. After you are done in your car, you need to remove the smell of cigar smoke before it has a chance to set. I personally recommend a couple of products to take the smell of smoke out of the air. I am not a paid spokesperson, that just shows how much I believe in these products.

The current product that I use daily is Ozium, which is an odor removing spray. Ozium comes in a couple of scents; citrus and vanilla. You spray your vehicle before you close it back up. Spray all over the vehicle including the seats and the floor in order to keep the lingering smell of cigar smoke out of your vehicle. I also recommend a product that is  owned by locals called REFRESH. REFRESH comes in many different smells and does the same thing as Ozium.

Both of these products do not mask the smell of smoke, they eliminate the smell from the air. You can get REFRESH online from www.Kashmirdist.com or if you’re in Brevard County, FL you can purchase it at Executive Cigar shop, located in downtown Melbourne, Florida. You can purchase Ozium from any store that sells air fresheners and also on Amazon.com. You can not go wrong with any of these products. Even Boston Jimmie uses Ozium in the Stogie Press Lounge, to keep it smelling clean and fresh.

For good measure I also use a Febreze clip that clips on to your vehicle’s air vents. You really only need the sprays but I prefer to use the vent clips to help provide extra security and double ensure that the smell of smoke will not linger! 

In conclusion

I hope that I have helped you with managing to keep the smell of Cigars out of your vehicle. There are so many ways that this can be done, but as I’ve already said, I use these methods almost daily and I have zero complaints. Now go put some smoke in the air without worrying about your complaining spouse, family, friends, or significant other.