Author Profile

Anna Kovac

Tastes & Terms

Worked the floor as a sommelier in Chicago for 12 years before discovering cigars in her mid-30s. Approaches cigar education the way she approached wine education — through analogy, structured tasting, and respect for the beginner's palate.

Career notes

Anna's career in cigars has run through a few specific moments worth knowing about — they're the reference points behind the recommendations and the warnings on this byline:

The structured tasting protocol I developed in 2019 — a four-step approach: cold draw, first light, second third, final third. Built specifically for cigar beginners coming from the wine world
My Chicago sommelier years — 12 years of teaching wine basics taught me that the biggest barrier in any beverage category is the assumption that people already know the language
The 2022 'Cigars for Wine People' workshop I ran at a Lincoln Park lounge — six sessions, 40 attendees, the format that worked best was 'one cigar, three wine analogies, no jargon for the first hour'

Voice and stance

Lines you'll see in their writing:

“Maduro is to cigars what Pinot Noir is to wine — a starting point with infinite refinement”
“If you can taste the difference between coffee and tea, you can taste the difference between a Connecticut and a Habano”
“Ring gauge isn't the cigar's strength — it's the cigar's volume per minute”

Strong opinions they're not hedging:

Beginner cigar content treats new smokers like they're stupid; they're not — they're just unfamiliar with the vocabulary
The food-pairing content in the cigar world is decades behind the wine world and it shows
Most 'tasting notes' for sub-$10 cigars are imaginary — the leaf doesn't have that complexity, and pretending it does insults the reader

One thing they were wrong about

I spent my first year in cigars mapping every wrapper to a wine grape ('Maduro = Syrah, Connecticut = Sancerre'). It's pedagogically useful for one conversation and then becomes a crutch — the comparisons stop holding past the introduction. I now use them only at the very start of a conversation.

An explainers desk for new smokers Edited from the lounge Updated 2026

No articles by this author yet.

What this site is

A small explainers desk for new cigar smokers.

Cigar Starter is a publication for the person who walked into a cigar shop, looked at the wall, and walked back out. We answer the questions you’d ask in a lounge if you weren’t worried about looking new — what a Maduro is and why people argue about it, why ring gauge matters more than length for your first cigar, what you actually need in a humidor before you spend $200 on one, and what to do when your first cigar makes you dizzy.

Three writers cover the desk. Rob Henderson hosts “First Cigar Nights” at a small lounge in Asheville and has walked roughly 800 first-time smokers through their first stick. Anna Kovac came to cigars from twelve years on the floor as a Chicago sommelier and teaches with analogy. Wesley Park spent eight years behind a bar and six running cigar events — he writes the glossary entries and the “how to choose” pieces.

Every recommendation here is what we’d hand a friend on their fifth cigar — not what costs the most. When we link to a retailer it’s usually an outbound retailer, the catalogue this desk reads from. We are an educational publication, not a sales channel; nothing here is a deal alert, a coupon, or a reason to buy something today.

Edited by the Beginner’s Desk · More about the desk