There aren’t many more luxurious feelings in life than sitting back with one of your favorite premium cigars and sipping on the perfect drink with it.

Puffing on high-end cigars, savoring the complex flavor profile and watching as the silvery-blue smoke drifts away on the breeze. It’s enough to stir the hardest of hearts on a cold Fall afternoon.

Limited edition cigars add to the premium factor, giving you a unique smoking experience — it’s a time capsule only a handful of people in human history will ever get to taste.

But what is it that makes a premium cigar truly premium? And why do we associate these sought-after smokes with such a sense of luxury? Let’s dive in and look.

Premium cigars are defined in a number of ways, from the person who designed them to the tobacco found within. All this can add up to a highly desirable smoke, which is why premium cigars became status symbols in their own right.

Some of the common characteristics of high-end cigars include:

Vintage aged filler tobacco

Aged tobacco takes on a rich and complex flavor. Vintage filler tobaccos are a common hallmark of premium cigars and are impossible to imitate in cheaper mass-produced products.

Master tobacconists/Hand-rolled cigars

The personal touch helps make any product premium, and cigars are no exception. Blends created by world-renowned master tobacconists will always sell well, and carefully handmade cigars put the best boutiques on the map.

Whole-leaf wrappers

It’s not always about the filler. Some of the most desirable high-end cigars are defined by their oily whole-leaf wrappers, including delicate hand-rolled Connecticut Broadleaf and dark, flavorful Maduro and Oscuro leaves.

The cigar industry is famed for its luxury brands and household names. Some of the most coveted cigar boutiques have a history that reaches back over the centuries, while others have been around for just a decade or two.

Here’s our pick of three luxury brands every cigar smoker should know, both by reputation and by first-hand experience of some of their stunning smokes.

Davidoff Cigars can be traced back to 1967 when Cubatabaco approached Zino Davidoff to create a signature product line. In 1990, Davidoff began working with Hendrik Kelner of Tabadom, who stayed with the Davidoff brand for the next 30 years and is considered one of the driving forces behind its premium status.

Although the sticks themselves are hand-rolled in the Dominican Republic, the Davidoff brand is known for luxury cigars like the Davidoff Nicaragua Series, a puro with filler, binder, and wrapper all sourced from the rich volcanic soil of Nicaragua. This creates a distinctive flavor profile that’s considered highly desirable by aficionados.

Arturo Fuente Cigars was established in 1912 in Fuente’s home and has survived no fewer than eight fires in its long history, a cruel irony for a product that has to be burned to be enjoyed. Like a phoenix from the flames, the brand has risen from the ashes stronger every time to become one of the truly celebrated studios.

Masterful blends like the Arturo Fuente Don Carlos showcase the brand’s expertise in premium handmade cigars. Lovingly rolled in an artisan Cameroon EMS wrapper, its Dominican filler and binder make a medium-full smoke with the perfect balance of sweetness and spice.

Montecristo Cigars ranks among the most famous names the cigar industry has ever produced. Founded by Alonzo Menendez and Jose ‘Pepin’ Manuel Garcia, the brand was named after the 1845 Alexandre Dumas novel ‘The Count of Monte Cristo,’ which was a favorite among the workers in the factory.

Many must-try cigars have shipped from the studio ever since, including the Montecristo White Series. Nicaraguan and Dominican long filler tobaccos, a Nicaraguan binder and an Ecuador Connecticut Shade wrapper make for a truly unique experience.

While the best premium cigars will always use good-quality ingredients and artisan expertise, brands will often add to the appeal of new releases by marking them as limited-edition cigars.

For smaller boutique cigar studios, this is a good way to offer something new for a limited period of time without adding to the number of different blends they’re expected to produce long-term.

But scarcity also naturally creates demand, as aficionados of a particular brand rush to get their hands on a rare release before it sells out for good.

JR Alternative Cigars are a great example of exclusive cigars that offer a luxury smoking experience. When the cigar boom ended around the turn of the millennium, some of the stockpiles of premium tobacco were turned into JR Alternative exclusives, and the rest is history.

These popular smokes are now produced at the same factories as leading brands in Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, and lines like JR Cuban Alternative Montecristo No. 2 are an excellent way to experience the nearest thing to a true Havana cigar at a competitive price.

Whether you’re interested in the blending expertise of a named and famed master tobacconist, a boutique brand with centuries of history and heritage under its belt or tasting the tobacco from some of the most prized growing regions on the planet, premium cigars are the place to start.

Cook up a delicious meal, pour the perfect pairing drink and reach for your smokes, and you’ll be a step closer to savoring the flavor profile of complex, carefully crafted cigars at their very best.