Guys, for the love of all things, this really is lots simpler than you are all trying to make it.
Bloom or plume or WTF ever you want to call it is due to the oils in the cigar seeping through the wrapper and crystallizing on the wrapper. It typically takes years for this process to occur and many cigars wont do this at all. If I dug every cigar I have in my cabinet out and went through them all (including some ISOM's from the 60's) my guess is that I might, and I do repeat might, find one or two that have plume. Maybe. Possibly. It's really uncommon,which makes a cigar that has it rare and interesting.
Mold is 99 times out 100 three dimensional...plume is not. Mold will usually wipe off with a moist cloth....plume will usually not but I have seen thin layers of crystallized oils that were affected by wiping. Mold shows up in (usually) hairy little spots...plume show up as a hard to see sheen, a thin film on the wrapper.
In the years that I've been smoking, each and every time someone posts pics and says "...is this mold or plume..." it has been without a doubt mold. Every time. If you find spots on your cigars and are asking yourself "...gee, is this mold or plume..." let me help you out: It's mold. I have yet to walk into a B&M and find cigars with plume on them, but I sure have seen some furry boxes of moldy cigars that the owner then proudly said were "nicely aged and covered with plume" and I walked right out, never to return, every time.
This is all pretty cut and dry. What to do about them is probably more open to opinion.
Wikipedia tells us that:
Molds....are fungi that grow in the form of multicellular filaments called hyphae.[1] Molds are considered to be microbes but microscopic fungi that grow as single cells are called yeasts. A connected network of these tubular branching hyphae has multiple, genetically identical nuclei and is considered a single organism, referred to as a colony.
The important wording in there is that mold typically grows in multicellular filaments. Mold may show up as a spot here or there, but the chances are quite good that even when dealing with surface spots, the growth has penetrated the wrapper and is well into the cigar. Tobacco is easily penetrated by these types of fungal infections. If you see mold on the foot of the cigar, you're done. Period. The very core of the cigar has been permeated and you're pretty much screwed. Yes, you can sometimes wipe surface spots off with a damp rag (I've used distilled water in past efforts) but you have to ask yourself what's inside the cigar that you can't see. A tiny spot is one thing; a wrapper that has hairy blotches all over it is probably toast. It's a matter of degree but usually I don't bother. I have tried to "repair" a cigar with mold spots on it in the past and the result is like smoking a well used pair of gym socks. Eeeccch....no thank you.
Now, this whole business of dilute bleach wiping a cigar. Chlorine has highest electron affinity and the third highest electronegativity of all the elements, which is a hoity toity way to say it's one hell of a powerful oxidizer and has a particular affinity for organic materials. That's why it's such a great disinfectant. Now, sure, a capful of bleach in a gallon of water is probably drinkable. Most literature that I could find on storing water recommended two to three drops per liter, so a capful per gallon might be a little strong but is in the ballpark.. But there are a couple of things to consider here. Most bleach is formulated for laundry use, and as such, often times has more in it than Chlorine in it. This will vary from product to product but it's worth noting. But, if you put bleach in water I can promise you that you'll be able to taste it. Yes, Chlorine is very volatile and will out gas quickly, but what did it do to the fragile tobacco leaves until it did? I mean, if it's powerful enough to kill the surface mold on contact, wouldn't you think it would also be powerful to at least change the wrapper somewhat? You know, the part of the cigar that is the majority of the taste of the cigar? No thank you.
My $00.02 is that if you really want to wipe your cigar wrapper, a little distilled water should do the trick. Then, promptly smoke the darn thing. Even if you clean it up on the outside, you have no way to know how deeply impinged the mold is into the body of the cigar. I'm as cheap as the next guy, but when it comes to cigars with any amount of mold at all, they get pitched. Period.
