Variety in Cigars
During my La Aurora trip in May I relearned something that is very important to anyone who is serious about cigars: variety matters.
The first full day there we all visited La Aurora’s factory and once we were all settled into one of their conference rooms Jose Blanco commenced our taste test of cigars. Each one of those cigars were created using only one specific kind of tobacco. I have already talked about this so there is no need to go on further about the process but there was one really important thing about that experience that I hope I can convey to you.
Unless you are willing to smoke a variety of cigars you will never understand what you really like in cigars. Take my experience as an example. When I first started out smoking cigars I was lucky enough to smoke some Fuentes. Solid cigars, medium strength, very good flavors, they are the epitome of what a dependable cigar is. But what if I just stuck to Fuentes? Even though Fuentes are great cigars, and I do recommend them highly, I would eventually have gotten bored with cigars and I seriously doubt I would still be smoking cigars with any regularity.
My first tentative steps away from the venerable Fuente brand were largely hit and miss. I think I took a road that many novice cigar smokers take: I got a lot of samplers along with a couple of sticks I had read about in Cigar Aficionado and on the cigar blogs. The samplers, which were largely comprised of crummy cigars (and by that I mean cheap) accounted for a lot of my “misses.” But that was good for me because I found out I don’t like most of the cheap cigars from Ghurka (there are some very good Ghurkas out there, which surprised me after my initial experiences with their cigars) and that just because the cigar’s brand name is the same as a Cuban brand it isn’t necessarily a good cigar (far from it).
Some of the samplers ended up working out and those successful forays into the unknown of the cigar ecosystem spurred me on to find out more about cigars and to be more adventuresome with my cigar selections. That is when I discovered some of the great boutique cigars like Tatuaje.
So go out and get some cigars that you haven’t tried before. Who knows, you might find some new cigars that you like.
Exploding Cigars – How to Cut a Dry Cigar (If you Have to)
As I write this I am smoking an excellent Arturo Fuente Chateau Fuente (natural) but last night there was this cigar that exploded when I cut it. No, it was not filled with TNT or Cemtex. It was just way too dry.
The cigar was part of an amazing dinner at The Cellar restaurant and, I can safely say, that cigar, a Torano The Brick, was the worst part of the dinner. (The rest of the tequila themed dinner was sublime and the company was just as good. The other cigar, a Torano 1916, was also very good). When I looked at The Brick I immediately noticed that the cap was splitting and that it was very dry. Even though I normally would not smoke a cigar like that I thought “What’s the worst that could happen?”
The worst was that, upon cutting The Brick, tobacco fragments sprayed every which way but the ash tray! I was mortified. Here I am, at this award winning French restaurant, and I was responsible for this long filler carnage on the white cloth table. To add insult to my malfeasance as the resident cigar expert at the table, the cigar was bad. Luckily, most of my table mates had not yet arrived and the ones who were there were understanding. Even John, who drove over an hour from Temecula and fell victim to the shrapnel, wasn’t annoyed.
After the dinner was over I realized there was a couple of ways I could have avoided this explosion. The best way to avoid exploding cigars is by not cutting them. Just put it in your humidor for a couple of months and then smoke it. But, if you really want to smoke a cigar that is a little too dry there may be a way to do so without letting tobacco rain.
If you gently press against the cap with your thumb while cutting it then there should be no pyrotechnics. I tried this tactic with the Fuente that I am currently smoking and, even though it was properly humidified and wouldn’t have exploded anyways, it works. The cap stayed on the cutter with the gentle application of pressure that I put on it.
While an exploding cigar is hardly something that most cigar connoisseurs will encounter with any regularity it does occasionally happen. In an effort to mitigate any more such explosions, I will continue to slightly press against every cap that I slice. It does not take any extra effort and is well worth it if it prevents any more explosions.
Am I Too Easy of a Reviewer?
As I look through some of my old ratings I realize that I have a lot of scores that are plus or minus three points of 90. Is that because I smoke a lot of quality cigars or is it because I am just too easy on the cigars?
I currently have 16 reviews that I gave 87-89 points to, seven received 90 points and 13 got 91-93 points. Overall, I have rated 54 cigars. That means about 64.8% of my reviews fall within the seven point range of 87-93 points, 27.8% fall in the 87-89 point range, 13% at 90 points and 24% in the 91-93 point range. Is that normal?
Instead of launching into a massive research project I decided to look at the ratings at A Cigar Smokers Journal because I really respect his ratings. Overall, he has rated 128 cigars. Of those ratings, he gave 15 90 points, 47 between 87 and 89 points and 29 between 91 and 93 points. That means that 71% of his reviews fall in the 87-93 point range, 36.7% fall in the 87-89 point range, 11.7% were given 90 points and 22.6% got 91-93 points.
Surprisingly, to me at least, our proportion of 90-93 point cigars are very close. He has a much larger proportion of his ratings in the 87-89 range though and even though the 90-93 point category is pretty close, I do tend to be more willing to give 90-93 points to a cigar.
Of course this isn’t scientific. The sample sizes are too small, we rated different cigars and I probably screwed up the math a little (adding and division are just so damned boring). But this is a basic way for me to judge how well I am doing at rating cigars and I would have to say that I am not doing too badly. At least that’s what I think.
To Cut or Punch Your Cigar
Up until about a week ago I have always cut my cigars. I have used guillotine cutters mainly because I thought that cutting the cigar this way gave a larger hole for the smoke to go through; and it does. But there are problems.
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1. You can cut too much
This has troubled me more with some cigars than others. For a while I smoked almost nothing but Rocky Patel cigars and if you cut those delicious sticks too much the wrapper can start to unravel. It wasn’t a problem with my humidor because other cigars in there didn’t have the same problem. If you cut too much off the wrapper can come off.
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2. The cutter can get dull
Now, I bet this will eventually affect my punch cutter but I don’t think it will happen as quickly. But once the blades on a guillotine cutter get dull it may not cut the whole way through the cigar and end up ripping the wrapper, which is never a good thing.
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3. More moving parts
The more complicated a tool is the more that can go wrong. It also makes the tool more expensive. I know that punch cutters can be expensive but, generally speaking, they aren’t as expensive as their more complicated brethren, the guillotine cutter. More moving parts means more that can go wrong and a higher price tag.
The purpose of this post isn’t to be a diatribe against guillotine cutters – I’m still going to use them. But, until last week, I thought they were the only real way to cut a cigar. I was wrong.
Punch cutters are easy to use.
You don’t have to worry about cutting too much off.
You don’t have to worry about maintenance as much.
You do get a good opening with your punch cutter.
You do get enough smoke coming through – if the cigar doesn’t have any technical difficulties.
I may end up using the punch cutter more frequently now. Whenever I do I will make a mention of it on the review. Maybe, after using punches for a while, I’ll get more exposed to the downsides of punch cutters. When that happens I will definitely tell you. Until then, I’m going to punch my cigars more often.
Should I Get Cigar Factory Seconds?
I’m looking to load up my humidor and I was looking around for some good ones that are less expensive. Sure, I could do some extra homework and find a bunch of different cigars that are cheap but, I don’t know, that just seems like too much time and effort for me right now. That got me to thinking about factory seconds.
Seconds are just cigars that don’t meet the cut for some reason. They may have something wrong with the wrapper, they aren’t packed correctly, or something else. Maybe they’re misshapen – you don’t really get to know what’s wrong with them until you get them. But, to be honest, I really haven’t gotten to many factory seconds before so I don’t know what to expect.
That’s where you come in. Should I even consider buying a couple dozen factory seconds? Is their quality so poor that it’s not even worth the discounted price? Basically, what should I expect from factory seconds? I was specifically looking into getting some Rocky Patel factory seconds and, knowing that it’s a very high quality brand, I can’t imagine they would sell something, even as a second, if the quality was not there.
Even though I do want your response I did some searching about factory seconds and found this from Cigar Advisor:
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Each manufacturer has their own way of “processing” bundle cigars. Sure, you can find some real dog rockets in the bundle aisles, but like boxed “firsts”, the tobacco in bundles and second cigars has been cured and aged prior to rolling. That said, I wouldn’t doubt that many bundle cigars are not aged after rolling, as are most boxed premium handmade cigars.
So, what do you think? Should I go ahead and get some seconds?
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