Punch Cigar Rights of America Cigar Review
This one has been in the humidor a while; just sitting on its tray minding its own business… until now! Being part of a CRA sampler I got a long time ago it’s slightly oily, wonderfully constructed, maybe too tightly packed but it does look like a great cigar. Plus, it is a Punch, so I’m sure it will be, at the minimum, a solid cigar. This is in a toro size.
Spartacus Flame!
Definitely more than a “solid” cigar, this one is. Forthright spice, fleeting cherry and a few woody notes make up the flavors in the beginning of this cigar. I’m going to go ahead a peg it as a full bodied cigar, but just barely.
There is this smoky flavor that creeps its way into every nook and cranny of my taste buds. It is a nice extra dimension of flavor; it complements the other flavors well.
While the flavors are above average what I like the most about this cigar is that there is an edge to it. I like it when a cigar has a little edge to it.
In the beginning it was a full bodied cigar but after the first inch it dialed the strength down to the medium-full bodied range. After the halfway point I noticed a certain amount of earthiness creep its way through. This cigar has a good draw and a good burn.
As is the case with all the other cigars from the Cigar Rights of America sampler I will abstain from giving it a score. It suffices to say that this was a great cigar and well worth the price that I paid for it. If you haven’t already done so I would like to urge you to join CRA and help them stem the tide against those anti-smoking zealots that are becoming ever more brazen.
AFGL: List of Lists, King, Fielder
A Few Good Links this week is going to focus on a list of the lists of top cigars, some news about Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and an update on the (so far) sad tail of a slugging first baseman without a bag.
- The Consensus: 2011 Awards via halfwheel: Ever wanted a Metacritic-esque survey of the cigar world? (Incidentally, I think that would be a good idea. It would need constant updating and there would have to be some kind of resolution as far as scoring goes, should certain sites be weighted more heavily, what about vitola… I digress.) Well, halfwheel has come out with a survey of what the cigar blogging world thought were their favorite cigars of 2011. I will only tell you that Undercrown was the consensus top pick according to them. If you want to see the rest of this amazing post (like top brand, factory, country and some trends) you’re going to have to click on through.
- Stephen King wrote one of my favorite fantasy series of all time in The Dark Tower. In late April there will be a new addition to this series with The Wind Through the Keyhole, which will basically shed some light on the main character’s past. I think it’s kind of like Godfather 2 in that there are some elements that take place during the natural progression of the story and there are some prequel elements as well. This will be mostly prequel though. With the movie/tv-ification of this series in peril the new book is at least something to look forward to.
- While Prince Fielder’s normal pace is slower than most his current pace is maddeningly slow. I’m guessing his agent, Scott Boras, is playing a game of chicken with all of his client’s potential suitors but there comes a time when you have to wonder whether or not this was a bad move. And then I see a little piece of news like this and I’m thinking the AL West is where the real arms race is.
The Vicissitudes of Cigar Ratings
With the Top Cigar List season coming to an end (it officially closes once I have published my list at some undisclosed date in the future – so check back regularly) I have been giving some thought to how cigars are rated. What really got me thinking about this was a conversation with a good friend of mine about the rating process followed by cigar reviewers. Take Cigar Aficionado’s Top 25 List, which has some surprises and some really big surprises. How exactly did they come to their conclusions? How do any of us?
In Cigar Aficionado’s case they sampled over 700 cigars over the course of the year to come up with their Top 25. What this entails is the sending of their purchasing guy all over the place (e.g. New York because when you live in New York “all over the place” is limited to the Big Apple) and he (or, I suppose, she) procures Cuban cigars somehow. How they get Cuban cigars (do they smuggle them in via cigar mule or do they take the bus up to Canada to legally smoke Cubans?) is a wrinkle I haven’t completely figured out but they have so that should suffice for now. I’m guessing the purchasing guy/gal will also search out other popular cigars but I’m not sure of that.
Anyways, after the purchasing is done the impartial purchasing man/woman will take the bands off each cigar and put new bands on for identification purposes. The tasters (side note: they have pretty cool jobs) receive the cigars and then smoke them. From what I’ve seen/read they will smoke each cigar under basically the same conditions; e.g. smoking in the office around the same time of day.
Ratings are given and then the process of whittling those cigars down begins. There are probably a few rounds of tastings that go on and this will eventually lead to a ranking of the Top 25, which has to be agreed upon by a committee of tasters. As far as I understand it that is their process.
For others, and by “others” I mean yeoman bloggers, the process is a different. Tastings aren’t blind, lists aren’t done by committee and the sample size is usually significantly smaller. Take me for example. I may smoke around 800 to 1,000 cigars in a year but I know what I’m smoking and the number of unique cigars is probably somewhere around 100 to 150 or so. Of those there are a number of “dog walk” cigars that don’t really stand a chance of winning any prizes. Taking that into consideration there are something like 60 to 90 (less are actually reviewed by me) cigars that are up for my Top 10 lists (2010 and 2009 lists for your reading pleasure).
With either system there are pluses and minuses. But that’s not what’s important here. With either system there are a number of potential pitfalls. Here’s a list:
Time Spent in Retailer’s Humidor: Even if you are the Cigar Aficionado boy/girl you have no way of knowing for sure how long cigars have been eagerly awaiting their emancipation from the B&M’s walk-in humidor. Maybe that Opus X has been resting comfortably for two years while that Fausto arrived last week. I could be wrong but I don’t think there’s a way to correct for this with much certainty.
Reviewer’s Mood: We all have good days and bad days. If I’m having a bad day that’s going to hurt the score I give to a cigar. That’s part of the reason behind my, and most other cigar bloggers, policy of smoking multiple examples of the same cigar before delivering an opinion. That doesn’t happen at Cigar Aficionado unless the cigar makes it past that first round.
Environment: Cigar Aficionado probably does a better job at controlling for this than most others but there’s no getting around the fact that the environment in which you smoke your cigars plays a significant role in what you think of that cigar. Cigars that you think are great on a warm June evening can become merely good when smoked on a brisk autumn evening. That’s especially the case if your baseball team has just missed the playoffs for the second straight year.
Storage: Even Cigar Aficionado and other such “official” cigar publications must run into this problem because there’s no other way for them to taste all those cigars other than having to store them on premises for a period of time. Once you do that there will be changes, however limited, to a cigar’s performance. If a reviewer stores their cigars in multiple humidors they will be stored in different environments. The differences may be small but there are still differences.
Cigars Previously Smoked: If you are smoking more than one cigar a day each subsequent cigar after the first cigar will be effected by the previous cigars you have smoked. You can cleanse your palette and do a rain dance but your taste buds have already been affected. At least my taste buds are affected for a couple of hours after smoking a cigar, which leads me to reviewing a cigar with as fresh of a palette as possible.
Food/Beverages Consumed: Smoking a strong cigar on a light stomach does nothing good for that cigar. Conversely, a big lunch will mute the impact of a milder cigar. Factor in the different flavors you get from food and drinks and there will be some effect on your taste buds.
Non-Blind Tastings: Cigar Aficionado and the like have this over on most cigar bloggers because they do blind tastings (that’s what they say and I believe them). Unless you are able to be completely unbiased there will be some kind of a bump given to brands we already like and demerits given to those cigars we haven’t liked before. Even though this is probably true to some extent I think we do a pretty good job of keeping our biases out of our ratings.
These were the factors that I was able to come up with but I’m sure there are others that I have overlooked. All in all, I think all of these top cigars of the year lists are true barometers of what reviewers objectively perceive as being the best cigars they smoked during the year. As cigar consumers it is our job, nay, pleasure, to find reviewers who share a liking for the same kinds of cigars that we like and use their lists and reviews throughout the year for purchasing ideas.
AFGL: Orange, Krauss and Lists
A Few Good Links this week will cover how Camacho/Davidoff got screwed out of a sponsorship deal with the Orange Bowl, Alison Kruass and Union Station’s new album and a few of the top cigars of the year lists I saw.
- Patrick S. over at Stogie Review has a really good post about how the Orange Bowl reneged on their sponsorship deal with Camacho Cigars. It’s a travesty, for sure. What I’m really hoping for is that one of these days when the smoke Nazis (or whatever pejorative for these national hall monitors you prefer) have beaten us in a battle we will turn around and use that loss as our Alamo. I would be ecstatic if the Orange Bowl were our Alamo but it probably isn’t. One of these days though….
- This last week I’ve been blaring the newest album from Alison Krauss and Union Station: Paper Airplane in my car and at home. I don’t know how to describe why it is that I like her music so much, whether it is with Union Station or with Robert Plant or whoever, other than to say that she is an amazing talent. And so are all the musicians in Union Station. They’re the whole package. If you can pick up the special CD from Target with the extra tracks.
- Finally, a few lists: Stogie Review, Stogie Review, Stogie Review, Stogie Review (did I miss any?), Tiki Bar, Tiki Bar, Tiki Bar, Tiki Bar (did I miss any?), Chief’s, Cigarfan, CigarCraig, A Cigar Smoker’s Journal (is this Barry’s last one?), Tom’s Cigars, Casa Fumado, Smoking Stogie (they have other lists to but this list is beginning to get a little long already), Cigar Explorer, Nice Tight Ash, ditto and THE BEST LIST OF ALL!!!
Some observations regarding those lists: 1. I didn’t smoke nearly enough cigars last year, 2. I have to find that Grimalkin I have somewhere and 3. I still have to do my list (yeah!). I figure that as long as I get a list out before Cigar Aficionado is done unveiling theirs then I am okay.
The Cigar Station
What you see here is a guest post written by one of the purveyors of The Cigar Station. Haven’t heard of it? Well then, read about this Internet radio station that features music, cigar news and cigar reviews.
I’d like to thank Travis and The Perfect Draw for allowing me to introduce you to The Cigar Station at www.thecigarstation.com. We’re the world’s FIRST and only 24/7 radio station custom programmed for cigar smokers and lovers of the good life. This unique lifestyle web site and Internet radio station was created by yours truly and my partner Jim Robinson. We’re a couple of radio guys who share over 60 years of successful radio industry experience and an equally passionate love for fine cigars.
The origins of The Cigar Station came almost a year ago when I was visiting one of my favorite local smoke shops in the Los Angeles area where I live. As I entered the shop’s humidor I was greeted by the same sound I hear in most ALL retail smoke shop humidors….silence! Being a music and radio guy, the thought hit me….what about a 24/7 radio station that plays cool music and throws in cigar content to boot? Wouldn’t this be something most cigar shops, and more importantly, most cigar smoker’s want to hear?
When I mentioned the idea to my long time radio partner Jim Robinson, he immediately called it The Cigar Station, and the rest is history. We quickly went to work on crafting an eclectic mix of music from the Classic Rock, Smooth Jazz, Blues, Acoustic and Lounge genres, from artists as diverse as The Police, Steely Dan, Van Morrison, Coldplay, John Legend, and Michael Buble’ along with standards by the masters like Tony Bennett, Roy Orbison, Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra.
All the music on The Cigar Station has been carefully hand-selected to fit the cigar smoker’s lifestyle. Trust me: Jim and I have tested this music out over many fine smokes over the last year and if the music doesn’t pass our “cool tunes smoke test,” you won’t hear it.
The Cigar Station also features daily cigar content including Cigar History, Tips and Tales with host Javier Patterson, Cigar Industry News with yours truly, Cigar Reviews from Doc Diaz of Stogiefresh.com and a cool “Smokin’ Blues” show each Saturday evening at 10p Eastern hosted by Jim Robinson. We’re working on lots of great new cigar content including Interviews with Famous Cigar Smoking characters from around the world.
We’re also excited to be partnering with Glynn Loope and Brian Berman of CRA (Cigar Rights of America) in a collective effort to fight for smoker’s rights across the country. It is our hope that
The Cigar Station becomes a regular lifestyle destination for not only cigar smokers, but anyone living or aspiring to live the good life. Now, as we say on The Cigar Station, pull up a comfy chair, gather your favorite smoke…Light up and Listen!
Ken Anthony Moniz
Co-Founder
The Cigar Station
