hudsonvalley
MMMM...Ember
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2004
- Messages
- 1,582
Loved the Padron fumas thread. Will have to try them. While I am waiting for my trade with Golfgar and before I get spoiled (it sounds like a great package, Larry!) I will try to add something to the "cheap cigar holy grail" idea.
In my experience there are 4 different general levels of cigar
1. The kind your uncle smoked. White Owl, Dutch Masters, Swishers, Blunts. Stuff nobody I know smokes. In a word ---crap.
2. Lower end hand made. The 1 to 3 buck smokes where the HG quest takes place.
3. So-called Premium cigars. CAO, Onyx, non-Cuban Cohibas, etc. The 5 to 8 range.
4. High end Premiums. ISOM's, OpusX, would you put Macs there? (No one ever mentions them here, it seems)
Is this generally accepted? Enlighten me. I have a limited amount of experience with the really upper end stuff.
Over the last ten years I've smoked about one cigar a day, usually on my commute. The other folks on the train----No in my truck on the ride home
On the weekend or if I want to treat myself I will have one from my catagory 3. I reserve the others for special occasions. We can't all be Moki
And I am hoping to change that as my tastes mature. That and the bomb(s), trades, and most importantly the info posted here is going a long way toward that. Thanks, all.
But what I know most about is what I have called the catagory 2 cigar. And the most important thing I have learned is that 80 to 90 percent of them are "cohetes de perro"!!! You know them by their gringo name So I have relied on good experiences with the small minority of good ones and not done much exploring. You try a few dozen of the majority and you realize the sulphur from the match is more enjoyable. I have said that rather than ten years experience with cigars I have really had one years experience 10 times. I guess this is true of more than just cigars if you think about it.
Which brings me to my subject: The Pre-1998 Flor de Farach. In 1996 I tried this smoke with the funny name. A Flor de farach Francisco. I bought a single and it was just delicious! I thought, "So this is what a good cigar is supposed to taste like!" And it was about 2 bucks for this fragrant gem. So I bought a box and they were ALL just great. Nice nutty flavor, just a bit spicy at the end. Okay, if inconsistent construction. Nice long ash. I must have gone through a dozen boxes in the next year. I smoked almost nothing else.
Then I thought something was wrong with me. They lost their taste. They settled back to the other 90% and weren't worth even the couple bucks anymore.
Well, here is the upshot: A couple weeks ago I bought another box of them. But this manufacturer stamps the date on the bottom. I bought one I found at the bottom of the pile at JR's with 1997 stamped on them. This was a strange size for me, the Momotobito, a smaller pyramid, 50 to 35 ring size, about 6 inches. All the others were contemporary.
Who says you can't go back?!!! I light this up and it was like going back in a time machine. (I checked the mirror, I still had no hair). I couldn't believe it. I smoked a couple more. Still heavenly. I went back and bought up the other boxes.
Here is when they changed: I have never had a good one where the individual sticks were wrapped in cello. They just had the ribbon around the bundle inside the box.
So....the immoral to my story....
If you dig around at your tobacco shop and find one with the older date on the bottom you have found it, my Friend. My version of the Cheap Cigar Holy Grail.
In my experience there are 4 different general levels of cigar
1. The kind your uncle smoked. White Owl, Dutch Masters, Swishers, Blunts. Stuff nobody I know smokes. In a word ---crap.
2. Lower end hand made. The 1 to 3 buck smokes where the HG quest takes place.
3. So-called Premium cigars. CAO, Onyx, non-Cuban Cohibas, etc. The 5 to 8 range.
4. High end Premiums. ISOM's, OpusX, would you put Macs there? (No one ever mentions them here, it seems)
Is this generally accepted? Enlighten me. I have a limited amount of experience with the really upper end stuff.
Over the last ten years I've smoked about one cigar a day, usually on my commute. The other folks on the train----No in my truck on the ride home
On the weekend or if I want to treat myself I will have one from my catagory 3. I reserve the others for special occasions. We can't all be Moki
And I am hoping to change that as my tastes mature. That and the bomb(s), trades, and most importantly the info posted here is going a long way toward that. Thanks, all.But what I know most about is what I have called the catagory 2 cigar. And the most important thing I have learned is that 80 to 90 percent of them are "cohetes de perro"!!! You know them by their gringo name So I have relied on good experiences with the small minority of good ones and not done much exploring. You try a few dozen of the majority and you realize the sulphur from the match is more enjoyable. I have said that rather than ten years experience with cigars I have really had one years experience 10 times. I guess this is true of more than just cigars if you think about it.
Which brings me to my subject: The Pre-1998 Flor de Farach. In 1996 I tried this smoke with the funny name. A Flor de farach Francisco. I bought a single and it was just delicious! I thought, "So this is what a good cigar is supposed to taste like!" And it was about 2 bucks for this fragrant gem. So I bought a box and they were ALL just great. Nice nutty flavor, just a bit spicy at the end. Okay, if inconsistent construction. Nice long ash. I must have gone through a dozen boxes in the next year. I smoked almost nothing else.
Then I thought something was wrong with me. They lost their taste. They settled back to the other 90% and weren't worth even the couple bucks anymore.
Well, here is the upshot: A couple weeks ago I bought another box of them. But this manufacturer stamps the date on the bottom. I bought one I found at the bottom of the pile at JR's with 1997 stamped on them. This was a strange size for me, the Momotobito, a smaller pyramid, 50 to 35 ring size, about 6 inches. All the others were contemporary.
Who says you can't go back?!!! I light this up and it was like going back in a time machine. (I checked the mirror, I still had no hair). I couldn't believe it. I smoked a couple more. Still heavenly. I went back and bought up the other boxes.
Here is when they changed: I have never had a good one where the individual sticks were wrapped in cello. They just had the ribbon around the bundle inside the box.
So....the immoral to my story....
If you dig around at your tobacco shop and find one with the older date on the bottom you have found it, my Friend. My version of the Cheap Cigar Holy Grail.
