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Late 80s Cohiba Lancero

By happy coincidence, I just acquired a 1987 Cohiba Lancero. I'll have to smoke it soon and see how it compares to your review. Here's to hoping it is as good!
 
Perfect! The CoLa I smoked in this review was from 1987 as well. I hope you enjoy it.
 
I ended up having an early 1990's Cohiba Esplendido instead. It pains me to say that it was "ok" -- I normally love Cohibas, and I don't think there was anything necessarily wrong with this one... just not necessarily anything that right either. Sad to see.
 
It happens. Do you have any information on the cigar's provenance? As you know, this is always the question with older cigars. Hopefully the CoLa treats you a bit better.
 
BobbyRitz said:
It happens. Do you have any information on the cigar's provenance? As you know, this is always the question with older cigars. Hopefully the CoLa treats you a bit better.
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No, but I can inquire. It was recently acquired by a friend of mine in Sweden, who sent it to me. Maybe my expectations were too high? I mean it certainly wan't bad... and it wasn't flavorless... it was just relatively boring, which might be okay for your average cigar, but I expect more from an aged Cohiba.
 
I try to go into each cigar with very little in the way of expectation. This, of course, can be difficult for some cigars (i.e. older cigars and other rare cigars), but I really try to have an open mind. When I sampled a Cubatabaco 25th, I had such high expectations...I mean this is the Holy Grail Cuban cigar to many. It has to be fantastic, right? I built the cigar up in my mind to the point where it needed to be perfect in order to not be an utter disappointment. I've since tempered any expectation when smoking cigars. This has proved to be useful when smoking other limited cigars, such as the 1492 and 1994. They were much better than the 25th IMHO, with the 1994 (blaspheme! :)) being the best of the bunch. I also find that mood and company can affect the overall experience, which may have played a role while smoking the latter two of the Cuban rare humidor trilogy. I guess my point is that there are many variables outside of the cigar itself that factor into one's overall experience.

That said, I've been fairly lucky with older cigars...with the main duds being a pre-embargo Don Candido 504 and '94 PSD4. Both tasted completely bland and devoid of any substance. The 504 was likely expired and the D4 was likely from a poorly maintained box. There have been others that didn't fully foot the "price for experience" bill, but that's guaranteed to be part of anyone's cigar journey.
 
A really great review, Rob. Your commentary in post #26 is very interesting and points to the expectations we have and how those expectations can very definitely have an effect on the tasting experience. Moki's extensive postings and blind taste tests drive this point home. As I recall, moki put a 1970s Cuban in one of the taste test and most thought that it was not very good. Always makes me wonder why those guys at Cigar Aficionado NEVER have a bad smoke with any of the super aged Cubans. Maybe it's just an hallucination on their part?
 
LouieD said:
A really great review, Rob. Your commentary in post #26 is very interesting and points to the expectations we have and how those expectations can very definitely have an effect on the tasting experience. Moki's extensive postings and blind taste tests drive this point home. As I recall, moki put a 1970s Cuban in one of the taste test and most thought that it was not very good. Always makes me wonder why those guys at Cigar Aficionado NEVER have a bad smoke with any of the super aged Cubans. Maybe it's just an hallucination on their part?
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Yeah also reminds me of the rebanded Consuerga (or something like that) which some CP members gave to someone here at the CP herf in Las Vegas. They put a Davidoff band on it, told him that it was a Cuban Davidoff, and he was going on and on about how amazing it was.

How much is reality, and how much is expectations? Who knows.
 
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