• Hi Guest - Come check out all of the new CP Merch Shop! Now you can support CigarPass buy purchasing hats, apparel, and more...
    Click here to visit! here...

My take on Cubans

lucasbuck said:
I've had good and bad Cubans and Domestics. Everyone's tastes are different but for me there is no domestic (and I've tried dozens) that compares to a good Cuban. I still smoke more domestics but I imagine eventually I will smoke 90% Cubans. It's hell waiting for them to age in to great smokes :p
Click to expand...
I have some Cuban Montecristo Edicion Limitada's and some Cuban Romeo y Julietta Edicion Limitada's that I bought in Germany (full sealed box of each). I've smoked them alternately with the Padróns, and perhaps I'm just unlucky, or the cigars need to age more, but I just wasn't that impressed with the Cubans.

That isn't to say they are bad cigars; they aren't, by any stretch. But they didn't make me go "wow!" the way the Padrón 64's and 26's did.

It'd be an interesting test. Strip the bands off the cigars, and have people rate 'em not knowing what country the cigars are from, or what brand they are smoking (though I grant you, some would be distinctive enough that they'd be given away). Put blindfolds on, and see how well the Cubans fair.

My guess is that they wouldn't fair as well as many people expect.
 
It'd be an interesting test. Strip the bands off the cigars, and have people rate 'em not knowing what country the cigars are from, or what brand they are smoking (though I grant you, some would be distinctive enough that they'd be given away). Put blindfolds on, and see how well the Cubans fair.
Click to expand...

Good point moki. I would say you are correct, people who have litte experience with Havana cigars would find them "average" when mixed in a blind taste test. I'll also bet they'll find the'll high end Fuentes just as "average" if they don't have experience with them either.

This sums it up best:
Smoke what you like, like what you smoke.
Click to expand...
and so does this:
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... or something like that.
Click to expand...

Oh oh Jeff, I'm gonna do it again :D
AR15.gif
Fuente.
I have YET to have a "great" or even a "very good" experience with a Fuente product. I just smoked a Diamond Crown #4 this afternoon. The draw was too loose and the cigar burned crooked. The flavor was average at best and the taste was "okay" Now, if I paid $2.00 for this cigar, I'd say fine but this stick cost $10.00!! To me, it's not worth it.

I'm getting to the point where I've smoked many Havana cigars and the more I smoke them, the more I like them. Unfortunately with the Fuentes, the more I smoke them the LESS I like them :(

The same with VSG's and PAM's nice cigars BUT I think they're awfully expensive considering that Havanas cost less.
 
Give me unbanded cigars from different originations and I'll pick out the Havana as being superior almost everytime. But, that's because I am experienced enough to have a bias. I dislike the taste of Honduran and Mexican tobacco, don't particulary care for Nicarauguan, in most cases, and while I like Dominican tobacco, it's not something I can tolerate on a regular basis. Havana leaf has a very distinct taste and is what I've grown to enjoy. To me a bad constructed Cuban cigar is better than a perfectly made Honduran.

As for Fuentes, personally the only bad constructed Fuenets I have had, whether it be the high end ones or low end, have been stored either too wet or too dry. I used to smoke a lot of them too. I woudl say that along with the Padron line, the Fuentes are the most consitent, in construction. There are others to include in that group, like Torano and Camacho, but those two big names stand out as premium in the construction consistency department. Which is something I can not say about Havanas. LOL!
 
Matt R said:
Give me unbanded cigars from different originations and I'll pick out the Havana as being superior almost everytime. But, that's because I am experienced enough to have a bia
Click to expand...
Isn't this like saying that you'd be able to pick out French wines as being superior to Napa wines almost every time? There are a lot of very mediocre, and even just plain piss-poor French wines. I think Napa wines are at least as good as French wines (on the whole). French wines just have more caché.

Certainly there are kick-ass French wines, and there are kick-ass Napa wines, but on the whole, I think they are comparable. My favorite white wine is a Cakebread Chardonnay, not a French white.

Seems like a similar situation concerning cigars and Cuba, with the difference being that the Cuban cigar industry has suffered over the years, and the French wine industry has not.
 
Isn't this like saying that you'd be able to pick out French wines as being superior to Napa wines almost every time?
Click to expand...

Actually I'd say NO, that's an apples/oranges comparison in my opinion. Cuban tobacco is unlike any other tobacco in the world just as Connecticut Shade/Connecticut Broadleaf is unlike any other wrapper. These tobaccos get their specific characterists from the soil in those areas and cannot be duplicated anywhere else.

Now granted, I suppose you can say the same thing about grapes but based on what I know about grapes, an wines, certain grapes from Napa, Sonoma, etc. cannot be distinguised from grapes of the same species grown in France. I completely agree with you on the California/French wine example. There are many French reds I love and many more California reds I love as well. I believe that California wines can compete with French wines any day of the week BUT Havana cigars are DIFFERENT from anything else and one's preference is a matter of well, one's personal preferences. People (like Matt) can tell Havana tobacco immediately, I'm not sure it is as easy to tell the difference between French and California wines.

Again, I don't think you can compare grapes with tobacco.

Along the lines of what Matt said, I very much enjoy Cuban tobacco, I dislike Mexican tobacco. But, I like Honduran & Nicaraguan tobacco and find Dominican tobacco boring. I usually love anything wrapped in a CTBL or CT shade wrapper and I think Cameroon & Ecuadorian wrapper leafs are "okay"
 
coventrycat86 said:
Isn't this like saying that you'd be able to pick out French wines as being superior to Napa wines almost every time?
Click to expand...

Actually I'd say NO, that's an apples/oranges comparison in my opinion. Cuban tobacco is unlike any other tobacco in the world just as Connecticut Shade/Connecticut Broadleaf is unlike any other wrapper. These tobaccos get their specific characterists from the soil in those areas and cannot be duplicated anywhere else.

Now granted, I suppose you can say the same thing about grapes but based on what I know about grapes, an wines, certain grapes from Napa, Sonoma, etc. cannot be distinguised from grapes of the same species grown in France.
Click to expand...
Actually, wine connoisseurs regularly say the same thing regarding grapes: that the soil/weather conditions can't be duplicated anywhere else but in certain regions in France. Who knows, they may be right.
 
Hmmmmmmm, I've heard differing opinons on the whole grape issue but my basic problem is I know nowhere near as much about wine as I probably should know. :p or wish I knew :D

As I mentioned, Havanas are very different from anything else and I'm not so sure that the French vs California wine differences or distinctions are as clear as Havanas vs. anything other cigar.

I strongly beleive that California wines can compete with ANY wine in the world. It's kinda funny because as the California wines got better and better, all of a sudden, you start seeing the French wines DROPPING in price!! Unfortuantely, the California wines got so good that the prices are almost getting out of hand for the lower end stuff. For instance, I used to get a bottle of Estancia Cabernet Sauvignon for $9.00 and now it's double that. I've since found some French Bordeauxs that are in the $11.00 range that are very nice tasting wines!!
 
(In my best Scotch accent) Aye, ye lads must be in the fairy dust agin with your poofy french wines. If it isn't Scotch, IT"S CRRRAAPPPP!























With apologies to Mike Myers
 
Since I don't drink a lot of wine, I really don't have the nose to disern between one or another. I know I like deep reds, be it from California, Australia or France. If I was a wine connoisseur, I would imagine I would have created a profile in my mind for the differing varieties and would have a preference for one or another. That was my main point. I have a strong preference for Cuban tobacco over any of the other varieties out there and can taste the differences between them. This leads me to a conclusion, that in my personal taste profile, there is nothing better than a Havana cigar.
 
Matt R said:
I have a strong preference for Cuban tobacco over any of the other varieties out there and can taste the differences between them. This leads me to a conclusion, that in my personal taste profile, there is nothing better than a Havana cigar.
Click to expand...
DITTO! But I still smoke some of the others.
 
I have had the advantage of smoking cigars with most of the legends in this industry. They all say the same thing. Smoke what you like, and like what you smoke. Cigars taste of tobacco. I saw one review that said the cigar tasted of dried meat and Anise. Depending on the time of day and what I have eaten, I like medium one dimensional to complex spicy cigars.

Gary, here is the deal. 90% of cigar smokers, and reviewers, do not retrohale, and so they are not even really tasting what they are smoking.

Again I say,

"Smoke what you like, and like what you smoke."

And don't worry about what anyone else thinks.
 
....holy necro thread! This baby was dead for seven years before being brought back to life....??
 
moki said:
Regarding Cubans, I'm sure I'll be in the minority here, but I think there are better cigars out there than Cubans these days. I've smoked a number of Montecristo's, Romeo's, Cohiba's, etc., I even have some edicion limitada of both the Monte's and the Romeo's in my humidor... but to my taste, there are better cigars out there. The Padrón 1964/1926's, for example.

I think the worst thing that could happen to Cuban cigars is the US import ban being lifted. Right now Cubans have caché. Lift the ban, and after an initial flood of the market in the US, they will no longer be the forbidden fruit, and will be judged on their merits.

Cubans used to be by far the best out there; I think they've long since been surpassed, and producers in Honduras, Dominican Republics, etc. are getting better and better.

I'm sure people will disagree strongly with this; I'd love to hear opinions on it. I just haven't been blown away by any Cuban cigars I've had.
Click to expand...

I agree on all points.

Having said that, there are times I want a Cuban flavor profile, and times I don't...I just don't seem to reach for Cubans as much as I do NC...

**shrug**
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top