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Aging
madurofan
Posts: 6,219 ✭✭✭
Kuzi, I was going to post this in scram's thread but figured I'd start another for this topic. I listened to an interesting theory the other day from an old timer who used to manage one of the B&Ms I frequent, now he's retired and just hangs out. This guy is actually quite accomplished for a B&M manager and has consulted for companies like Camacho and A. Fuente, as well as completely blending the house cigars for a number of B&Ms in the southeast including the one he used to manage, none of which are mixed filler(he pointed this out emphatically). Anyways this theory is kind of what I have always subscribed to but explained better and with some additional things I hadn't thought of.kuzi16:i hear the anejo ages well. ya may want to let it sit.
Basically its this ...
Box aging, taking an entire closed box of cigars and letting them sit only with themselves, is aging a cigar. This is taking the cigar as the blender intended it to be and letting it further marry with the tobaccos that the blender intended for it to marry with. Now while the blender most likely did not blend the cigar with the idea of letting it set for years, if he is a good he took this into considersation and has a good understanding of what the different tobaccos he used will do as they "age". However, no matter what your opinion the fact is you aren't always improving the cigar. The aging process is CHANGING the cigar, sometimes for the better sometimes for worse, either way this is not the cigar the blender tasted. Those who only smoke "aged" cigars could and probably are missing out on a lot of cigars. Many mild cigars are at their best at a young age and many Full-bodied cigars lose body and spice as they age. Either way by not smoking a "fresh" cigar you are not sure what it is you are missing.
Now on to humidor aging, this is placing singles into a humidor full of other cigars of different brands, bodies, vitolas, and types of tobacco. This is not aging a cigar, this is in every sense CHANGING the cigar. When a blender creates a cigar he may take into consideration what a cigar could become after years of marrying with itself but there is no way he could take into consideration what a cigar will become when it marries with random other cigars that are typically changing. Cigars draw from their enviroment, this is the entire theory behind the Acid line of cigars which are allowed to naturally absorb their flavorings instead of being dipped. Cigars also emit oils and gases. If you have cigars drawing oil and gases from other cigars you are changing the cigar in ways the blender never intended or anticipated. What this "aged" cigar has become is in no way what the blender had in mind. Now this isn't to say that "aging" this way is wrong or that you are ruining the cigars its just that you can't age a cigar like this and tell someone else that cigar does or does not age well. It could be that brand x mixed with brands y and z for 2 years creates a pretty good cigar but brand x mixed with brands a and b for 2 years creates a bitter cigar.
Just some food for thought ...
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if cigars picked up flavor from other cigars so easily, why wouldnt we just put our cheaper mild smokes next to some high end premiums to soak up some of the flavor? it doesnt work like that. ...especially with the cellophane on. yes i agree that they do get draw from the atmosphere and what is around them, but what is around them is air. the tobaccos in my humidor dont touch eachother. its all natural. Its not the theory of ACID at all. Acid doesnt dip them, they let it defuse into them via the air. However, there is a super concentrate of that flavor in the air.
of course im again talking out of my ass. Im not a pro, but i am a thinker and in my head this makes sence. If no tobaccos are actually toutching and oils dont evaporate, why would it matter if they are box aged or not? (though i would prefer that, mainly because of quantity but thats a different story)
Its not that the cigars are picking up other cigars flavors, you'd be right( if that was the case I'd buy a couple Tat cojonu 2003's and stick all my crappy sticks in with them) its the result of when these different tobacco marry(my understanding of marrying is the exchanges of gases and oils). The fact that they are in cello is irrelevant, as you and I have both stated cello is not air nor water tight and allows for the exchange of air and moisture and most likely oils.
The Acid theory is relevant here though in a humidor these gases would be airborne. Its the same theory but not the same concentration that is true.
no oil transfer, no flavor transfer.
i do like the thought of aging being a "change" rather than anything else. its a great way to think about it.
My test will be this, tell me if you disagree. I going to drop a few drops of baby oil onto the inside of a cello wrapper and set it on top of a paper towel and give it some time. If the paper towel becomes oily we can assume that oil transfers through cello.
Just throwing it out there. You two each have more knowledge about this in an eyelash than I've got in my entirety.
Nonetheless, if cello is as porous as everyone seems to be saying, I would expect the oils in a cigar to pass through it. I can't think of any reason why cellophane would be selectively permeable. Selective permeability is a pretty complex phenomenon, requiring a pretty complex membrane. I just don't think cello is. So basically, it all comes down to the size of the pores in cello, and my guess is they're big enough to let tobacco oils through.
why?
i would venture to say that i have a fairly refined Pallate. Based off of that; Im not sure i could taste the difference between a box aged cigar and a cigar that was aged as a single. at what point does it become "oh yeah! well, my cigar can beat up YOUR cigar" the fact remains that regardless of what cigars are next to it while it ages, many cigars that have been in propper conditions for years on end will be mellower, smoother, and more refined than many that are not. In the initial post of this thread it was also mentioned that some cigars do not age well, therefore ageing them is pointless.
what will the cello/oil experament tell us? that cello is porus? that there is a chance that some minute amount of oil frome one cigar may get on another cigar if it spends years next to it?
it wont tell us if it does, in fact, effect the flavor. It also wont tell us if we care.
I, for one, dont htink it will effect the flavor, nor do i care.
...nor do i have the rescources to figure it out.
most of us never will. Unless you are the Capt and have a walk in humi built into the house and/or go through several hundred (maybe 600-800) cigars a year, we will never have the experiance to make this call. I can barely even fathom the amount of refinement that a palate would have to have to understand cigars to that level. there are probably less than 500 people in the world that would understand the miniscule difference in taste that we are talking about. the odds are agains anyone on this forum being able to.
now that ive said all that i have two more comments.
1)now that ive typed all this out i bet some cigar GURU will come by and give a simple one sentence answer to this debate and nobody will be able to refute it
AND...
2)I would still like to conduct the experament like i described:
an oily cigar in the cello and a bit of news paper also covered in cello resting next to eachother for months on end to see if there is transfer of cigar oils.
i have recently smoked a legend that was less than a year old, it was a perfecto so im not sure the comparison will be spot on. I also have a legend perfecto from 10-06 in my humidor. that may be more apples to apples than the toro to perfecto.
I too have noticed that gurkhas age well. None of mine have been "box aged." I still thought they were great.
you said it all right here: im sure we can (and will) still discuss this more.
Capt, as always, you are a wonderful resource to have around. I always look forward to you joining a thread.
back on topic. I may do the cigar oil cello experament. any sugestions on an inexpensive, oily, cigar that i wont feel bad leaving out of the humi for (potentially) forever?
My big debate is what tastes good now, for most of my cigars would be smoked right away for I can't buy enough to outrun my smoking habit. If it DOES taste good now, then I may think about a box, but it has to be a very F'in tasty cigar!
Long story short, Right now I'm not aging my cigars, so I don't care if there is a cigar orgy going on in my humidor right now, they'll all get what's comin' to them soon enough! (p.s. wouldn't be the first time I've broken up an orgy :-/)
Nope, you have to shred the cigars and shove the tobacco inside the Cello of other cigars you own, that way you can be the variable in our little aging test
My idea so you guys can send them to me and I'll bury it
p.s. I have heard of cigars dissolving over time, so the cigars may not be there when we open 'er back up. The only way to combat this is to buy really expensive cigars, something about the tobacco or sumpin'. So make sure those OpusX's and 1926's make their way to my house. PM me if you need my address!