How Do Decide? How Does One Cigar End Up Being Smoked Vs. All The Rest?
peter4jc
Posts: 15,430 ✭✭✭✭✭
Every morning I listen to side A of a classical vinyl record with the first of two cups of coffee and do my devotional reading. Cup two of two happens with side B of the vinyl and my Chromebook, checking to see what happened while I slept. Presently, I have ~8mos. of albums, and I rotate through them from start to finish. I play them in the order they are because if was going to choose each morning what to listen to it would take too much mental effort to decide, and there would be those that never get played; "Nah, I don't want that... nah, I don't want that..." ad nauseam.
Then today, I get this email for the Monster Mash at a discount, and later today there's an Illusione and Foundation event about 20min. away; buy 20 get 6 free and a healthy discount on top of that. It was a real struggle; the cheap basterd wanting to buy cheap vs. the pragmatist that knows he can hardly smoke what he has.
It made me start thinking about why I don't smoke some of my cigars. It's not that I don't like them; I simply skip over them and smoke something else. And then the lightbulb went off!
"Why don't you smoke your cigars like you listen to your vinyl" whispered a little voice in my head. "Why, that's a capital idea, my good man!" I replied. I still don't know what that would look like and how the rotation would be structured, since there are so many different cigars and they're not organized in any way. Maybe a good place to start is to make up a rule that says if I skip a cigar more than once (or twice) I have to put it in the CFW pile. I really want to go the the Illusione / Foundation event, but w/o some sort of strategy all that will happen is I'll smoke those new sticks and ignore others, which tells me to just smoke the others before I spend a few hundred dollars on new ones.
So what's the typical process you go through in deciding what to smoke? Do you have one in mind and you pluck that out of your humidor? Do you just start diving and see what you come up with? How does that make all those overlooked cigars feel about themselves?
Comments
Frank helps me choose everyday
I rarely open the humidor door with a certain cigar in mind. It's more like which shelf I'm going to rummage in.....I have one with the really good ones in, one with good ones in and one average ones in. Then I pick something that stands out at me.
Now if I know I want to smoke something of a certain brand, I go to one of brand shelfs. Most of the time they have two or three brands to chose from. I also have one shelf with only Cubans if I'm in the mood for one of those.
I also have a couple of shelves with boxes in them. I go to them if I want something that I know what their going to taste like.
I do seem to pick over the ones that have some age to them....Not sure why.
So what I'm saying is......I have no rhyme or reason to what I'm doing.
I don’t either. It’s a very rare occasion that I know ahead of time what I want to smoke. Usually I just go to a random humidor or container and look inside to see what piques my interest at that particular time.
More than 50% of the time I have a cigar in mind but decide to smoke something else instead when I find it first.
I heard a rumor that Frank's going on a month long dog rocket smoke down. Maybe a dog rocket vHerf is in order, I don't know that I can take a whole month.
@Yakster i witnessed that. A month long binge of dog rockets lol
Usually just pick something I haven't had in a while, that's been in the coolidor a few months. I pull 5-10 smokes once or twice a week and put them in my desktop humi to smoke from.
Don't let the wife know what you spend on guns, ammo or cigars.
I open the door, with a specific cigar in mind. After 3 minutes of looking, I forgit what one that was, then spend another 10 minutes staring into the tower.
5 minutes after that I remember I was there for a specific cigar and can't recall which one, so I decide to go for something I know I like. In rummaging through all of them, I discover one that I either haven't had or forgot I had.
So after 30 minutes of getting nowhere, I either grab the most convenient cigar or close the door and walk away, to find something else to waste time not doing.
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.
I dug them all out. I can knock most of em out in a week, so it'll be "hell week" coming to a forum near you.
I heard it also
I'm going to tune in just to see what Frank considers a dog rocket.
I think it'll start Monday.
I keep a desktop where I have things I want to smoke. I choose what I will smoke from there. When it gets low, I go through the coolers and grab a handful or so of things that catch my attention. It reduces my choices to 20-30
You're in luck Frank. Your winnings from me arrive on Monday, so you'll have a lot more dog rockets. Can extend your dog rocket smoke down at least another week!
Doubt it lol.
I have a desktop I stock with 50 or so sticks. As it withers down to 20 or so I refill it from the winedors. So my picks are limited to the 50 or so I start with and fewer choices as it gets low
-- Winston Churchill
"LET'S GO FRANCIS" Peter
I do similar to Nick. I have a large Pelican case that I fill with what I'm going to be smoking, and refill it from the cooler as it gets low.
At any given time the urge to sing "In The Jungle" is just a whim away... A whim away... A whim away...
Back on topic. As I have a lot of boxes where I condensed, now opening every box is kinda like a grab bag surprise. So I spend about 10-15 minutes or so perusing, and then get tired of it and just grab one already. So when the mental clock goes off, whatever box is open at the moment, is what I choose from. I know, it's complicated......
To shift the conversation a bit; why do I/we have so many sticks that are so easy to overlook and opt-out from? What do I do w/ those? I look at them 50 times in a year, and yet there they are after 5 years of being ignored. They might be decent sticks, but I want to ignore them.
Bombs away ^^
-- Winston Churchill
"LET'S GO FRANCIS" Peter
I have started picking blind. Open a cooler, stick my hand in a bag and pull one out. Sometimes I have a cigar in mind and I'll go dig that out but lately I have cared less about what cigar it is and just enjoying the cigar and relax.
"I've got a great cigar collection - it's actually not a collection, because that would imply I wasn't going to smoke ever last one of 'em." - Ron White
i don't smoke much at home so I will grab 15-20 sticks at a time and take them to the lounge i am member at and put them in my locker. I have a few boxes in there too but helps me narrow down my choices lol
Some cigar lounges will accept donations for Cigars for Warriors. You can find a list on their site.