I learned something today...
jlmarta
Posts: 7,880 ✭✭✭✭✭
With regard to aging cigars...
I’ve read somewhere on this forum that aging a cigar for too long can be as bad or worse than not long enough. Back about the time I was just getting into cigars there was a company named Indian Tabac. I don’t know whether he founded this company or bought it from someone else but when I first was attracted to it, it was owned by Rocky Patel and his partner (not Nish).
One of the blends that Indian Tabac offered was called, simply, Fire. I got to where I really liked that blend but about 2006 or 2007, good ol’ Rocky discontinued the blend and later changed the name of the company to Rocky Patel Cigars. For a while, Fire was still available on some retailer’s shelves but eventually that source, too, dried up. I bought up all I could find (not all that many) and then gave up.
A few years later I thought I’d try again to see if maybe a forum brother or two might have any they’d sell or trade. In September of 2011 a brother said he had one and sent it to me. I don’t recall his name but I thanked him profusely. The stick was missing it’s cello but I put a sticker on the band showing the date I received it. I have no idea how long it might have In his humi but I decided to save it for a special occasion.
Years passed and no occasion seemed special enough so I declared today a special day and smoked that puppy while I was still able to fog a mirror. The stick was a double corona. Here are a few photos:
Here’s what I learned - the pundits were right. You can definitely age a cigar too long. This one was an okay smoke but nowhere near as tasty as they had been with only a few months on them. There were no draw, burn, or construction issues with it but the best I can say about the whole experience is ‘meh’.
So, now that I’ve bored the bejabbers out of you, you can go back to whatever you were doing that was probably more fun or interesting.
I’ve read somewhere on this forum that aging a cigar for too long can be as bad or worse than not long enough. Back about the time I was just getting into cigars there was a company named Indian Tabac. I don’t know whether he founded this company or bought it from someone else but when I first was attracted to it, it was owned by Rocky Patel and his partner (not Nish).
One of the blends that Indian Tabac offered was called, simply, Fire. I got to where I really liked that blend but about 2006 or 2007, good ol’ Rocky discontinued the blend and later changed the name of the company to Rocky Patel Cigars. For a while, Fire was still available on some retailer’s shelves but eventually that source, too, dried up. I bought up all I could find (not all that many) and then gave up.
A few years later I thought I’d try again to see if maybe a forum brother or two might have any they’d sell or trade. In September of 2011 a brother said he had one and sent it to me. I don’t recall his name but I thanked him profusely. The stick was missing it’s cello but I put a sticker on the band showing the date I received it. I have no idea how long it might have In his humi but I decided to save it for a special occasion.
Years passed and no occasion seemed special enough so I declared today a special day and smoked that puppy while I was still able to fog a mirror. The stick was a double corona. Here are a few photos:
Here’s what I learned - the pundits were right. You can definitely age a cigar too long. This one was an okay smoke but nowhere near as tasty as they had been with only a few months on them. There were no draw, burn, or construction issues with it but the best I can say about the whole experience is ‘meh’.
So, now that I’ve bored the bejabbers out of you, you can go back to whatever you were doing that was probably more fun or interesting.
20
Comments
-
That was interesting. Thanks
I know, You're a big dog and I'm on the list.
Let's eat, GrandMa. / Let's eat GrandMa. -- Punctuation saves livesIt'll be fine once the swelling goes down.
0 -
I'm not saying your experience w/ this stick isn't legit, Marty... but maybe your tastes and palate have changed. Maybe what once registered as near-nirvana as a newer smoker now just rates as a 'meh'.
In general I'd agree that you can over-age a cigar, even under ideal conditions. But some cigars might be at their best with 10 years on them, or more, and how do we know how long is too long? Smoke one out each box every 6 months, note the changes good or bad, and then if they're going downhill hurry up and smoke the rest before they fall off a cliff?
Most of us will never have to deal w/ any of that, but it's still a good exercise to think about it."I could've had a Mi Querida!" Nick Bardis5 -
Not disagreeing with you Marty, but that stick may have been going through second maturation wherein a lot of the flavor profile is dormant. Lots of cool and important scientific stuff going on at that point which changes the chemical profile.
Either way, sorry it wasn't as enjoyable as others had been. I know there are others here who won't agree, but that's my $0.02. Surprised there wasn't any plume on that bad boy.“Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman – or a bad woman; it depends on how much happiness you can handle.” – George Burns2 -
Enjoyed reading your story" I am sure picked up a few Pearls of wisdom @jlmartaI was born a fool, and just got bigger!2
-
If I press the unlock button on my car remote once, then press it again and hold it, all my car window go down.
I know, You're a big dog and I'm on the list.
Let's eat, GrandMa. / Let's eat GrandMa. -- Punctuation saves livesIt'll be fine once the swelling goes down.
10 -
I once learned that brake cleaner, small cavities on machines and welding are not a good mixture.
Well, they are a good mixture for something, but personal safety ain't it.In Fumo Pax
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.Wylaff said:Atmospheric pressure and crap.3 -
It's all about those oils, man. Once they evaporate, you've just got yourself a nice cigar tasting cigar. How much time until that happens has so many variables, including tobacco type, temperature and humidity that I can't even fully imagine the rest. Some say the ideal RH for the oils to permeate and do its thing is 70-72, and that's fine and dandy for storing up to a handful of years. Beyond any of that, it's voo-doo magik as far as I'm concerned. I like hearing about real experiences, it helps me to at the very least gauge some possibilities, even if it's not entirely scientific and controlled at each moment.
Personally, I keep most of my cigars at around 68%RH and the temp ranges from 68 to 74 on average. With an increasing stock accumulating and the amount being smoked and given away, I am beginning to think I may have 15 years worth right now if I don't buy a single stick. And then there's the cigar rolling project I have recently started to undertake...
I might have some of my own aging reports coming up in the years to follow.
"Love is a dung heap, Betty and I am but a c.o.c.k. that climbs upon it to crow."0 -
Dammit! Our new Toyota doesn't do that.IndustMech said:If I press the unlock button on my car remote once, then press it again and hold it, all my car window go down.
Pi$$ me off.In Fumo Pax
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.Wylaff said:Atmospheric pressure and crap.5 -
Yes!!! Thanks.IndustMech said:If I press the unlock button on my car remote once, then press it again and hold it, all my car window go down.2 -
Btw, my car actually has 4 windowSIndustMech said:If I press the unlock button on my car remote once, then press it again and hold it, all my car window go down.I know, You're a big dog and I'm on the list.
Let's eat, GrandMa. / Let's eat GrandMa. -- Punctuation saves livesIt'll be fine once the swelling goes down.
2 -
narrow escape from the grammar police, @IndustMech.5
-
50 lashes from a wet noodle for you, young man.IndustMech said:
Btw, my car actually has 4 windowSIndustMech said:If I press the unlock button on my car remote once, then press it again and hold it, all my car window go down.
And don't let that happen again!In Fumo Pax
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.Wylaff said:Atmospheric pressure and crap.1 -
Actually I learned this a week ago,..... and I was in a hurry to get somewhere else at the time, but there's a store in Gatlinburg I gotta visit next time I go.
1 -
Is there a special store that sells ugly shorts?Stubble said:
The Kat's Meow???Bob_Luken said:Actually I learned this a week ago,..... and I was in a hurry to get somewhere else at the time, but there's a store in Gatlinburg I gotta visit next time I go. 
Friends don't let good friends smoke cheap cigars.5 -
I learned Ricky's eyesight is getting worse every day.
"I could've had a Mi Querida!" Nick Bardis11 -
I learned I have C.A.S. badly.
Trapped in the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts.
4 -
I learned that Rafael Nadal the tennis player isn't an Aging Room Cigars master blender....@ScotchnSmoke sux lots of large wéiners. And tons of small ones.2
-
You just burst my bubble.
Trapped in the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts.
2 -
"I could've had a Mi Querida!" Nick Bardis11 -
I learned that I really should not have internet access when I’m half a bottle into some scotch!6
-
Filipino Baby (Ernest Tubb 1946)
"Her hair is black as jet"
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Black as Jet? What? I'd heard the term jet black all my life and thought I knew what it meant, but when I heard it flipped around I realized I never actually knew what it meant. Jet black was the only way I had ever heard it, and through only osmosis assumed it meant, well,..... a very dark shade of black.Worked by man as far back as 10,000 BC, it's a gemstone.
It's got nothing to do with jet engines or airplanes. It's not "a" jet, it's jet.
I know that I know nothing. - Socrates, according to Plato.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
https://youtu.be/Q7jaWXWM_ko
I had been listening to some old country songs from the 1940s and I heard the line "Her hair is black as jet" and that's how I started down that rabbit hole. In this way I love the internet for it's resources. In other ways I hate it.2 -
I want nothing to do with any rabbit's hole.
Trapped in the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts.
3
