ndhaon91

Hi, all. I'd love some general info on cigar smoking in Spain. My wife and I will be there next week, including Barcelona, Madrid, and San Sebastian. My understanding is that Spain is very cigar friendly in general, but I would appreciate specifics. Can I smoke out outdoors in the street with a morning cup of coffee? Any particular lounges or shops I should visit in the aforementioned cities? What is pricing like? Should i bring my own Cubans for the most part and only purchase NC? Any other tips are greatly appreciated. We are doing an 8 day food tour so there will be lots of large meals, wine, and late nights I imagine. Would be great to get a few sticks in especially after dinner. Thanks.

I smoked my box from 2010 slowly over about decade. I think they got better and better until maybe 2018 when I sensed they had begun to diminsh a bit, and then I finished the box off.

Yeah I don't own any BTC. I do think it will hit that number at some point in the next bull run, but I'm more into utility tokens. There's some pretty ingenious solutions for everyday problems being built on web3. But, if it doesn't work out, I'm only down some tobacco.

I actually took advantage of the market to sell off a ton of aged stock. I brought in about $8k USD from the most over-inflated CC market in history and put into the massively discounted crypto market. It was hard enough smoking a cigar I paid $12 for knowing I could sell it for $24. But when I started thinking about the inevitable bare minimum 10x that will happen in the next crypto bull run, it was like every stick I lit up was burning $240. Just couldn't keep doing it. As others have said, it's one thing when the quality is there. But even with aged stock, it's a 50/50 crap shoot if I'd rather be smoking a dependable NC.

I was a member when the club first started. It turned me off to Warped and Kyle Gellis for good. I think I bought the first 4-5 offerings, sometimes in multiple sizes. The only one worth a damn was one of the sizes of the Kings Stride. The rest were average to terrible. He's paying no marketing or middle men, and clearly is only paying for the JV rolling squad. All while charging premium prices. It's a money grab, plain and simple.

Initial inspection was when I grabbed them out of the box to pack the morning we left for vacation. They'd been sitting in my FOH locker for the 3ish years since purchase, and I'd only had them shipped out a couple months ago. So basically they were with me just long enough to have 60 days down. I still haven't mustered up the courage to go examine the other 8 cigars.

Apologies for forgetting the box code. I just brought two of these on vacation. I will update the review with the box code when I get home in a couple days. But they are OR from fall 2017. Understandably, I've been very excited to try these for the first time after 3+ years of rest. It was my wife's birthday yesterday and we're on vacation in Siesta Key, so it seemed the perfect time. We cracked open a bottle of The Prisoner, Cuttings 2017 Cabernet as well. Examining the feet of both cigars before lighting had me a little concerned. There were the signs of slightly uneven packing consistent with underfilling. My concerns were magnified when the cigars proved resistant to toasting and required far more heat than I care to apply to get fully lit. The difficulties lighting detracted significantly from the ability to develop a first taste impression, but my first thought was this cigar is the flavor love child of a CoRo and RASS. Both cigars continued to have major burn issues right out of the gate. Examination of the ash confirmed my fears: despite the gorgeous aesthetics of the roll, both cigars were significantly underfilled. The notable squish of an under filled cigar was present throughout the entire lower two thirds of the cigars. They both struggles to stay alive and required far too frequent puffing. This remained the case until the final third, when the smoking tempo could finally be reduced without risk of the cigars going out. By this time, the damage was done. What started as decent flavors had become hot and bitter. The cigars were done by the 90 min mark. At its best, just rated on flavor, I'd give these an 88. Overall blind rating would be an 84. Rating taking into account cost and expectations: F.

I'm curious how the perception of what constitutes an underfilled cigar is different for those who come from a predominantly CC vs NC smoking background. As someone who was exclusively NC for the first several years of regular smoking, I would say that easily 50% of the CCs are "less than ideally filled." And easily 20% are underfilled to the point of needing constant relight attention, balanced with trying to smoke slow enough that the cigar doesn't turn to mush in the last third, where ultimately the constructing is greatly affecting the smoking experience. I basically just assume the only point of the last third of Cubans is to hold up the smokable first 2/3. For the record, I keep my cigars at 61%.

Okay I'm missing something...awhile back I picked up 4 aged RyJ Churchill tubos from El Pres, and prior to this post I'd have sworn they were Anejados. They were excellent smokes well worth the $30 price tag. They tasted nothing like other Churchills I've had. What was I smoking?

RyJ Tacos. Had my first recently and I found it to be very deep and rich line a chocolate dessert. Sounds line the dude has the coin to stock up on these.

Two boxes of Tainos and a box of Sig II. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for Wii U (only because everyone else had purchased every Nintendo Switch in the USA.) About half a dozen books I won't get to for who knows how long.

Same. Just downloaded the trilogy. Btw, Ken... regarding Erickson... I had the exact same experience with Book 1 of Malazan. I've had several people since mention that you can actually just skip book 1 entirely and not really miss anything.

If you like the "Muslim Fantasy" vibe, I highly recommend "The Lions of Al-Rassan" by Guy Gavriel Kay. One of the best one-volume stories I've ever read.

Glad I picked up two bundles of these when they were announced. Really wonderful blend.

Well my "blown away" response pertains to the Partagas Lusi Reserva Cosecha 2007 at $80/stick (box price average). Technically that's the most expensive smoke I've ever had. But if it weren't for that particular stick, my answer probably would have been "as expected." And if the question were about my average super premium experience, I'd say "let down."