joeypots

My novice traveler opinion is that Italy is everything it's cracked up to be and more. Looks like a great trip. The giant statue of the naked guy in the Academy is worth a look.

I never cared for Fleetwood Mac. DSOTM, on the other hand, it’s part of my list of the very best albums and it holds up to this day. Can’t say I listen to many pop albums these days. I knew I was getting old when I realized that the last rock and roll musician I though was great was Elvis Costello.

Super fat cigars. Especially short ones. Pretty soon the new vitola is going to look like a tuna fish can. Tattoos. They are very popular now but I would never get one.

Mexican Coca Cola is made with cane sugar. The stuff we get in the USA is made with corn syrup. A can of Coke, 12 Oz, contains 9⅓ teaspoons of sugar. My dad was in the food business and as a child there was no discussion about having soft drinks in the house. There were none. Ever. That said, Coke is the bomb and I don't care for Pepsi. BTW, there is the same amount of sugar in orange juice as there is in Coke, and it doesn't matter that the sugar in the OJ is 'natural'......the human body can't tell the difference between what we delude ourselves as being health or bad sugars.

COHIBA. I’d watch, wait, and snag a top end box of CORO, Siglo VI or Esplendidos.

I've been looking forward to the WWC final all week. I'm liking what we Americans call soccer and the women's game is just fantastic. The absence of time keeping down to the thousandth of a second and endless time outs is refreshing to a USA sports viewer. Football and basketball broadcasts by comparison almost seem like interruptions in a series of endlessly repeated television commercials. With soccer they get out there and play the game with minimal interruptions and commercials. The continuity of the action is wonderful. I chose a Siglo III tubos that I got from our host in 2010 to accompany the action. The Siglo III is an all round great cigar. The Coronas Grade is a great but rapidly disappearing vitola. It's a shame. I miss the HDD, QDGC, PSS#1, and don't see the MC Tubos around very often. I added a three pack of tubos to an order I placed around Christmas '10, that was back in the day when one could add on a few Cohibas and not think about the price too much, Man, the price has gone up since 2010. This one was lovely. I do think tubed cigars age a little differently than those aged in boxes. They smooth out some but keep sharper, punchier flavors. This one had the Cohiba taste; tangy tobacco, citrus, grass , and a hint of earth. It was medium bodied and smoke through the nose was delicious right to the nub. The construction was perfect. The draw had that nice hint of resistance, the cigar burned straight with no need to touch up or relight and the ash was solid. All in all a fine 90 minutes. I'll give the Siglo III a 9.6 and the USA WWC team a 10.

The inconsistencies that plague Cuban cigar smokers, guys like me who buy boxes from trusted vendors and lay them down for a while, are well known. A box of '11 MC Edmundo comes to mind. If I could get that cigar I'd just about smoke only that cigar. But boxes of Cuban cigars are rarely that good, so the better question is, "Why can't all Cuban cigars be like this?"

Rome. I've been and have thought I'd like an extended period there. Haven't been to Paris and if I had been there I might have a different answer.

I'll give away a few cigars here and there but I do not like to see cigars that I have loved and cared for wasted. I'll bring a few Partagas Shorts to a gathering where I know there are people who think they want a cigar and a couple of what I'm smoking for friends who know they want a good cigar. Get a kick out of seeing the face of a friend who just has never before had a good Cuban cigar. I've seen too many half smoked and wasted fine cigars at gatherings so I don't hand out aged beauties willy nilly.

Best wishes for a great 4th of July.

I sold a lot of EL and RE stuff about 5 years ago and mostly bought Cohiba Robustos, and Siglo IV, and III. I seem to be hitting Monte Cristo pretty hard for the last few years.

i thin one would encourage the other.

Partagas Serie du Connaisseur No.1 and No.2 Portages Lonsdales Portages Coronas Bolivar Corona Extra Bolivar Coronas Gigantes Punch SS#2 Bolivar Gold Medals There are more but these are off the top of my head. Man, I wish I'd never started to post on this topic. Kinda chokes me up.

Bolivar Edición Regional Alemania Especiales No.2 2009 Ramon Allones Belicoso 2005. This was a very early RR, it came out of Great Britain, had one band, and flew under the radar until later RA Belicosos were released with all of the Regional's Release banding and publicity. The cigars were nicotine bombs like the RACF and eventually mellowed out into great RA cigars. They were also priced fairly, if I remember correctly. At least they weren't anything like 20$ US a stick

Dental work or oral surgery.

Thanks for this.

60% RH at 70 F works for me and as the temperature falls in the fall and the house is cooler something like 55% to 60% Rh will work all winter. I keep my humidor close to an air conditioner that is set at 70F in summer. I find it more difficult to keep cigars dry than moist. So for the new guys, if you notice your cigars tasting much better after 18 months or so, it isn't age, its correct moisture content that's making those cigars taste so good. Used to be that cigars were deliberately shipped wet to protect them from drying out during shipping. I don't know if this is still true. I remember getting cigars from Europe that were so wet that it was a battle to keep them lit. And the taste was bitter and harsh. If I was going to smoke out of a new box of say, PSD#4, I'd put a handful in my desk top humidor at 60% RH for a month. No cheating. A properly hydrated cigar will beat hands down a overly humidified cigar in taste and burn. Lastly, and once more for the new guys, if you dry out a fresh cigar until the band will slip easily enough so that you can move it a half inch or so foot to head with out damaging the wrapper that cigar is good to go. And, as usual, this is what works for me.

I have a small cabinet humidor and a desktop. I move about 4 cigars from a box at a time into the desktop from the box in the humidor. When the box is about ⅔ empty I either put the remaining cigars in the desktop or combine them with other boxes. I keep rare singles in plastic bags and tubos in the drawer in the cabinet. I often combine cigars in 50 cabs when I have less than a half cab of two cigars. I've never noticed any mingling of flavors from different cigars being kept together even after many years. I keep track of the whole mess at Cubancigarwebsite.com.

The Siglo IV is a Cohiba Corona Gorda, or Gran Corona, sized at 46RG by 5.6". This could well be, imho, the perfect cigar. I love Cohiba and smoke them when I know I have uninterrupted time to enjoy one. I think the last one of these I smoked was on a Sunday and I was interrupted a bunch of times so I had to light the cigar many, too many, times and it was ruined. This one was great. I tend to smoke fewer Cohibas than other marcas simply because they are expensive. I do think they shine with age and need five years to show their colors. By my experience people who don't care for Cohiba, Classics and Siglo, have only had young, moist ones and they change their tune when they get a properly humidified Cohiba with some age on it. Yesterdays Siglo IV was very good. It had a little citrusy twang and full tobacco taste. The draw was just a tad loose and the burn did waver a bit necessitating a few touch ups. But I quibble. The IV was dynamite and I nubbed it. I gave it a 4 out of 5 it in my smoking diary at Cuban Cigar Website. If it had been rolled a hair tighter it would have been a 5. For review purposes here I'll rate it really good.

The Vertigo lighters shown above get the job done, seem to last a long time, and are inexpensive. I got two a while ago and think they are the best value around. They last longer and work better than the Xikar and Blazer lighters I've had.

I thought the movie was terrible but the series was one of HBOs best. I'd suggest we have a best line from Deadwood contest but it would be taken down after the first submission.

I store them the way I got them. I'm more of a three pack than a box of 25 guy. I do look at the cigars when I get then, or a few in the box anyway. I have seen thick mold on cigars stored in tubos, not the stuff we used to call plume. I like to put a few cigars from a good box in extra tubos for long term aging.I've had good luck with this. A cab of '06 RASS, for instance, was awesome and rather than smoke every one I stuck 3 in old PSD#4 tubos at something like the 7 year mark. She it, I should smoke one of those......

Well done.