Monterey

AMP DEC19

Scored with 3 boxes of the Montecristo Especial. Hard to find box, so grabbed 3. These and 2 nudie lancero's on the way. Guess it is skinny time in the new year!

Some people are committing based on box splits, and I don't think that this is what this post is meant to be about. And agree with Bijan of buying the last 5 of a box. I think it has to do more with buying a box of 21-23. There is a huge difference between splitting a box, buying some of the last, and buying a box of cigars where the seller could have said "That's it, 3 duds, I'm selling the rest of the awful box" Trust me, it occurred to me to sell a partial box of 2018 plugged RyJ churchills. 5 straight plugs. I felt karma would get me, so I didn't. In the end, the box was almost all plugs.

And this is why I will never buy a partial box! Can't figure why anyone would buy a partial box.

Not a true statement. Available off the island. Just picked up a few boxes. But still rare. I did regularly see them in Cuba though.

Removed my previous post as I shouldn't have mention prices of other places here. Summary, my recent purchase of Monty Especial fell in line with the above mentioned price ranges. Rob has the Lancero for 750ish recently. Have to go by YUL as prices of late have more to do with lack of supply vs the true value of cigars. The original point I was trying to make was not about prices anyhow, just length wise, what is someones "every day cigar" If I smoked 2-3 cigars a day, it would be all 5-6 inch cigars. Because I smoke 1, 7 is more what I like.

Monte Especial is 24% higher over the #2. Cola is 29% higher over the CCE. N1 over N3 was 28% Seems right in line to me.

For me, a 1 cigar a day guy, churchill is the size I wish I could smoke everyday. If only was there enough of them. I guess I would also counter than the N1 at 7.5 sold out much faster then the 6 inch N3. So perhaps others also prefer the longer size? Just a guess. Or perhaps you just had a lot more of the N3's and I'm wrong.

Love the 47 ring gauge. Churchill is my favorite size. Would prefer the full 7 inches, but would love to see a 6 x 47. Churchills are just so rare in Cuban these days. Would love to have another cigar in the churchill size.

So often people seem to get mad if their favorite cigar isn't on the list. I pray that my favorites don't make it! 2 of my favorite non-cubans are contenders. I so hope they don't make the top 10. Else I can kiss that cigar goodbye. CA gave a bad score to the HUSW because they got a plugged example. Thank god. Now it is unavailable for the top 26 (only cigars with a 91+ in the past year are eligible for the list). Already impossible to get. If it got #1, I would never see it again. So here's to CA and I'm sending you my vibes to not put any cubans on the top 25 and leave my 2 non-cubans contenders alone. They suck and they don't belong on the top 25. Let the cigars I don't care for be massed purchased by people who think the top 10 means anything!

That was discussed at length recently here. I still hold firm that whiter ash is just an indication of magnesium in the soil. But if you believe that whiter is better, then given that cubans are usually dark (not always), cubans is probably not your game. But this is for a different thread.

I have no point other than saying the temp of the cigar won't jump up and down based on the current ash amount. Saying that there is no flavor variation from the first puff to the last puff prior to ashing makes sense unless you think the cherry heat will suddenly increase the second after ashing. If you ashed after every puff, then perhaps it would get hotter. Never tried it. Though if it works, then I may do it, tired of ash ending in my lap! Let me know how it goes.

Except that perhaps that first puff you mention is still nice and cool from the long ash just knocked off. It's not like that first puff suddenly got hotter in the seconds after the ash was dropped

That is sort of the point. Non-Cubans are aged much further in the first place. That makes the benefit of additional age unnecessary. In most cases, non-cubans are released near the top of their experience, age wise. In my experience, Cubans are the king of aging. Non-cubans I've had mixed results. Only on a few occasions have I thought 5+ years of age a non-cuban was better then it is fresh. Meanwhile, 95% of cubans aged 5 years are significantly better then fresh for me. As always, to each their own. Never had a nudie (2 bundles on the way), so no clue how these will age. So my comments have nothing to do with these.

Post has been up for days and it has stayed peaceful. Says a lot about the forum.