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There is a 'sect' amongst the Cuban cigar enthusiast world that has a strong belief that water content in cigars greatly affects their flavor. Therefore, obtaining cigars from another's environment, containing an amount of water that they themselves have not controlled, represents a risk to the smoking experience. I am not saying that these cigars won't be to your liking. I am only saying that cigars shipped from any vendor must sit a considerable time before I will sample them. My decision is based on decades of receiving and smoking cigars. My opinion is not right for everyone, but there is a certain percentage of the population that will agree with me. There are others that will smoke cigars 'right off the truck.' This is so common that there is an acronym for it... ROTT... so a discussion about a period of acclimatization, or a period of rest is commonplace in Cuban cigar forums. Frankly, you won't know until you try both cigars ROTT, and ones that you have stored yourself for months or years. What you do is your choice and if you are newer, the temptation to 'smoke it now' is pretty strong. It won't be until a time that you have cigars at rest, and more in the pipeline that you will likely be able to resist the urge. Only you can decide when it is a good time to smoke a cigar and frankly no one can tell you when or if, one time is bette than another!!! Welcome to the forum and best of luck in your new passion! -the Pig

Cohiba Exquisitos (MEL April 16):

Freakish looking 2014 Siglo III Coro 2015 2014 898v (one of my favorites) Fabulosos, one regional i put high on the list

Partagas D4 (BRA SEP 13) Sancho Panza Belicosos (ELU MAR 15) Cohiba Lanceros (BTO MAY 12) Cohiba Supremos EL14 Gesendet von meinem D6603 mit Tapatalk

Today, a gorgeous box of Espléndidos: And a 10ct box of very dark and oily Monti PEs, along with a gift from a friend, a beautiful SLR DC:

When was the last time you saw or smoked Cedros that came in Cedros?

SOT JUL 2011 du Gourmet very nice

Sampler from a 24:24...Photo doesn't do 'em justice. Cheers.

BCJ ULA Sep 14. A great smoke.

Lancero celebrating 2 years of marriage at the local brewery

Surprising HP SOM MAR 2016 CoRo

Upmann 2 LUB 14 Exactly what it should be

Cohiba Siglo III (LAU September 15) and another box of Siglo IV (AEM July 15). Clients love the tubos (bloody handy to transport if needed...)!

Not been buying boxes for a while now since before the birth of my son and been picking up mainly singles or 5ers here and there of CC and New World. Thanks to a top BOTL that is@Sunsmoke for splitting these. LTB MAY13 SigVI!Been over 2 years since I smoked a SigVI on my bachelor/stag party trip in Barcelona.The smell as I inspected these was amazing - some seriously top tobacco and can't wait to put one to flame.Quite sentimental and obviously a top cigar

Bolivar Coronas Junior...a great little stick. This is actually the first box I purchased from our host during a 24. Luck would have it that it's a ULA Sep 14 so she's got some time on her. These were a clearance selection but look beautiful. Its a short smoke so I won't break it into segments. Here are my thoughts about today's smoke. It opens immediately with little to no foreplay. She's a medium to full smoke in the start and half way through settles at a medium + . Coffee, tobacco and some cedar for the flavors. This box has been very smokeable with all cigars having what I call a draw with a tug. Just a slight but acceptable amount of resistance. They benefit from a slow paced smoke. They have a nice box pressed appearance but not hard pressed. If you've not had these do yourself a favor and get some. I will always have a box on hand. I give them a solid 90 as an everyday, reach blindly in the box smoke.

I am a little busy with some new orders to hit this in too much detail, so I am going to shoot from the hip here. The caveats first. You know I don't use this stuff. I build a fully controlled humidor so that I don't have to consternate over this crap, yet it interests me certainly. I don't have all the hysteresis data on every element in your or my humidor. This data is important for a true analysis. I don't know if anyone has all the isosteric data on all these elements either, I don't, so all I can do is guess. If that is good enough, I will lend an opinion. You guys (I am speaking rhetorically) are often blending elements and confusing processes. This can lead you to wrong conclusions. I am not speaking to anyone specifically, it is just what I notice. In you humidor you have, lets say four substrates. You have space (what you guys call air), you have cigars, you have wood (boxes, humidor material etc.) and you have a water source. The key (I think) is to match a water source with an environment. The first theory. While I like the idea of a Boveda pack, it has problems! One problem is hysteresis. This is how fast the water either adsorbs or desorbs from the media. It is the lag time. Take a Boveda pack and put it on a dry table... How long till it disappears? Silly experiment, yeah maybe but it should give you an idea about how fast it gives or receives water vapor. If you put this out in a dry space and it does not disappear in a matter of hours, well, it is pretty damn slow and not good for much in a high air exchange environment such as a humidor that you open several times a day. JMHO! Ultimately, the smaller the space the better they will likely work. It is just a matter of their hysteresis. Lets divide our discussion briefly into three categories. I am going to separate three types of items. Item one is a hygroscopic substance and item two is an aqueous salt solution. The third is space. Why do I do this? I do it so you can understand that the Boveda pack does NOT act like your cigars, not really. Yes, it does act in a bidirectional manner, like your cigars, but it acts considerably differently. You see the Boveda pack is (or is advertised as) a temperature independent humidity buffer. In theory, it returns the same ErH for any temperature (within reason). Nothing else in your humidor behaves this way. They all act as hygroscopic materials, except water in space. Water in space is like you hygroscopic material except it works inversely. Let me explain. As temperate increases, a typically hygroscopic material can hold less water. It depends on water energy and molecular bonds to 'hold' water. Space does not hold water, it merely contains water. There is no bond. Yet as temperature increases, space can contain more water because water (liquid water) acts like a hygroscopic material and high energy does not allow it to bond back to itself. So space works to take water from cigars at higher temperature. It is a part of the system of hygroscopic materials. It is the complementary component making a hygroscopic material work as it does. So space and cigars work to complement each other. Therefore as heat increases water moves from cigar to space and as heat decreases water move from space to cigar... In this way you risk excessive water. Why, well because your 'whole system' may contain enough water to form capillary water in the exposed parts of your cigar, namely the wrapper under certain temperature conditions. Bring into this a water source, the Boveda pack that supplies water whenever the ErH line dips and you can have a big problem. Depending on conditions, you may warm your container and cigars causing the ErH to dip and water to be supplied by the Boveda. When the system cools and if it cools rapidly, you may have a problem of high rH in you system. As the system desires to seek equilibrium the cigars (the wrappers and outer layers) may take this water first. Tobacco has a relatively low heat mass and they change temperature rather quickly compared to other surfaces. You have a theoretical problem as I have written it, of course I could be totally wrong!!! So why not try a different media for unstable temperature situations? What media? Well maybe back to beads for some of you guys. Why? Because the beads act like your cigars. When temperature increases they give water, like your cigar. In this way they buffer your cigar (yet with a different isotherm certainly). When the temperature decreases and the cigars become more receptive to water, the desiccant will want to take it back as well, like the cigar, so they will compete for excess water and that water will not simply saturate one item in the humidor, namely the cigar. Why not all three, well I don't have time for that today. But with a constant water supply, again you are back to a situation where you can over saturate a substrate by a low temperature situation where the constant water delivery element simply feeds water to a system that will take more given the opportunity (the temperature). Ultimately Bovedas are good for stable temperatures but work against cigars in variable temperatures. This is all theoretical of course, none of it has been tested by me, nor will I likely ever get around to doing it. I do what I do to avoid all this... but hope it helps some of you anyway! When you use these passive materials you need to be more vigilant with your storage. You become the logic controller in your system. You have to watch, examine and take action when you see potential problems. Ultimately, I think that all these problems can be avoided with proper control, meaning you, as the humidor administrator. Managing humidors makes me crazy... I hated it. I was the worst part of cigar husbandry. I get a machine to do it for me today and I don't get mold! Beads maybe better for some of you. You have to apply the best solution for your environment and if Boveda packs are causing you mold, you need to do something different. You guys also need a better handle on your ambients. This is just a blanket statement. I keep an old controller sold by others (that I used to try and use in my systems) as a display of temp and rH on one of my humidors in the house. You should look at ambients everyday in your home. They will guide you to what you can expect in your humidor. Remember air exchanges??? Keep an eye on both, all the time... That is the way to stay ahead of this game. ...Or go fully controlled (and there's the pitch).... -LOL Rereading this, I wish I had the time to write it better, more clearly but I don't. Sorry if it is not really clear. Cheers! -Piggy

Montecristo Grand Edmundo LAG OCT 10 from a recent 24/24. Beautiful wrappers ready to take a nap for the next couple months.

Winador Aug 12th. Wineador yesterday. I have 6 more boxes on their way. Yeah, you are gonna need a bigger boat Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

With the last cup of this mornings coffee. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My friend...I'm somewhat in the same boat as you...but as Roy Schieder says in Jaws "I think you're gonna need a bigger boat".............

We were all newbies, so don't apologize for that. You've asked some very good questions. You'll likely receive several different answers, but I believe most will be along the lines of the replies from Piggy and Jeremy. Both are as knowledgeable as any on FOH. In my opinion, the cigars in the samplers you received from Rob should be ready to smoke after you've acclimatized them in your humi, assuming you're running that humi at between 60% to 65% rH at around 70 dF. I would let them rest for at least 30 days, better at 60 days. CC's, I don't think, have "sick periods" like they used to. Most current CC stock from the last 4-5 years is good to smoke after you've let them rest for 60 days after receipt from overseas. A factor to consider, beside age, will be the smoking conditions (rH and temp) in which you will be smoking these cigars. You won't get the best taste & burn from a Cuban cigar in high humidity and high temp smoking conditions. That is a matter, though, of personal taste and opinion. You live in Houston, right down the coast from me. At our latitude, on the gulf coast, we both have high humidity conditions almost year round. This time of year is best for smoking outside. Just don't pass final judgment on CC's unless they are stored and smoked in lower rH conditions, i.e. no more than 65%. 60% is better, in my opinion. Your best shot at experiencing aged CC's is to buy boxes as they become available. That is a gamble, at best, if you don't know what you're buying in terms of a stick fitting your taste preference. You might be able to buy or trade some singles from FOH members, but only after you've passed the time and postings rules for the trading room forum. Most of us who have stock piled aged CC's have done so over a long period of time and/or at great expense, and aren't likely to part with their aged stock. It's a journey, my friend. Welcome to the Dark Side. And expand your credit lines and your storage capacity. It's a slippery slope you're on.

Another lovely box of Connoisseur No.1. Pungent aroma. MEG ABR 16

Seriously. A plan with action items. Why are u doing it and how? i.e. Being more affectionate to the wife? Spending less (on whatever)? Being more connected to parents, kids, friends? For me...losing weight. I'm tired of being the fatty in the family pictures. I started in April. Working out five days a week. Five days of cardio mixed in with 4 days of weight lifting. Recently started swimming 30 minutes for cardio. Wow! When i started swimming, the weight started coming off more and getting me off that plateau. Eating more lean meat, red meat once every two weeks. Alcohol consumptiion once every two weeks. Using the app MyFitnessPal to track my macros. Eating a lot more protein. Drinking lots of water. Getting more sleep. Results: Dropped my cholesterol from 270 to 130. Lost 20 pounds so far and replaced it with muscle. I'm changing my lifestyle and my mindset, Im not on a diet or exercise regimen to lose weight. Changing my mindset will hopefully prefent me from being a fatty again 2-3 or 10 years down the road. I'm doing this so i can walk my three daughters down the aisle and be there for my son's wedding. Why this post? Because gentlemen and ladies, we have one shot on this earth, so why not be the best version of ourselves going forward.

Im in AR and I did plug the drain hole. Have it set on the highest temp and have 2lbs of 65% beads in it. It's been pretty good to me for 2 years now. It maintains high 60's for temp and I can manipulate the water content of the beads to keep it around 60RH depending on the season. Another tip I can give you is to make friends on here and trade with them. Or better yet, get a local friend(s) and split some boxes. That's what I did. I split about 8 boxes with a friend of mine when I first started out. That let me get a little stock in my humidor to test and see what I liked. Keep an open mind about this though. There were cigars that I really didn't like (RASS for example) that I really tried to like. I smoked all but 3 and wrote them off saying maybe I'm crazy, all this hype about them and I don't get it. I eventually gave up on them and wrote them off. I would have kept that mindset but I just recently picked one up after about a year and it was AMAZING. I immediately ordered a cab of them. What I found is that, for my tastes, RASS around 2yr hit what I like. I imagine that it gets even better with more age on them so that's why I got the cab. I might smoke 5-10 of them before that 2yr mark just to see what this batch is like but I will save the majority of them for that 2+ year term. What I learned from this entire experience is patience. Patience I didn't ever have with NCs because of the idea that NCs don't require age or are sold aged. I now have much more experience with CCs than I do with NCs but I still feel that NCs seem more consistent than CCs. Meaning that if I don't like a NC, it probably doesn't matter if I age it and try it later. But admittedly, that's something I've never done. In the mean time, find a couple of cigars that you really enjoy (I wound up with BPCs and Monte 4s). These two smoked great fresh and got better with time. Get a box of each. Smoke them and notice how they change. During that time, pick up some other sticks to try and keep the sampling going along and broaden your horizions.....but never write off a cigar on just 1 or even a handful or samples. I'm quickly approaching full capacity in my wineador, it's a vicious cycle.

My H. Upmann madness continues.

RyJ CDL 3. It's okay. Settles in at the light/medium mark after starting heavy. Very linear flavors...not much of a journey. Anyone know why some of these have a red label and others a green?

Drain plug isn't plugged. It's dryer than a popcorn fart out here right now. The humidity in CO doesn't get much over 60% in the spring/summer. So far, it holds between 60-62% with the drain plug open. When I have to play wineador tetris and the door is open for awhile, i just stick a dish of distilled water in it until it levels back off at 62 and then take it out. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

I'm not even a Sox fan. I hate them in fact (Rays fan since moving here in 2010; Marlins fan since inception in '93). Just shocked at the 04 outcome as mentioned from 0-3 to win it. Cleveland looks damn good.

I second what everyone else has said. My 2 cents, this is a fun, expensive hobby - a journey of discovery!

We put together an aged sampler once or twice a year dependent on stock quantities. Nothing on the horizon unfortunately. As for smoking new stock samplers....let them acclimatise and hoe in. 45 days to 60 days down and you are good to go. Some may not be at their best, gut you will get a genuine gist.

Based on advice gleaned here, this is what i did. I ordered as many singles as I could afford. I focused mainly on the "smoke now" recommendations by El Prez and others. As i tried them, I bought boxes of the ones I liked. Then I ordered more samples, lathered, rinsed and repeated. Ones I didn't like I put on the hold list to try again later. As Stogieluver mentioned, you may actually enjoy cigars better outside of your current rh/temp settings. In other words, you may not be enjoying those singles at their optimum water content for your tastes. Keep this in mind before kicking a cigar to the curb totally. I still try to focus my purchases on primarily "right now" cigars but I am moving into cigars that typically taste a little better aged. That doesn't mean they suck now--personal taste trumps "typical age" recommendations. I tried the Mag 46 last night and I didn't get my skirt blown up by it, but I see the potential. Conversely, I had an HUPC last Sunday that was pretty fresh and I loved it! Go figure. I think someone mentioned a great aging set up: Buy one box a year, sample every 6 months until it hits the sweet spot then go to town on them. In 4 years you will have a box for each of the last four years for your smoking pleasure. If you really like a cigar, try and pick up an aged box if you can find it. Go back a year or three and try to get one from each year. Then you are all set. I have a '15 and a '16 box of Coro's so I would love to pick up a '14 box but I try to stay focused on picking up "right now" cigars and smoking through the ever growing singles pile. YMMV Enjoy the ride.

You're going to find you will accumulate some aged cigars here and there once you get into this some more. Overall, however you will find certain things you like and don't like. This is all extremely subjective. You may like cigars ROTT, or you may hate them. You may like aged cigars or you may hate them. The most exciting part of the journey is going to be finding out for yourself what you like and don't like. And take the others advice as well--go buy a larger storage solution now. Even if just a cooler and some beads. You're going to find yourself with many many boxes in less than 6 months time--I guarantee it. Most of all have fun, learn, ask questions, and share the hobby with someone else as well. Welcome!

MF Le Bijou petite robusto:

Shirts - the more pockets the better for carrying cigars.....you can get guayaberas in Havana (hotel shops and LCDHs are expensive for these but there's a good shop off Calle obispo if I remember correctly that does good value good quality linen ones, @Ryan is the best man to advise on this as he's bought a few while there over the years) Khakis and a semi formal shirt should be ok for the partagas events but the Friday gala would also be a jacket event if you're going. best thing you could bring would be a FOH cigar traveller with a few spare cartridges (gas can be hard to get and often quality of has found in Havana is crap), don't bring a good lighter as you'll end up losing it or swapping it with a barman in the gato tuerto for drinks (it's happened to the best of us). Failing that the LCDH in the media Havana used to sell jet lighters for 2 cucs which were good but not sure if they still do those! hope that helps a bit!

Am I a hater for hoping the Cubs don't take it all?? I feel some curses need not be broken. Although 04 Red Sox was miraculous...

Was at a walk around Italian wine tasting in Toronto last week and ended up ordering six of these 2009 Mastroberardino Radici Reserva Taurasi. Got a call today that they were in for pick up and was pleasantly surprised that it came in a very nice wood box. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

2015 BBF last night a little harsh and an 07 Dip 2 and an 07 D

Apparently, it's one of those few professions where just mentioning the name defames it! - MG

Just received Rob's rotation, and a mixed bundle of Johnny O P109s, Baby Salomons and a handful of BH54s.. beautiful

What about the claim about the 4 hour erection and to seek "immediate medical attention" for that little blue pill??? I'd be seeking some other type of attention....if you get my drift

Punch RS 12 from 2005

Dusky Maidens from our Host Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

These just keep showing up....

My very sexy delivery on Saturday of a Oct 2008 from a recent 24:24............

1000 words not enough to describe this amazing stick...

Been about six months since I received these and almost forgot about them. LOADS of smoke with notes of Vanilla bean at the 1st 3rd! Great smoke right after a garbanzo bean and spicy shrimp salad...It's what's for lunch!

H Upmann Mag46. Celebrating new job ?