I’ve been in a battle with cigar mold for more than 10 years now. I’ve been using this “quarantine” set up for 5 years.
(Step 1) I unwrap the cigar box and transfer cigars (without touching them) into a brand new acrylic jar.
(Step 2) I use Boveda humidipaks
(Step 3) I dispose of the cigars that have any non-white mold. (Rare)
(Step 4) I dispose of the cigars that have white mold that smells bad. (Rare)
Although I’m quite certain that “plume” is BS at this point. I’ve seen a pattern that may explain the appearance of plume.
(1) It is rare, but (less than 1 out of every 15) jars grow mold that is dark in color. (In the past 5 years, all were from new boxes, shortly after purchase)
(2) Of the 11 jars that currently have “plume aka white mold”, 7 of those jars contain cigars that didn’t come with cellophane wrappers.
(3) Of the 21 jars that currently do not have mold (yet), ALL of them have cellophane wrappers. (+2 jars for randoms in another cabinet)
I’ve removed myself as a source of mold to the best of my ability. However, I must open the jars to remove a cigar to smoke, and to replace humidipaks. Excluding cigars that were pre-humidipaks and pre-quarantine, I’ve only found dark mold on cigars shortly after purchase. I think it’s likely that I (or someone) contaminated most cigars that lack cellophane. Also, I think the white mold that grows under the cellophane is present before purchase. Mold could be common or unavoidable when aging cigars. HOWEVER, even a cigar shop that does well to wipe mold from visible inventory can’t expect to find all of it. This is, I think, the real issue here. Some mold is possibly bad. Some mold is possibly harmless. Is it true that white mold will grow on roughly 17% cigars, even when stored optimally? Is that an acceptable loss to a cigar store’s bottom line? Regardless, plume is probably mold but we’re still unsure, after nearly 30 years with the World Wide Web.
