tippexx

I thought tins were relatively safe. This this afternoon. Went into the Tup for a suitable smoke for a rain dodging afternoon, and was met by two holes I'm pretty sure weren't there last time. Each is about 1mm diameter and almost perfectly round. Fortunately it is a tin and I don't think anything can exit from it. There were in fact three cigars in the tin and I smoked the one without a hole. So what do I do now? I guess the tin has to be chucked, shame as I quite enjoyed the ones I did get to smoke.

Given that 'seconds' isn't a word in the Habanos Dictionary and in the UK means another helping of something .... wouldn't 'distressed' be a more apt descriptive word, or even 'slightly distressed' if you wanted to be a little more gentle with the marketing.

The UK and the Republic The Premiership The Worlds best National Park .... we call it Scotland The bacon sandwich .... the real thing is totally beyond the grasp of foreigners London .... it's where everyone with ambition wants to go .... not Paris, not Berlin, not New York, not LA .... no ifs no buts London Our beers, our Whisky .... granted the Germans and Belge are equally good brewers .... but no one else is Our sense of humour Our sense of the ridiculous and our pretense that we aren't Our sense of expectation before World Cups and our ability to shrug off the loss until the next one

I'm nearer to 70 than 60 too and 'spose if I have CRAFT it's selective. But it is gratifying to read through a bunch of 'kids' ageing confessions and realise I'm backward in the grumpy stakes and need to catch up .... or is that down?

.... I wonder how much this costs? http://www.intertabak.com/fr/news/nouveaux-produits/ramon-allones-perfectos-humidor

Also depends on how you approach them Frank. Slow an' easy on a sunny afternoon and the RyJ SL is a lovely smoke. However the cheapie I really lament the passing of was the Partagas Princess .... simply superb and not to be found now anywhere!

I would agree. And if they have notion they do something similar to the way in which French Regional wines are protected. Many sparkling wines are produced worldwide, but most legal structures reserve the word Champagne exclusively for sparkling wines from the Champagne region etc. The words Cuba and Havana have a unique status when associated with cigars, they could take steps to prohibit the use of those words if related to tobacco products produced outside Cuba. Likewise Pinar del Rio.

I'd go a bit further Polar, I'd say all Tubos. All are too easily dismissed because of the cost of the tube, and the tube dismissed as being only a carrier. And when was the last time anyone smoked or reviewed a Monte Tubos, a real cracker of a smoke in my opinion.

The accuracy of Habanos codes isn't 100% reliable unfortunately. At first glance your cigars 'look' OK, but aren't all cream of the crop. I would also say, and given the time you may have had them it may have nothing to do with the vendor, some of your smokes appear to have spots of mould on them .... they need a bit of a wipe off. No offence intended.

I think that about sums it up for me too because the opportunities to smoke one are so few and far between that comparisons become almost impossible. I voted for the Punch on the strength of it being the last one I smoked.

But down in the Minors I think DM. And could a NC/CC blend be anything other than a Limited Edition, because to get year on year consistency would require some degree of proprietery control over fields and production.

Bolivar JC and Monte 5. Apart from the SCdlH El Pincipe the remainder are a bit 'so what' in my opinion .... and the dreadful HUHC should never have been given light of day .... the RG Perlas I'm possibly being a little harsh on having only tried two, but so for me it's only a shade better than the underwhelming HUHC.

But most of the other brands have competing trademark ownership (e.g., Bolivar, Hoyo de Monterrey, Partagas, among others). Most of these brands existed prior to the revolution and nationalization. In many cases, the US companies were started by the same families who owned the brands in Cuba and left after Castro took over. I don't think any anti-Cuba bias will be necessary for US courts to find in the current US holders' favor. And that would block a lot of existing Cuban brand names in the USA. Nationalisation and ownership by a Government will rightly or wrongly take precedence I think. Not that it matters, with the knowledge that the real McCoy can be available the ersatz versions will wither on the vine. They've had a good run, time it was over.

I'm wondering if this Thread isn't a little late .... China is already there.

and a Cuban Aficionado with easy Internet access and an entrepreneurial frame of mind could do very well.