Methanol flavour

[laranced]

Dear FOH comrades,

I have recently smoked a few cigars with a strong methanol flavour towards the back half. These cigars were a Montecristo number two, Partagas P2, and a Bolivar petite Corona. On all three occasions the flavour has been very overpowering and has taken away from the cigar taste enjoyment.

I was wondering where these methanol flavour comes from:

A) Is the cigar to young;

is the cigar to moist or humid;

C) Is the cigar not burning evenly or am I smoking it too hot.

For your information I store my cigars in a wine fridge at around 68 to 72% humidity. On most occasions I try to dry box my cigars before I smoke them.

All three cigars are 2011 stock.

Would love to know why this is happening. I appreciate any of your comments.

Slothy.

[Guest rob]

just to clarify - do you mean MENTHOL or METHANOL?

Methanol would be a very unusual taste as it would be all but the same as pure Alcohol.

[Wil]

I wondered the same thing.

I'm guessing that because it's happening toward the end it could be one or all three of the following: youth; over-humidified; smoking too quickly.

A couple of questions:

How long have your boxes been in the wine fridge?

How long are you dry boxing for?

68-70 rh sounds a bit high to me. Most here keep their humidors between 60-65.

[brazoseagle]

These are 3 of my favorites, of which I've smoked 100's of. Never once have I experienced neither menthol nor methonol??? Where did you source your cigars and how do you store them? Very odd.

Your rh levels are way too high, but I'd be willing to say your wine fridge might be leaking some chemicals or something.

[Wil]

Maybe, but if it were chemicals you'd expect it to happen throughout the cigar, not just at the end.

Sounds to me like they are smoking too hot.

[jimschn]

Isn't methanol the type of alcohol that makes you go blind? How do you know what that tastes like? Ethanol would be the kind you drink..

[laranced]

Sorry guys. I meant to post that they had a strong menthol taste.

I don't think the supplier is the issue. Having said that, none of these were from Cigar Czar (quickly changing that).

I think it is a humidity problem. I have just installed 65 beads which hopefully will change things for the better. I store all my cigars in two humidors which then sit inside my wine fridge.

I generally dry box for 24 plus hours. Should I need to do it longer at the moment? (we have just been through a very wet Summer here in Sydney).

I have just been really annoyed lately as these should have been great cigars to smoke. I have some great stock (i.e. 2003 Cohiba mixed reserve box) and I don't want to ruin them, so maybe I should be getting a better setup.

Thanks for your input. Keep it coming. I am always learning.

Cheers

Slothy

[Wil]

I like to dry box for at least three days. Of course the humidity of the dry box must be lower than the humi to have the desired effect. Given Sydney's wet summer, that may be part of the problem?

[DougB]

I get the same thing in cigars with less than 5 years of age. For me it is the ammonia flavor due to their youth. I keep my cigars at 65% and I smoke slowly too so I don't think it is either factor. It does not happen with all cigars, but with most for sure. Sometimes it hits right at the start of the last third while other times it happens closer to the end of smoking. If I smoked any slower they would go out. Youth I think...youth

[Strada]

I had the same experiemce with a RA Superiores. The end of the last third was pure menthol. I was smoking with Riaz and thought I was going crazy and he comfired it was menthol.

Like Doug said, most likely it is missing some age, mine were 11's

[ajgagnon]

I don't know anything about the chemistry, but I love that in a cigar. Sometimes I find the flavour from a strong, rich cigar can drift over to those liquorice or menthol kinds of characters. Usually I can't put them down, but it's not purely due the menthol, it's because it has been such a damn good cigar.

[El Presidente]

Menthol is certainly not a flavour I come across often and 99% of what I smoke is current stock. now that doesn't mean that Menthol is not present but it may be that I am not predisposed to the flavour (every palate is physiologically different).

[laranced]

Thank you all for your input. Always great advice.

I think I will look to getting the humidity down to 65% for the wine fridge or maybe look to getting a better model.

I will look to smoking my cigars a little bit slower.

And I will aim to dry box for several days.

Cheers

Slothy

[PigFish]

I have tasted menthol in cigars before, not really often but in a notable amount. I have also tasted phenol and what I call eucalyptus. I have tasted what I call tea tree oil and gasoline!

The gasoline flavor I found more common in cigars from the late 90's when they were young. While I have attributed some of these tastes to age, perhaps more correctly as incomplete or poor fermentation, I have not attributed them to moisture content. I do contribute them to the development of tannins in the cigar leaf, but I have no proof of that, just assumptions made on tasting results of differing food stuffs and chemicals.

Wet cigars taste sour to me. They have a rank or spoiled taste. It is not that a good pungent cigar cannot taste through that rank taste, but it does tend to spoil a cigar for me.

[IcedCanuck]

In the summer months the humidors I smoke out of usually sits between 70 RH and 72 RH. In the winter months I find it bounces between 62 RH and 64 RH. Those humidors use the sponge systems with 50/50 mix of propylene glycol and distilled water. I do not dry box anything, pull out of humi and light 'em up, and have never experienced any menthol flavours (knock on wood). My aging coolidors sit at a constant 65 RH regardless of the time of year. I won't touch a box until it has a minimum of six months on it (I'll let them sit in the coolidors for as long as it takes) so I'm not sure if perhaps that could have something to do with it. Because of my own personal experiences I do not believe humidity is your problem.