Vitola that best represents the Marca?

[beamer]

Curious to know which Vitola you think best represents a specific Marca?

The cigar that you feel best captures the essence of the brand, the history, and the most common flavors.

Thanks!

[CanuckSARTech]

Oy vay!

RA - RASS

Cohiba - Siglo IV (fresh) or Lancero (aged)

Trinidad - Fundadores or Robusto T (fresh)

RyJ - who cares at this point

Montecristo - Monte No. 2's (good ones can be hard to find though)

LGC - Medaille d'Or No. 1's

Cuaba - (although I am a solid proponent of the Piramides EL 2008)

H. Upmann - Magnum 46

Partagas - 898

Hoyo de Monterray - Des Dieux or Epi 2's

Diplomaticos - No. 4's, but alas discontinued

Por Larranaga - regionals (the Robustos and the Encantos are both awesome)

QdO - same thing, Superiores (regional robustos)

Bolivar - Gold Medals

SCDLH - good La Fuerza's

[beamer]

Whoa- thanks!! You didn't have to do all of them!!

[CanuckSARTech]

Whoa- thanks!! You didn't have to do all of them!!

LOL. That's not ALL, and some may disagree / give different picks. Just some humble thoughts from this bloke.

Cheers and good luck, hope it helps some.

[riazp]

yeah i'll go with what Keith said. I'd add for partagas the short, partagas in a small package. and bolivar petit corona as well.

[mk05]

Usually most would say a PC is a good barometer for a marca. Once you branch out from that experience, you may like the other offerings in the line.

[dangolf18]

RA - RASS

Cohiba - Esplendido

Trinidad - Reyes

RyJ - No.2 tubos

Montecristo - Montecristo No.4

H. Upmann - Magnum 46

Partagas - 898

Hoyo de Monterray - Des Dieux

Diplomaticos - No. 4

QdO - Corona

Bolivar - Gold Medals

SCDLH - El Principe

[maverickdrinker]

Usually most would say a PC is a good barometer for a marca. Once you branch out from that experience, you may like the other offerings in the line.

X2. Holds true for the marcas that have a PC in its offering.

[LexG]

curious to see what people have to say about Punch...

[ChanceSchmerr]

I'll disagree with Keith a little. ... just for fun!

Bolivar - Boli PC. Gold medal is really it's own unique earthy animal...

Cohiba - Lancero

Cuaba - Salomones. It looks impressive, and tastes like crapola..... Exactly like the rest of the line.....I do like the LE piramides too - but they are more representative of a good Cuban cigar, not Cuaba.

Diplomaticos - No. 4 (R.I.P.)

El rey del mundo - Petit Corona. No other ERDM hits that light creamy citrus like the PC

Fonseca - Beats me. I hope not the KDT Cadetes.....

H Upmann - Sir Winston with 7+ years of age.

Hoyo de Monterrey - Double Corona. Acres of soft, sweet cream.

Juan Lopez - Seleccion No. 5 RE Andorra. Imagine the savory goodness of a Sel 1 or 2...compresses into a Perla size. This cigar showed me how fine JL could be.

La Gloria Cubana - Medaille D'Or No. 1. Gingerbread!!!

Montecristo - No.1. A classic and far less variable than No 2s and 4s

Partagas - Serie D No 4.

Por larranaga - Petit Corona. Pure honey.

Punch - Punch Petit Punch, lots of sour fruits and spice

Quai D'Orsay -Corona Claro

Ramon Allones - sadly...no other RA cigar exhibits as much stewed fruit and rich deep flavour as the 898. Not even the vaunted RASS

Rafael Gonzalez - Corona Extra. Baking chocolate.

Romeo y Julieta - agreed, who knows anymore

Sancho Panza - Non Plus. Belicosos is the better cigar, but Non plus is truer to the salty core of SP

Saint Luis Rey - Regios from a cab. Once you've tried one, you'll get SLR

SCDLH- does anyone know this marca well enough to say? Probably El Principes.

Trinidad - Fundadores with 5+yrs

Vegas Robaina - Unicos, impossibly rich

Vegeuros - take your pick

One man's opinion....you can see that when we lose cigars to discontinuation, we lose more than cigars, we lose identities. It's this that Habanos SA isn't hoisting in, IMHO.

[Lotusguy]

I scrapped my reply after seeing the one right above this - agree almost 100%, except I'd pick the Monte #3 over the Monte #1, for Fonseca I would add the Cosacos, and for SCDLH, I'd pick the Oficios.

JL bores me to tears, except the #5 and I have had SLR Regios from a cab and still only find them "meh"... They are a good representative of the marca, though (I have exactly zero SLR in my inventory of over 3k sticks).

Come to think of it, for HDM I'd pick the Epi 1 over the DC but that is mostly because I almost never smoke DCs.

[Pilgrims]

Very interested by the result here, agree largely. At a slight tangent I tend to find PC's the most typical size for many marques as a whole whereas Robustos to me are the least typical...

[mk05]

I'd pick the Monte #3 over the Monte #1

A man after my own heart...although I may add that grand marcas such as Monte, RyJ, etc have distinct sub-blends. You'd have to add the Especiales to the Monte.

You have yet to have a remarkable JL#2 then. SLR is tricky, almost not worth opening until 10+ years, from what I've seen. Then it completely changes.

[Charltonc]

I have been in love with my SLR lonsdales (fifty cab) from 98, SLR serie a ( fifty cab) from 01 , and SLR double coronas form 01.. Recent SLR regios and Serie a's have been very good fresh too, but SLR is my favorite marque. My favorite cigar of all time is SLR churchill. I just finished a cab from 05 that was straight honey and cream.

[mazolaman]

Cuaba Divinos- peanut niceness.

Sancho Panza Bacherilles salty darkness.

SCDLH La Punta sweet spice.

Monte No1 Dark coffee.

R Y J sometimes Cazadores, if rosey red wrappers.

Hoyo Du Roi.

Partagas coronas.

ERDM Choix supreme

Fonsecca No 1.

Cohiba who cares??

[tmac77]

Bolivar - Corona Extra

Cohiba - Siglo IV

Cuaba: Who cares

Diplomaticos - No. 4

El rey del mundo - Choix Supreme

H Upmann - No 2

Hoyo de Monterrey - Epi #1 or the churchill

Juan Lopez - Seleccion No. 1

La Gloria Cubana - Medaille D'Or No. 2

Montecristo - No.2 or a really good No 4

Partagas - Serie D No 4.

Por larranaga - Petit Corona

Punch - Super Seleccion No 2. on discontinued and Punch DC on current production

Quai D'Orsay -Corona Claro

Ramon Allones - RASS

Rafael Gonzalez - Corona Extra.

Romeo y Julieta - Don't care

Saint Luis Rey - DC

SCDLH- El Principe

Trinidad - Colonials

Vegas Robaina - Unicos

[Hohenthal]

Just to simplify the answer a bit -

Minutos and Coronas Gordas usually represent the character of a brand very well.

Cheers, Aex

[PigFish]

My opinion is so diametrically opposed to Tabacuba and the mainstream that I doubt that it is relevant to todays cigar environment.

There are no brands! There are cigars, if not made in a large format vitola, the popular ones that get the greatest retail price per stick, the cigars are no longer made. These cigars are put in smaller boxes to get a higher cost per stick. The "brand" and brand heritage, the preservation of a style and taste of a cigar is not at all a concern of Tabacuba et al. Killing the epitome cigars, killed the brands!

If I were to say that the epitome of the Partagas cigar was the Party lonsdale, or Coronas, what that means to the smoker of today is than I am stuck in the past. I am stuck in the past!

Heritage means that some stock sits on a shelf until its follower finds it. He finds it with some age, at a reasonable price and is giddy over the purchase. Today cigars must change by the year or they don't sell out. Selling out is important, quality, repeatable cigar experiences are not. There is some logic to it. If the cigar is crappy, you certainly have not made too many. Repeating it is not important, because it is "limited." You simply dream up a new crappy cigar and hype the crap out of it. When you don't have the backstop of smoking heritage cigars, high quality regular production cigars, you buy it because you have no real choice any more.

Heritage was value. Heritage was quality. Heritage meant that the experience you gained gave you the wisdom of which cigars were the best for you, regardless of price or branding. Heritage meant that you could learn and eventually acquire the best smoking experiences for you. It meant that Tabacuba needed to make consistent cigars to impress you, to keep you as a customer. When cigars change, the expectations change with them. Disappointments don't mean lost customers. You have no cornerstone, no heritage to build from.

Not wishing to disappoint, any cigar I would put on the list is one you can only get in limited quantity now because some 'master mind' has discontinued it. What does it mean to say that a classic Diplomatico is the D-1? You might as well say it was a Davidoff.

-the Pig

[LGC]

Thanks Ray... you said everything that I am too lazy to type.

Brands are not what they used to be. I don't think blends hold true to their heritage for the most part. How the heck can it be right to turn ERDM, La Gloria, and Quai d'Orsay into a large ring gauge cigar???????

I love small ring gauge cigars because of their profiles influenced by the higher wrapper to filler ratio. With all of these stupid RE's... 1/4...1/3...1/2... super...double... robustos and churchills coming out... how many times have you heard more experienced smokers stating that the newer cigars don't taste like a typical blend from so and so brand????

The marketing folks are going nuts trying to make more money and attract newer and/or younger customers.... while abandoning the original customer base that would be loyal for many years and decades.

[mk05]

I will say a couple things re this issue.

No one knows the diplomatic blend, but they were produced in the Upmann factory, until the Cohiba came around. Said to be close to an Upmann, not a Davidoff #1. (I'm not sure I understood what you were trying to say there)

I hear this "taste more wrapper" argument a lot. Let me remind you that the Habanos capa is shade grown and not very flavorful, unlike the NC counterpart. The Habanos flavor comes from the tripa, which is the filler. Capa only has a handful of processing steps, whereas the tripa undergoes an arduous process of maintenance and selection.

As for the cigar not tasting like the past, what do you expect! Not the same seed, not the same blend! I'm actually amazed the ligador can recreate a taste with the tiempos time and time again. Anyway, there is a theory that since Habanos is tripa based, a larger ring gauge works as a buffer to hide the inconsistencies and bad tobacco coming from the newer batches of tobacco. I discount it, I believe it's more about the newer smokers liking bigger cigars, but who knows.

Now a bit of a tangent since we're going back to FoH's "back in my day when cigars were thinner" thing once again...I remember the good Doctor said some time ago of Zino commenting back in the '70s of how the corona was the after-dinner size, with the lonsdale being the "majestic" size - any cigar larger than that would be laughable, or the person having an inferiority complex. Even his Dom Perignon, made for people with a "complex," as he put it.

Simon Chase hinted back in his Havana speech, that as the robusto was introduced, and a generation of people joined the cigar world, the connoisseur-ship of cigar smoking, the aficionado, started dying, as people - in all honestly - didn't know how to smoke a cigar properly. With the addition of CA and other media outlets touting larger cigars, coupled with Altadis' marketing tactics of "produce what sells" enabling new smoker, the new hobbyists had no chance to learn.

[Zigatoh]

See I didn't smoke cigars pre 2000, and am not rich enough to buy huge amounts of pre 2000 cigars, but I still wouldn't argue that cigars now smoke like cigars then, that would be ridiculous, even if seeds hadn't been changed to combat various issues, and blends hadn't changed, I can't imagine tobacco would be any different to say wine (groan everyone says) which from the same plants, in the same ground, changes radically year after year!

So why does everyone bang on about them not being like they used to be, of course they're not, and a year, ten years and so on from now they won't be again!

Same with peoples tastes and demands, sizes will change, brands will change, but surely there's always cigars to love and enjoy and smoke...

Anyway, another vote for the Monte 2

Psd4, PLPC, Cohiba:who cares!, RA-RASS, HdM-PR, Boli-BBF, trini-coloniales, RyJ-churchill

[Zigatoh]

Just because Zino Davidoff or Simon Chase say that bigger cigars is for posers or that people are not "smoking cigars the right way", I say who cares? This hobby is about enjoying the smoking of a cigar and not about doing it "the right way". If I enjoy a big cigar that I use a bic lighter to light. Then all is good. I don't need anybody telling me that I am doing it the wrong way if the way I am doing it is the way I enjoy.

Blimey, I'm +1'ing Shlomo!

[mk05]

Zigatoh, it was more about how Cubatabaco put less ligero in the blends as the demand skyrocketed.

I agree Shlomo, smoke what you like. The tangent was to show a perspective from the past, and how different it is from the market.

[Zigatoh]

Zigatoh, it was more about how Cubatabaco put less ligero in the blends as the demand skyrocketed.

Fair enough, and I do believe that is a shame being a fan of the flavour and strenght the ligero adds, but it's just suc a common complaint, they ain't like what they used to be.... Very little is!

[LexG]

Fair enough, and I do believe that is a shame being a fan of the flavour and strenght the ligero adds, but it's just suc a common complaint, they ain't like what they used to be.... Very little is!

the only thing thats the same as it was 20 years ago, is how things arent the same as they were 20 years ago!