Least / Most plugged Marca

[MC4]

Based on your smoking experience, which marca has the most and the least plugged cigars?

for me

Least: Cohiba

Most: Monte

[ErikB]

Most : Robaina , Upmann

least : RA

[Bclass1]

Great question..

For me, Least: Partagas

Most: Monte

[johnhenry]

With me it's size not brand,42 ring gauge and under 50% chance of being pluged.

Robusto less then 10 in 15 years of smoking. CC and NC .

[El Presidente]

Johnhenry makes a good point.

The thinner the gauge, the higher the % chance of being draw impaired.

keeping that in mind and the fact that some Marques have a higher thin gauge portfolio:

Most: Trinidad (since 2005)

Least: Saint Luis Rey

[SCgarman]

I have had more plugged robustos than petit coronas....go figure??!!

[Croz71]

Most: Monte

Least: Cohiba

[polarbear]

Most: Partagas (the D4 in particular)

Least: Ramon Allones

[Duxnutz]

Touch wood, not a lot of plugs I can recall.

Plugged: Mostly the older skinny Partagas (Sdc line) and Punch (SS no.1 especially)

Non Plugged: everything else! HSA have really come a long way last couple yrs in this area.

Under- filled cigars THAT'S a different story......

[maxcjs0101]

Wont it be easier to have a poll?

Just saying..

[MC4]

Wont it be easier to have a poll?

Just saying..

I attempted to do a poll but it has a limit of 20 choices and there are more than twenty marcas. Maybe i'll just add the 20 of the most popular marcas.

[dangolf18]

Most: 1999-2005 Partagas and Montecristo

Least: Cohiba, SLR

[ramon_cojones]

Based on the sample breadth of cigars I smoke I'd say:

most: upmann

least: RA

list excludes monte, boli, ryj bc I don't have any

[Dozerhead]

Like johnhenry, my experience with plugged sticks usually involves the smaller ring gauges, not specific marcas. Although years ago I had bad luck with Esplendidos. Nothing will tick you off more than spending out the wazoo for cigars like that only to have them plugged.

That being said, I've never had a plugged HdM Epi 2 or Petit Robusto. I haven't had too many plugged Trinidads but I do seem to encounter more tight draws with them, especially the reyes.

[Lotusguy]

Most: Cuaba

Least: Rafael Gonzales

[Pedro2486]

In my noobness I have had only one plug. A Partagas short which I lit up ROTT when I received the box from prez. Aside from that not even a tight draw... Win!

[subport]

Most: smaller rg partagas (mf lately) and good amount of mag 46 sadly (still one of my fav)

Least: everything else outside of the group above

[Surucipe]

Most: Cuaba

Least: Rafael Gonzales

I was a bit surprised not to see Cuaba show up earlier in the "most" category. Haven't had many of them but they all had a VERY tight draw or were just plain plugged. That said, it's an experience based on only 4 or 5 sticks so hardly scientifically relevant.

[PigFish]

For me, I would have to say that the tightest (recent) cigars are from '01. The brand does not matter. I personally love the cigars that came from '01 but many of them have stiff draws. About the only exception would have to be the QdO coronas. I have never had a draw problem with a QdO coronas. Punch yes, Party yes, RA yes, lonsdales the same, especially the HU Lonsdale.

I don't think that I can positively conclude that one brand exhibits more tight cigars than another. On a pure numbers basis, I would have to say that Monte or Cohiba would end up on top, just because they are the most produced cigars. I would further conclude that in many cases the most cigars with stiff draws will come from the cigars that you smoke the most, then secondarily that one or two boxes that you have that are just garbage, poorly produced cigars.

Of the many thousands of cigars that I have smoked I have had very few, I mean less than 10 fully plugged cigars. As I have stated in other threads, I will really work a stiff drawing cigar if it shows promise for taste. What I consider a stiff draw is likely considered plugged to many of you!

I can suck start a leaf blower!!!

Sorry if that is no help. -Piggy

[ErikB]

Suddenly remember the late 90s/early00s when every other RyJ No1/2 in tubes seemed to be plugged..

[mk05]

The question contains unintended bias. The rollers do not know what they are rolling, so how would they take more "precautions" rolling JL#2 vs Epi#2, or Monte #2 vs Upmann #2? Vitolas are simply rolled at a factory, and then later banded by another after a rest in its respective escaparate. Therefore, when smokers experience a plug, it represents a percentage of error in the factory production sample size. To say, "Montecristo gives me the most plugs" is an erroneous statement, as it dismisses two factors: 1) rolling is not marca-specific, and; 2) rollers are factory-specific. As demonstrated above, rollers do not know what they are rolling, so it could have easily been another marca of the same vitola adjusted for production size; there is no significance in such a statement, making the statement insignificant. Furthermore, you cannot ungroup experiences of box codes, (This actually proves the importance of box codes, as it establishes that if there is a greater failure rate at one factory vs another, then there also must be an existence of a greater success rate at one factory vs another.) as rollers are not linear and quality control at factories definitely differ from one to another. For example, it is accepted that a box of El Laguito is of higher quality, undergoes higher QC, than one from a provincial.

Therefore, it would make more sense to interpret the above experience as, "since Montecristos are produced in higher quantities, one could make the case that the amount of error prone products increase in kind per the error rate." That is the only safe and reasonable statement to make with the question originally posed.

The more complete and definitive question should have been to address all the factors above, "what vitola from respective factory and vintage(s) have given you the most plugs."

[MC4]

You do have an excellent point, however, I've been corrected many times on different forums that the rollers do know what they are rolling and have seen a couple videos of tourists touring the different factories, asking the roller what they are rolling and they would say a Trinidad or a BHK.

But even if they do or not, which I am not sure, my intention from this thread was to find out if more experienced rollers are assigned or always given a more premium brand like Cohiba to roll or not. Of course this is all un-scientifically.

So my goal of making this observation from this thread was that if majority would vote let say Cohiba is the least plugged marca, then we could make the conclusion that Cohiba cigars are given to more experienced rollers, or even go further than that and say they are grouped and assigned to different factories where they are assigned to roll premium brands.

I wanted to ask the question of which vitola, but as others have mentioned, anything with a RG of 42 or smaller, and wasn't sure if anything could have been concluded from that.

Again, this is a very unscientific way of doing it, and your points are all valid and make sense.

[mk05]

I've been corrected many times on different forums that the rollers do know what they are rolling and have seen a couple videos of tourists touring the different factories, asking the roller what they are rolling and they would say a Trinidad or a BHK.

Your statement does not make sense to me.

Is this a very old video from Laguito? What else did they roll in EL at the time, other than Cohiba or Trinidad? But it can't be old, since roller says Behike. So let's take a look at the scenario where the video is post '10.

For argument's sake, let's say the video is fairly recent. IIRC, Trinidad is rolled solely at Vegueros. Behike's are rolled solely at EL and Partagas. That means that the scenario you point regarding the roller in the video is impossible. Let's again assume a scenario where I am wrong, and the roller's claims are valid. Then I would surely hope a roller would know that he is rolling a Trinidad with its dead-giveaway pigtail caps (save for the Laguito #1), or the Behike. Furthermore, if the roller was unsure of the fact that he was rolling a Behike, that would mean that he wasn't being supervised for accuracy of rolling with a large variety of leaves including MT for the Behike, maybe that's why there are reports of unused MT in Partagas! (that last part is a joke)

[Colt45]

I'm another who feels marque means much less than who rolled them.

[ramon_cojones]

I've had a few tight qdo coronas so there there goes that data point! Never had a plugged RA.

This thread is still valid with lots of useful points to consider as there are unknown variables because nobody really knows without a doubt what is going on behind closed doors. I've have the most plugged upmanns myself rolled at upmann.