I know this Bourbon Family Tree exists...Habanos Family Tree?

[JZBdano]

1 hour ago, PapaDisco said:

It will be a grand day for cigars when (if!) all of the HSA marcas are back in private hands.  Image each one estate produced and rolled.

 

Like fine wine! Maybe someday.

[El Presidente]

1 hour ago, PapaDisco said:

It will be a grand day for cigars when (if!) all of the HSA marcas are back in private hands.  Image each one estate produced and rolled.

 

I hope and pray that I will be there. 

[Mattb82]

Common characteristics among the marcas yes. just read descriptions on 24:24 and tell me you think they are all the same just different bands for marketing. I may not be able to tell the marcas in a blind testing but I can tell the cigars are different.  

[PigFish]

12 hours ago, Fataman said:

Has anyone seen or participated in a NC blind taste test? I haven't but would guess that the success rate would be similar to the Cuban test..........
Or are the guys guessing the NC correctly at a higher percentage rate?

This is interesting and I can tell you a little story.

I once did a blind tasting with 10 cigars and one was a ringer that none of us knew about. We thought all the cigars were Cuban. I could not even fathom to identify this one cigar. I actually wrote that if I did not know better I would say it was non-Cuban. I said, to paraphrase, that if this cigar was Cuban is was one of the lousiest machine made cigar that I ever tasted. I guessed as what it was in the Cuban line, and was wrong, but I nailed the narrative. It was in fact not a Cuban cigar!

Whether or not people can taste the difference between NC cigar is irrelevant to me. I don't smoke them. Perhaps some of you that do, can comment. The question is, again for those of you who read about NC cigars, are whole books written telling you what the cigars characters are? I happen to think that this is where the profile narrative comes from. These are marketing tools and nothing more. Something like the glassine on cigars... When it came up as a topic, many people guessed about why it was that cigars came in glassine. I researched it, and the final answer was marketing. No reasons for aging or any other collector BS, it just made the cigar 'look like' they would be more fresh!

Brand profiles, are, in MHO, marketing hog wash and it would not surprise me at all if NC cigars suffered the same reality.

The difference that privatization would make, would be that of competition. More competitive prices, more variety, and people who actually cared if there is a recipe to follow. You cannot send me 25 cigars in a box with 30 to 40% variation in weight from the lightest to the heaviest and tell me that someone is following a recipe. If you make a cake, leaving out core ingredients might mean you get dinner rolls, but it won't be cake. You cannot tell me that there are brand profiles when those that are making the product cannot even get the recipe right... and include the correct amount of core ingredients in the right proportions.

-the Pig

[PapaDisco]

7 hours ago, PigFish said:

The difference that privatization would make, would be that of competition. More competitive prices, more variety, and people who actually cared if there is a recipe to follow. You cannot send me 25 cigars in a box with 30 to 40% variation in weight from the lightest to the heaviest and tell me that someone is following a recipe. If you make a cake, leaving out core ingredients might mean you get dinner rolls, but it won't be cake. You cannot tell me that there are brand profiles when those that are making the product cannot even get the recipe right... and include the correct amount of core ingredients in the right proportions.

-the Pig

Y'know . . . I would not care about variations from cigar to cigar in the rolling.  While I think that variable would shrink if a single roller produced a single box (Ken's fantasy come true!  ), but I do care about each marca having it's own production/rolling team and blender.  I believe that would go a long way to making each marca more noticeably distinct.

Smoking CC's today, I have the experience that the variability from box to box, and year to year, overwhelms most of the distinguishing traits a specific marca is expected to represent.  With 'estate' style production I would expect that experience to reverse, but that's just my guess.

[Fugu]

21 hours ago, PigFish said:

How about this one for the brand experts.

Exactly what 'taste' does every Montecristo cigar have? One rule, you cannot use the brand name in your answer!  -P

Can't really tell you, as I rarely smoke said marca, cause I don't like them for their characteristic taste...

[jfire]

I've gotten 3/5 correct in a blind tasting before. Held on another board. And while maybe I can not state every characteristic of every Marca. My sensory tells me when I'm smoking a certain vitola (say the 2011 Monte 2 last week that was on) that I can pick it out of a lineup again. (If said cigar is performing like it should)
So being that I can recount certain notes/flavors when smoking. Tells me indeed that there are certain traits to each brand. (Although many are shared with each brand.) Certain brands have more specific traits than others....


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[Fugu]

On 18/12/2016 at 8:29 AM, PapaDisco said:

Image each one estate produced and rolled.

On 19/12/2016 at 2:16 AM, PapaDisco said:

With 'estate' style production I would expect that experience to reverse, but that's just my guess.

 

Perhaps to clarify more expressly what Smallclub as well as myself have already mentioned above. Funny thing about that is - it has actually - mostly - never been that way prior to the revolution either. Obviously most folks tend to misconceive these historic facts.

Examples? Just a few of the most prominent ones:

La Escepción and Hoyo de Monterrey been brands invented by and made under the roof of José Gener (and certainly not been the same 'mush'). Later, in the 1930s made together with Punch, Belinda and some other, smaller marcas.

Montecristo been produced almost from the start together with H. Upmann (to this day) at the Particulares Upmann factory, after Menendez bought Particulares and Byron and later Upmann.

[Edit: Just noticed, a mistake slipped in when typing hastily: Of course it must read the Monte production had been moved from Particulares to Upmann (which is its mother factory to this day). Montecristo had been developed at the Particulares factory after Alonso Menendez bought it in 1935, and production moved subsequently to Upmann when he bought it about two years later.]

Rey del Mundo Cigar Company, in the 30s holding such marcas as ERDM, Sancho Panza, Rafael Gonzales, Don Candido.

Partagas, as perhaps one of the most striking examples - the Cifuentes family had held more than two dozen marcas by the time they fled the island. Among them the most famous and prestigious such as Cifuentes, Partagas, Bolivar, La Gloria Cubana, Ramon Allones... All under one company, all made in the same factory, since long before the revolution. Marketing? Sure - but all the same?! And if not back then, why then today?

And as Piggy is just addressing NCs - heard about Nestor Plasencia....? Pepin Garcia and the likes....? What are they doing in their 'same' factories with their 'same' staff for all those companies and brands whom they are serving? Competition anyone?

You guys need to decide on what you really want to complain about and criticise here, keeping in mind we were starting out with brand-profiles. Is it the concept of marketing? A basic critique of diversification within a single producer's portfolio? An econ-political system critique? Or a fundamental denial of taste differences in tobacco per se, being all just fermented Nicotiana-leaf and apart from that all else being hokum?

We may debate marketing to exhaustion, the question remains, why should a brand's link with a "taste profile" (existent or not) be a different one for the Cuban cigar of today as compared to the pre-revolutionary one, or even the non-Cuban one? If at all it would all boil down to quality measures, as Piggy alludes to, but not to the single fact that it's all in one hand. And as for QC - Cuba cannot afford letting that slip, for they have to compete. Competition from outside Cuba is so pressing - as we can just see by the latest CA Top-25 ranking....

 

Now seriously, I am not dismissing the fact that there will be benefit from more intra-CC competition if that would be privatized. But I don't see much substantive argument for a general non-existence of brand-profiles.

 

Edited December 21, 2016 by Fugu

[Mattb82]

Three cigar day today. Coro, petit edmundo, BRC. All distinctly different 

[PapaDisco]

I'm not arguing for the way it was or the way it is, just the way it oughta be.   It may be a romantic notion, but I like the idea of estate production as opposed to corporate homogeneity.  I think estate production, from a dedicated team, gives the production team a fierce loyalty to the product they are producing and its distinct characteristics.

[Mattb82]

18 minutes ago, PapaDisco said:

I'm not arguing for the way it was or the way it is, just the way it oughta be.   It may be a romantic notion, but I like the idea of estate production as opposed to corporate homogeneity.  I think estate production, from a dedicated team, gives the production team a fierce loyalty to the product they are producing and its distinct characteristics.

I would agree 100% 

[Fugu]

11 hours ago, PapaDisco said:

It may be a romantic notion, but

Always in favour of romanticism!   

11 hours ago, PapaDisco said:

I'm not arguing for the way it was

You are right, was also addressing others making that allusion... (been too lazy too look it up backwards).

 

[PigFish]

... I am arguing what I am almost always arguing... Cigar myth! Some believe it is not myth while others do. I can only use what evidence I have, anecdotal and trial and error among peer groups.

A distinguishing trait (brand profile) means that there are distinguishing traits to all cigars (or at least most) of the cigars in a brand family. This means that each cigar shares at least one aspect of a recipe. Furthermore the recipe needs to be known by those that make it. Then it must be followed by those that make it, they must have the right raw materials... Lastly the customer base must be able to identify it without bands and boxes as an identifier. True enthusiasts of the brand must be able to 'taste' their brand over competing brands of the same size. This is how I see brand profile, private, public, communist, or capitalist country made...!

Not everyone that owns a cigar in a brand will be able to identify it. However, the enthusiast that likes several vitolas of the brand (just as an example) and continuously buys boxes to acquire 'that taste' over 'another taste' should know 'what they taste like...'

Identifying a cigar should not be "speaking in tongues."

Guys who drink beer know their brand. Those that drink soda, know their brand. Same for cigarettes...

Me, I don't care! I want a good cigar, I don't care who makes it, nor the politics of the country it comes from. I don't care if I can taste a 'brand.' I just want a great cigar.

Variation is something I love about Cuban cigars.... Don't change it! I don't want cigars to taste alike, I simply want them all to taste good or great... Whether the brand profile exists or not is something I really care less about!!! I just don't want 20 percent or more of the box to taste bad or mediocre.

What is a consistent cigar to me? One that is consistency good, bad, or average, that way know which ones to buy and which ones to not buy. I don't care if they are distinctive. I want them consistently good or great. I don't care if they taste Monte or Cohiba by some gurus definition. I want them excellent by Piggy's definition and nothing less... Me, I pay to get good cigars. As always, the boxes and bands mean precious little.

-Piggy

[Corylax18]

16 hours ago, Mattb82 said:

Three cigar day today. Coro, petit edmundo, BRC. All distinctly different 

Im sure they did, but the relevant question is; would you have been able to pick each correctly with the bands/boxes not present?

I did contractict myself in my earlier post and will do it again here. I want/hope to think that all Marcas under the HSA/Tabacuba umbrella are all truly different and given seperate management/care. But the empirical evidence just doesnt support it. What I want and what I can prove with fact are often different things.

Im not upset with HSA or complaining, just adding my opinion to the conversation. I agree that NCs are no better in this regard. One thing we touched on was consistancy. As @PigFish has shown us many times, cigar weights can very greatly in a single box of cigars. That variances affects the ratio of tobaccos in the cigar, and thus the flavor profile. If we have cigars with 10 or 15% more filler than the ones next to them, then we will have flavor variation in a single box. Multiply that across thousands of boxes, and completly new tobacco strains being introduced in the last 10-15 years and its really hard to make a case for any kind of long term flavor consistency. 

But if anybody has any kind of facts supporting truly different blends and production standards its still yet to be posted here.......

"They must be different." Or "Theyve always done it this way" are all things we're telling ourselves because we spend good money to get something specific that we want. I will still spend money buying different marcas because they do taste different. But I cant personally say that every monte tastes the same, or every RA. I see the RA band and decide "i want richness and red fruit" then light the cigar and search for those flavors, we all do the same (to some degree) weather we want to admit it or not. 

[RickHendeson]

23 hours ago, Corylax18 said:

Im sure they did, but the relevant question is; would you have been able to pick each correctly with the bands/boxes not present?

 

You keep pushing this theory every time it comes up.  Sometimes I wonder if some of the people who can't tell the difference aren't just a little disgruntled/jealous, and thus feel impelled to promote this view strongly at every opportunity to kind of soothe themselves.  Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it would explain a lot.

The answer to your question is "Yes" - 3/5 this year, and it was really 4/5, except I didn't vote my gut b/c I didn't think Prez would throw us a ringer by using the same marca twice (boo).

[Colt45]

I've little doubt that there are blend libraries and that even though agricultural products constantly change, they try to keep things as consistent as possible. I've also little doubt that cigars are not blended for flavors as we perceive them - I tend to doubt they're blended for things like chocolate, caramel, stewed fruits, etc.

What are brands? Do we demand as much from brands of laundry detergent, bottled water, frozen vegetables, etc, etc, etc as we do cigars?

Keep those torches lit, and pitchforks sharpened......

[Smallclub]

13 minutes ago, Colt45 said:

I've also little doubt that cigars are not blended for flavors as we perceive them - I tend to doubt they're blended for things like chocolate, caramel, stewed fruits, etc.

I have zero doubt; 10 years ago the cubans were still laughing when they heard people talking about these flavours.

I don't know what kind of criterias, references and vocabulary the blenders use to differentiate the ligas, but obviously that's not something they're willing to communicate…

 

[Colt45]

27 minutes ago, Smallclub said:

.....but obviously that's not something they're willing to communicate…

Yes, I don't know of many companies willing to divulge proprietary information.

[Smallclub]

1 hour ago, Colt45 said:

Yes, I don't know of many companies willing to divulge proprietary information.

I wasn't talking about "proprietary information", but language elements like those used by certain NC makers…

[FLB03TT]

PigFish, I greatly enjoy and look forward to your comments on the myriad threads you respond to. I have an honest, non argumentative, question for you- When you purchase cigars what criterion do you use to make your purchase decisions?

[JohnS]

2 hours ago, FLB03TT said:

When you purchase cigars what criterion do you use to make your purchase decisions?

I assumed Ray hasn't got anything in his humidor that is recent, then again, I am assuming. Hence, I have a follow-up question too...What is your youngest cigar box in your humidor?

[El Presidente]

On 12/20/2016 at 4:09 AM, Corylax18 said:

 

But if anybody has any kind of facts supporting truly different blends and production standards its still yet to be posted here.......

 

so in 2017....if we can get some experienced cigar lovers who can tell the difference between Wrapper/Binder/Ligero/Seco/Volado.....can we break up some D4's or 898's or Epi 2's or whatever. Different years, same years. You will need to use all your olfactory skills. Intensity of Ligero, Volado, Seco, Binder. 

Carefully, what were the proportions. 

Carefully, where were the % leaves of Ligero placed (if any). 

Photographed, weighed. described (feel/olfactory). 

We will still be different in our gradings %. natural error/variance

But if we started with D4 and BRC 2016. 

We could then move to D4 2016 and D4 2014. 

Ton of work. I am game. 

 

 

[JohnS]

18 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

so in 2017....if we can get some experienced cigar lovers who can tell the difference between Wrapper/Binder/Ligero/Seco/Volado.....can we break up some D4's or 898's or Epi 2's or whatever. Different years, same years. You will need to use all your olfactory skills. Intensity of Ligero, Volado, Seco, Binder. 

Carefully, what were the proportions. 

Carefully, where were the % leaves of Ligero placed (if any). 

Photographed, weighed. described (feel/olfactory). 

We will still be different in our gradings %. natural error/variance

But if we started with D4 and BRC 2016. 

We could then move to D4 2016 and D4 2014. 

Ton of work. I am game. 

I swear, by sheer coincidence, I was greatly intrigued by this video today...

Great idea!

[Mattb82]

I still believe that even if you can't identify a marca in a blind testing it doesn't mean the blends are the same. The question should be can you identify which cigars are different from each other. 

[SaintMickey®]

I swear, by sheer coincidence, I was greatly intrigued by this video today...

Great idea!

Never seen this... very interesting thanks for reposting!


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