Are these reviews to be taken seriously?

[blakeLA]

3 hours ago, SenorPerfecto said:

Of course it's a Charlie review. They're infamous.

BUT I do believe he has sense access to a much greater range of taste/smell-sense memory than most people do, so, do I think he thinks he is tasting all that? Yes. Can most people discern pink cotton candy from blue cotton candy? No. Judge for yourself how useful the reviews are based on those facts.

Agree with the above, and agree with a lot of other people have said.  It's entirely possible he's tasting all of those notes, but ultimately, that level of specificity becomes so autobiographical it's hard to relate sometimes.  I interpret the cookies / milk comment to mean a version of,  "This puff reminded me of the time I used to let vanilla wafers soak in milk when I stayed with my grandma the summer after sixth grade."  I'm sure it does, but that's probably not going to give me a clear sense of what my smoking experience will be.  I appreciate that sort of review, but it's certainly more for the benefit of the writer than the reader IMO.

[zeedubbya]

10 hours ago, Fugu said:

Sometimes such seems merely an expression of the reviewer's inability to pinpoint and define for himself.

This is how it seems to me as well.  I understand using a set of base flavors to identify flavors or aromas coming from a cigar or even a memory of something else unrelated to food, but to use specific foods such as charred gyro meat, cookies broken down with milk, and the outer part of a pistachio seems highly unlikely to be accurate or useful in my opinion.  It’s all very diffuse different parts of the flavor/smell sprectrum.  Maybe I have a poorly trained palate, but I cannot imagine ever being able to relate smoking a cigar to such a diverse range of flavors.  

@Ken Gargett uses “old lady’s handbag” (attributed to wine legend Len Evans), and this I understand.  If however, one said—this cigar tastes like leather, makeup, partially chewed wrigleys spearmint gum, dust and fingernail clippings with dollar store red polish, I can’t relate.

@PigFish talks of the “bowling alley” smell coming from a cigar.  I get it.  If one said it smells like Cheap Bowling Balls, Petroleum based oil, leather shoes freshly sprayed with deodorizer, old smoke laden AstroTurf style carpet, and a sort of rotting, dank old mustiness I can’t quite put my finger on—it just doesn’t make sense.

Rob says Driftwood—I get it (sort of).  If one said—it tastes like a late spring salty ocean breeze, along with the ever present essence of a surf tumbled date palm branch washed onto freshly groomed white gypsum beach sand—nope.  

Its all too specific for belief, not well defined—just my two cents...again.  

[Corylax18]

I agree with @zeedubbya  

My dad and I always Joke about the “Lead Pencil” notes Gorton Mott mentions in many of his reviews. Woody, mineral, metalic. Fine. But Lead Pencil? 

[BJRPorter]

I need training wheels for my flavor wheel.

[RickHendeson]

Without defending the ridiculousness of certain reviews in the least, note that many reviewers who find a particular flavor are not saying they are tasting that exact flavor.  What they are saying is that is "reminiscent" of that flavor -- and that they can't think of a closer flavor.  That's a nuanced difference, but somewhat of an important one.  Some reviewers you cannot take literally, as they are not expressing themselves literally.

[RickHendeson]

3 hours ago, Corylax18 said:

I agree with @zeedubbya  

My dad and I always Joke about the “Lead Pencil” notes Gorton Mott mentions in many of his reviews. Woody, mineral, metalic. Fine. But Lead Pencil? 

I always thought he meant "graphite," and yeah, I've tasted graphite numerous times.  Not the literal taste of graphite, but that's the closest thing to describe the sensation.

[RickHendeson]

Just now, RickHendeson said:

I always thought he meant "graphite," and yeah, I've tasted graphite numerous times.  Not the literal taste of graphite, but that's the closest thing to describe the sensation.

P.S.  I am not a fan of "graphite." 

[cfc1016]

I’m on both sides of this debate, honestly. 

On one side, I’m a reductionist. A human being can taste: sweet; sour; bitter; salty; savory; spicy; [in some palates] umame. I’ve said tbis before - don’t tell me about how it reminds you of that 1964 port you paired with a braised elk loin topped with cranberry reduction. Take off your ascot, put away the keys to the jag, and get your head out of... well, you get the picture. 

I want to hear if the overwhelming flavors tend toward any one of those 7 flavors, in particular. Maybe tell me that each third tended toward spicy, savory, then sweet, respectively (for example). 

 

On the other side, *taste* is the perceived combination of the aforemention flavors. If the particular ratio of sweet:spicy reminds you of a particular sauce, I think it’s perfectly reasonable that that would be what you recall when you experience that taste. I can recount 2 specific examples of this in cigars that are part of my regular rotation. There’s a ratio of sweet:spicy in principes that reminds me of lebkuken. There’s a salty:savory combo in the last third of a reyes (and also a vigia) that reminds me of a bavarian salted soft pretzel. These are subjective associations. 

For that reason, I think the old speechwriter’s axiom applies - speak to your audience. I don’t expect that everyone i write for has the same palate or dining experience that I have, so I avoid writing something that may only make sense to me (unless i can make it fun to read independent of the subjective flavor description). Make it digestable to everyone.

So my opinion, in summation, is that comparing cigar taste experience to subjective elements is not INHERENTLY pompous - just the way this guy does it ?

[JR Kipling]

I’ve been around others who have far more discerning senses than I have. Often they were professionals in fields where such abilities are common among practitioners or developed in training. (For example, I had a girlfriend who was a professional singer & muscian. She had also trained in opera. Her sense of hearing including the ability to distinguish between musical notes was amazing to me.) - - So, I wouldn’t come out and say someone couldn’t do something just because I cannot.

That said, I found the above review quite humorous. I was waiting for “ there was just a hint of the glue from the back of a licked postage stamp . . . “

[Fugu]

23 hours ago, 99call said:

I agree with this. But critically this is a key difference between 'passing general comment' and a cigar review.   Someone posting a picture of a RASS and saying "Meh" is only of minimal use to a newb. And you can often tell that because people will comment "poor construction? Or too young?" I.e they want to know more.  

Ultimately both have their uses. I.e. the short daily smoke outlines, and as do the longer reviews.   But I would argue someone saying "was ok" is just as useless as someone saying "it tasted like the memory of my Grandmother's ashes, sprinkled on a glazed donut".

It's just my personal opinion. But I find the overly and under descriptive equally annoying.

Not at all in disagreement with you on this. That's why I put it, 'what I value about it'. Sure, never a replacement for a thorough review, but the "daily smoke" postings have their own merit to me. Sometimes they are even concise reviews. And it sure assists in focussing one's ideas when the format is somehow limiting the writing space.

Thing is, as a sort of (more) experienced smoker, for me less important, today, are the particular single flavours that a reviewing LOTL picks up from a cigar. Instead, it is way more the information on general flavour profile, intensity, complexity, perhaps evolution of the smoke (body, flavour, strength), construction and burn. But I am likewise not dismissing it at all when this is being done in more detail and within reason.

All that being said, it's not as if I hadn't been tasting "smell of new car" or "crispy roasted Christmas goose skin" in a cigar before....

[Fugu]

2 hours ago, cfc1016 said:

A human being can taste: sweet; sour; bitter; salty; savory; spicy; [in some palates] umame. I’ve said tbis before - don’t tell me about how it reminds you of that 1964 port you paired with a braised elk loin topped with cranberry reduction.

This is holding for the buccal (mostly tongue) tasting alone. A whole different picture if talking about the capabilities of the nasal sensoric ("smell"), which adds significantly if not predominantly to the whole sensory experience.

[Derboesekoenig]

37 minutes ago, crking3 said:

By my count there were about 10 variations of cedar in his description


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He's trying to sound intelligent and like he knows what he's talking about, but yes, it comes off as being an asshat. I can't read them anymore lol

[Jimmy_jack]

Well I must be missing out. My Lusitania last night tasted like...tobacco. Booorring.

[ac031898]

14 hours ago, Corylax18 said:

I agree with @zeedubbya  

My dad and I always Joke about the “Lead Pencil” notes Gorton Mott mentions in many of his reviews. Woody, mineral, metalic. Fine. But Lead Pencil? 

Guess I need to start eating (or maybe smoking) pencils to develop my palette

[LGC]

Most of these reviewers take themselves very seriously. I don’t take any of these reviews seriously myself though...

[99call]

15 hours ago, Corylax18 said:

I agree with @zeedubbya  

My dad and I always Joke about the “Lead Pencil” notes Gorton Mott mentions in many of his reviews. Woody, mineral, metalic. Fine. But Lead Pencil? 

I have a complete opposite take on this. When I was a kid at school I chewed on my pencil as did everyone else at school with theirs, infact I can't recall seeing a pencil that wasn't sodden with spit and missing a half inch of paint. 

To say this cigar tastes like wood, graphite, paint. Instead of simply "pencils" is infact just longer and over complex.     

When I here people joke and go "yeah buddy sure! I eat pencils everyday!!!???. I struggle to understand why they are being so mentally stubborn? Id say a good 99% of people know what a pencil tastes like.

 

[LGC]

^^^ I’ll admit to this; but who here has actually grabbed a handful of grass blades, rubbed them in their hands, then licked the chlorophyll off their hands???

[KavalanWhisky]

I struggle to find a lot of differences with a lot of different cigars, I basically narrow it down to Toasted Almonds or hint of cocoa or raw nuts taste.

I find that I just get hints of them through certain cigars and judge them based on how much flavour and how much of the cigar i can taste it.  I also like the progression through the cigar and that increases my rating.

The big difference i find with NC and Cuban is that there is often more progression through the cigar whereas the NC normally has 1 profile.

[BrooksW]

So, this is always an interesting discussion!

For me, it comes down to personal experience with food and flavors: cigars obviously do not taste like chocolate chip cookies, or pencil lead, or chicken skin, or what have you. But there are quite a few flavors in cigars that remind me of certain things, and that is what I am describing in my reviews. 

For example, I remember talking with someone about 10 years ago who questioned some of the aromas/flavors I came up with, leather and manure in particular. "How can a cigar taste like leather?" he asked, multiple times, followed up by "When was the last time you sucked on leather??" 

I asked him point blank, "have you ever been to a farm or a leather tack shop?" He said no, he had lived in NYC all his life. I then told him that when growing up, I visited my extended family on a farm in North Carolina every summer where they raised horses and cows and other animals, and the scents of leather and (fresh) manure are extremely distinct and easy to identify (and yes, I remember putting leather in my mouth a few times), but if he had never been to a farm or smelled anything like that, what makes him think he was going to notice it in a cigar?

Another quick example: while smoking a Fuente of some sort (I forget which), about halfway through the cigar I noticed a distinct flavor of honeysuckle, which if anyone has tasted it, is basically a combination of grass, vegetal and slight honeyish sweetness. The second I tasted that flavor on the retrohale, it took me back to when I was 10 years old living in Panama, and there was a huge field close to our house. We would go down the field during the times when the honeysuckle was there and basically make ourselves sick going from plant to plant and picking the stem out of each of them and putting in our mouth to taste the (very little) sweetness that was there.

Now, did the cigar taste like honeysuckle? Of course not. But I had not thought of that memory in at least 20 years, and for something like that to come back out of nowhere, the flavor that the cigar was giving me was one that my MIND turned into that specific note. For someone how has never tasted fresh honeysuckle, their mind would either register it as general sweetness, or perhaps just ignore it altogether. 

The bottom line is that in order for you to taste flavors in a cigar, you have to do a few things:

1. Concentrate on each and every puff that is going in and out of your mouth and nose. For me at least, the flavors/notes I am picking up are sometimes fleeting, but normally, I only mention ones that are distinct enough for me to name with certainty. 

2. Retrohale. You would be shocked at how many people ask about crazy flavors who are not retrohaling, and that is obviously going to be problematic.

3. Seek out new flavors all the time. In order for you to taste or notice flavors in a cigar (or wine, or anything really), you have to actually have tasted it before, and probably more than once. I have never in my life eaten anything that lives in the sea, so you will never read a review of mine that mentions tasting seafood of any sort. To my mind, that flavor simply does not exist, so it would either classify it as something else or ignore it completely. 

Hope that helps!

 

[CaptainQuintero]

On 12/12/2018 at 12:13 PM, hunterbeav said:

I like the quote: like a cheap store-bought ground black pepper.....

Sounds like a crime novel....lol

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Damn I didn't realise we were at the stage where pepper-shaming was a thing, do I have to start hiding my pepperpots lol?