Cigar Journal: Top 25 Cigars for 2020

[Diabolicalpherpher]

On 12/28/2020 at 9:14 PM, NSXCIGAR said:

 You mean to tell me #25 is better than every regular production CC made? 

 

 ‘Only the cigars that were released less than two years ago were eligible for selection.’  So most regular production is not eligible on their list. But the ones that they did roll out, should have been on the list like punch short de punch. 

[joeypots]

Because CJ is published in Miami  it would seem to me that they must cater to the USA for advertising revenue. They probably can't advertise Cuban Tobacco products and they don't want to alienate their advertisers. I haven't paid attention to and USA cigars ratings in years. 

[mprach024]

6 hours ago, Fugu said:

The SdP made it to #4 on last year‘s list (as the single only Cuban...). But hell yes, omitting the Trinis, in particular with the brand‘s anniversary last year, borders on gross journalistic negligence (if we want to think in such categories with a publication like CJ). Probably they didn’t garner the acclaim we’ve given them.

I also suspect - and if we trust it all being blind tasting - a possible technical aspect at play. In that the Cubans, inevitably being smoked so fresh, often right off the truck, might be systematically provisioned at a sub-optimal preconditioning compared to their NC brethren. But sure, there may already be some bias through the preselection process...

Why these lists never bear any relevance for me as a real-life smoker.

Keep in mind who these publications customers are.  Their number one customer by a mile is Americans.  Since Americans can’t (legally) get CC, filling the top spots with product they can’t get would only detract from reading/buying, not to mention the Cuban government can’t legally lobby these publications for ratings, as I’m certain many of these American owned NC companies can.  Honestly as a CC smoker, I find these lists quite useless, but if I were in market for NCs like I used to be a couple decades ago, than journals like this or CA were helpful in sorting through the plethora of choices.

[Fugu]

4 hours ago, mprach024 said:

Keep in mind who these publications customers are.  Their number one customer by a mile is Americans.

Nope, their “number one customer” isn’t the readers, it’s the producers, the industry. The mag is mostly given away for free to the consumer, in shops or with online orders (I’ve never paid for it). But the CJ readership is mostly not US-centered, much less so than CA. CJ, historically has been and still mainly is a European, at the least an international journal. (Founded in 1994 by Austrian Helmut Romé, and coming bilingual for more than two decades. Formerly known as European Cigar Cult Journal, as the oldies among us might remember ?). Publisher’s headquarters have been moved to Miami (closer to their US and Latin-American clients...) but editor-in-chief still is based in Austria.

NC producers today always play a major role, not just with respect to the US market. So there has long been a ‘certain’ bias also in CJ’s lists. It’s a pretty clearcut calculation to be made there: With umpteen NC companies out there. How many Cuban again? - Correct, a single one. While you may see the local distributors sometimes get engaged, too, three guesses as to who ....

[GavLew79]

On 12/30/2020 at 4:49 AM, Notsocleaver said:

Anybody smoke one of those Plasencias? Any good?

I smoked an Alma Fuerte. Can't remember if it was this one. It was big RG. One of very few NCs that has made me want a box.