Punch 898 Asia Pacific 2018

[Man D'olin]

Been enjoying the Punch 898 APR 2018- scored another box today.  I’m sure many of you know, and maybe someone can enlighten me…What does the 2018 mean?  The box code is for July 2021-so I’m assuming that’s when they were rolled-  but is it the tobacco that was harvested in 2018? or was the blend developed and assembled in 2018, or if you add the numerals in 2018 together and get the number 11, is that significant is some arcane way, indicating some deep and hidden truth?

[NSXCIGAR]

Every Cuban special release has a stated release year. The ELs are more obvious as the year is on the band.

The release year has nothing to do with availability or manufacture. Virtually no special productions become available during their release year. And as special production CCs are rolled in staggered batches it's possible to see a 2018 cigar not released until 2020 and with a 2021 box code.

A great example is Cohiba Talisman. A 2017 release, not available until 2018 and rolled well into 2020. 

[Bijan]

10 minutes ago, NSXCIGAR said:

A great example is Cohiba Talisman. A 2017 release, not available until 2018 and rolled well into 2020. 

The Cohiba talisman had a second run released too though, in 2019 I think.

The claim was that the tobacco was from the same harvest. Like somehow they had twice the amount of tobacco and half of it was laying around somewhere and they were going to dump it elsewhere 🤣 

Edit: It wasn't a tiny run either, I think 200,000 extra cigars.

Edit 2: there was a thread of box codes and it ended up being almost a dozen factory codes.

[Man D'olin]

Thank you, gentlemen!

I was speculating about how long to let them sleep before smoking them…this will inform my decision.

[NSXCIGAR]

15 hours ago, Bijan said:

The Cohiba talisman had a second run released too though, in 2019 I think.

The claim was that the tobacco was from the same harvest. Like somehow they had twice the amount of tobacco and half of it was laying around somewhere and they were going to dump it elsewhere

While it was considered a "second batch" I would just consider it consistent with the staggered batch approach although it did set a precedent for length of production for a special release and seeing a 2017 band into 2021 is a little goofy. 

As far as the same harvest claim, I know they did say that but aside from the fact there are at least 3 harvests in any given cigar, and assuming they meant batch, I suppose it is possible that they had 500,000 sticks worth of leaf for the Cohiba EL and decided to use it all for Talisman instead of waiting another 3 or 4 years for the next 200,000 sticks of Cohiba EL. It's aged 2 years so it is dedicated EL leaf. 

[MrBirdman]

I have a box of the ERDM Tainos 2018 that not only have an AGO 2021 box code, it’s “box number” is 1614/8888! They’re clearly not released sequentially.