Cigar Prep Poll: The pre lighting journey.

[El Presidente]

This poll will certainly shine a light on the "pre-lighting journey" of members.  

 

[La_Tigre]

At least 90 days. Variety alone allows the wait with no issue. Prices being what they are, it seems counterintuitive to not give them time to acclimate for the best smoking experience. Same goes for the drybox, prefer a 62 rh environment for the on deck humidor and let them go for 90 or longer.

[targa88]

I find that it all depends on the “age” of the cigar as it applies to most of those aforementioned categories.

Some recent vintages (20-21) have been surprising how well they have performed when young and ROTT

[El Presidente]

Assume 20/21

[HoyoFan]

At first I thought this was a post or article on the ritual of getting ready to smoke. Which, now that I think about it, would be a great short piece. Perhaps I'll write it.

[Chibearsv]

The ROTT, 30, 60 test we did a couple years ago convinced me. 90 days rest minimum. Hard rule but it’s worth the wait.
My dry box routine is to grab 6-8 at a time out of the basement and move them to a small cigar box upstairs and smoke them til it’s empty. First one gets no dry box time and the last one gets a couple days. I don’t notice a meaningful difference. 

[Kevin48438]

I took the poll to mean a marca I’ve yet to try.  In that case I try one right away and the rest of the box (or handful) will go into the stash.  If it’s one that I know, it could be 6 months to 5 years (or longer).   This applies to CCs and NCs.

[karp]

I’ll also try a new cigar ROTT, but if I have some of that type already it will go down for long term before I crack into it… it all depends on what I have. Dry boxing - meh, I’ll move some cigars out of my coolidors to my humidor (at 61-62 RH) but not always. Have not noticed any more difference between dry boxing or not, than the usual variance between different cigars. I must say these polls are fun. 

[El Presidente]

you guys are very disciplined 

[avaldes]

Whatever I feel like. Sometimes right away, sometimes years....just depends on how I feel about a particular box of cigars. I don't particularly obey any real rules, if a cigar from a box is good, I may go back. If that cigar has young traits that I don't like, I will generally leave that box for a few months. Unfortunately this can lead to killing an entire box of young cigars, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

Luckily where I live the climate is generally very close to 60% humidity so it is easy to get cigars to the right humidity with a little time. I am a big believer in aging for the first couple years is due to evening out the humidity in a cigar.

[Çnote]

I hold everything for 6 months, quite frankly after what 'new' stock I've tried, I'm going to extend to a year. I had a Rio Seco and an Edmundo a couple nights ago that i had gotten from bombs and prize packs that I had had for a least 6 months, but should have held another year. They smoked ok, but had that telltale restraint that I should have been more patient. I try to dry box, especially larger vitola; but sometimes it's only overnight, which in my experience doesn't do more than take the neck of the bottle.

My 1st purchase on FoH was some MCMC that I started smoking at 90 days. They really picked up steam at 180 and the last 2-3 were killer at 1 year. I have some ERDM Demitasse that I've had for almost 3 years that are just starting come around to amazing, same story, I smoked many of them in the 'ok' phase.

You can't be patient enough; dry boxing is real. My opinions....

[Toast & Taste]

It would be interesting to see the response broken out by OZ vs non-OZ, due to the travel time for the box, which can be quite long in this era of shipping delays.

Of course, this assumes boxes are sourced from FOH.

Big Al 

[HarveyBoulevard]

I don’t purposefully rest them but they get the rest they need simply due to volume and variety on hand. I have no problem with ROTT and do it sometimes but there is no rhyme or reason to it. 
 

I store at 62rh and 70f so I don’t drybox. I do have a desktop humidor that has a bad seal so it gets to 59rh or 60rh sometimes but it is not an intentional drybox. 

[Meklown]

If it's something that I have plenty of, I don't try any and it just goes straight into storage.

If it's something that I am buying to keep (expensive box of cohibas for example), I take one out into my dry box for tasting on my next "treat" day while the rest goes into storage 

If it's a cheap and cheerful I don't have that is supposed to go into my daily rotation, I have one straight away and go slow for the first 60 and rip into them after

I generally find rott perfectly fine. However they then go to sleep for 30-60 days and then awake back up 🤷‍♂️ just my non scientific observation

[joeypots]

 I keep boxes in a cabinet humidor and put a dozen or so cigars in a desk top that's about 60%RH when needed. I'm smoking 2 or three a week. My early experience with Cuban cigars informs my bias and it's deep. I've been at this long enough to know what suits me and since I'm moderate in my consumption, I can afford to have plenty of cigars waiting. I generally don't touch the cigars until they have ..... 5 years of box age. There's an age where the cigars mellow out enough that unpleasant harshness is gone but the body is still potent. That's where I want my smokes to be.  She it, I remember when boxes would arrive so wet that it felt like years before that moist bitterness went away and the cigars would stay lit. Back in the old days it was more important to age cigars but old habits die hard and I've smoked too many young tanic cigars to lose any more to impatience. I've regretted sampling most of the cigars that I smoked young in the last few years. The exception has been partagas PSD4s and PP.  December '16 MC Double Edmundos come to mind. I sampled one a year and only recently have they come around to the place where I'll burn through the box. The sampling for the first three years was a waste. (for me) And don't get me going on Cohiba, especially now with the huge price increases. My .02$

[mprach024]

I got them all correct

[El Hoze]

I’ll wait at least a few months usually to break into a box, but within a year I’ll try at least one. 

[Bijan]

I try to have one on the day of arrival and then leave the rest of the box to rest. I find they're good on arrival but then have to adapt to my storage over time to reach equilibrium again.

But if I already have one or more boxes of the same cigar I might not smoke one on arrival.

[Chas.Alpha]

My answers have evolved after discovering FOH/CigarCzar 4 years ago. Prior to that time, in the rare occasions that I could get a box of CC’s home I would rip into them immediately and have pretty much dusted them within 90 days! 😀

Since then, I find no reason to “dive right in” as I tend to stay in the lane of my everyday staples. I just received another back up box of Boli PC’s yesterday, which will be 4th in line... I have always found that a cigar improves dramatically with some time down. My 2 cents

[ha_banos]

I cannae answer question 2 because I never try ROTT 😵

[Sir Diggamus]

I generally never try cigars ROTT, even if received after only a few days trip. I try and leave them for at least 30 days and try one shortly after that and see how the experience is. Since I don't smoke ROTT question number 2 was a bit tricky to answer, I almost always see a difference in experience from 30 day mark to the 90 day mark.

As far as dryboxing, I only tend to do it with cigars I know or suspect to have issues with a proper draw. In cases where I have dryboxed vs not I see the smoking experience as much improved in regards to draw and smoke production, but don't see a lot of difference in flavor.