Smokingpipes Top Cigars of 2024

[rabidraccoon]

https://www.smokingpipes.com/smokingpipesblog/single.cfm/post/top-cigars-2024

Anybody here give any credence to this list? 5 of their top 10 are their own exclusives or brands owned by their parent company Laudisi (Caldwell, Lost and Found).

[Li Bai]

  On 12/15/2024 at 3:28 PM, rabidraccoon said:

https://www.smokingpipes.com/smokingpipesblog/single.cfm/post/top-cigars-2024

Anybody here give any credence to this list? 5 of their top 10 are their own exclusives or brands owned by their parent company Laudisi (Caldwell, Lost and Found).

Expand  

Well I don't know them very well but the answer seems to be in the question 🧐

[rabidraccoon]

  On 12/15/2024 at 3:31 PM, Li Bai said:

Well I don't know them very well but the answer seems to be in the question 🧐

Expand  

Yeah haha, well this is their pretext: "I promise our scoring wasn't rigged. I'll justify it once again: If you have a hand in blending a particular cigar — smoking sample after sample and offering feedback over the course of months — you will create a cigar that aligns perfectly with your palate."

Otherwise, this blog is generally quite good with product posts and interviews with cigar producers. I use the site to order singles to try out new cigars. 

[Çnote]

Bias aside, those cigars are probably pretty good. Dapper Lonsdale sounds great. JLondon Lancero can't be terrible. The L&S hypestory i think is total fabrication, esp after covid, but they generally smoke well. Any retailers best of the year list dropped during the buying season is suspect, but at least it's not all big name, HTF toros for $20+

[MrBirdman]

  On 12/15/2024 at 3:28 PM, rabidraccoon said:

https://www.smokingpipes.com/smokingpipesblog/single.cfm/post/top-cigars-2024

Anybody here give any credence to this list? 5 of their top 10 are their own exclusives or brands owned by their parent company Laudisi (Caldwell, Lost and Found).

Expand  

I think you just answered your own question! All these Top 10 lists are primarily marketing fodder anyway. The one I actually appreciate for information is Halfwheel, mostly because they are transparent about the process of ranking. They don't normally have many Cubans on their top 25 but that's primarily because they only rank/review new releases. 

[rabidraccoon]

  On 12/15/2024 at 9:01 PM, MrBirdman said:

I think you just answered your own question! All these Top 10 lists are primarily marketing fodder anyway. The one I actually appreciate for information is Halfwheel, mostly because they are transparent about the process of ranking. They don't normally have many Cubans on their top 25 but that's primarily because they only rank/review new releases. 

Expand  

Yeah I don't know who these retailers think they are fooling when they rank their own products as the best cigars. The Cigar Authority podcast is quite guilty of it. I also like the Halfwheel lists the best. The consensus is interesting to see also because many of these reviewers will put products in according to their own self-interest (advertisers, brands they own, their store exclusives, their friends' brands etc.) but then there are other cigars that consistently pop up on everybody's list like the Dunbarton stuff last year.