20th Anniversary of Cuban Cigar Website

[JohnS]

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to catch up with two dear friends; Trevor Leask and Alex Groom, both of whom are responsible for giving us an indispensable resource - Cuban Cigar Website. Can you imagine your life without it? I know I can't! We smoked some amazing cigars to celebrate (i.e a 2003 Cohiba Reserva Seleccion Piramides and a Diplomaticos Bushidos - both were exemplary!).

Of course we shared some old anecdotes, the greater majority of which were quite funny and we discussed the changes of the site over time. Things such as the under-utilised Smoking Diary (I use this often), the search features and its related database, why a verification feature has been recently added when visiting the site and even what the future holds. I know Alex will add more within this thread but what features of Cuban Cigar Website to you use and perhaps admire? Feel free to list these below...

[ATGroom]

Thanks John, yes it was 20 years ago today that @Trevor2118 launched CCW - 

 

 

Anybody who has ever seen any interview I've ever done has no-doubt heard my story, but I'll retell it.

Basically, around ~2008 Rob used to occasionally offer blind tasting competitions, where the first few people to reply in a thread would get sent a pack of unbanded cigars. I was entered in one of these comps, and wanted a list of all the potential candidates for the size. At that time, CCW wasn't in a database so couldn't be searched and didn't have the various list pages, so if you wanted a list of every cigar in a size the only way to get it was to go through each page one by one.

At that time I was a marginally employed computer programmer with a lot of free time, and I sent Trev the email that would prove to be the most fateful of my life volunteering to help him improve a few things technically. He accepted, and over the next few years we worked on it together with Trev doing all the data stuff and occasionally sending me requests for new features in the software.

In 2012 Trev wanted to step away from the site, so I began to take over the day-to-day operations, and in 2014 I took it over fully. To be honest, I wasn't that 'on it' for the first few years. I would keep it updated, but for pictures I was just using whatever people sent in, unlike Trevor who had been buying every cigar to take consistent pictures himself, so the site became a little bit of a dog's breakfast.

In 2016 there was the big calamity. We had been hosted to that point by some small shared webhosting company for about $30 a month, and I woke up one morning to find the default "blank server" message showing for the site. I got in contact with the host, and over the next day or two it emerged that their server had crashed and all data was lost, and their backup system hadn't been working for months or years, and everything was gone. I had been very lazy with offline backups, and didn't have much myself.

There was a real moment there where that could have been the end of the road for Cuban Cigar Website, but ultimately I couldn't live with knowing that Trevor had created something, handed it to me, and I had wrecked it. There is a silver lining to every cloud, and ultimately the ground up rebuild of the software was very beneficial, especially for mobile usability which was a lot more important in 2016 than it had been in 2006. Rob raffled off a box of cigars in support of the site, which raised $4,000 or so, which was the first time the site had ever generated any meaningful revenue, and made it easier from that point to justify buying a professional camera setup and starting to collect all the cigars myself and improve the imagery. This was also the start of the road towards El Habano Moderno, as prior to this the images on CCW were never good enough to be professionally printed.

I suppose the next big milestone came because of COVID-19. I was locked up with a lot of free time for a few years, and EHM was the product. My friend Patrick Chan from Hong Kong was locked up too, and he translated the website into Chinese, which launched in 2021 and now accounts for about half the traffic (90% if you count all the bots). Hassan AlTamimi translated the site into Arabic last year as well, which is still only a small fraction in terms of traffic but I'm sure it will grow.

The site today averages about 8,000 unique visitors a day.

For me personally, between Bond Roberts, El Habano Moderno, and Substack, most of my income comes from cigars; I have friends all over the world all through cigars, and it wouldn't be much overstating things to say that the entire direction of my adult life has been very much set by one email I sent in 2008, and the fact that Trevor replied inviting me to help rather that just saying "thanks for the suggestions, I'm fine."

Nothing but gratitude from me to Trev, Rob, John, Pat, Hassan, and everyone else who donated to CCW, bought the book, sent in emails with pictures and info, the many old timers on FoH who taught me a lot in the early days, and everyone who's used and enjoyed the site over the years.

[westg]

Congratulations to one and all. An incredible resource to have readily available. Much appreciated.  💯💥

[El Presidente]

The best resource in the world of Cuban Cigars. 

 

[Li Bai]

It's odd to me so few people here in France know your or Trevor's name but still, everyone in the hobby knows your work. 👍

Doing my best to "rendre à César ce qui appartient à César" or "render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's" 🙏🙏

[jfestrelabr]

Best resource in the world of Cuban Cigars.

[joeypots]

It's a great resource for all things Cuban cigar. I use the collection feature and often to check on cigars and cigar minutia that I'm not familiar with.

Thanks to Alex, Trevor, and John for all the work and passion that went into this fantastic website!

[Stevieboy]

Amazing site. I use it almost every single day. Love the book too.

Sent from my SM-S908B using Tapatalk
 

[Havanaaddict]

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[SUP8333]

20 hours ago, ATGroom said:

Thanks John, yes it was 20 years ago today that @Trevor2118 launched CCW - 

Anybody who has ever seen any interview I've ever done has no-doubt heard my story, but I'll retell it.

 

Thank you to all of you whom has brought CCW to it's continuous existence today! We had the honor to speak with @ATGroom about CCW's story so if you'd like to watch a video:
 

[Habanoschris]

Incredible 👏

[yuppie]

Thank you so much for providing this invaluable resource. I've spent hours pouring over the pages and I'm always pleasantly surprised when I discover a new feature or a new way to search. Congratulations and Keep it up!

[Duder]

Hardly a day goes by I don’t consult CCW. Used to be MRN. Thanks for all you do Alexander. Indispensable!

[ThePolskiOgorki]

Congrats on the milestone. I have referenced the site many, many times since I started buying cigars. Thank you for your work.