Budget Box Pass

[craig]

Something I should have mentioned earlier:

- While in transit, the cigars in the pass have been exposed to various temperatures, bounced around, shaken, and stirred.
- all the cigars in the starting line-up were conditioned to 72%RH@65F to help minimize the effects of transit. Tobacco with a moisture content greater then 70%RH@70F is essentially a vapour barrier, i.e., almost all the moisture in the binder/filler can only enter/leave via the foot. (70/70 is where about 11% to 13% of the weight of a tobacco leaf is water.)
- all the cigars in the starting line-up were put in cello. The cello both protects the cigars and is a moisture barrier. While cello is not an absolute vapour barrier, it does inhibit the movement of water vapour.
- ligero leaves (top of plant) absorb the most water, and are typically located in the middle of a cigar. Typically, fuller-bodied cigars have more ligero.
- besides moisture content, a cigar's draw is a function of how much tobacco is in the cigar, what kind of tobacco (viz. ligero, above), how old the tobacco is, type of filler (short/medium/sandwich/long), and the construction method (book vs. accordion vs. entubar) and the quality of construction. (As an aside, this is why more expensive cigars are usually heavier than less expensive cigars. Less tobacco generally loosens the draw, thus allowing the use of less expensive construction methods like booking, at the risk of the cigar burning too hot.)
- Cubans tend to pack in more tobacco and use younger tobacco, so they tend to experience harder draws. They also appear to have looser quality control than similarly-priced non-Cubans, so excessively hard-to-draw cigars do show up fairly regularly. I can't remember the last time that I used a draw tool on a non-Cuban, but I use a draw tool on Cubans fairly regularly.

What this means:
- cigars taken from the pass' initial line-up should be rested before smoking. Removing the cello will speed up that process. Roughly, with no cello, it takes about a month (if the RH has to be lowered) to three months (if the RH has to be raised).
- the usual impact of a hard draw is that the cigar burns funny, resulting in a sour taste. Regular purging (blowing out through the cigar) minimizes the formation of that sour taste, but once that sour taste is in a cigar, it probably isn't going away.
- most people find most Cubans draw decently when the RH is around 60% to 65%. If you have your humidor at 70%RH, then I highly recommend that you drybox Cubans. Note that I'm not saying that 60%-65% is the RH that a cigar will taste best at.
- because of the ligero factor, stronger and/or thicker cigars are usually more affected. For example, the Por Larranaga's (except the PLPC) don't have any ligero; I've never had a draw problem with those. OTOH, I've had entire boxes of stronger cigars that have had problems. (The box of Boli Short Boli's is the exception in this pass. So far, this box has had a very loose draw and can burn too hot if one uses the effort one assumes is needed with a Cuban.)

While I'm here, if you go the Cigar Aficionado website and look at the video's:
- in the most recent video, "Cuba's regionals," Suckling trashes the Boli Short Boli. There have been a lot of disparity in reviews of this cigar, which, I suspect, is due to folks' expectations for a Bolivar.
- in the video "Cigar Wars: Episode 2 - Cohiba vs. My Father" Suckling/Savona talk about the difference between the draws of Cuban/non-Cuban cigars.