Hello all. I'm new here... be gentle
Joking about the gentle thing, I'm thick skinned.
My name is Jay. I'm from the Bay Area. I acquired a taste for Cubanos during my tour in Iraq around 2006. The locals there were capitalizing on the military presence and the tobacco trade. Mostly you'll find them smoking hookah in the evenings, but the shop owners carry about every trinket and knock off good you could ever find, including fake Cubans. The trick was to befriend the shop owners. They smoked the real ones, while they sold the fakes to the unsuspecting military. It was this way that I learned to tell the difference.
Having smoked cigarettes since a teen, and a few cigars along the way, I was no noob to the tobacco thing. I developed a taste for their double apple hookah tobacco, which is apparently the preferred hookah tobacco in most of the country, though the merchants carry almost every flavor you could imagine. I would spend a good amount of my evenings playing dominoes with the locals in their little cafe.
One evening, we were gambling and I destroyed these guys. They would always try to barter goods to pay their debt, so I said I'd take a few Cubans, the real ones they were smoking. They looked at me funny and then started laughing. They asked me how I knew that the others were fake. It was obvious to me, because I had watched their business for many hours while sitting at their cafe. I explained that I watched them give out dry, unboxed Cubans to their customers, while they would smoke the ones they kept in an old fridge in the back. I guess they were shocked that I was so perceptive, while they could pull the wool over every one else's eyes. Long story short, they hooked me up with a few Guantanamera Cristales.
The next day, I was off on an errand for some other unit's command. I had shown up to the little dilapidated command building about 15 minutes early. It was hot out. I picked a shady spot and decided to partake in my spoils from the night before. I fired that bad boy up. After puffing away for a few minutes, the officer showed up. I stood to greet the sir and practically fell over. He chuckled at me, noticing what I'd been smoking. He told me that he'd got his hands on a few different Cubans since he'd been there and that they definitely had a kick, but that I should try some different ones, cause those were horrible. I agreed.
That night, I went back to my Iraqi friends and exchanged the other cigars out for a Romeo y Juliet, a Corona, a Montecristo and a Cohiba Edicion Limitada 2006. I quickly found out that the Guantanamera Cristales I was given were crap, though they were strong. I much prefer the Cohibas.
Back Stateside, I developed my newfound taste, trading most of the Cubans i'd sent home to different dealers for some of their best stuff. I found that the Padron 1926 series was the best I'd traded into and the Ashton Cabinet VSG's were my new fix. Unfortunately, finding a box of Cabinet VSG's isn't easy.
I tried the whole spectrum, from the cheapest, like acid brand, all the way to the top, like the 1926 Padron, and everything in the middle, Rocky Patel 1992's CAO's etc. Right now my humidor is a mixed bunch of odds and ends from the previous boxes I've purchased. Few Rocky's, Ashton's, CAO 65's and reserves, one last Pardon 1926 and some miscellaneous gifted that I haven't got to quite yet. I was working my way through a box of CAO Vision Epiphany's when I took a break a while back.
So, now that you've got my life's story, I've got a few questions for those who've made it this far without abandoning me.
1) Is this Padron 1926 Box worth anything? I don't collect the boxes, so I don't know.
2) Why aren't these CAO Visions as good as I thought they were when I bought them?
3) I'm using the Boveda 72's for storage since taking a break a year back. Is the 72 right for storage?
Thanks Gents
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Originally Posted by badwhale
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