Cigar Review: How I Do It

Since several of the sites online that have published cigar reviews in the past have stopped doing so for various reasons, I’ve decided to start offering reviews here at Cigar Envy. In doing so, I claim no superior knowledge nor technical tobacco expertise, and the reviews will be based on my own highly subjective views of what makes a cigar good and smokable.

In short, I’ll be telling you what I like and trying to justify why I like it.

To start off, I wanted to tell you a little about what the reviews will contain. Up front, you should know that I have very broad tastes in cigars. I like bold, full-bodied sticks, medium-bodied smokes, and mild ones as well. I enjoy a good Maduro, but I’m also very fond of Cameroons, Connecticut Shades, Candelas and all shades in between.

I even like flavored cigars.

Well…some of them, anyway.

I’m going to offer fairly detailed reviews here. Rather than simply writing a couple of lines saying that I liked the cigar and that it had a good flavor — which basically doesn’t give you any information about whether or not you will feel the same way — I’m going to lay out as many specifics as I can about the appearance, construction, aroma, flavor, burn, draw…well, you probably get the idea. I’ll use a 100 point scale to rate them on, and the breakdown of how important each quality is will also be highly subjective and represent my own personal bias. I’m also going to cite, whenever possible, what Cigar Aficionado and Smoke Magazine have said about the cigar (assuming that one or both of them has reviewed it.)

These will obviously not be blind reviews. However, I’ve smoked long enough to know that a big-name trademark on a band doesn’t always translate into a good smoking experience. In fact, if a brand has a good reputation, I’ll probably be a bit harder on it since it had better compare well to others in the same line.

On the other hand, I don’t work for any of the tobacco or cigar companies, and nobody is paying me to sell cigars to you. I’m not writing advertising copy for a retail web site or a catalog. I’m not going to get fired or take a hit in the pocketbook if I tell you that a cigar is a real dog.

So, with that preliminary, I’ll start weekly reviews of a variety of cigars here. Just remember that all of this highly subjective and very much a matter of individual taste. I hope you find them emjoyable as well as useful.

I know I’m going to enjoy doing them.

Posted on Friday, October 7th, 2005 at 9:23 am.