Cigar Rating Experiment – Part XI
Thursday March 1, 2007
A bundle of Flor de Oliva Gold Toro cigars have now been aging in a humidor for seven months, along with a bundle of "Brand B" cigars which were added two months ago, as part of an experiment to monitor how aging and other factors affect the taste of cigars. Brand B continued to improve during the first two months of testing. However, the degree of change to the Flor de Oliva's after the first three months of aging has definitely slowed. Although the taste of this month's test cigar did not improve since last month, even with an accompanying Crown Royal, I did notice some subtle changes in the consistency of the flavor, which may or may not be due to an extra month of aging. To pursue this further, I tested a second cigar, which did not exhibit the same inconsistencies. These results indicate that every cigar is unique, even cigars in the same bundle that were stored under identical conditions. We will continue the periodic experiments, and draw conclusions within the next few months.
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Illustration: 2007 © Gary Manelski Licensed to About.com, Inc.
Here are the results of previous taste tests,
Comments
Gary,
I liked you experiment so much so that I have tried it myself with Flor de Oliva Maduro Torpedos. My experiment also included Oliva Special G Maduro Figurado, Oliva O Maduro and Oliva O Classic Maduro all Torpedos. My cigars have only been aging one month but the results are that all taste exactly the same. In fact, the cheaper Flor de Olivas have a more consistant flavor, draw and burn rate and their wrappers are better. With the exception of the Special G which is a very fine short smoke, the other Oliva regular higher priced cigars had much poorer wrappers. I only smoked them half to 2/3 so that I could cut them open and inspect the binder and filler. I was surprised what I found inside the supposedly ‘better’ cigars. The filler from the classic was very veiny and hard, almost like short sticks. The filler from the O fell apart and resembled short filler from cheaper sticks. The Flor de Oliva was constructed the best of all of them. I guess from this observation I would just stick to buying Flor de Oliva for quality and consistancy but every cigar is different and the ones I disected may have just been odd. The other thing I notices is that before lighting I pressed on the entire length of each cigar and found that I heard cracking noises from the classic and O but not from the Flor which was perhaps a sign that the ones I had just dried out too much and needed more time in the humidor. I still have a few more resting in 70 to 80% humidity and will try them next month.
Dear Gary, I always enjoy your emails. As a new cigar smoker I have read and reread several of your articles. I benefitted from your advise about cigars for beginners. New to smoking [I am 51] I have noticed that there is not a real relation between size and price. Yes a good cigar costs more than a mediocre one. But as far as size is concerned price does not play a big part.
Now to your cigar rating experiment part 11, you said that after smoking 2 cigars you found them different. I wonder if it was because of the Crown Royal you you were sampling at the same time. As a Canadian I like your choice of drink, but I have to say that there is nothing better than a nice glass of dark rum with my cigar. One thing you have to throw in the mix and that is good friends.
Keep up the good work. Nick
Thanks for the comments, they really add another dimension to the website. In general, larger cigars cost more than smaller cigars, but this is not always the case. We all have our own unique tastes for certain cigars and drinks, but it never hurts to experiment. I’m not a coffee drinker, but I do enjoy various coffee drinks with cigars. It really seems to compliment the flavor of most cigars. You can drink almost anything with mild cigars, but with medium to full flavored cigars, drink selections are more limited.
I decided to try one of these Flor de Oliva Gold’s that you have been writing about. Well, I did not find them very high quality. They had in my opinion virtually no taste at all. Since they are not an expensive cigar I cut one open. The wrapper although very smooth is extremely thin and looks quite young. The binder is also of very thin leaves but did have the same large veins found in the more expensive ‘O’ series. The filler was a big disappointment as it was all medium to short filler. I bit the bullet and cut into a CAO Gold at random in my humidor since it seemed a simular type of cigar and found a strong excellent wrapper and clean binder and 100% long filler without any veins or at least with very thin ones. In short, CAO is an excellently constructed cigar as one would expect. You should expect this from the Oliva company but I am quicky loosing my interest in keeping any of their sticks in my humidor other than the Flor de Oliva Maduros or perhaps the Special G’s as these were the only ones of their brands that I have smoked and taken apart that have impressed me as being a good quality cigar, both in construction and smokability.
I guess in anything… you get what you pay for and if you are not willing to pay for a good cigar, well, you won’t get one. Over the next couple of months I will be trying the same type of experiments with the Thompson Paso Doble’s you had on your ‘Best for under $2′ list and let you know what I think. So far, the only winner on that list for me was the Mr.B’s which is strange because that is only a 60cent stick.
I can hardly wait to see what you have to say about the other cigars on my under $2 list. If you like the Mr. B’s, you should really like the Roly’s. The Flor de Oliva Gold’s do not taste very good unless they are aged for at least a couple of months, and I am also finding that all the cigars in the test-bundle do not taste the same. If you had only one but did not like it, you could be passing up a great value because most of my test cigars were actually pretty good, with just a few of them being really good.
I tried aging some maduro cigars from Famous Smoke, their Cattivo Neros. No matter how much aging you have, if the cigar is bad, aging will not improve the cigar. I also had some Carlos Torano Signature cigars that aged for about 1 year. In 1 year, they have become some of the best cigars ever.