What...? Vintage 1990...?

B

boredatskewl

Joined Jun 2006
502 Posts | 0+
Chester, NJ
I got my issue of Cigar Magazine last tuesday and finally made my way through it, and the last article, what they call the final focus, is intitled "Are You Kiddin' Me? Just How Dumb Does Everyone Think We Are"

I am fairly new to Cigar smoking, well I should say that I'm fairly new to paying attention to cigar smoking, I've had a humi for about 6 years and always enjoyed a good cigar but never really cared what it was or where it came from untill recently. But anyway, back to the article...

The article is about the plateau that the premium cigar industry was on throught the 80's and into the 90's and how the demand for premium cigars started to increase in 91 & 92, almost a "boom". It goes into pretty good detail on how the demand went from a pretty steady 100 million cigars per year to 150, 200, 300, and almost 400 million at the peak.

The interesting thing about this atricle is that it compares this "boom" to the embargo of Havana made cigars. Everyone thought that it wasn't going to last more than a few weeks, and definetly not more than a month or two, so everyone kept making 100%-havana-filler-cigars, and selling them at the same prices.

The article suggests that once the demand surged from 100 to 200 million every year, each manufacturer needed the equivilent of twice their normal inventory of tobacco. And since the growth took everyone by surprise, no one had planted any more tobacco then they had in previous years. Now the atricle goes into detail about the cycle of tobacco and how it's harvested in 6 or 7 primings as the leaves mature from top to bottom, and how most quality manufacturers have two to three years worth of tobacco nventory so that the cigars are made with a properly fermented leaf...(it's very interesting)

What this all boils down to, is that in order to maintain inventory for the "boom" demand, cigar manufactureres needed to use up all of this tobacco. And the question remains...It's now 2006, but the previous 2 or 3 years apply, and some manufactureres are releasing cigars made with tobacco from the early 90's....?

Personally the article sold me on the fact that it is not possible. But I maintain that I haven't done any reasearch, and they say, you can't always believe what you read...I was just wondering if any one else saw this article, or had an opinion on this.....



I'm not sure of how this post applies to the rules of citing a source, but I'll do it anyway just to be safe:

Rothman, Lew. "Are You Kiddin' Me: Just How Dumb Does Everyone Think We Are." Cigar Magazine. Winter 2006: 138-140.
 
While this article raises a good point, there are certain makers that can trace their tobacco. During the boom, one company was doing a lot of investing. They go by the name UST and they were aquired by General Cigar about 4 years ago. During and right before the boom they spent a great deal of money stocking up on tobacco surplus. I kid you not, they had warehouses that were 40000 square feet stacked to the cieling with leaf. This remained throughout the boom, namely becuase as you mention, people thought the demand was going to last forever and UST thought they would get the most money by waiting it out. A great deal of the tobacco the was held by this company is what you are seeing now in things like the Rocky Patel Vintage lines. I have seen this surplus with my own two eyes.

Another item to point out is that the article directly attackes Rocky Patel. You will note that Rocky Patel refuses to offer his cigars to Lew Rothman for sale. I would speculate that this creates some bad blood here. There is an obvious motive behind the article.


Most of the tobacco you see today that is very old is actually fairly poor quality which is why it was never used, or the leaf was too small, etc. THat is why you still find it todaya dn that is why you only see it in the filler, becuase the tobacco is not suitable for wrapper.
 
Alex Svenson said:
Another item to point out is that the article directly attackes Rocky Patel. You will note that Rocky Patel refuses to offer his cigars to Lew Rothman for sale. I would speculate that this creates some bad blood here. There is an obvious motive behind the article.
Click to expand...

Now that you mention it, I did forget about that. I recall now reading something about the Habana2000 leaf also, and how Rothman and Rocky Patel were having issues about that as well...something about trademarking the name or something. I suppose if you factor those in, the article no longer has the merit it I thought.
 
Alex, are you saying that some of the filler in a Rocky Patel uses some bad filler becasue it wasn't sutible for a wrapper? Your probabaly not I just misunderstood.
 
I think that it was just not sutible to be wrapper. The leaf on the wrapper needs to be perfect in all ways. A filler leaf does not need to look pretty.
 
Wrapper, binder, and filler are very different. Typically not only do they come from different primings, but also they are cured seperately. The larger leaves and leaves with more flawless appearance and typically used as wrapper. Filler and binder is still great tobacco, just less asthetically pleaseing. Also, size plays a huge roll. The 21 year old Dominican Sun grown that goes into the Cusano 18 filler is an almost black corona leaf that is so small, you could not even use it as a wrapper for a robusto. That is why that tobacco was never uesed and today is utilized in the filler only.

Hope this clears some things up.
 
This is a great thread and a great question we are on here. Let me expand. I want to agree with the author of the article. There is no standard in cigars or oversight board that can confirm people are making what it really is. Take the Punch Rare Corojo, it is actaully Sumatra seed, not corojo. There are a million things like this in the cigar industry and there certainly are a lot of people out there that say they use tobacco from certain crops. I am just saying it needs to be taken on a case by case basis.

There are some important things to consider when you talk about aged tobacco and aged cigars. These two things ("aged tobacco" and "aged cigars") are vastly different. Tobacco ages from the moment it is put in the ground until it is reduced to ash. Cigars dont start aging until they are rolled but the tobacco in them continues to age in your humidor also. Tobacco aging refers to processes of fermentation and chemical reactions by wich the leaf breaks down certain elements. Cigar aging refers more to a process by which the oils in a cigar and various tobaccos are marrying together and the cigar is establishing its own sort of identity. If you bought a mac vintage 97 two years ago, the 97 refers to the age of the tobacco, not the rolled on date. In the Cigar.com aging room you will find the dates we give actually refer to the boxing date.

The funny thing is that all tobacco is aged to some extent. From the moment it is planted in the ground it starts its journey.

Growing 45 - 90 days (climate and seed deendent)
45 - 90 days curing (dependent on leaf type on technology in barn)
180 days - 2 years fermenting (variable on leaf and seed)
90 - 120 days post rolling aging

The truth here is that all tobacc is at least 3 - 5 years by the time you smoke it. The funny thing is that one day during the cigar boom, people some cigar maker made a big deal out of using 3 or 4 year old leaf. Welll..... everyone uses that, but the cigar public did not know that and all the sudden everyone had to start saying they did too even though it was the industry standard anyway. That said, the boom is kind of a bad example as fermentation and other processes were rushed in an effort to turn out leaf as quickly as possible.

Bottom line, you have to find a reputable manufacturer and smoke the cigars for taste and what you like. Forget about what is in them or how old they say they are. Pay more attention to things like seeds, country of origin, factory they are rolled in, etc to start to determine what you like. These things are more consistent and better guides along the cigar journey. Especially seeds. That is the best starting point. You can tell a lot about a cigar by the type of wrapper seed used and wehre and hot it is grown.
 
just my 2 pennies... in the issue before that one, Lew spoke about the sudden emergence of 50 yr old isom tobacco, you know those $50.00 dollar cigars some people are selling these days. I think this is what he is talking about. There is no way tobacco from before the embargo is still around today? and if it is, we'll it must of been pretty lousy to leave it sitting in a warehouse some where all this time.
 
There is one bail of preembaro I know of that the Eiroas have. However, the tobacco has absolutely no taste at all.
 
Alex, thank you for the information, I learned a lot in the brief time it took to read this post, and I am sure a lot of others did also.

The history of tobacco is an interesting read, and the more you read, the more there seems to be that you can learn. It doesn't change the way we enjoy our cigars, but it does make us more educated consumers.
 
Alex Svenson said:
The truth here is that all tobacc is at least 3 - 5 years by the time you smoke it. The funny thing is that one day during the cigar boom, people some cigar maker made a big deal out of using 3 or 4 year old leaf. Welll..... everyone uses that, but the cigar public did not know that and all the sudden everyone had to start saying they did too even though it was the industry standard anyway. That said, the boom is kind of a bad example as fermentation and other processes were rushed in an effort to turn out leaf as quickly as possible.
Click to expand...

I understand that at this point, the cigar makers have all cought up to the demand, but at the time, what did they do? Did they use a younger leaf? And if they did I would have to assume that that would affect the next few years production as supplies were shallow. Now all tobacco might be 3 to 5 years old, but what about in the mid 90's?
 
There are a lot of ways to answer that question. If it was a maduro leaf they would get cooked or painted to get artificial color. Over the 1 to 2 yaer fermentation, cigars will ferment up to 8 or more times. This is the area that got side stepped more often than not in the 90's. People would try to ferment the tobacco in half the time. If tobacco did not ferment properly there were horrible combustion problems and when the rollers would we the tobacco before rolling, it would let of an excessive amount of amonia which is a natural by product of fermentation. This can happen today with some cuban cigars. If you open a box and you get hit with that amonia smell, the cigars need some major downtime. Either they did not sit long enough after rolling or the worst case scenario is that the tobacco was not properly fermented to start with. The later was mostly the case during the boom.

There is another side to the coin also as it relates to the boom years. There has always been a heavy supply of tobacco in the world, what people dont realize is that most of it is not meant for premium cigars. Most of the tobacco in the world finds its way into cigarettes etc. Only the finest crops from the finest regions yield a leaf that was meant for a hand rolled cigar. During the boom, any tobacco was demanding a high price so people would take what they could get. Now that everything is more under control, people are back to buying quality leaf again.

However, there is a major shortage right now which is something people dont realize. We are on the brink of major price increases for the raw material and the political situation in Nicaragua has made things especailly difficult in that part of the world. The boom has taughten us a lot, and its benefit is actually seen the quality of cigars we are getting today. Cigar makers learned the hard way that people want quality cigars made from quality tobacco. Fewer people are cutting corners today.
 
Wow I am just rereading some of my posts. Sorry about the typos, spelling and grammer. I am just kind of flowing on this freely without proofing.
 
this may be a slight tangent...

in the camacho liberty sticks there is a little Pelo de Oro Cuban filler. because the tobacco is aged almost 45 years by this point will it have much of an influence on the flavor or is this more or less hype to sell this as a specialty stick?
 
Alex Svenson said:
Cigar makers learned the hard way that people want quality cigars made from quality tobacco. Fewer people are cutting corners today.

Earlier Post
Most of the tobacco you see today that is very old is actually fairly poor quality which is why it was never used, or the leaf was too small, etc. THat is why you still find it todaya dn that is why you only see it in the filler, becuase the tobacco is not suitable for wrapper.
Click to expand...

I suppose that my next question is that if the tobacco is of poor quality, then why use it at all when supply is not an issue these days. I suppose that the wrapper is the only real thing that you see so they can tell you they put whatever filler and binder they want, but if the quality is much higher now, why not use the best?

I suppose that your last post hinted at the fact that we may be entering into another time when costs will rise because of a major shortage right now, but do you think that it will reach the extents of the early 90's?
 
Great Posts Alex. I'd love to sit down with you sometime (if we ever meet at a GTG or something) at pick your brain. A friend of mine used to be a buyer/manger for TB and he is great to talk to.
 
Alex Svenson said:
This is a great thread and a great question we are on here. Let me expand. I want to agree with the author of the article. There is no standard in cigars or oversight board that can confirm people are making what it really is. Take the Punch Rare Corojo, it is actaully Sumatra seed, not corojo. There are a million things like this in the cigar industry and there certainly are a lot of people out there that say they use tobacco from certain crops. I am just saying it needs to be taken on a case by <...> and what you like. Forget about what is in them or how old they say they are. Pay more attention to things like seeds, country of origin, factory they are rolled in, etc to start to determine what you like. These things are more consistent and better guides along the cigar journey. Especially seeds. That is the best starting point. You can tell a lot about a cigar by the type of wrapper seed used and wehre and hot it is grown.
Click to expand...

Alex, if this is the case, how do I know what I am smoking. I try to pay at least some attention to these things, but I have purchased cigars in the past that I thought for sure I would like based on wrapper, binder and filler and in some cases I have been very disappointed. Is there a definitive guide on things like this, or is it just a matter of trial and error?
 
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