The Contributors
Chris Harms (left) and Vince Buonassi (right) are brothers in law and of the leaf. Chris lives Just north of Bloomington, IL with his wife, step son, and baby boy. Vince lives just west of Joliet, IL with his wife and a baby on the way! Read on to learn more about the site. This is the only lengthy narrative you're going to get on this blog, so enjoy!
Chris Harms (left) and Vince Buonassi (right) are brothers in law and of the leaf. Chris lives Just north of Bloomington, IL with his wife, step son, and baby boy. Vince lives just west of Joliet, IL with his wife and a baby on the way! Read on to learn more about the site. This is the only lengthy narrative you're going to get on this blog, so enjoy!
The Pallet
The cigars that appeal to us the most are of the Nicaraguan variety, being complex with a full bodied experience. Of course, there is no substitute (yet) for the occasional prized Cuban puro consisting of seco and aged ligero. Stronger Dominicans in the correctly presented format and certain Hondurans are nothing to sneeze at either, but generally appeal less to our pallets than a Nicaraguan. Nonetheless, if you are a fan of full bodied, complex, medium strength cigars, this blog is for you and you should keep reading.
The Subscriber
This site is exclusively for smokers who:
- DON'T have the time for fluff, pretension, or literary cigar lovemaking.
- DON'T want to read a novel about one cigar that visits every detail of every puff.
- DO want to know what a particular cigar tastes like compared to others in a genre, region, or family of blends.
- DO want the nuts and bolts of a cigar experience in a short format and with brutally honest opinions.
The Origin
We sat down one evening in October of 2010 (which, in hindsight, turned out not to be very responsible - consisting of way too many Fat Tire beers and some mean Sailor Jerry rum). It was then that we came up with our mission statement. After surfing the cigar blogosphere for months, we came to the same conclusions that only a few sites were quick and to the point offering their condensed thoughts on an experience. But even these sites still stuck by the power of the complete review. Even more consisted of garbage we didn't care about and chapters in a novel broken down by thirds. Cigar prose, if you will. We even tried this pretentious format for a while, but found that the evaluation method was robbing from our experiences. After all, this is why we smoke cigars to begin with! Similarly, when we read reviews, all we found ourselves caring about was whether or not this would be a stick worth buying and smoking ourselves. We found our eyes skimming to the summary section to get the overall thoughts and were left pining for comparisons on what this might taste like compared to another smoke in the same family or genre.
Its been an unfortunate trend that some bloggers keep up the practice of nice positive fluffy narratives to keep receiving free smokes from retailers pushing inventory or even manufacturers and blenders trying to promote their product. These cigar "tools" give online reviews and ratings a dishonest slant, praising mediocre products and forget that a blog is about personal opinion. We believe cigar experiences and reviews should be for the consumer alone, not the company selling the product. They have their own websites for this very reason. The catch 22 is that as our site builds in credibility, it will only behoove retailers and manufacturers who truly care about their product to have their cigar featured on our site (and passing the test!).
The Disclaimer
For your reference, we keep our personal humidors at 62-65 rh and temps that vary based on seasonal fluctuations between 60-70 f. Before we give an opinion on a cigar we will always let it rest in our humidor for a minimum of 2 weeks to allow it to stabilize. Of course, if we buy it from a B&M tobacconist and smoke it immediately, we'll relay the exception in our review.
Unlike other websites you may follow, we do reviews based on one stick. A manufacturer only has one chance to gain you as a follower. We feel this “one stick shot” epitomizes this experience. If a manufacturer has poor quality control or unsteady supply of tobacco, the posting will offer up our thoughts, regardless of anomalies. Even the best cigar makers have duds every now and then, but they will be vindicated on subsequent posts. Construction is usually the killer here with taste being affected less. Sometimes the humidity control is poor at the B&M. We usually will give manufacturers the benefit of the doubt and comment that the reviews are based on one stick and it could just be an isolated cigar or neglected by a tobacconist who ran his humidity too high (we'll also name that B&M for your amusement and caution when purchasing).
The cigar "experience" is subjective because each smoker assigns differing levels of importance on the cigar attributes (appearance, draw, aroma, etc). However, tastes are not. If a cigar has coffee or chocolate notes in it - those are definitive flavors that are not subjective. Everyone knows what coffee and chocolate taste like. Coffee doesn't taste like strawberries to anyone! Our reviews are simple: we will comment only on those notes that are not subjective, but we will also post our opinions on the overall experience without being disingenuous or overly kind. That is the beauty of having your own website, you can do that! Yes, we sometimes have differing opinions on the same cigar that we gladly post without slant for your consideration.
The cigar "experience" is subjective because each smoker assigns differing levels of importance on the cigar attributes (appearance, draw, aroma, etc). However, tastes are not. If a cigar has coffee or chocolate notes in it - those are definitive flavors that are not subjective. Everyone knows what coffee and chocolate taste like. Coffee doesn't taste like strawberries to anyone! Our reviews are simple: we will comment only on those notes that are not subjective, but we will also post our opinions on the overall experience without being disingenuous or overly kind. That is the beauty of having your own website, you can do that! Yes, we sometimes have differing opinions on the same cigar that we gladly post without slant for your consideration.
The End
Now enjoy the posts and be sure to leave a comment!
