Strong Cigars
Fourtotheflush
Everyone, Registered Users Posts: 2,555
What started the strong cigar craze?
Was it the LX2?
The Edge, Sungrown?
Opus X?
It definately started before the ruination hit, but that has helped continue it!
So what do you think? What cigar(s) pushed the world into the strong cigar craze?
Was it the LX2?
The Edge, Sungrown?
Opus X?
It definately started before the ruination hit, but that has helped continue it!
So what do you think? What cigar(s) pushed the world into the strong cigar craze?
Comments
for the most part it was Rocky Patel with The Edge. that was one of the first cigars in this current trend to be billed, promoted, sold as, "full bodied"
the marketing behind it was very good.
about that time JdN came out with the re-release of the Antano but the marketing behind it didnt have the same punch. in fact, it was so strong that it actually turned many off. the Antano that is out now has been reblended to keep the taste but tone down the power.
it was also around this time that the El Cobre by Oliva was released as a one time deal to the general public (as apposed to one or two shops as it is now) and was billed as the fullest cigar on the market. Cigar.com carried them at that point. i think this was in 2006. after the instant success of these lines you started to see more cigars like the Oliva serie V, Camacho (always full bodied but not as popular with the "newer smokers" until this point), DPG, and, as time went on, Tatuaje, Liga Privada, MoW, etc....
though there were full bodied blends out there before (like the OpusX), it took good marketing by one company to bring it to the front burner for the "novice smoker" that did want to drop the coin on some of the "super premiums."
I'm imagining this isn't the first time consumer tastes have changed so drastically, but I wouldn't know anything before 2002ish. It seems to me though, that there have always been medium to full smokes out there (Padron, LGC, Punch, never tried and opus X) but you really had to know what to look for if you wanted to find it. Now its every where you turn, which is a good thing, as I think its taken the terms full body and full flavor to new levels. I'm still amazed that they can fit that much strength, body and flavor into a cigar and balance it so well.
I'd love to hear some opinions from people who we're smoking during the cigar boom of the 90s, or prior. I can't imagine this is the first full body full flavor boom the industry has seen.
the 90s cigar boom (from what i can tell because i turned 18 in late 1998) was more on the smoother milder side. brands like Macanudo, Arturo Fuente, ashton, and Montecristo that are now known for their smoothness were the stars of the day.
the cigar boom can actually be the underlying cause to the fuller cigars that we know today.
the 90s boom got many people interested in the hobby. this lead to more demand for different cigars and eventually an interest in Cuban cigars and blends. people were demanding more "cubanesque" cigars all the time. the popularity of the criollo and corojo wrapper started in the early 2000's where you had cigars like the Punch rare corojo that tried to imitate the flavor profile of the Corojo leaf (though not actually coining ANY corojo). this is probably what sent it over the edge. we started to see more and more spicy cigars and "cubanesque" cigars. the full body got more and more popular. enter Rocky Patel and The Edge.
Thats interesting about the boom. I'm about the same age (turned 31 this past may) so I clearly missed the cigar boom too, but that really seems to sum it up and is probably a huge factor in why we have more stronger cigars available to us today. When I started smoking in 2002, almost everything out there in the mainstream was marketed towards being smooth and mild. A company like La Gloria Cubana, who started in the Boom (i think) and managed to survive, produced cigars with medium body and flavor, but back then their original blend was thought to be full bodied. On a side note, I freaking love their original blend. straightforward, but so good.
Also, from what I've read, another factor in why we see more full bodied full flavored cigars out there is the increase in experimentation in different hybrid tobaccos which really took off in the later stages of the cigar boom, and continue today. Kuzi, you bring up the Punch rare Corojo, and it got me thinking of that H2000 wrapper which was developed back in the 90s as a combo of stuff to make it taste like a "cubanesque" and was used as a wrapper on a handfull of cigars back then (Gurkha Masters Select is one). Then, the early burn problems with that wrapper led them to create the first mainstream Criollo and Corojo tobaccos, and onward. So I think that could be another factor in the industry right now too trending towards stronger cigars. There is more variety available to the blenders. The Tobacco growers are taking big risks, and using portions of their fields to try new hybrids. And I think these risks are paying off for the consumers with the varieties of flavors available to us now.
almost all tobacco grown from cigars is derived from the criollo plant, and that in turn is derived from the nicotiana tabacum. nicotiana tabacum has two varietal families that are broken down by af few things:
1. Tobacco Varietal
2. Method(s) of curing: air, fire, flue, sun
3. Intended use
the the "light tobacco" is used primarily in pipe tobaccos: burley, virginia, orientals...
the "dark tobacco" is used in cigars.
corojo's origins date back to the time Columbus discovered the “New World” and have been traditionally been used as fillers in cuban cigars for generations.
corojo was developed in 1930s by Diego Rodriguez and was derived from the Criollo seed through selective breeding in an attempt to diminish the effects of mold on the plant. he failed but the corojo leaf was still used for many years as the main wrapper leaf in cuba.
on that note both corojo and criollo are very new to the US market of cigars. only recently have they seen widespread use. even still criollo is not on the front burner. there are only a small handfull of cigars that use that strain. corojo is the on really being pushed.