How?

gmill880

When I first found this site I had been smoking cigars for around two or three years but did not change up what I smoked much and bought my cigars monthly. One thing that amazed me was people talking about aging cigars for 6 months , a year , 18 months and more !!! I wondered " how in the world can you keep a cigar that long and not smoke it " ??? And the variety !?!? Well today after 9 straight days of work I had a day off and was rooting through all three of my humi's just seeing what was where and looking for something good to relax on the deck with an adult beverage and noticed something. After being on the CCOM forums for about 16 months and having been involved in many games, bombings and just interacting with the great BOTL here I made an interesting discovery. I have cigars that have over 18 months of age on them and quite a few with between 8 and 10 months on them and several with over 2 years on them !!! I now understand that as your palette(sp) develops and with expanding your tastes and so many deals here and with friends it is really quite easy to have cigars with that kind of age even if your intention was not to age them. Damn I love this hobby !!! And oh yeah My choice for today was a forum blend Sumatra ...excellent smoke .

jsnake

Great BOTL here and the cigar hobby is the best thing I ever found. I have been blessed with good trades, a few bombs, but most importantly some great friends. Have several sticks guys were nice enough to date and have some age.

SaVas

Its really one of the best aspects of cigar smoking...the other people you meet that enjoy them as well. Be it people on the forums, or people at your local B&Ms. There is nothing like relaxing with some great sticks with others that enjoy the same. My biggest problem which isn't a problem really, is I have far too many 'special occasion' cigars now. The kind of cigar you have one or two left of that have become hard to come by, or are now reblended/no longer made. Lately, though, I've been dipping into those and enjoying some fantastic cigars with friends that have come over.

phobicsquirrel

gmill880:

When I first found this site I had been smoking cigars for around two or three years but did not change up what I smoked much and bought my cigars monthly. One thing that amazed me was people talking about aging cigars for 6 months , a year , 18 months and more !!! I wondered " how in the world can you keep a cigar that long and not smoke it " ??? And the variety !?!? Well today after 9 straight days of work I had a day off and was rooting through all three of my humi's just seeing what was where and looking for something good to relax on the deck with an adult beverage and noticed something. After being on the CCOM forums for about 16 months and having been involved in many games, bombings and just interacting with the great BOTL here I made an interesting discovery. I have cigars that have over 18 months of age on them and quite a few with between 8 and 10 months on them and several with over 2 years on them !!! I now understand that as your palette(sp) develops and with expanding your tastes and so many deals here and with friends it is really quite easy to have cigars with that kind of age even if your intention was not to age them. Damn I love this hobby !!! And oh yeah My choice for today was a forum blend Sumatra ...excellent smoke .

lol, yeah I'm in there with ya. We joined up here around the same time, though You have more years than me on cigars, I only smoked them off an on for about a year before I joined, then these jokers got me into it wayyyyyy toooo much.. hehe.

gmill880

phobicsquirrel:

gmill880:

When I first found this site I had been smoking cigars for around two or three years but did not change up what I smoked much and bought my cigars monthly. One thing that amazed me was people talking about aging cigars for 6 months , a year , 18 months and more !!! I wondered " how in the world can you keep a cigar that long and not smoke it " ??? And the variety !?!? Well today after 9 straight days of work I had a day off and was rooting through all three of my humi's just seeing what was where and looking for something good to relax on the deck with an adult beverage and noticed something. After being on the CCOM forums for about 16 months and having been involved in many games, bombings and just interacting with the great BOTL here I made an interesting discovery. I have cigars that have over 18 months of age on them and quite a few with between 8 and 10 months on them and several with over 2 years on them !!! I now understand that as your palette(sp) develops and with expanding your tastes and so many deals here and with friends it is really quite easy to have cigars with that kind of age even if your intention was not to age them. Damn I love this hobby !!! And oh yeah My choice for today was a forum blend Sumatra ...excellent smoke .

lol, yeah I'm in there with ya. We joined up here around the same time, though You have more years than me on cigars, I only smoked them off an on for about a year before I joined, then these jokers got me into it wayyyyyy toooo much.. hehe.

This is a evil bunch

alienmisprint

I wondered the same thing, about how you could let cigars sit for so long when I first started the hobby. Of course, I joined the forums about a month after I got into it, so no real gap there. I learned pretty quickly that as your collection expands and diversifies, alot of the sticks get aged pretty much without thinking about it. I have cigars now that are close to a year that I didn't really intend to age, lol. And yeah, it is an awesome hobby.

kuzi16

alienmisprint:

I learned pretty quickly that as your collection expands and diversifies, alot of the sticks get aged pretty much without thinking about it. I have cigars now that are close to a year that I didn't really intend to age

i have a few that are from 06 that i wasnt intending to age.

Cooper33

I can't wait to have some aged sticks. Right now my oldest are right at a month, as I restarted the hobby from scratch right at the start of December. Keep this in mind if you get a package from me :P.

nightmaremike31

When I first started enjoying cigars, in my very "newbious" days, I kep my cigars in a safe in my closet. I was cleaning out the closet this weekend and there are still cigars in there. Quite a few too, about 20 CCOM Nicaraguan Primeros, some Punch and some Pepin's. They still smell really nice, but I'm pretty sure by how brittle they are, that they might not be very good. But they've definitely aged... like an old man stuffed in a safe in the closet.

sightunseen

I've also gotten to the point where I am "unintentionally" aging cigars due to how many I have. It's pretty awesome when I rifle through my stash and find one I had forgotten about. Kind of like the feeling of finding random money in your pockets.

Fourtotheflush

I have sticks from my 1st ccom order aging that I had no intention of letting them sit for more than a month or so 18-19 monthw later. Cant wait to fire them up in the spring!

gmill880

Fourtotheflush:

I have sticks from my 1st ccom order aging that I had no intention of letting them sit for more than a month or so 18-19 monthw later. Cant wait to fire them up in the spring!

I bet those will be good !

Fourtotheflush

gmill880:

Fourtotheflush:

I have sticks from my 1st ccom order aging that I had no intention of letting them sit for more than a month or so 18-19 monthw later. Cant wait to fire them up in the spring!

I bet those will be good !

From my 1st order I have a couple RP 90 & 92 toro's and from eitherm my 2nd or 3rd order I have a Ghurka Centurian.
I love both the 90 & 92 so I'm looking forward to these with some age.

I didnt care for the Centurian, but hopefully, I have a better experience the 2nd time around.

I also have some Decades aging that will have a year on them in the spring.

Lasabar

I like to keep track of everything on my Spreadsheet to a "T" but keep the humi a little disheveled to accidentally age some good sticks

clearlysuspect

I get you on buying deals. Especially the daily deals. You gotta buy 10 of them. I think I have at least one or two cigars in my humi from every daily deal I've ever bought. Just sitting there. I've moved on to trying other cigars, but they're just getting more and more age on them. I think this is why I like the Oliveros XL line. It was one of the first DD I ever bought and I didn't touch any of them for 6 months. Now I can't get enough.


Of course, you can't say enough about the online community that has been built here. It truly is incredible and I can't think of a tighter knit online community out there that interacts on a personal level the way we do on cigar.com. I've been on some message boards before but none that sent packages to each other and shared experiences the way we do here. I'm glad to be a part of it and cigar.com ought to be proud of what they created.

gmill880

Fourtotheflush:

gmill880:

Fourtotheflush:

I have sticks from my 1st ccom order aging that I had no intention of letting them sit for more than a month or so 18-19 monthw later. Cant wait to fire them up in the spring!

I bet those will be good !

From my 1st order I have a couple RP 90 & 92 toro's and from eitherm my 2nd or 3rd order I have a Ghurka Centurian.
I love both the 90 & 92 so I'm looking forward to these with some age.

I didnt care for the Centurian, but hopefully, I have a better experience the 2nd time around.

I also have some Decades aging that will have a year on them in the spring.

Uummmm Decades !!!

notveryfar

I have a few ageing. They are already 4 months old. I bought a bunch of daily smokes and a humidor and the others I keep in a different Humi that I set aside for when I'm back in the states that are a little higher quality.

RobRutkowski

Ok, I'm going to play contrarian here.  I don't think aging is valuable unless the cigar is too damn strong to begin with.  For example, I'm aging all my Unholy Cocktails because these things are freakin' killers! 

Look, I was at a B&M the other day and I bought a $18 Davidoff, right?  The proprietor said it was mild to medium.  It kicked my butt worse than a Ruination that I smoked from Cigar.com!!!!  Worse, it leaked tobacco juice on my fingers.  The thing was obviously OLD!  In the middle, I hit a grassy spot that was just nasty.  This was a freakin' Davidoff!  So either, I got a bad stick or aging didn't help this poor thing.  I'm inclined to think the later.  I think the idea of cigars getting better with age is fiction.

Flame away.

j0z3r

RobRutkowski:

I think the idea of cigars getting better with age is fiction.

For a lot of cigars I'd agree. I've had cigars that tasted downright nasty when I got them fresh so I put them away for a while and when I smoked one some time later it was an entirely different cigar. Aging and the effect on cigars is not a myth, but I do think it's a little overstated. Chances are pretty good that if a cigar is not good fresh then aging won't do much for it, and by the same token a good cigar can become quite mediocre when aged, it all comes down to the particular cigar and how it will respond.

kaspera79

Hey Rob, I have smoked two Davidoffs and was underwhelmed on both. The ones I had were fresh since I got them from a friend who made a box purchase. I found them mild, very well constructed and consistant in their flavor profile. To compare them, they were very Avo/Griffin like. Both of which I found found far more enjoyable because of the lower price. I have had many five dollar(ish) cigars that are among my favorites. with Davidoff, you are paying for that name. Most of my cigars age due to abundance, but I can say for certain, some brands do improve, at least to me, with age. Nording, Bauza, Opus, and Camacho, to name a few.

RobRutkowski

Kaspera, you've clearly smoked more sticks than I have and I'm encouraged by your saying that Davidoff is overrated.  I just think though that people get caught up in cigar hype and that some folks will say a cigar is good just because of the name.  When it comes down to it, aging may help a really strong cigar, but in the end,  a Swisher Sweet might be better than a name cigar but no one is willing to call out the name cigar because they don't want to say the emperor has no clothes.

TatuajeVI

My cigar hobby jumped like crazy this summer. I went from an occasional smoker to an avid collector. Partly because my wife and I are in a much better position financially this year, and partly due to this forum/ccom. This forum has introduced me to many cigars I would have never tried thanks to reviews/trades from other members, and Jeff Jackson from ccom is a complete jerk for always giving me way better prices than I expect to pay. (pssst! if you don't call in your orders, you are missing out!)