Cigar 101
Smoking History
The Best Aged Cigars, From 30 to 60 Years Old are Refined, Stylish
Powerhouses of Flavor
by James Suckling
The cigar's wrapper has an opulent dark brown color; its texture is
silky and flawless. A large band, slightly yellowing and oily like
the surface of an old painting, encircles it with the name
"Belinda" printed in block letters. Perhaps most striking is its
ornate style with a red background and a gold crest of a leaping
lion, a key and three bricked towers, which speak of another time,
a grandiose age long forgotten in the cigar factories of
Havana.
Slightly hard and very square in shape, the six-inch cigar crackles
as the cutter nips off its end. It quickly takes to the flame of
the wooden match, almost lighting itself as it rotates under the
fire. Within a few minutes, a white velvety ash develops, giving
off blue-tinted smoke. Its aromas and flavors are refined with a
mild, spicy tobacco character and a soft texture.
Who would have thought that smoking a piece of history could be so
good? When this Belinda corona cigar came off the workbenches of
the La Belinda factory in Havana, no one would have ever expected
it to be so delicious almost six decades later. The corona is
believed to have been produced in the late 1930s; yet it is fresh
and savory like a cigar made just a few years ago.
Some connoisseurs will tell you that the sensation of smoking a
great, aged cigar can compare only to drinking a fine, mature
bottle of wine. They're wrong. A rare smoke gives you more. Both
mature wines and cigars stimulate your senses of sight, sound,
smell and taste, but touch is enjoyed only with cigars. And the
right cigar aged the proper way will give you an unparalleled
sensual experience that fully expresses the joys of all five
senses.
"There's nothing like it," says Shelly Jacobs, 48, a
Minneapolis-based restaurateur with one of the world's largest
private collections of aged cigars. He claims to have nearly 300
boxes of Havana cigars from the late '50s and older.
Collectors like Jacobs are primarily interested in old Cuban cigars
although they may also buy the occasional mature box from Jamaica,
Honduras, the Dominican Republic or the Canary Islands. Older
cigars produced before the December 1959 Revolution are commonly
described as "pre-Castro." Those made before President Kennedy
declared the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba in February 1962 are
"pre-embargo."
This doesn't mean that a cigar must be more than three decades old
before it's considered properly matured. Usually cigars develop a
mature character after about eight to 10 years of age. That means
that cigars should ideally have five to seven years of storage once
they arrive from the factory because aged tobacco is used in the
blends of nearly all premium hand-rolled cigars.
"After about 10 years of age, cigars change their character,"
explains Jacobs, who seldom smokes anything with less than five to
six years of box age. "By that time, they have a great bouquet and
become slightly musty like ripe cheese. I really enjoy my aged
cigars. I smoke them only on special occasions, however. There's
nothing better than lighting one up at night by myself with a glass
of Port."
Buying and smoking fine old cigars may seem appropriate for only
the most devoted aficionado, considering the cost and
inconvenience. But once you try a well-matured cigar, you must have
more. "I am now like some wine collectors I know," says Jacobs. "I
have too many aged cigars now. I don't know if I will ever smoke
them all."
Yet Jacobs is still buying. It's a little like an addiction or
collecting vintage sports cars. Of course, a
fresh-off-the-factory-line Hoyo de Monterrey double corona or a new
Porsche 911 each represent superb quality, but there's something
extra, something special, when you're touching a vintage edition.
"Aged cigars are the best thing in the world," said Michael Croley
of James J. Fox and Robert Lewis, a London merchant with a long
history in selling aged cigars. "It's more subtle. I can smell the
difference between an aged cigar and a new one right away."
Not all cigar experts agree, however. Dick DiMeola, executive vice
president and chief operating officer for Consolidated Cigar, says
his cigars are ready to smoke when they leave his factory in the
Dominican Republic. Avelino Lara, manager of Cuba's El Laguito
factory, which makes Cohibas, believes that aging cigars makes
little or no difference. "Cigars improving with age is folklore,"
Lara says. "Some people even say that Cuban cigars improve when
they cross the sea to England." Nonetheless, both men have been
known to praise a fine, old cigar when they smoke one; Lara even
gives seven-to eight-year-old Cohiba Lanceros as special gifts to
visitors.
Other merchants with a commercial interest in promoting young
cigars are less critical. "I am not saying that fine, aged cigars
are better; they're just a different experience," says Desmond
Sautter, one of London's more knowledgeable cigar merchants. "I was
skeptical myself in the beginning when I sold some very old cigars.
How good could a 35- or 40-year-old cigar smoke after all these
years? But once I started selling them, people kept coming back and
saying, "My God. Have you got any more of those?"
Part of the buzz about these cigars, especially pre-Castro and
pre-embargo ones, admittedly has nothing to do with quality. People
appreciate them for their age. "They can be good cigars, but I
don't go crazy over them," says Edward Sahakian, owner of the
Davidoff store in London. "A lot of it has to do with nostalgia. My
emphasis is on the future and not on the past."
Nevertheless, a trip to the past while smoking a fine old cigar can
be memorable. For this report, CIGAR AFICIONADO tasted 14 old
cigars, mostly from the late 50's, and there was not a poor one in
the bunch. Perhaps we were slightly more forgiving of the cigars in
view of their age, yet they all offered a finesse and a subtle
depth in character that we seldom find in cigars currently
available on the market.
Take the Cabanas No. 751, which was made in 1960 for Alfred Dunhill
Ltd. Rich and mellow, it delivered loads of creamy, nutty tobacco
flavors yet retained an amazing delicacy. It was the kind of cigar
you would burn your fingertips with rather then let it
extinguish.
"I wish I knew exactly what happens to a cigar when it ages," says
Simon Chase, the marketing director for London-based Hunters &
Frankau, the key importer of Cuban cigars in the United Kingdom.
Chase is considered one of the world's leading experts on old
cigars. "But the cigar becomes more refined and easier to smoke
regardless of the richness of the blend. It is a maturing and aging
process rather than a fermentation process. There is no major
chemical change taking place. Cigars tend to dry out a bit with
age, but they can be wonderful to smoke," he says.
When a cigar reaches about 10 years of age, it doesn't hold as much
moisture, and it is usually slightly hard and dry compared with
fresh cigars. But once you tight them, and an inch or two of ash
develops, they soften, giving a clean, fresh flavor. That dryness
seems to play a special role. Most of the London experts in aged
cigars agree that storage should be at a lower humidity than the
industrywide standard of 70 percent. "If they are too wet, some of
the aging doesn't take place," says Chase. "There has never been a
disagreement with that."
Years ago, London cigar merchants wanted to store their cigars at
about 55 percent humidity, producing what was known as the classic,
dry British style, according to the late cigar merchant Tony
Anderson. He also said that English importers would dry their
cigars before importing them to reduce the duty and taxes levied
according to the weight of the cigars. "But a dry, aged cigar gives
you the taste of pure tobacco," Anderson always said, "not simply
water."
Most cigar merchants who currently store cigars for clients tend to
keep the humidity slightly higher. "We keep clients' cigars at a
maximum of 65 [percent humidity], although closer to 60," says Neil
Millington of Dunhill's humidor room in London. "We want them a
little wetter than in years past to keep the oils in the cigars,
but they are still dry enough so that we have less problem with
mold."
Storing old cigars is one thing, however, buying them is another.
Even a merchant such as Desmond Sautter, who specializes in old
cigars, comes across only 20 or 30 boxes a year. Few, if any, other
cigar merchants around the world hold mature stocks; they're just
not available. Most of the buying and selling of these cigars is
done among a handful of experts and collectors. They know where the
mature cigar stocks are and who wants to sell or buy.
Nonetheless, serendipity does occasionally occur, and those who
follow the market tend to come across the older stocks more
frequently. "They pop up in the most interesting places," says
Jacobs. "But you have to ask around. It's like collecting [rare]
fountain pens. You have to look everywhere: collectors, stores,
restaurants."
The most common way to buy aged cigars is through a cigar merchant
who is holding stock for clients who decide to sell them. The past
five years have been very good for buying customer reserves from
merchants in the United States and England. London's Robert Lewis
and Dunhill as well as Dunhill in New York updated their reserve
lists a few years ago and contacted their clients who hadn't
touched reserves for years. Many decided to sell.
Updating of client reserves is an ongoing process. For example,
London's Robert Lewis (now James J. Fox and Robert Lewis after a
merger last December) still has 2,000 to 3,000 cigars on reserve
and pending a response from owners who are classified as inactive.
Some haven't been in contact with the shop for more than a
decade.
In most cases with unclaimed reserves, merchants try to contact
family members or wait for some communication. A former employee
with the Dunhill humidor room in London, however, decided a few
years ago to sell some of the unclaimed customer stocks to private
individuals and auction houses. One American client was sold six
boxes of pristine-condition, pre-embargo cigars for about $1,900.
The employee was arrested by the Metropolitan Police and received a
two-year suspended sentence in the London criminal courts. The
American was reimbursed by Dunhill, but he apparently would have
preferred the cigars, considering their rarity.
"The only old cigars in England outside of cigar merchants in
London would be the ones which are in family possession," says
Sautter, who has sold nearly 10,000 pre-embargo cigars in the past
five years. "The stuff is still there and stocked away unless
someone decides to get rid of it. They are given and
forgotten."
Every now and then such stocks surface. Chase recently came across
a few boxes of pre-Castro cigars from a plumber in the north of
England. "He had a couple of boxes of Romeo y Julieta petit coronas
from the '30s, still in their original wrapping and unopened," he
says. "In addition, there was one box of Henry Clay in the same
size. They were especially interesting because they were rolled in
Trenton, New Jersey, with Cuban tobacco."
In another instance, a few years ago Sautter received a telephone
call from a man who said that he had some interesting, old cigars
for sale. "He told me where he bought them, and I knew that they
could be anywhere from 20 to 30 years old, since the shop went out
of business years ago," Sautter recalls. "I told him to bring them
down to London so I could take a look at them, but the man replied
that he had loads of them." Sautter could barely control himself
when he heard that the caller had 150 boxes of cigars; so he
decided to drive up to North Wales, a five-hour trip, that
weekend.
When he arrived at the address, Sautter found himself in front of a
massive country manor, whose owner had recently died and whose
widow wished to dispose of anything connected with her husband's
two favorite pastimes: vintage cars and cigars. "There were 50 cars
or more in one garage, Bentleys, Jensens, Aston Martins," he says.
"After looking at the cars, I looked at the cigars. They came down
in cardboard boxes with the name of the merchant marked on them.
They were mostly Montecristo No. 2 (torpedoes) in cabinets of 50
cigars."
A rare find indeed. Sautter offered the manager of the estate a
hefty price for them, and although the man agreed to the sale and
told Sautter the cigars would be sent to London in a few weeks, he
later passed on the message that the woman was no longer interested
in selling. "I don't know why to this day," he says. "I was very
disappointed."
Every aged-cigar aficionado has a similar story about the one that
got away. Nevertheless, a few well-placed calls with cigar
merchants in the United States and Britain often bring results. The
key mature-cigar merchants in London include Dunhill, James J. Fox
and Robert Lewis, and Desmond Sautter; in the United States, try
Dunhill in New York and San Francisco, and Nat Sherman in New York.
These merchants usually hold reserves of cigars for their clients
in humidified storage areas and lockers--much the same way that
high-class wine merchants hold cases of wine for customers. In
addition, keep an eye out for charity auctions and the occasional
sale at Christies in London.
The main reason why Britain is the best market for mature stocks of
cigars is that the tradition began there, although some cigar
merchants in Switzerland have often tried to take credit for the
practice. The British elite have been buying and storing large
parcels of handrolled cigars for more than a century. "The
understanding of vintage cigars is still very much an English,
aristocratic, upper-class pursuit," says Chase. "They buy their
cigars, they lay down their cigars and they understand that they
should be left for a period of time."
Many blue-blooded families in the United States, especially on the
East Coast, have a strong inclination to follow English avocations
of pleasure, and cigars are no exception. The U.S. branches of
Dunhill, among others, have a well-established tradition of laying
down cigars. Some of the best pre-embargo cigars still in
circulation in the United States are those selected and sold by
Dunhill. They were nearly always sold in Dunhill-branded boxes with
their state-side location names printed on the inside lid: San
Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, and Beverly Hills,
California. They had special numbers for each cigar style produced
by the Havana factories: designations such as H. Upmann Selection
Suprema No. 22 or Ramon Allones No. 66.
In London, James J. Fox and Robert Lewis is the merchant with the
largest stock of reserves. About 320 customers have cigars in
storage: it's conceivable that more than 10,000 cigars might be
lying in the merchant's cellar. Many of them were bought in the
'50s and '60s. "We hold more reserve cigars than anywhere else in
the world," says Croley, whose family owned part of Robert Lewis
until the December merger. "In my grandfather's time, we never used
to sell a cigar less than eight years old. Unfortunately, this is
not altogether possible today, but we encourage our customers to
lay down stocks to be able to enjoy a fine, mature Havana
cigar."
Croley, like most other serious cigar merchants, says that the cost
has now shifted to the client to lay down reserves. Customers are
usually charged a yearly storage fee, or they must buy a minimum
number of boxes of cigars each year. Dunhill in the United States
even maintains a cigar club, the Connoisseurs' Humidor Society, to
attract customers with reserves. "It builds our relationship with
our customer," says Graves "Smitty" Smith of Dunhill's branch in
New York. "We want more people in the society. It builds
camaraderie among them."
Smitty says that more and more customers in their 30s and 40s are
now laying down cigars for the future. Assuring themselves a good
supply of top-quality, aged cigars is one reason, as well as the
satisfaction of knowing they have their cache in a Dunhill locker.
"Besides, they wouldn't like it if their wives or girlfriends knew
that they spent $3,000 or $4,000 a year on cigars. So it's good for
them to keep their cigars with us," he says.
That's less the case with London cigar merchants. They sell Havana
cigars almost exclusively, and they cost two to four times the
price of those sold in the United States from other countries. It
is a major investment for cigar lovers to start laying down cigars
there. For example, a cigar lover in the United States may spend
$750 to $1,250 for putting on reserve 10 boxes of 25 Dominican or
Honduran robusto-sized cigars, but doing the same thing in London
with Cuban robustos may cost $2,350 to $3,500.
Buying old cigars is even more expensive. A cigar with 20 or 30
years of age in good condition can be double or triple the retail
price for a currently available one in a similar size or shape.
Sautter says that five years ago he would have sold most of his
pre-Castro cigars for half of today's price. He recently sold a box
of 100 Montecristo No. 1 from the late '50s for about $4,650. It
would have brought about $1,100 five years ago and $1,860 a little
more than a year ago.
Because of the high cost of cigars in Britain, Sautter says that
more people bought cigars for reserve about 20 or 30 years ago in
London, which is why there are still relatively large stocks to be
found. "A shipment of a particular cigar would come in and the
customer would be notified," says Sautter. "Then we would say,
'take 10 boxes, sir, but don't smoke them yet. Give them a chance
to improve.' Don't forget that in those days cigars would have cost
about £2 to £3 a box. So, a guy would come and say, 'I will put
down £100 worth of cigars.' "
Of course, it may mean more business for them, but most cigar
merchants still think it makes good sense to put cigars on reserve.
With most premium markets increasing cigar prices and taxes, one
London merchant predicts that it's not going to get any cheaper to
buy cigars.
If you decide to invest, larger cigars are always the best sizes to
put on reserve. Generally speaking, the fatter and longer the
cigar, the better. Cigars such as Churchills and double coronas are
ideal, but robustos, although shorter, also store well. "You will
lose some of the intensity of flavor when the cigar ages; so it's
better to take fuller, richer styles of cigars," says Chase.
In addition, it's always a good idea to buy the cigars in cedar
boxes called cabinets. Instead of being pressed or held in
cardboard-lined cedar boxes, they are loosely held together in
bundles of 25 or 50 cigars and then placed in a cedar box. The
cigars seem to improve better with age in this packaging.
How many cigars to put away every year depends on how many you
smoke. If you smoke only a few cigars a week, then four or five
boxes a year should do. Daily smokers will have to buy more. By the
fifth or six year, you should have a great collection of aged
cigars. The cigars you first bought will he ready for smoking and
your next reserve purchase will replace them. Most cigar collectors
recommend, however, that you try one or two cigars from each box
after their second or third year in storage to see how they are
evolving. If you like them after a shorter period of time, smoke
them. Rules on when to smoke an aged cigar don't exist.
If you are looking for older cigars, then the only way to be sure
is to consult cigar merchants. They may have boxes of mature cigars
available. To be certain of their age, some London merchants used
codes or marks to indicate in what year they were bought, although
this was not an industrywide practice. Pre-Castro or pre-embargo
cigars are usually packaged somewhat differently from current
cigars from Cuba. For instance, most of them are printed with MADE
IN HAVANA-CUBA on the bottom of the box instead of the standard
HECHO EN CUBA used today. In addition, there are styles, sizes and
brands of cigars that have not been made in Cuba since shortly
after the Revolution. These are obviously very old and the most
valuable.
For example, the Belinda corona cigars from the late '30s were
bought at a Toronto auction last June for about $2,500, or $100 a
cigar. Granted, the auction was for charity, so prices may have
been slightly inflated. But other pre-Castro cigars from merchants
have been selling for even higher prices. Are they really worth the
price?
For devoted cigar aficionados like Jacobs, the answer is an
unequivocal yes. "Of course it's worth the money," he says. "When I
smoke a good one, it is amazing to me that they are still smokable.
They are delicious. I thought they would have been like tasting old
dust."
Tasting Notes
1. MONTECRISTO NO. 1 SELECCION SUPREMA
It was a shame to break up the cedar box of 100 cigars, but what
cigars. The draw was so good they almost smoked by themselves, and
the rich, creamy flavors filled your mouth. They were good down to
the last inch.
Estimated production date: 1958. 98
2. CABANAS NO. 751 ALFRED DUNHILL LTD.
In a cedar cabinet box of 50 cigars, these were amazingly good to
smoke. The cigars showed beautiful, oily, dark-brown wrappers and
smoked beautifully as well. Medium-bodied with a superfine, nutty
character, they caressed our taste buds with every puff.
Estimated production date: 1960. 97
3. ROMEO & JULIETA NO. 758 ALFRED DUNHILL LTD. SELECCION
SUPREMA CEDRO DELUXE
The packaging of this lonsdale cigar is wonderful, with each cigar
individually wrapped in cedar sleeves. The cigars themselves are
equally impressive, with loads of rich coffee-and-spice character
yet in a very harmonious style.
Estimated production date: 1959. 97
4. H. UPMANN NO. 4 ALFRED DUNHILL LTD.
This is a deceptive old cigar that starts off slowly with
medium-bodied tobacco and almost minty aromas and flavors, but ends
with a burst of spicy character.
Estimated production date: 1961. 95
5. H. UPMANN NO. 22 ALFRED DUNHILL LTD. SELECCION SUPREMA
What an experience to smoke. Fondly called the Flying Pig in the
trade in the late '50s, this is a thick-girth cigar with a lot of
character. It burns evenly and easily with a rich yet delicate
tobacco, nutmeg flavor and a long aftertaste.
Estimated production date: 1958. 94
6. LA CORONA CHURCHILL
Another aged cigar with a gorgeous, silky, medium-brown wrapper and
a slightly silvery sheen to it. Mellow and refined, these
Churchills delivered lots of tobacco flavor and a hint of spice on
the finish.
Estimated production date: 1957. 93
7. PARTAGAS NO. 6 SELECCION SUPERBA ENGLISH MARKET SELECTION
What a gorgeous small cigar. It's a virtual spice box of flavors.
Medium-bodied with mellow, elegant aromas and flavors of pepper,
mint and tobacco, it gives all the smoking pleasure you need and
more.
Estimated production date: 1959. 93
8. BELINDA BELINDAS
This cigar tasted as wonderful as it looked. Its wrapper was dark
brown, verging on a maduro, but it delivered smooth, mellow tobacco
aromas and flavors that went on and on.
Estimated production date: 1936. 92
9. FLOR DE FARACH PALMERAS
A secondary brand of Cuban cigar, this came from a batch sold in
the early '80s at a New York auction. They were surprisingly good
for a thick, panatela-sized cigar. Mild and spicy, they delivered
plenty of flavor and character.
Estimated production date: 1958. 92
10. MONTECRISTO NO. 4 ALFRED DUNHILL LTD. SELECCION SUPREMA
Another old, mellow Monty. This petit corona smokes like a dream
with light, smooth tobacco character and a cedary, savory
finish.
Estimated production date: 1961. 92
11. RAMON ALLONES IDEALES
Beautiful to look at, this is a pencil-long perfecto cigar--pointed
at both ends. It starts out a little harsh, then develops into a
full-bodied but quite mellow smoke. Very spicy.
Estimated production date: 1958. 89
12. ROMEO Y JULIETA ALFRED DUNHILL SELECTION SUN-GROWN BREVAS
SELECCION SUPREMA
A high-octane smoke with tons of flavor, this cigar was originally
designed to be smoked outside during a country walk. It still burns
with ease and produces rich, powerful flavors. The only problem is
its slightly tight draw.
Estimated production date: 1961. 89
13. RAMON ALLONES NO. 66 ALFRED DUNHILL LTD.
We have smoked numerous of these thick, perfecto-shaped cigars, and
the two for this tasting were not as good as previous ones.
Although they showed medium-bodied, cedary tobacco character, they
both seemed slightly dried out. Other cigars have been rich and
creamy with loads of flavor.
Estimated production date: 1961. 87
14. HENRY CLAY CORONAS
Not as good as the others in this group. One of these coronas we
smoked seemed rather musty and off-character, but the other cigar
was medium-bodied with a rich, nutty and coffeelike character.
Estimated production date: 1958. 86
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