A Word on Cigar Reviews & Ratings

Cigar smoking is a very subjective hobby where one guy's dog turd can be another man's favorite smoke. However, there are myriad ratings systems and countless reviews used and written by various websites and magazines (well one magazine, Cigar Aficionado) that give cigars a quantitative rating with a qualitative description of the smoking experience. Most of the time, however, there is no description for how cigars were rated or graded quantitatively and some of the values are just guesstimation or arbitrarily assigned. Reviewing a cigar's taste or flavor is also hit or miss, because it is extremely subjective.

There is no centralized rating system. What should you, the casual cigar smoker take from this? DON'T TRUST THE RATINGS, FIGURE OUT FOR YOURSELF. You can always go by the recommendations of others, but always try a cigar out for yourself, you are the best judge of what it is you enjoy. Reviews and ratings are helpful, but keep in mind that each person has a highly individualized palate and can taste and sense different things while smoking.

So how can you find out whether a cigar is good or not? There are two criteria, which are objective enough that everyone can understand what they mean and recognize them instantly:

1. A good cigar will have a good draw. This means that when you smoke it, it doesn't feel like trying to suck a golf ball through a straw and you are able to get a good volume of smoke out of the cigar.

2. A good cigar will have a 'smooth' flavor. A bad cigar tastes harsh. Basically, if a cigar is bad it will most likely taste like ass and smoking it will hurt you throat, and there will be a very harsh and unpleasant flavor. This usually means that the cigar has poor quality leaf (as in the case of gas station/pharmacy cigars) or the tobacco leaves have not been properly cured and aged. The cigars are harsh because the tobacco leaves still have a lot of ammonia (NH3).

If these two things aren't present, then your cigar most likely sucks. Construction is another key criteria, but that has a lot to do with how the cigars are stored rather than the cigars themselves.

So while you smoke take note of these things. I also recommend that you write your own reviews or make mental notes on how cigars taste and what flavors you can pick up. Eventually, once your palate develops, you'll get to a point where you can forget about all of the details and rate/review cigars on whether or not you will smoke them again simply if you find them enjoyable.