So every once in awhile my dad lights up a stick with me for father-son bonding time. He's pretty green when it comes to cigars, and his favorite stick is the Macanudo Portofino (lancero). Although I find them pretty bland to my taste, he loves them; so I always keep a few at the bottom of my humidor in case the mood strikes him to come join me (which isn't very often, maybe 2-3 times a year).
In December, I purchased a 5'er of them from CI to replenish the few I had left. I let them sit for a few months, and recently opened them up. They were horrible. All 5 of them were crooked as question marks, lumpy, covered in pectin, and the bands were falling off.
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Between my father and I, we smoked three of them. The first two we smoked were completely plugged, and the third was smokable but had an incredibly hard and unbearable draw. So on General Cigar's website, they have a customer comment section where I put a short comment about my experiences. A few days later, I recieved an email from them asking me for pictures of the cigars, as well as my personal address. I responded back to them, and this showed up on my doorstep today (sent FedEx overnight may I add):
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A personal signed letter to me, a 5'er of Macanudo Portofinos, a nice stainless steel cutter, and a box of cigar matches. Blew me away. Being a cigar snob, I've never been a big purchaser of Altadis and General Cigar stuff. But this will keep me buying more. Awesome customer service.
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