Hahah I brought it for yours guys enjoyment!

Not a bad cigar, just not Top 10 worthy.
[Reply]

Me personally, I dont look at their top 25 and say 'oh these are the best cigars out there' but, i do look at it as a buying guide, soo to speak. If there is a stick on there that I havent had yet I will try to get 1. My personal feeling is if it makes somebody's top whatever, it may be worth giving a shot. :-)
[Reply]

^ I agree

If you took 25 peoples Top 10 lists, they would all be different. Any list of top 10 anything will have controversy.

I look at their list as a "things I should try". I don't take their list as the gospel, or even with the thought that I will like the cigars they put on it. I have had most of the cigars up already minus the EP Carillo and H Upmann and I will agree that they are good cigars and worthy of being on the top 25 list somewhere.
[Reply]

well, the upmanns are certainly good...
[Reply]

Agree on all counts. Anything that says "consumer reviews" should be treated as a guide and not much else. Funny how people get bent of shape when their favorites don't make it on someone's list. As far as I can see it, it should be a "benefit" since whatever you like in such a case will be more readily available and probably stay underpriced. Applies to cigars and anything else...

Also, what many seem to miss is that cigars, unlike say, wine/beer/alcohol, are made of solids and vary from leaf to leaf no matter how well anyone ferments and treats them. They will be extremely close in best case scenarios, but nowhere near as homogenous as wine, for example. All barrels in a particular lot are blended together before bottling making each and every bottle taste the same right after bottling (cork and storage will affect each bottle with time, as the saying goes, There are no great wines, only great bottles). Great cigars are as even in stick to stick profile, but never the same (different number and size of veins in each leaf, a tiny bit more of sun exposure and subsequent fermentation here and there, etc.). Bottom line: there will be differences from bale to bale as well as leaf to leaf.

So, a cigar one tastes from a Left Coast retailer has a great probability of tasting slightly different than the one tasted from a lot shipped to NY. There is no mystery there.
[Reply]

Here's #'s 5 thru 2....
5. Camacho Corojo Churchill
4. Padrón Family Reserve No. 45 (Natural)
3. Fuente Fuente OpusX XXX Belicoso
2. Viaje Oro Reserva VOR No. 5

Viaje @ #2....I bet they don't advertise much in CA....Interesting picks
[Reply]

The La Aroma de Cuba Mi Amore, is an outstanding cigar.

Camacho Corojo at #5 is a joke.
[Reply]

Different strokes for different folks. Lists are subjective.
[Reply]

I've always wondered about these ratings or whatever you want to call them. Do they state what year cigars they are smoking for this top 25?
[Reply]

These kinds of lists have little meaning for me. These cigars may be great for others but if they do not fit my flavor profile I would not enjoy them.

I know what I like, and I continue to sample other marcas/votolas in order to find new cigars that I like, but these kinds of lists have little influence on that process.
[Reply]

I know in the regular reviews Cubans have the Month/Year.
[Reply]

Remember as well this is only the first third of the cigar. The reviewers don't smoke the entire cigar.
[Reply]

At least I have had a few of the ones on the list. Not like most of the lists of ones I either cant get or cant afford.
[Reply]

Seriously? How can you properly review a cigar like that? :-)
Posted via Mobile Device
[Reply]

It was leaked to me that Cohibo robusto was #1 spot this year.
[Reply]

Yes, that is serious.

But that's how they do it. A person could make the case for a wide varieties of factors that might influence a review (what they had to drink, what they had to eat, what they pair it with, etc, etc) so I don't say what's proper and what's not. Just pointing out that this is the method they use.
[Reply]

Same way they evaluate wines and alcohol, they simply hold a tiny sip in their mouth, swish it around and spit it out. Now tell me they can actually evaluate a finish on wine/alc, proper astringency, etc. Better yet, or is it worse yet?, they spend a few minutes with the product instead of seeing how it evolves over some time.

Main reason lists are nothing more than lists.
[Reply]

:-)
That's why I trust recommendations from friends whom I know have similar tastes over any magazine reviews. I think it's fun to see if cigars you liked make it into the cA top 10, but that's about it: fun. I don't take much of what that magazine puts out very seriously, for the primary reasons that the reviewers only smoke a portion of the cigar and I've seen too many cigars that I think are awful get high scores. I don't believe in any of the "buying ratings" conspiracy theories, I just think it's the nature of the way they taste their cigars that it will always be an incomplete and very subjective picture.
[Reply]

I've heard this a few times, but have they published this anywhere?
[Reply]

Everybody loves a good list...
[Reply]