:-)

I have my first one in my cooler, still can't bring myself to smoke it.......... I might like it. :-)
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Gurkha is a brand that focuses way to much on packaging and visual stimuli and not enough on taste. From their artfull designed treasure chest boxes and their extravagant bands to their rediculous MSRP. They are not all terrible but I have never had a good one. I will never spend my good hard earned money, knowingly, to support a cigar company that is founded on looks and appearance over quality and flavors. Gurkha is a fraudulent product as far as I am concerned. You strip away the glitzy boxes and bands and you are left with a good looking dollar stick from CI.
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While I have had plenty of Gurkhas that were horrible, I do enjoy the Doble Maduro...shame they discontinued them. Grabbed a few 5ers to save for a rainy day.

Got to PPP a His Majesty's Reserve (compliments of EricF) at Doms herf last summer and let's just say that if I had paid $ 750 for that stick...I would have been extremely upset. It was garbage.
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When I first started in Cigar World, I remember judging a lot of the "quality" of a stick based on two factors 1. Quality of the band...a good cigar should have a good band right? 2. Cigar catalog MSRP. and what a great deal I was getting. I remember saying to Dani, "I saved $250 on this package!"

Gurkhas aren't BAD in my opinion, I actually kinda like the Black Puros, but I don't buy them any more. I grew out of my cigar ADD "oooooh shiny!" And recognized the marketing strategies of Gurkha.

Now, Tatuaje, they still get me on occasion. Stupid limited releases. At least they are tasty.
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Isnt the Black Dragon even more expensive than the HMR i remember reading somewhere they where charging something like $1500 each.
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I was there as well and when it was passed back around nobody really wanted to try again. I think Big Ash and Tbone ended up smoking by themselves if my memory is correct. It was nice to try, if Gurkha can't even make a good $750.00 stick...
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At one point Simon...The Black Dragon story began in 2006 when it hit the market with the hefty price tag of $1,150.00 per cigar, the most expensive cigar ever made. Only 5 hand-carved camel bone boxes of 100 cigars were produced, making this stick very, very limited. Must have been paying for that hand-carved camel bone, because today the Black Dragon can be had (depending on vitola) for between $ 7.50 (robusto) to $ 17.50 (tubo).
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Bahahaha perfect example of Gurkhatronics at work! :-)
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See i would understand the cubans doing this as its the communists winning over us capitalist pigs once again but really charging that much for some camel bone box is something cohiba wouldn't even do and they come up with some overpriced crap most of the time COUGH LANCEROS COUGH
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The only Gurkha's I've had that were decent were the cheap ones...

Doble Maduro and Grand Age

I haven't smoked either one of those in years, so please don't take that as any king of endorsement whatsoever.
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The Centurian is the only cigar I have ever had that tasted like soap--yes, soap.
The Legends are Ok yard gars when the wrappers don't explode.

But it has been more than five years since I actually bought one.
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for $2 they are not bad. For $10+ they are some of the worst out there.
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ick!
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Friends don't let friends smoke Gurkha
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Gurkha hate is a somewhat silly phenomenom if you ask me. So much of what bothers people about Gurkha has little to do with the flavor and construction of the cigars.
Many Gurkhas have unreasonably high MSRP's -- So do CAO's, RP's, many others. Just because a Titan has an MSRP of $20 bucks doesn't mean anything to me if I can get them for $3. Gurkha puts out time, money, effort into some incredible packaging. Doesn't do much for me, but I've seen empty Gurkha boxes sold for quite a bit of scratch, so somebody likes them. Gurkha contracts out their manufacturing, but so do many, many other cigar companies. Gurkha puts out a LOT of different cigars - so do Pete, Pepin, Padilla...... Perhaps a little more identification and/or differentiation on the bands would help, but again - so what. Lots of stories about exploding Gurkhas out there. I've had some issues in the past, but I don't write off the whole line. I will avoid the Fuertes or whatever they were called, but by and large, I haven't had a lot of construction problems.
I'd bet that many Gurkha haters got sucked into ad copy by some of the large internet retailers promising incredible smokes at 50% of MSRP. I did. Had some pretty crappy Gurkhas over the years. But there are good ones, too. If anything, all the hate allows me to grab pretty good cigars on the cheap at cigarbid.

I think that if most haters came across any of these in a blind taste test, they'd be pleasantly surprised:

Black Dragon
Nepalese Warrior
Ancient Warrior (Purple Band)
Micro Batch TPB-1 - Corojo Box-press Lancero
G5 Avenger
Master Select
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I have never had a Gurkha.

I've been intrigued but never bought one.
^^^^
True Story.
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We're talking about Gurkha, not Tatuaje...
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Consider yourself to be a "puro"

:-)
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Smoke what you like, Dave. :-)

Personally, I've found that Gurkha just simply does not worry about their blends. There's just simply nothing there, they're in the business of glamour-saling inferior cigars. I don't smoke them simply because I find them lousy at any price point and don't care to support their business model.
Mac mentioned the Doble Maduro, I can remember the Nepalese Warrior having a little spice about it, but that was long ago. Everything else I tried was bland or just plain disgusting.
So I just smoke what I like.

OP, We rag on Gurkha because it's fun. It's well-founded and most everyone here has had a run-in with Gurkha that didn't go so well. It's fun to share the pain. :-)
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MMMMM......Camel bone. :-)

And for some it is that flavor, a mix of dirt, and, well.....more dirt
. :-) :-)

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