MSU Red Cedar Message Board

I keep a few Ashtons around for friends who are occasional smokers and like a mild cigar. Always goes over well. Smoke a few myself. Good dependable construction, which is important to me. Monte Cristo and A Fuentes are also very good balanced smokes.

For a good stronger smoke, I recommend La Flor Dominica Double Maduro wedge cut. A great compliment to a fine bourbon.

Have you had the Dirty Rat or the Flying Pig ? Great cigars.

Who makes those? I reAlly like the 52 by the way.

Though tonight it's my staple chisel maduro and belgo. Beluga is very good by the way.

Padron 7000.

Never had a bad Hoyo.

CAO Vision if you want to pretend to be a baller.

Punch is good/economical.

Can't go wrong with AF...sans the sun grown. Never liked.

Savinelli is good if you can find them.

www.cigarbid.com

I think your point is a good one about the age of the cigar. Cigars, like wine, bought over the internet are sometimes still in the process of maturing. The "sick period" of a cigar usually lasts about six months max. Buy in quantities and have enough humi space and you can usually work around this.
Any single cigar purchased from a tobacconist should be fine, however.

Buy a cheap one or "make" your own in a sealed jar with a humidification gel pack...Is $20 out of line for a starter? I have no idea how well this works but it has to be tons better than storing a few cigars in a ziploc bag with a wet paper towel:

http://www.cigarsinternational.com/prodDisp.asp?item=M-CJ02&cat=10

You can also make a tupedor or a coolidor on the cheap. Basically you get a plastic container (either a piece of tupperware or a cooler) and you clean it really well and then put a humidifyer in there. I prefer the hygroscopic beads to humidify my humidor. There are some pretty good instructions at Cigarpass.com on how to make a cheap humidor.

Edit to add: I personally use the heartfelt beads. They work great.

I have a question for any of you humidor experts. I have a humidor that I have 6 or 7 cheap cigars sitting in from cigarinternational.com that I use for when I'm too drunk to care or if my guests are cheap and are bumming cigars.
The humidor was neglected part of this winter due to my laziness and lack of attention to detail. It got down to about 30-35 or so. I wiped down the wood on the inside with distilled water and filled the sponge itself with distilled water and it got up to about 60 or 65. I would like it to get higher as I should be closer to about 75 if I remember correctly. Any tips on what I should do about getting it to a higher percent?
Also will the cigars that are in there still be okay once they are "re-humidified"? They are cheap so I don't care that much.
I got the humidor going again because I just bought 2 cigars from Buffalo Trace while I was on a bourbon tour in Kentucky last weekend. I LOVE the Makers Mark Cigars due to the "aging" in the bourbon barrels, it adds a unique taste and finish.
One last question: If the new cigars came in glass tubes that are sealed are they still "humidified" and should I leave them in the tubes or should I take them out of the tubes and leave them in the humidor?
Thanks in advance for any advice and I love this thread because I love seeing what everyone else is smoking.

if your humi is completely dry buy a humi starter kit and season it all over again. It's usually one or two packets...maybe $10. You put the packets in there and you wait two weeks. Then make sure to keep your humi somewhere in the 65-75 range if you want to avoid drying out again.

Wiping the humi down with distilled water won't do much good. The air in the humi needs to stay at precipitation level (85-90%) for a prolonged period of time to condition the cedar to not give the moisture up so easily.

Sometimes I take cigars out of my humidor and I feel like they're too wet--they smoke better dryer. but it's still important for me to store them in a higher humidity environment. When tobacco leafs completely dry out they don't lose flavor in my experience--it changes. Sometimes that's a change you're amenable to, sometimes not. One thing for certain is a completely dry cigar is unsmokable.

Also keeping more cigars in the Humi helps.

I agree with keeping the humi around 67-68. For some reason mine jumped to 72 recently. The temp is still 66 so I can't firgure that out. It's not really a bog deal.

I order from Cigaplace a lot. They have some really good prices. Most every cigar Alec Bradley makes is good. I really like the SCR and the Prensado.