Aging

kuzi16:
i hear the anejo ages well. ya may want to let it sit.

Kuzi, I was going to post this in scram's thread but figured I'd start another for this topic. I listened to an interesting theory the other day from an old timer who used to manage one of the B&Ms I frequent, now he's retired and just hangs out. This guy is actually quite accomplished for a B&M manager and has consulted for companies like Camacho and A. Fuente, as well as completely blending the house cigars for a number of B&Ms in the southeast including the one he used to manage, none of which are mixed filler(he pointed this out emphatically). Anyways this theory is kind of what I have always subscribed to but explained better and with some additional things I hadn't thought of.

Basically its this ...
Box aging, taking an entire closed box of cigars and letting them sit only with themselves, is aging a cigar. This is taking the cigar as the blender intended it to be and letting it further marry with the tobaccos that the blender intended for it to marry with. Now while the blender most likely did not blend the cigar with the idea of letting it set for years, if he is a good he took this into considersation and has a good understanding of what the different tobaccos he used will do as they "age". However, no matter what your opinion the fact is you aren't always improving the cigar. The aging process is CHANGING the cigar, sometimes for the better sometimes for worse, either way this is not the cigar the blender tasted. Those who only smoke "aged" cigars could and probably are missing out on a lot of cigars. Many mild cigars are at their best at a young age and many Full-bodied cigars lose body and spice as they age. Either way by not smoking a "fresh" cigar you are not sure what it is you are missing.

Now on to humidor aging, this is placing singles into a humidor full of other cigars of different brands, bodies, vitolas, and types of tobacco. This is not aging a cigar, this is in every sense CHANGING the cigar. When a blender creates a cigar he may take into consideration what a cigar could become after years of marrying with itself but there is no way he could take into consideration what a cigar will become when it marries with random other cigars that are typically changing. Cigars draw from their enviroment, this is the entire theory behind the Acid line of cigars which are allowed to naturally absorb their flavorings instead of being dipped. Cigars also emit oils and gases. If you have cigars drawing oil and gases from other cigars you are changing the cigar in ways the blender never intended or anticipated. What this "aged" cigar has become is in no way what the blender had in mind. Now this isn't to say that "aging" this way is wrong or that you are ruining the cigars its just that you can't age a cigar like this and tell someone else that cigar does or does not age well. It could be that brand x mixed with brands y and z for 2 years creates a pretty good cigar but brand x mixed with brands a and b for 2 years creates a bitter cigar.
Just some food for thought ...

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Comments

urbino

madurofan:
DiasFlak:
i havent viewed this thread in awhile and it went from aging to locking your kids in the basement wow
You mis-read, not YOUR kids.

Except in a private property sense.

madurofan

LMAO urbs

Lasabar

urbino:
madurofan:
DiasFlak:
i havent viewed this thread in awhile and it went from aging to locking your kids in the basement wow
You mis-read, not YOUR kids.
Except in a private property sense.

So wait... I thought when we de-railed a thread that we are supposed to start a new one to continue the new topic.....

Who wants to have THAT thread under their belt???

Luko

Ok, I have a serious question about aging. From reading lots of threads, I've gathered that some, like Capt, age lots and lots of cigars for years and years, and others, like Maddy, don't feel cigars, or at least all cigars, necessarily benefit from aging. I have a very humble stash in a relatively small humi, and I've been aging some for about two months since I started getting interested. I'm getting anxious to smoke em. Is there a minimum amount of time - like after they've aged for xx months/years, do they peak? Or do they just continue to get better with age? And how do they improve, in what ways do they smoke/taste better? Are there certain brands/types you feel benefit from aging. Do others agree with Maddy that you don't always have to age? I've picked sticks up from the B&M and smoked them that night, or at least that week. Do others do this? Sorry for the rambling post with a gazillon questins...

kuzi16

you dont always have to age. no cigar NEEDS to age. some benafit and others dont. what you like aged is up to you. In general though stronger cigars age better.

as far as how they age...
most cigars mellow out a bit. this will et flavors that you may not otherwise notice come through. they also tend to smooth out a bunch. a harsh cigar when rolled could end up smooth after a few years of aging.

somewhere around here i outlined my timeline for fresh/rest/age. I cant remember what the thread name was. long story short... the more mild a cigar is the quicker it will age. you could have an anged cigar that is 1 year old if its of a lighter body.

madurofan

kuzi16:
you dont always have to age. no cigar NEEDS to age. some benafit and others dont. what you like aged is up to you. In general though stronger cigars age better.

as far as how they age...
most cigars mellow out a bit. this will et flavors that you may not otherwise notice come through. they also tend to smooth out a bunch. a harsh cigar when rolled could end up smooth after a few years of aging.

somewhere around here i outlined my timeline for fresh/rest/age. I cant remember what the thread name was. long story short... the more mild a cigar is the quicker it will age. you could have an anged cigar that is 1 year old if its of a lighter body.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

If you read the first post of this thread you see that my opinion is that you are changing the cigar when you age it, and kuzi agreed. Taste is very personal and you like what you like. I prefer the bite that "young" cigar has, where capt for example gets an acrid taste from some young cigars that I don't pick up on.

dutyje

I asked about resting a couple months ago. I was new to having a humidor, and while I appreciated the concept of aging, I didn't understand this business of resting... the guys on here helped me out. amd I can say from experience that giving cigars a couple weeks to rest in your humi makes the smoking experience more consistent, predictable, and enjoyable. see the thread here

madurofan

dutyje:
I can say from experience that giving cigars a couple weeks to rest in your humi makes the smoking experience more consistent, predictable, and enjoyable.

This is assuming your humi is being consistent and that the enviroment they came from was not. I tend to rest mine a couple weeks as well. Kuzi and some others have strict LONG resting periods.

kuzi16

madurofan:
dutyje:
I can say from experience that giving cigars a couple weeks to rest in your humi makes the smoking experience more consistent, predictable, and enjoyable.
This is assuming your humi is being consistent and that the enviroment they came from was not. I tend to rest mine a couple weeks as well. Kuzi and some others have strict LONG resting periods.

thats true. i wont smoke a cigar that has been in my humi for less than 6 weeks.

in the thread that was linked to a few posts ago is where I outline my fresh/rest/age/overage time frames. they are very different for different cigars. but in general thats about what i consider my standard.

Luko

Thanks much for the thoughts. One thing I was really wondering about - from reading other posts it seems Capt (and I don't want to put words in his mouth) seems to age cigars for YEARS. And Kuzi has the six weeks rule. So if you are aging/resting, is there a minimum before any noticeable mellowing or change is going to take place, live 4-6 weeks? Is there a maximum, say like after 1 year, it's achieved it's peak. I guess it's probably fluid and there's not one answer since cigars and tastes vary so much. Just curious - I get the whole idea that flavor is subjective and to each his own and so on and so forth. I was just wondering if anyone else fires em up on the way home from the B&M or if everyone around here rests them? And what a sensible amount of time is?

urbino

I think lots of people here fire 'em up at the B&M or soon after getting them home, in addition to keeping some resting or even aging for a while. It's kind of a 1960s thing: if it feels good, do it.

j0z3r

Luko, if you look around at some of kuzi's older posts, he will list 6 weeks as him minimum "resting" period, it is not so much an aging thing as it is letting the cigar get used to his humidor's climate.

Luko

Ah, hadn't really discerned the difference between aging and resting. Thanks...I read the post Duty linked to and whatever else I can find. I am not too lazy, I swear!

kuzi16

j0z3r:
Luko, if you look around at some of kuzi's older posts, he will list 6 weeks as him minimum "resting" period, it is not so much an aging thing as it is letting the cigar get used to his humidor's climate.

yup. ive noticed that i like a bit of time on the cigars. i have a humidor that i will not pull anything out of untill it has at least a year on it. I have a few from 06 and a bunch from 07... i may even have an 05 in there --who knows? i havent been diggin in there for a bit.

madurofan

urbino:
It's kind of a 1960s thing: if it feels good, do it.

Exactly! Its all personal preference. The only reason I get into this topic so much is that I want to understand it. I hold tightly to the belief that a cigar was blended the way it was to be smoked now! Aging is a changing process. My favorite analogy was aging is like adding water to scotch, sometimes it brings out flavors other times you just ruined a perfectly good scotch. Kuzi and capt have both said there is definetly a peak to aging, capt has even talked about over aging some cigars in his collection. I did hear an interesting opinion last night though. Aging cigars is like aging wine, the higher quality the cigar/wine the longer it ages for, the better it gets. Other wines turn to vinegar at 5, 10, 15 years while the highest quality can sit for hundreds of years.