What Cigar are you smoking? (2026)

[deluxestogie]

Kintsugi | Alec Bradley Cigars

alecbradley.com

Apparently just a name.

Bob

 

[TigerTom]

Tried one of these today. My Father La Lealtad. Good smoke. Being a biend of Nicaraguan and Honduran leaf, it's a step up in flavor from the Blue, which is all Honduran apart from the wrapper. Billed as a medium-full smoke, I found it to be squarely medium in strength.

 

[deluxestogie]

Categorical Conundrum
Whenever I clip a cigar (e.g. to open the head), for both home-rolled or commercial, I allow the clippings to drop into a small, plastic tub (~1 pt.). When the tub becomes full, I dump those clippings into a small Ziploc bag, and label it with the month and year. The bag then gets added to a box that contains maybe a dozen of those little bags of pure cigar clippings.

As I awaited the delivery of a couple of bundles of cigars, I grabbed a bag of cigar clippings and my big ugly pipe. It smokes much like smoking a cigar through a plastic tip. It has the aroma of cigar, as well as the nicotine, but the taste is diminished.

I'm smoking cigarness from a pipe. The broad, textured shank of this Ropp pipe allows me to nest it comfortably between my fingers, like a cigar.

[I left the pipe on the little table out on my porch last night. This morning, the pipe bowl and shank hosted an impressive spider web.]

Bob

 

[cangrow]

Categorical Conundrum
Whenever I clip a cigar (e.g. to open the head), for both home-rolled or commercial, I allow the clippings to drop into a small, plastic tub (~1 pt.). When the tub becomes full, I dump those clippings into a small Ziploc bag, and label it with the month and year. The bag then gets added to a box that contains maybe a dozen of those little bags of pure cigar clippings.

As I awaited the delivery of a couple of bundles of cigars, I grabbed a bag of cigar clippings and my big ugly pipe. It smokes much like smoking a cigar through a plastic tip. It has the aroma of cigar, as well as the nicotine, but the taste is diminished.

I'm smoking cigarness from a pipe. The broad, textured shank of this Ropp pipe allows me to nest it comfortably between my fingers, like a cigar.

[I left the pipe on the little table out on my porch last night. This morning, the pipe bowl and shank hosted an impressive spider web.]

Bob

Good call, Bob. Was just thinking yesterday that it's a shame to throw out those clippings when you can either use them in your pipe or towards snus. I like the month and year bag label, even better. My collection of clippings starts now!

 

[jclif43]

View attachment 60651
Alec Bradley makes this one. Good one, though not the winner of the three commercial cigars I smoked last night. If there is anyone who could tell me from experience whether this one has any Japanese tobacco in it, they would be on this forum.

According to the website it is Honduran and Nicaraguan leaf.

 

[green_bean]

VSG Enchantment is one of my all time favorite short smokes. This one was exceptionally smooth. Then I remembered that it had been in a humidor with a bunch of Tabak Especials. Mystery solved.


Next up was this Boneshaker Lunatic. Really like this one's deep earthy flavor.


And then a couple of days ago I enjoyed this Cohiba Dominican Puro. It's got a flavor all its own.

 

[The Haroo ln]

VSG Enchantment is one of my all time favorite short smokes. This one was exceptionally smooth.

I also smoked the VSG on Monday night. Lovely smoke

 

[The Haroo ln]

Theres a solar eclipse tonight. The earlier darkness has cooled down the 33°c to around 27°c. Trying to enjoy a camacho ecuador in the heat.

It is also our 8th wedding anniversary...time goes fast!

Nice medium -full strength smoke, the only issue is the constant touch ups i'm having to do every couple of minutes. That maybe down to the weather and extremely lower humidity.

Great smoke nevertheless!

 

[The Haroo ln]

Davidoff no 2.

Nice daytime smoke, its currently 2:55pm and 34°c here in my side of the UK.

Normally a very mild cigar but this one seems like a more fresher batch. A little kick to it. Putting this single stick as a medium smoke today..... lovely!

 

[Sid.Stavros]

Salutes from Greece, we have sun and 83 'F here.

Adornado.

The Little Gray with an attidue ''I know that you have something for me".

 

[The Haroo ln]

Decided too light a fire to clean up some left over scraps of wood. There wasn't too much so once the fire got going i threw my stripped CB and h2k stalk with the roots into it. Tis the perfect evening for it as its a little cooler weather and theres a little wind making the 18°c temps feel like 14°c.

I took a nice spot next to the fire bin to stay warm, whilst smoking an avo heritage robusto. I think this is a collaboration between Hendrick 'Henke' kelner (previously worked for davidoff) and Avo Uvezian. Dominican filler binder and wrapped in a nice ecuadorian wrapper. Nice medium - full smoke.

Usually i find dominican blends a little on the weaker side and a bit less flavourful than nicaraguans but this, really hits the spot!

 

[The Haroo ln]

AJ Fernandez new world puro especial robusto. This is one of a few i have left in the humidor from qatar airport last year.

Always loved AJ blends. This is a powerhouse! A full + strength smoke. Lovely cigar right after a lovely meal.

Polite note: if any of you do end up smoking this make sure you have a full stomach beforehand. This WILL make you sick if you havent eaten.

 

[The Haroo ln]

Found this alec bradley gatekeeper in the depths of the humidor. I dont remember buying this, may have been my from my trip to barcelona in june.
Ecuadorian habano wrapper, nicaraguan binder, nicaraguan and dominican filler. I believe this is a collab with EP carillo.

Construction/burn- flawless...ash held quite string and to a decent size before i ashed it.

Strength and draw- medium and loose.... until i found that the loose draw was caused by a huge crack in the wrapper. So strength is maybe medium plus.

Taste notes - not much complexity pretty 1 dimensional tbh. Very nutty and thats about it taste-wise.

Overall- average cigar, a little better than the black market i smoked a few weeks ago but not by much. Dont think i will be trying the black market esteli any time soon. The only AB i actually loved was the prensado. Who knows, maybe somewhere down the line (a few years) i may try another alec bradley but as for now, not interested. Just not made for my pallette.

EDIT: After removing the bands i found that the crack was about 3.5 inches long, thats just over half the cigar as it is a robusto.

 

[cangrow]

This stick is a beauty. Tastes good, medium strength, I'm no good at describing all the notes and nuances. Unbelievable price; my brother picked it up at the duty free recently on the S side of the border, heading N. USD $4 for 10 as the pack was 75% off. Even at full price I'd buy these again in a heartbeat. Quorum shade, lancero or lonsdale vitola, long n skinny; a winner.

 

[Sid.Stavros]

Hello from Greece, we have sun and 101 'F here.

Santiago Robusto.

 

[Tutu]

Probably a little known brand but very decent smoke

 

[Sid.Stavros]

Good evening Gentlemen from Greece, this morning we had sun and 99 'F here.

Quorum.

 

[UmbriaFarmer]

The rise of Cigar Aficionado itself, as a new publication of celebrity cigar endorsements and "expert" critiques, at the start of the "cigar boom" of the 1990s, is one of the direct reasons cigars have gone from everyman's affordable smokes to a special treat for the elite. [It also seemed to be around the time that many cigar smokers began to choose to light up a cigar without removing the band first.] Prior to that, a typical cigar smoker would purchase an entire box (usually 50 cigars, back then) of naked cigars (i.e. no cello wrapping), to enjoy at leisure. Cigar Aficionado's selected "winners" then jumped dramatically in price, started showing up in individual cello wraps at tobacconists, and the typical box count dropped to 25. It was considerably after that when substantial taxes jumped in on the fun. As the prices climbed into the stratosphere, sellable box count dropped to 20, 18, 15, and all the way down to boxes of 3. All this was a response to how many cigars the diminishing number of purchasers were willing to pay for at a single transaction. Regular folks were left in the dust.

Bob

You know Bob, I was taught from an early age ALWAYS to remove the band from a cigar before lighting it. It was considered to be in the worst taste to leave it on. So I always remove it. And yet since, as you say, Cigar Afficianado started all that elitist bullshit, it seems it's become the normal to leave it on. Not for me though!

 

[deluxestogie]

Bock's purpose in inventing the cigar band (1830s) was to minimize the sale of counterfeit cigars. Today, many ordinary homes have a printer that can print their own cigar bands, and some even have a 3D printer to enable them to create a plate to emboss those bands.

"Wow! Then let's add 3 bands to each of our premium cigars! And maybe even a ribbon."

I can't count the number of instances in which the band(s) was partly glued to the wrapper, causing damage to the cigar when I removed the advertising billboard.

Bob

 

[UmbriaFarmer]

Bock's purpose in inventing the cigar band (1830s) was to minimize the sale of counterfeit cigars. Today, many ordinary homes have a printer that can print their own cigar bands, and some even have a 3D printer to enable them to create a plate to emboss those bands.

"Wow! Then let's add 3 bands to each of our premium cigars! And maybe even a ribbon."

I can't count the number of instances in which the band(s) was partly glued to the wrapper, causing damage to the cigar when I removed the advertising billboard.

Bob

Hear hear. These days they are covered in such an acreage of paper, I dunno how you're even supposed to smoke them!