Sunday Funday with Fake Cubans

[44Smokeless]

This ought to be fun...we all know the story, someone bought "Cubans", and then they give the rest to someone else. I got two kohibas from someone, they just needed to convince themselves there is a silver lining, so giving them away makes them feel better, especially at about $35 a stick.

What to do with kohibas? Already fixed the humidity, first time I seen cigars warp from humidity; quarantined them in their own little humidor, no way they are coming near any of my cigars. Cut the end open on one just to see if it was tobacco inside. Check.

I'm thinking this afternoon, while I smoke something veritas, I might just cut one open to see what it's filler and binder look like...Just from the look of the tobacco, from the ends, it doesn't appear to be a high quality leaf but cutting it open will reveal more.

The question in my mind is what is inside and from where? The labels have the holos and are close to the real ones, minus slight off center Karl Malden logo. The fakes are showing up everywhere, fine cigar bars in Switzerland apparently.

And ebay has some hilarious listings for Kubanos, there is currently a listing for multiple boxes including Behike 25 count box...no such thing. The guy want's $250 a box, some are selling the boxes open with the seal stickers inside the box.

And if you've read this far down, I am going to share a theory, bit crazy but it makes sense, to me. What if Cuba and Cohiba, one in the same, are making their own counterfeits? They have tons of tobacco, probably low quality since they've run everything into the ground including their soil. But Cuba has a reputation to maintain....sooooo maybe they're using non-Cuban high quality leaf from elsewhere for their "real" cigars, and dishing out the rest under a counterfeit label. I have heard stories about someones getting access to genuine labels and codes, and then wrapping fakes in them.

And so cigar lovers, happy Sunday, be happy with what you're smoking as long as you know it's real and you enjoy it. Given the shape of the cigar industry and declining quality of everything it does give one pause to consider rolling their own cigars. Like rolling your own cigarettes but you have to wait a few months till you can smoke'em.

 

[The Haroo ln]

You can usually smell fakes from a mile away. Smell the stick, they smell like what they are - cheap shit! Excuse my french. I dont even think thats tobacco that they used to make them. Ive never smelt tobacco like that no matter how bad its grown.

 

[44Smokeless]

Well, there is some irony, doesn't look or smell like shite or dirty crumble...it's got almost no smell, very mild.

And I am ashamed, as much as I am ever shamed to admit I dry puffed the piece I cut and it might, might have a slight Cuban taste; hay and that cinnamon-ish, almost vanilla cream. Thus why I am wondering about the origins and contents of them.

According to Shroedinger, it's not real or fake until killed or smoked, just a perpetual state of quantum flux...LOL

 

[44Smokeless]

Kohiba...Post-Op
I found H R Giger's missing baby alien, it was living in a kohiba. Cut it open and found this...
the wrapper is brown, thin, no smell but a little bit of black which might be dirt, provides that earthy flavor

the binder an impressive leaf of browish/gray color and only the most minute touch of mold coloring around the stems;

now the guts of it, the filler was a blend of something darker brown, long filler with very thin stringy stems in the middle...

and something blackish which might have been tobacco but it's a hardened leaf, apparently providing the flavor for the cigar. I thought it was a cinnamon stick at first, I'm guessing this is the source of the stick warping with humidity, kind of entertaining idea, your stick is out of humidity range and it bends. I water the plants when they wilt, water the cigars when they warp.

But seriously, the inside of these Kohiba's is kind scary. The alien, sorry blackened thing of leaf, was buried in the stick, wouldn't notice it cutting either end; middle third of cigar will give tastes of spice, burnt wood and something exotic. I highly doubt anybody survives the middle third of this cigar, the perfect after dinner smoke.

Well that be a lesson to all, going to smoke a Macanudo and enjoy it...if anybody would like a sample of the xenomorph for further experimentation, let me know, send it to you in a cage it will never escape.

 

[deluxestogie]

I remember when Macanudo cigars were made in Jamaica, of exclusively Jamaica-grown fillers, with CT Shade wrappers. The labor cost increased so much in Jamaica that there is essentially no longer any Jamaican-grown tobacco. Macanudo is now just a cigar band on a different cigar, made elsewhere, from different tobacco. All things are impermanent.

Bob

 

[44Smokeless]

...it's the monster that ate the cigar industry. You can pretty much just slap Altadis on all of it that isn't marked Cuban.

The classic labels have all been watered down in quality, and the auction prices show it: Cohiba Red Dot 25 ct = $70. And with low quality comes low standards, people paying way too much for way too little of a cigar, besides Cubans, Opus X, etc. I'm not going to shite on anybody's favorite smoke, not here, but there's a lot of $2, $1 cigars out there posing as 90+ rated $15 and up smokes.

Even Hav-A-Tamp, which moved to Puerto Rico I believe, now is just a bland stick. Yes, I smoke Tamps, it's the perfect office smoke if you know what I mean.

So long as they keep making crap, slightly better crap will seem attractive. I read somewhere that all the major cigar companies are slashing workforce and costs. Those that still have jobs will be expected to roll cigars with the same love and care they always have. Might explain the draw problems on my ....fill in the blank.

That's why I keep chasing small batch boutiques, especially anything that came out of Tabacalero Williams Ventura. Too bad their facility and a million cigars burnt down, up in smoke. Not the least bit suspicious.

Well Cheers Everyone

 

[DaleB]

Oof. I first started smoking cigars in the early-mid 90s, along with half the country. My darling wife bought me something the cigar store guy recommended; it was nice. Some sort of torpedo. Pretty much the next thing I smoked? The guys in the bay next to my office - I had my own business at the time - were making trips to Havana a couple times a year and bringing back duffel bags of Cubans. I bought a box of RyJ Churchills and some Hoyo de Monterey double coronas, along with some others. I got totally spoiled. I just gave my son the last few Hoyos that probably dated back to '94 or '95.

Anyway. Point is... at that time, which is admittedly prehistoric, there were plenty of little one-offs in Cuba rolling cigars that weren't from the factories, but were still made in Cuba, using Cuban tobacco leaf, by Cubans, but weren't from the factories that the counterfeit bands and boxes they eventually ended up with would indicate. You could buy them on the street in Havana. The quality wasn't there, but they were better than what is shown here. I have no idea if that's still happening or not. What you have there looks like it came from China or something. Good thing you didn't light it.

 

[WillQuantrill]

I enjoy cigars so much it pains me to cut one open so am very fascinated with these experiments. Good job! I also included a picture of my "Kuban" sampler from Mexico I purchased a couple years ago. First dead give away with fake cigars is when the vendor will haggle on the price that started at $70USD I talked him down to $35. Figured that it would make a nice souvenir. Although I did get a couple 5 packs of legit RyJ's at the "duty-free" store at the airport.
I was intrigued about the counterfeit cigars being so plentiful I did some online research and found an interesting report about a counterfeit cigar operation being shutdown in Mexico being operated by who other than... Russian Mob.
I have also read reports that the Communist Isle now imports tons of tobacco to supplement their own slumping agricultural yields. If I were one of the high rollers (which I'm not) coveting my astronomically priced box of Cuban cigars I would be upset to find out any portion of leaf inside originated somewhere else. So in this regard a large portion of what Habanos SA sells might not be 100% legit and I wouldn't expect them to come out and say that the Binder is imported. Adding this information to very easily accessible interviews on YT with Cuban tobacco farmers explaining how the government only leaves them 10% of their crop to sell and human rights groups claiming that they use incarcerated torcedors for lower tiered brands. Oh yeah! Those Montecristo's are worth every penny. Haha.
No matter what market,as long as there is a demand the supply will be made. And even with US embargo and hypothetically 0 sticks smuggled into the USA, Habanos SA would still thrive on ripping off the rest of the world.

Thanks Castro.

 

[44Smokeless]

I've seen those clear cover boxes for years. Besides Cohiba's never coming in a clear box, one of the give aways is the labels. The seals are always perfectly placed and tight. I've seen boxes, lots of them, where the outer seal is placed sloppily on the box, never on a genuine box. While there's only so much Cuba can do about nature, plant yield and quality, making sure the labels are placed exactly correct doesn't take much motivating. And honestly, aren't all Cuban cigars rolled by prisoners?

I am not into Cuban cigars. Too much money, too much bs, and as I am about to demonstrate, the risk with Cubans is unreal.

I've been wondering who is making these counterfeits, they are spiteful. Russian mob sounds good, I'll also nominate China, Cuba and Vietnam. It's one thing to make a counterfeit and try to fool people. It's another thing to make a counterfeit so bad that you won't even smoke them. That's how I got them, someone else bought them, got a few puffs down, started gasping and then the alien popped out of his stomach, blood everywhere. Said they were a bit stale and he asked me if I wanted them and I said sure. He looked at me strangely when I told him I was going to dissect them.

I was expecting to find the beatles, beetles....not this (see pics below)

The thing below, which I magnified, is the dark matter stuck in the middle third of the cigar. This doesn't seem like an accident, more like someone's idea of a cigar cocktail. It's got a crystalline coating which I am trying to figure out. It looks to be an over-fermented leaf but there's something else on the leaf too, maybe a mold? Formaldehyde?

Now I don;t want to jump to conclusions, or start wide spread panic, so I say this half jokingly, tongue in cheek...that's not a cigar, it's a bioweapon. I am a bit scared to look at this thing under higher magnification, more than a bit. But I will. Chromatography? I did a burn test, smells faintly of some spice, faintly of tobacco; none of this in a good way, more like a cheap attempt at a flavored cigar kind of smell. And it burns slow and continuously, not like a leaf, which is what it was, but like a stick. The whole thing just smolders.

And now for something completely different, but it's going to come full circle. Audio electronics. Bob Carver, genius. He blew the industry and experts and fakes away with his amps, famously challenging the experts to blind sound taste tests. He proved you could duplicate and surpass the sound of any tube amplifier, for pennies on the dollar with IC amps and shaping the sound to match whatever your favorite $20,000 amp sounded like.

The parallels to Cuuban cigars and their legendary taste is apropo. Since about 1963, they've been making fake Cubans. Lot of them were not only really good but through blending were able to capture the flavor profile of Cuban cigars. I read somewhere the Cuban fields have a slightly higher copper concentration which might account for some of that unique taste. And for various reasons, mostly sanity, "new world" tobacco farmers didn't try to reproduce Cuban tobacco beyond using Cuban seed. Trying to tweak Cu levels can have disasterous effects on crops, and soil, and anything near it.

My point is, I'll bet the top non-cuban cigar makers could make fakes that beat the best real Cubans in a blind test. I think Perdomo used to make fakes, good ones.

I think if I were to go visit Cuba I would bring a few boxes of something really good, anything but Cuban cigars. And just pass them out, start a revolution.

One last shot of tequilla and call it a night.
Cheers

"No amount of evidence will pursuade an idiot" ~ Mark Twain

 

[WillQuantrill]

And honestly, aren't all Cuban cigars rolled by prisoners?

Well now that you mention it... yeah. With your references to vintage audio equipment and sense of humor I felt like I was reading a Katman review for a second. Haha. Im with you that leaf looks like it has been laced. Gross. One thing to say buyer beware its another thing entirely to poison the buyer.

I like your idea of counter-revolutionary tobacco, would make for a good survey.

Which "New World" blend would initiate the struggle to freedom?

 

[StoneCarver]

I used to work in a tobacco shop some 25 years ago. Even back then, the quality of Cubans was known to be all over the place so much so that we knew it really wasn't worth it to covet Cuban cigars. I remember stories of people buying an unopened box of Cubans and there'd be various sizes and shapes of cigars in the box, when you thought you were getting a box of one kind of cigar. Sure, the cigars may have been 100% Cuban but... I'm not surprised to hear the situation being even worse these days. We have to keep in mind the majority of masters left the country to grow tobacco and make cigars elsewhere. So, Cuba suffered a brain drain.

I only buy my cigars from a trusted tobacconist. That said, all across the board, cigars just aren't what they used to be. That's not saying they are bad but, due to things like diseases and changing weather patterns and tobacco growers having to adapt their tobaccos to it or elders dying and their descendants taking over the business, the cigars will be tasting differently even though the label is still the same. Cubans would be no exception. It can't be helped. Times change. We all do our best with what we have.

 

[deluxestogie]

Back in 1969, Zino Davidoff published his book, The Connoisseur's Book of the Cigar, which dealt exclusively with Havana cigars. (I still have my copy.) Around 1975, I ordered a box of Davidoff cigars directly from Davidoff's headquarters is Geneva, Switzerland. The Cuban embargo was already in effect. Davidoff shipped the cigars in an unmarked box (with no cigar bands), but with a garish, green sticker on the outside that said, "Indonesian Cigars". $42! That was when a box of 25 Hoyo de Monterrey ran for about $16 (and my monthly living expenses were about $300). So that was quite an investment. The gorgeous Davidoff corona claros were potent and unforgettable. The real deal. Their construction was flawless, and the draw and burn perfect.

But even at that time, I preferred the richer aroma and milder smoke of the Hoyo de Monterrey #55, which was made in Tampa. In 1982, I managed to visit Davidoff's in Geneva, and purchase another box of Davidoff Havanas, complete with box labels and cigar bands. They seemed, to my memory, to be the same cigars that I had purchased in 1975. While my life had evolved significantly during that 7 year interval, it was still only 7 years—a tiny speck of time in cigar years.

After numerous disputes over quality and ownership rights, Zino Davidoff and Cubatabaco decided to end their relationship. Leading up to this, in August 1989, Zino had publicly burned over one hundred thousand cigars that he had deemed of low quality and unfit to sell. All Davidoff products produced in Cuba were officially discontinued in 1991. An agreement was signed that no more Davidoff cigars from Cuba would be sold.​

Davidoff - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Bob

 

[44Smokeless]

I remember the Davidoff story, as I recall Davidoff left Cuba twice, once before the embargo and then came back and left again. Cuba is continuously trying to unload their capacity and find new investors, I think they're finally under 50% ownership, Brazil now having a stake along with Altadis/Spain.

Cuba requires 90% of each crop go to the state for commercial production, leaving 10% for local cigar production. I'm guessing the tobacco available to the local Cuban population is lacking, like auto parts and everything else. As of a few years ago, Cuba claimed to export about 90 mil cigars, keeping 120 mil cigars for domestic consumption, per year. Yet the average Cuban can't afford these cigars and instead smoke locally, non-state produced cigars, or cigarettes; cigar consumption has been declining amongst Cubans.

If I was going to flood Cuba with cigars I'd start with Erik Espinosa's cigars, along with the other exiled Cuban cigar family young turks; a selection from Caldwell, maybe My Syle is Jalapeno, or the Last Tsar. For shites and giggles, we could send them a selection of Altad's Montecristos, Romeos and Cohiba, only the Red Dots and hope they like them; Partagas, H. Upmann, Hoyo De Monterrey; and of course Arturo Fuentes Hemingways, just to inspire the people of Cuba to demand better. We could deliver them with cigar boat drones, of course to the Bay of Pigs...yes, aerial drones work better but not on paper.

I know that Cuban cigars are losing their luster amongst the international crowd; lot of labels making inroads into foreign markets where Cubans used to be the only cigar worth smoking. And coming back to the original point, buying Cuban cigars has become Russian Roulette, with an automatic pistol. The fakes are everywhere, even one of the most famous auction sites, which I won't name. But they swear their experts verify everything, which is impossible when sticker serial numbers are torn off boxes.

Lot of stuff coming out of Hong Kong, even here in Chicago there's someone claiming they have a dozen boxes of Cubans they want to see go to a fellow lover of Kubans, selling at cost they hope.

I think the Cuban Cigar Crisis is bigger that people realize...and now we come full circle, just as I light up a cigarette blended with a dark air tobacco, gives it a light cigar taste, and sip some rum. The biggest markets for Cuban cigars are China, Europe and the US blackmarket. There have been rumors and rumblings about the lifting of the US embargo and the effect it will have on prices everywhere, mainly send them plummeting. This fear would make sense if removing the allure of Cubans is going to expose the real quality issues in Cuba, and the flood of fakes, which might be low quality Cuban tobacco trying to fetch top dollar and yet save face for CubaTabac, and partners.

I think the bottom is about to fall out on Cubans, Europe and China might not be paying big bucks for Cohibas much longer, and Americans...well as we all are learning, those only so much bull we can up put with before we fix the problem....England, Spain, France and Cuba control a biiiiig part of the cigar industry.

What do we do to fix the problem...we roll our own, grow our own. That's the American Spirit.

Speaking of problems fixed, how's Venezuela doing this week. Oil and cigars make the world turn.

Cheers

 

[WillQuantrill]

Thats it! Humanitarian Aid drop of Cuban Defector cigars. My top vote would be Don Pepin Blue, then every "heritage" label AJ Fernandez has redone which I can only speculate has been his way of doing exactly what we are discussing. "Im gonna show em I can do it better." Atleast that's the only reason I have settled on why he does so many copies of Cuban labels with his Montecristo and Ramon Allones blends being my personal favorites.
The important part would be to include market price of these cigars so they get the point.

 

[44Smokeless]

Definitely guys like AJ Fernandez, Erik Espinosa, Matt Booth, Robert Caldwell, Alan Rubin...and others, are leading the revolution in cigars, or is it technically counter revolution? Like Cuba, the cigar industry in stuck in the 1960's, not a lot of innovation.

Among other things I bet the Cubans would enjoy would be a late 60's American muscle car, Camaro SS maybe...see a few of those on the streets of Havana and watch the envy fly.

I still like Matt Booth's comeback cigar...Farce. The real probelm is most of the cigar industry is one giant monopoly with Cuban/Altadis on one side, and Altadis NC on the other, which seems to violate anti-trust laws and creates a perfect situation to intermingle tobaccos, Cuban and NonCuban. Seems Altadis has a vested interest in keeping the magical allure of Cuban cigars alive, and the best way to do that is make everything else look mediocre.

The dumbing down of the cigar industry. Speaking of which, I just read that JC Neuman capitulated and registered all their cigars with California's new registry. They're coming after our cigars...

 

[ShiniKoroshi]

They are coming after everything that you love.

 

[johnny108]

Well now that you mention it... yeah. With your references to vintage audio equipment and sense of humor I felt like I was reading a Katman review for a second. Haha. Im with you that leaf looks like it has been laced. Gross. One thing to say buyer beware its another thing entirely to poison the buyer.

I like your idea of counter-revolutionary tobacco, would make for a good survey.

Which "New World" blend would initiate the struggle to freedom?

A return of a Pennsylvania Red wrapper around a Little Dutch filler.

 

[StoneCarver]

They are coming after everything that you love.

Well then, they're gonna get real bored real fast. They should find more productive hobbies.