Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

I saw exactly this just last Sunday at a local B&M! Too funny! :r

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

Yup.
In five years, Alan Gross lost 100 pounds and a number of teeth, along with partial eyesight, in spite of their fantastic medical system (as I chuckle in sarcasm).
Yup.
Improved tremendously.
Here is before and after.

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

Moses, I did an experiemnt on another public forum last year. Numerous people logged all their cigars for the year, NC and CC. Good draw, tight draw, plugged draw. I store my cigars around 61-62% RH. For well over 500 Cuban cigars I smoked in 2013, I had 3 plugs. While that was worse than the NCs (0 plugged), it still ain't bad.

:D Nice. Obviously I will pay you off before 12/17/16 if you are right....

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

I'm sure they are allocating what little health care resources they have on prisoners, right. There's a good amount of Cuban doctors throughout Asia and are highly regarded.

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

I am sure the Novacane that teeth extractions are being done without is also in Asia.

Cigars wise, this Cuban will take a Padron Anni any day. Bet both will cost about the same soon as prices increase on CC's.

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

I chuckled about that when I saw his mouth empty of teeth on the news broadcast. Can you spot two interesting items in the photo?

As for CC vs NC, I'd like to finally be able to judge my self. I've had almost ten CC all but one miserable. Yet you can't judge a country's cigars based on just a few you had.

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

I sympathize fully with Carlos here, as with the full Cuban-American community. I do not believe Raul is much better than Fidel, and do not think the lot of the common Cuban citizen has been much improved in recent years despite the announced "reforms". Still, the fact remains that 50+ years of US embargo has done little to bring the Cuban government to a more amenable relationship with either America or its own people. In fact, the removal of most support following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the imminent prospect of a reduction of support from a struggling Venezuela has done more to bring about a reassessment by Cuba's leadership of their future. Thus it may indeed be time for the US to try a different approach to this sticky issue.

Albert Einstein famously said that definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different outcome. This has been America's tack since JFK first signed the embargo back in 1960. A change now might be an error, but it seems to me that stubborn resistance to change is decidedly one.

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

I have always been divided on this subject as truly see both sides of the fence.
All I can and will say on the subject of the embargo is Raul Castro has just verbally urged the U.S. to end it.
That speaks volumes to me.
It may not have caused change in their regime but it sure as heck must be one hell of a rope around their neck.

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

Which begs the question, my brother: Who has been strangled more, the regime or the common folk?

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

If we lift the embargo and don't like how things are going 5-10 years down the road, we can renew it again. Once Cuban leadership gets a taste of US dollars, their regime will crumble quick. Pepsico and Coca Cola have enough money to make all of them get in line.

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

My 2 cents.
I wouldn't go to Cuba. There are plenty of other destitute, and not so, islands in the Caribbean.
I smoke mostly Cuban cigars because they are cheaper for the value. I haven't bought any in a few years because my income doesn't justify having a ten year supply vs. a five year one. I haven't bought any NCs either.
You would be insane to invest or finance anything in Cuba unless you could deal with them like a drug lord. The whole world could if they wanted to and they don't.
Besides it being a brutal, dictatorial, police state, oligarchy, (wait, that sounds familliar ;) ), it may be a nice place.
Nothing has changed as far as trade goes. Where do I go to sell them a few containers full of vitamins and pet supplies?:r What would they pay me with? Chinese yuan? Oh yeah, those would be containers from China anyway. I could have them drop shipped.
I hear they got a lot of nice girls out there, a haw haw haw, a haw haw haw haw.
You can go there and bring back $100 worth of stuff, big cheer.

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

How were CC's viewed before the 60's? Anyone around here old enough to remember? We're they seen as anything special before the embargo?

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

Not old enough but know some of the history. Basically before the embargo a cigar was a cigar, it just happened that a lot of cigars or cigar tobacco came from Cuba. A lot of tobacco came to the US for rolling, which resulted in Havana Clears, a term describing tobacco cleared by Customs. And I know several old timers who recall cc being available in stores for quite a while after the embargo.

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

Yes they were and actually a lot of American rolled cigars were using Cuban tobacco. NC grown tobacco was in the minority for sure.

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

Absolutely they were, though of course they didn't have the "forbidden fruit" air about them. I remember some of my father's comments about Cuban cigars (he started smoking cigars in the years before the embargo), and as a passing element of historical research I've noticed advertisers' emphasis on Cuban cigars, or at least Cuban tobacco. Realize that there were something like 920 different brands of cigars made in Cuba before the embargo...granted, many of them were regional, city-specific, or even neighborhood-specific within Cuba, but at the same time many of the marcas were American-owned and targeted at the American market.

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

I recall reading (maybe in the book on the Cuesta-Ray story) that, when the Embargo came crashing down (almost) out of the blue on February 7, 1962, the American cigar industry was caught in a panic, so much had they come to depend on Cuban leaf.

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

The more intriguing question should be "what cigars outside of Cuba grown tobacco were popular at that time"?

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

A photo of Che Guevara, and a blaster issued from the Empire to senior clone squad leaders.

Do I win anything?

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

And exactly two years TO THE DAY from this "wager", an awesome fiver of CCs shows up at my door. I had no idea what they were for until Bill reminded me of this. A man of integrity, with great taste in cigars! Thank you, Bill, you are a gentleman and great BOTL. :D

Re: Cuba relations thawing
 

:cl Very cool!