Originally Posted by beyonder (Post 1202512)

A while back I saw a link to a lengthy article on cigar aging that covered the science behind cigar aging and impact on flavor of storing in closed boxes versus storing out as singles, temperature, humidity, etc. Discussed chemical processes, etc. and the different flavor profiles that could be brought out by storing or aging in cabs, boxes, versus loose, etc.

Unfortunately, I'm dumb and didn't bookmark it, and I've searched this site and on google and for the life of me can't find the article. If anyone knows which article I'm referring to or has some ideas, please let me know or provide a link.

Thanks in advance.

Originally Posted by M1903A1 (Post 1202521)

If it's the article I'm thinking of, it was in a Russian cigar magazine that is now defunct. Try Googling "Queen of Aromas"; I think that was the name of the article. And yes, it was an amazing read.

Originally Posted by markem (Post 1202746)

It would be great if that article could be found. Until then, I think that we just need to stick to Nickerson's Rule of 3*


* - j/k. Anyone with a specific set of rules that claim things like "no cigar gets better after 3 years" is known, at least in some parts of the cigar world, as a "Nickerson". This is not a term of endearment.

Originally Posted by NCRadioMan (Post 1203174)

Nobody bad mouths the Rule of 3's! Nobody!


:r

Originally Posted by Nathan King (Post 1202692)

The magazine was Cigar Clan. "Queeen of Aromas" was in Volume I of the 2005 English supplement. The article was penned by Willy Alvero; however, I have not had any luck tracking it down.

Originally Posted by d'am (Post 1203511)

I love me a good challenge...and damn this was hard! Turns out that yahoo search has the article cached. Here you go:

http://74.6.238.254/search/srpcache?...6I4NRhG4.bzw--

Originally Posted by TheRiddick (Post 1203625)

Time to buy a 5er, stick it in a large empty humi and voila, 4 months from now you have perfectly aged "5+ year old" cigars. Who needs years of careful aging? Pass that crack pipe, please...

FWIW, seems the writer read or attended some wine related courses/literature as many of the assumptions, and I can't call them anything but that since some of the "findings" presented directly contradict common knowledge/experience, are dead wrong. Anyone who has worked with wine barrels will tell you that there is no mechanism for tannins to "vanish/escape" even with years of air drying the wood, they "soften" oak tannins by burning the staves while assembling barrels, the greater the burn the softer the tannins in the assembled barrel. Also, many of the flavor characteristics described belong to wine world mostly, I have yet to taste a cigar with a "mushroom" taste, yet plenty of older FRENCH wines display that trait, just one example.

And that "10 year" over the hill limit is also a big pile of BS, from personal experience as well as from plenty of others'. Plenty of cigars taste great with 30-40 years on them (one wouldn't age Garcia & Vega, though).

This article comes from a nation that pretty much doesn't smoke cigars and what's sold there is 99% fake. But, hey, impressive charts/graphics and all that...

Originally Posted by TheRiddick (Post 1203625)

Time to buy a 5er, stick it in a large empty humi and voila, 4 months from now you have perfectly aged "5+ year old" cigars. Who needs years of careful aging? Pass that crack pipe, please...

FWIW, seems the writer read or attended some wine related courses/literature as many of the assumptions, and I can't call them anything but that since some of the "findings" presented directly contradict common knowledge/experience, are dead wrong. Anyone who has worked with wine barrels will tell you that there is no mechanism for tannins to "vanish/escape" even with years of air drying the wood, they "soften" oak tannins by burning the staves while assembling barrels, the greater the burn the softer the tannins in the assembled barrel. Also, many of the flavor characteristics described belong to wine world mostly, I have yet to taste a cigar with a "mushroom" taste, yet plenty of older FRENCH wines display that trait, just one example.

So like a fine whiskey as I have been told, in the wine industry they burn the oak barrels as well?

Not a be fan of ether, but I can have a little whiskey on the rocks. Wine is defiantly not my cup of tea.

And that "10 year" over the hill limit is also a big pile of BS, from personal experience as well as from plenty of others'. Plenty of cigars taste great with 30-40 years on them (one wouldn't age Garcia & Vega, though).

This article comes from a nation that pretty much doesn't smoke cigars and what's sold there is 99% fake. But, hey, impressive charts/graphics and all that...

Originally Posted by d'am (Post 1203511)

I love me a good challenge...and damn this was hard! Turns out that yahoo search has the article cached. Here you go:

http://74.6.238.254/search/srpcache?...6I4NRhG4.bzw--

Originally Posted by Nathan King (Post 1209466)

It appears Yahoo has removed the article from the cache. I have made the article available as a PDF here.

Originally Posted by sjnovakovich (Post 1210246)

The article has now disappeared! I did a search and results come up BUT... all of the links result in a 404 Forbidden error.
:(

That sucks!!:confused:

Originally Posted by bigdankcloud (Post 1213433)

How many of you are of the opinion that if you have a humidor that is 90% full, that all of the smokes in there are going to suffer as it applies to aging? I'm not refuting or confirming it, I just would like to hear the opinions on this.

Personally, I'm in the middle of building a custom cabinet humidor, have had a couple of my desktops packed with good smokes for a while. I throught I was doing the right thing there so that humidity stays pretty stable and ages the smokes better, but part of that article seems to say that leaving little or no space means that I get little to no aging. I would like to disagree with that, based on opening and closing the humidor to get more fresh air in every so often while checking humidity/recharging beads.

I'm going to leave any possible benefits from active humidification devices and the "ammonia scavenging" of Shilala beads out of this.

Originally Posted by sjnovakovich (Post 1213535)

Although it's a good article, and an informative one, I would like to know something of the author's background and expertise. He sounds very knowledgable, but like you, I disagree with some of his assertions. Even though I have a Monte that currently has a good amount of empty space in it, I like to keep similar cigars packed together. It definitely aides in keeping the moistness of the cigars stable and I think they age fine. Again, I'm qualifying this by saying it is only MY experience and as they say on the web, ymmv.-(P

Originally Posted by bigdankcloud (Post 1213433)

How many of you are of the opinion that if you have a humidor that is 90% full, that all of the smokes in there are going to suffer as it applies to aging? I'm not refuting or confirming it, I just would like to hear the opinions on this.

Personally, I'm in the middle of building a custom cabinet humidor, have had a couple of my desktops packed with good smokes for a while. I throught I was doing the right thing there so that humidity stays pretty stable and ages the smokes better, but part of that article seems to say that leaving little or no space means that I get little to no aging. I would like to disagree with that, based on opening and closing the humidor to get more fresh air in every so often while checking humidity/recharging beads.

Originally Posted by Nathan King (Post 1213725)

His name is Willy Alvero. Mr. Alvero is one of the world's foremost experts on Cuban cigars; he was the Habanos S.A. general representative in Moscow, Russia. I would say he has more cigar experience than the vast majority of the members at CigarAsylum. I can't figure out what is so controversial about claiming that the environment a cigar is aged in can have a subtle impact on flavor? Seems reasonable to me.

Originally Posted by Mirrorlure7m (Post 1214952)

I just read the Volume 1 is there any other volumes available ?