CAO question
 

Just bought a box of CAO Brazilia 6x60 (loved them in the past) and have noticed a BIG change, and not for the better. The taste used to be almost a nice coffee/chocolate flavor to me, and now, I can't tell you what, but it sure tastes almost like a bargain brand type cigar. Anyone noticing a change?:sh

Re: CAO question
 

New ownership. Bought and sold twice in the last fourish or so years. I have stoped smoking CAO since the "General" took over.

Re: CAO question
 

I honestly haven't have a CAO that I liked, but I haven't written them off completely yet.

Re: CAO question
 

What Jon said. Won't be smoking anymore CAO's. :td

Re: CAO question
 

I like the Mx2 and the VR just fine, but haven't smoked many others.

Re: CAO question
 

I've enjoyed the MX2 and the LX2 I believe. Sucks that they have had so many switch overs in the past few years. I have a few more in the box, maybe I'll have a good one in the stash, otherwise I'll use them up for poker night at the bowling alley LOL :)

Re: CAO question
 

I enjoy the Mx2, Lx2, Brazilia Gol, and the anniversairre sticks. Haven't had any other ones.

Why the beef with General Cigar? Admittedly, I don't keep up with the politics of it. I just try to smoke good cigars.

Re: CAO question
 

Brazilia was the only CAO I liked. Guess I am done with them for good if the OP is correct.

Re: CAO question
 

They simply may be too fresh. Let them rest for 4 to 6 weeks and then try them again! For me, the Brazilia Line is the best cigar made by CAO.

Re: CAO question
 

They are a large manufacture (the largest), and therefore must be cutting quality. Stay away, they are big business. Where have we seen this lately!

Logically, as a business, General makes the cigars they make based on what sells. If the cigars weren't selling, they would cease to make the particular stick. As for the anti-general crowds Don't smoke them! Don't smoke a single one of their products if they are that awful!! Leaves more for the rest of us!! However, as the largest seller of handmade cigars in the world, it would appear that someone, somewhere, must like to smoke their sticks!!! Maybe it is some lone guy in Montana buying them all up, hoarding them??!!

As to CAO; changes of ownership (to General) did not change the tobaccos that have been used in their cigars. The rolling locations have changed some, but as much as possible, the same tobacccos are used. That said, the supply of any one specific tobacco for any one specific year is limited. Once that stock is gone, it can not be reproduced, only replaced. And differences in year to year climates, growing conditions, aging conditions and any number of variables will affect the tastes of a specific leaf from year to year. This IS NOT evident (and never will be) in small or bouquet cigar brands, because they do not run the same line year after year after year. They constantly come out with limited lines that disappear as soon as the tobacco is gone. So they never have to worry about supporting a continued line over anything more than generally a few months. Not even Pete Johnson can maintain a consistent flavor in a specific stick once his supply of the original tobacco is used up. The only independent that I know of that actually comes closest to pulling it off is Fuente. But they control (closely) every single seed that is planted from the ground to the cigar, and are not dependent on jobbers to supply tobacco.

As for me, I try cigars myself and make up my own mind, and do not throw away a line simply because it is made by General. Or..... Maybe I'm that lone guy in Montana!;)

Re: CAO question
 

When they raised the price of La Gloria Cubana a long time ago that was a huge turn off. (They doubled the price) The new CAO OSA was not that good to me but it's just an average Joe's thoughts.

Thats why I have beef.

Re: CAO question
 

well not pertaining to the op subject here is some interesting facts

Swedish Match

CI

basically Swedish Match owns a lot of the manufactures and a lot of the distributors
CI CBid JR cigars cigars.com and many others all owned by this one company just some food for thought

Re: CAO question
 

Very nicely said.

Re: CAO question
 

Could be that your taste in cigars has changed as well:2

Re: CAO question
 

I love the Brazilia, MX2, LX2, and the Black. The rest I don't really care for, but no complaints on my end.

Re: CAO question
 

Not even close...

Cbid has never been an independent entity, it has always been the auction arm of CI.
JR is owned by Altadis.
Cigar.com is owned by a single individual, CI just does order fulfillment for them.

And Swedish Match only owns 1 premium cigar manufacturer: General. CAO is under General cigar.

Re: CAO question
 

It sounded good. :sh
Posted via Mobile Device

Re: CAO question
 

yea sorry JR is not on the list thought I seen it my bad.here is a list of ip's owned by CI click on the different ones to see all the different domains owned it is rather funny :tu

Re: CAO question
 

I haven't had a cao in a year or so I don't think. I used to really enjoy them

Re: CAO question
 

Sorry, but no.

All you did was get the results of a reverse DNS lookup of all the domains hosted on the 69.7.226.0/24 net. By your logic, every tenant in a shopping mall is actually the same company, because they all have the same primary address for their storefront.

A number of these domains are not owned by CI and have absolutely nothing to do with CI, they just happen to be buying internet service from the same ISP as CI and have been placed on the same subnet.

Of the domains owned by CI, most are simply redirects to better known sites. ie: paycut.com and cigarsintl.com redirect to cigarsinternational.com
This is a very common practice for large businesses and is nothing new.

There are others on that list which are simply parked domains. And so what if they do. It's just a domain name, nothing more. They all come back to the same business.

And, once again, Cigar.com is not owned by CI. This is quite evident if one actually spends the time to check records, and not base the assumptions on a simple and rather non-specific reverse DNS. Basically, the way Cigar.com operates is that CI does the order fulfillment - for this, they host the site since it operates out of their inventory database.

Re: CAO question
 

I smoked a Brazilia on the 4th of July, and got coffee and chocolatey tones...

Re: CAO question
 

I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night.

Re: CAO question
 

My point is, if that's what he used to get, but is concerned about a change in flavor profile, it could be a bad stick or need rest.

Re: CAO question
 

I love the Brazilia GO!'s, and have smoked quite a few. Sometimes, more recently, I do feel that the flavor profile is different, as in "not as good," but as pointed out it may just have been a stick victim of outside forces not pertaining to CAO. Or, maybe it's just my smokers paranoia.

Re: CAO question
 

I'll let them rest for awhile and go back to my LFD DL 700s for the time being...they've had a nice time to rest in the humidor...time to get the coffee brewing ;)

Re: CAO question
 

The only CAOs I enjoyed were the MX2s and Brazilias, but I haven't had one in a long time.

If General did buy the brand for its value, and then proceeded to cheapen the recipes—or even change them at all—then they are fools.

Which means it's probably true.

Re: CAO question
 

Except that General didn't buy CAO.

General was acquired by Swedish Match in 2005.
Henri Wintermans/STG bought CAO in 2007 so they could branch into premium cigars.
Then Wintermans/STG merged with / acquired by Swedish Match in late 2010.
Swedish Match consolidated operations a bit and stuck CAO under General.

I've had a few conversations with Ed McKinnea, the VP at General who is now in charge of CAO and correcting the issues and image damage that has occurred over the last few years since the initial Wintermans acquisition is something very personal to him as he has the attitude, interest, pride and drive that rivals the boutique and independent manufacturers, he's not the generic faceless bottom-line book pushing corporate schmuck in a suit. Anyway, per Ed, the blends haven't been changed and unless you are smoking OSAs, the CAOs you're smoking are pre-General cigar.

Re: CAO question
 

Nice review...

Re: CAO question
 

Always informative:tu

Re: CAO question
 

JR Cigars was bought by Altadis USA . . . not Swedish Match. Altadis and General Cigars are the two biggest distributors of cigars in the USA . . . probably world wide. You're welcome. :)