The grumpy old man in me gets what he's saying, although I don't agree. Not with his characterization of younger cigar makers.
I've been smoking for almost 40 years. From my first cigar—handmade, luckily—I knew exactly what I wanted from a cigar.
I get impatient with young smokers; it does frustrate me sometimes that I have an encyclopedia of knowledge about smoking and keeping cigars, but they
don't ask! Or they ask all the wrong questions (IMO).
And if you'd asked me 10 years ago about Drew Estates and some of the others that Garmirian refers to, I might've held a similar opinion to the old man's. Because I was coming at it from a firmly, sadly uninformed viewpoint.
And, truth be told, some of the marketing does put me off, and some of it makes me determined
not to try their cigars. For instance, JdN's advertising 100% turns me off; I never wanted to be the Marlborough man nor in a motorcycle gang, and less so now, in my mid-fifties. And some brands' use of ersatz military imagery and accoutrements downright pisses me off.
But what puzzles me about PG's vitriol is that he's met these guys, and presumably he's tried their products. Not all of their cigars are great, and I'd even venture to say that
a lot of them are not very good at all; but some of them are superlative, and a select few are among the jewels of modern offerings.
The fact that he's met J. Drew and isn't totally infected by his enthusiasm, his drive and the joy and pride he puts into his cigars, not to mention the undeniable quality and flavor of lines like LP, tells me that the old man has succumbed to no small amount of bitterness.
And that's a shame.