Todd, I haven't found much consistency in anything in the short years I've been smoking.
I take that as a given, so I load up if something is good.
I also know that other stuff will come around that is decent, or even excellent, so I don't sweat it. I keep enough smokes that I know there's always good smoking here even if the whole NC cigar world turns into 70rg blueberry and astroturf flavored beasts with candy buttons you can pick off and eat as you smoke.
I was thinking on this...
"I wonder about these overnight wonders and HTF cigars. Are companies going to these sorts of things because they cannot get the quantity and quality supply of tobacco to be able to string a blend along to keep that consistency from year to year? Are some just cashing in while they can, finding and buying tobacco that smokes well now?"
I'm sure a small cigar maker can't buy and store a huge amount of tobacco to sustain a 10 year run of wildly popular smokes. Plus, if a cigar is commonly available, it may be wildly popular but may not fly off shelves because guys know they'll always be there.
If an outfit can crank out htf after htf, they have no real inventory investment and very low risk.
A Punch or Hoyo NC relies on it's consistency to remain popular. That strategy requires a large amount of tobacco to be bought and stored for a long time. Investment in tobacco farms maybe. They know they'll be around in 20 years whereas the little outfits don't.
Then there's the smoking nazi's. I think this new htf strategy is mindful of that dynamic and they're protected by a quick "pull the plug". A big outfit can likely just push into new/more overseas markets.
When the day is done, if worse comes to worse, we can always grow our own tobacco.
