Mourning lost sticks

[lenguamor]

A cautionary tale illustrating the need to rotate and inspect boxes...

I have 3 standard-size wineadors, all different brands. All have worked great for years.

On Tuesday I was gathering an assortment of sticks to send out; I wanted some of my old stock so I was essentially emptying one of the fridges when four boxes seemed stuck together. What happened next just about broke my heart.

That fridge had developed a drip inside and the drip had fallen on those four boxes, causing a huge mold infestation. I've never had that happen and I've never seen a case of mold this bad. One of the boxes, a full box of '98 LGC Sabrosos had just the slightest damage and only 4 of the sticks were beyond salvation. But I spent the last couple days trying to clean off sticks carefully and making sure the wrappers were not penetrated, and transferring to new cedar.boxes (three of the boxes were beyond repair).

But in the end, I lost about 10 of 18 '01 Black Princes in one box, all 17 '98 LFdC PCs in another, and (thankfully) only a couple of '01 Super Partagas. The Black Princes really hurt; they are one of my favorites and I was lovingly rationing them carefully to make them last.

And I just rearranged the fridges around November, so all this happened since then.

I've had tiny bits of mold before on occasion, but never actually lost a cigar, let alone an entire box.

The lesson, gentlemen: fondle your boxes. Often.