Do Our Prejudices Show?

[RevSmoke]

With the Cigar Aficionado lists out, there are numerous statement about how these lists have always been determined by advertising money. Then there is the added the rumor that they only smoke the first inch of a stick for their reviews.

I cannot say if those speculations are true or not. I have never tasted cumin in a cigar, but Cigar Aficionado says it is there. I am personally not a big fan of their reviews as they don't say much of anything. A couple other magazine's also don't do much - they never say anything negative (Cigar Press & Cigar Magazine come to mind). I am inclined to think they're afraid to say something negative because some negativity in a review might lose them advertising $$. We never hear anything about that.

I think we might be surprised to learn that the truth is far from that. If an honest assessment is taken of what does well and what doesn't in CA, you will see that many times it has nothing to do with how much $$ was spent. I have seen ads in that mag where the company's cigar earns a 84 rating, and a 94 rated cigars has no ad in the whole magazine. At least they are willing to be negative, which says a lot, at least from my perspective

What the issue boils down to, is that our grousing about their ranking comes because we already have our own prejudices. We think things must be that way because our tastes (prejudices) run differently. Let's face reality, there is a certain amount of prejudice on Cigar Asylum too. (both have the same initials, is that coincidence?)
There are cigars which all (OK, an overgeneralization) here have agreed suck - Cuba Aliados, Puros Indios, Gurkhas, etc...
There are cigars which all (OK, another overgeneralization) here have agreed are the cat's meow - Viaje, Tatuaje, LPs, Cubans, etc...
{you get the idea?}

To my eyes, it often looks like hype and the $$ do more than the actual quality of the stick here in the Asylum too. It often appears that the more expensive a cigar, the better they are. Or, if a couple people clamour loudly about them {the right people, of course}, the better they must be. And everybody climbs aboard that wagon.

On the other hand, if they're cheap, or if the the right people poo poo them, then everybody thinks they suck. And, they pile on that wagon as well.

I think that if most people did a blind taste test, their thoughts on cigars would be much different than they are. I don't have many of the HTFs in either CCs or NCs, but I am guessing that they wouldn't rank as high as some people put them. I also think that some of the cigars which many people think are terrible would score a bit higher were they to be tried blind.

How can I say this? I smoked nearly 75 different cigars for SMOKE magazine in 1999 as one of their reviewer. Every single cigar I had was a blind sample, and each sample contained 3-4 of that particular cigar. I'd get baggies with cigars, and the outside of the baggie would be labeled like this; Robusto #4, Torpedo #50, Churchill #7, Petite Corona #1, etc... After smoking them, sending in my reviews, and the publishing of the magazine, I'd be told what I smoked. When I found out what I had sampled, I was amazed.

There were some that I had thought highly of which didn't do so well without the band.
There were some that I wouldn't have bought with the band on, which I picked up after smoking blind.
There were a few that performed well, and when told what they were, I was glad.
There were some that performed poorly, and when told what they were, I was confirmed in my previous estimation.

I think our own prejudices get in the way of our tastebuds sometimes. I for one know that it is hard to do. We hear something negative about someone, we find it hard to let that color our opinion of them. The same is true of our expectations in cigars as well.

Had I the financial wherewithal to do so, I'd love to give a half dozen or more people some "great" cigars, some "middle of the road" cigars, and some "bad" cigars to try in blind samples. I wouldn't tell anybody the brands of what they might be smoking, it would be completely blind. But, I'd need to get some of those cigars which people have hyped and some others that my own prejudice would say, "I'm not spending my $$ on that."

I can say, from my own personal experience (and conversations with others who reviewed blind samples) that people would be surprised about the results.

Peace of the Lord be with you.