We’ve received the above question from more than a few of our loyal readers over the past weeks. The truth is, we don’t know whether we are coming back. We love cigars. We love writing about cigars. We love that there are others out there who like cigars as much as we do. But lately, there just haven’t been enough new cigar-related topics to write about. That, and the winter has just about forced Brother Dicksbain out of smoking cigars entirely. We do plan to have TWO Hudgars this year, however, including one next month and another one in August. My bet is we’ll start writing again soon. Cigars rule. Smoke three for us today!

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Last week I purchased the JR Weekly special which included a nice Montecristo humidor at a great price. This will be my third humidor in an ever growing collection. While I began working on the initial preparations for the new humidor, I remembered back to my very first humidor and how I couldn’t find good information on what to do with the thing. I just put a few cigars in the thing and fought major humidity issues for over a year. I’ve since learned that proper humidor preparation is key to successfully storing cigars. Below I’ve outlined the steps I take when preparing a new a humidor or getting an existing humidor ready for winter.

Step 1: Wet the Wood

Any humidor worth putting cigars in is lined with Spanish Cedar which is prized for it’s insect resistance, rot resistance, and it’s ability to absorb and retain moisture. Unfortunately, by the time you get your hands on a new humidor, it’s extremely dried out. To fix this, start by wetting a plain paper towel (or brand new sponge) with distilled water. Wipe every bit of exposed wood to lightly cover the entire surface area. Make sure not to use too much water or you’ll run the risk of water stains or even wood rot.

Step 2: Bowl of Water

Once you’ve got the wood wiped down, the next step is to get a bowl, cup, tuperware, etc filled with distilled water and place it in the humidor. The larger the surface area of exposed water the better. I prefer to use a low profile bowl over a cup. Fill the bowl 3/4 of the way and place it inside the humidor. Close the lid nice and tight.

Step 3: Wait 24 - 48 Hours

This is where the real magic happens. You’re looking to infuse water back into the wood. This will help stabilize the humidor and ensure that you can achieve that perfect 70% humidity. On my first humidor, I skipped this step and the thing never reached 70% humidity. No matter what I did, the wood was so dry that it always absorbed what I threw at it. Try to wait the full 48 hours for maximum results.

Step 4: Test it Out

Once the 24-48 hours has passed, open the humidor and remove the bowl water. It’s likely at this point that the humidor is actually >70% humility. The only way to find out is to put your trusty hygrometer and get a reading. I personally use digital units that you can calibrate. Cigar International sells a great little hygrometer for $23 that is adjustable. My humidor read 77%. If you’re anywhere north of 74%, I recommend that you let the humidor rest with the lid closed. Check the reading a few times a day. When you’re below 74%, you can move on to the final step. Mine took about 12 hours to stabilize to 69%.

Step 5: Add Humidification

At this point, you’re ready to add your on going humidification device. After years of using water pillows, I’ve decided to start using the humidification gel jars. They seemed more convenient. I steer away from the old school sponge and propylene glycol mix. I picked a few up jars from CI. Remember to use distilled water and don’t over fill.

Step 6: Add Your Cigars!

At this point, it’s time to add your cigars and you’re done! Keep an eye on the hygrometer to make sure things don’t get out of control. With the humidification jars, things should stay pretty stable.

A Few Final Tips

If the humidity is to too high, you might be using t o o b i g of a humidification device. Look for something smaller. If the problem persists, try leaving the humidor lid open for a few hours.

If the humidity is too low try more humidification or go through the prep steps again and let the bowl sit longer. Try 72 hours or longer.

Distilled Water is key. Whenever we’re talking about cigars and humidity, forget tap water period. A bottle of distilled water cost $.99 and will keep you’re humidor free of impurities for at least a year. Tap water contains too many minerals and God knows what else to risk ruining your nice humidor or your fine cigars.

I hope these tips help you get the most out of your humidor.  As always, please feel free to leave us some comments if you’ve got some other tips or questions.

-Dicksbain

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Tonight I thought I would try something new. Rather than review cigars, I will review those glorious middlemen who bring them to us consumers: the online retailers. The Internet has made smoking cigars in various western states affordable, in that it’s possible to avoid the outrageously high taxes. That’s a good and a bad thing. If not for the Internet, I would certainly smoke fewer cigars, which would probably improve my health–but at the cost of one of the few things in life I truly enjoy.

I’ve had mostly good experiences ordering cigars online. Like many of you, I started out with JR Cigar. Gradually, as my palate became more sophisticated and my wallet fatter, I ventured out to other retailers such as cigar.com, famous smoke, and cigar international. I’ve spent between $500 and $5,000 dollars at each of these companies, so I feel confident I can provide an unbiased review of their products to our readers. Here they are, top to bottom:

Pros:

Great selection, great deals, great prices, great shipping rates, 5 Packs, CigarMonster Daily Deal.

Cons:

Some items out of stock, needs more intuitive website, product condition/quality assurance. MonsterCigar deals are pretty weak.

Famous smoke has a great selection and has a huge variety of cigars for sale. Many of the harder to find cigars are available, if a little infrequently. Moreover, they’ll sell you a whole box if they have one in stock. For example, right now you can get an entire box of 25 Padron 1964 Diplimaticos for just $269.00. In stock, with free shipping. That’s just over $10.00 per stick. Cigar.com sells these for $14.95–except they’ll only sell you 3 at a time, when they’re in stock (right now, they’re out of course). Famous smoke also has great deals. You can mix and match 5 packs (buy two and the third one’s free) and they have daily “Monster deals” and weekly specials that are frequently worth ordering.

Quality, quality, quality. The only real gripe I have about Famous Smoke is the low quality of the product they ship. Far too often, I have cigars I received from them split when cutting them. While not as bad as JR’s quality, it is still unacceptable. Moreover, they need to monitor their shipping a little better. Late last year I ordered a box of 1926 Padron No. 35s Naturals. They shipped me the maduros. While these were fantastic cigars, they’re not what I ordered. At $240.00, they should have gone the extra mile to make sure I received what I paid for. Not a big deal, but worth mentioning. Finally, their website is hard to navigate and you have to watch it at check out to make sure the appropriate discounts have been applied (this is particularly true when ordering 5 packs, with the buy two get the third free special).

Pros:

Good selection, occasional good deals, great product condition, Water Pillows, Great customer service. Nice print catalog. Podcast.

Cons:

Prices, shipping costs, some odd restrictions on ordering, could use better deals.

Cigar.com consistently ships the best product and with the best packaging (in particular, the water pillows). They also have some great deals (Friday one-day sales) once in a while. Given that the cigars always come in such great condition, these deals are even sweeter. (The only thing worse than ordering a deal and finding out the cigars are in poor condition is paying full price for them and finding out they’re in poor condition) Lately, the deals haven’t been as good as they were a year ago, but every third or fourth one is great, and that’s good enough for second place.

Cigar.com doesn’t have the best prices. In fact, they’re often criminally expensive. For example, an Arturo Fuente Anejo Shark costs almost $35, while Casa de la Fuente sells them for just $18, and stores in California (desite its very high taxe rate) sell them for between $18 and $27 each. Moreover, to order more than three super-primos (Padron Anniversary, Opus X, Anejo) you have to call them. They claim this is to make sure they don’t take orders they can’t fulfill. They should get a better website if that’s really a problem. It’s 2007, not 1997. The high prices are exacerbated by high shipping costs ($5.95 no matter how much you order, for standard shipping; $19.99 for one-day shipping). Finally, while the occasional deal is good or even great, they could use more consistency.

(Reviewed By Dicksbain)
Pros:

Unique Weekly Specials, Fast Shipping. Good customer service. Free wooden matches.

Cons:

Online reviews are almost worthless because everything is “Great!”. Prices are average. Not all items in stock.

Cigar International is another Pennsylvania based cigar retailer that is worth taking a look at. I’m mainly attracted to their weekly special deals. They offer a one-week, and one day special along with a host of other deals. I’ve never had any issues with an order I’ve received from CI. They always ship the same day and since I’m just a few hundred miles away from their warehouse, I almost always get my cigars next day. They also throw in a nice box of wooden matches, which I appreciate. A waterpillow like cigar.com offers would be better.

(Reviewed By Dicksbain)
Pros:

They started the Weekly special, printed catalog is nice. Great cigar pictures. Prices are good.

Cons:

Selection has some gapping holes (No Padróns, La Flor, etc). Weekly special have not been very good for several years now. Quality is the worst of any retailer we buy from. Customer service is sub par.

I’m sure a lot of people are going to be upset that JRCigar came in last place. They’re the Wal-Mart of the online cigar world. We all buy from them, but not all of us are proud of it. For me, the biggest issue with JR is quality. With almost every order I receive, I’ve had issues. From cracked wrappers, to Sun Sahara dried cigars, and even a horrible tobacco beetle issue; quality control over at JR is almost nonexistent. While most of these issues have been with weekly specials and catalog deals, but that doesn’t mean I should receive unsmokable cigars. If you order a box of Arturo Fuentes, I’m they come in OK condition because they haven’t been sitting in their warehouse very long. But order this weeks special and I’ll bet you’ll be disappointed with the quality.

The other big distinction that earned JR our lowest rank was customer service. Both of us have had major issues returning bad cigars. We been placed on indefinite hold, hung up on, and had e-mails go unanswered. In the end, JR normally will refund/replace bad cigars, but you have to jump through a hundred hoops and it’s painful. Compared to dealing with “Tim” over at cigar.com who answers the phone on the first ring and always quickly resolves the issue, it’s night and day dealing with JR-mart.

Closing Comment

All of the retailers have their strengths…and weaknesses. That’s probably the reason why we’ll continue to buy from all of them. We may buy a box of Padróns from FamousSmokes over Cigar.com for price and availability. Where we may by a box of Arturo Fuente Double Chateau Fuentes from JR because they have the best price and we know the inventory turns so fast, that quality storage won’t be an issue.

While there are certainly other cigar retailers out there, we haven’t ordered enough from them to say whether they are good companies. But feel free to leave us your comments on them.

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Hello all. Some of you may have noticed that Uncle Moneybags hasn’t been posting all that much lately. That’s because I’ve been taking a little break from my everyday routine, moving into my new house, getting ready to get married (June 23) and enjoying my time off work (my last day was May 1, if you can believe it). Please don’t think I’ve given up on the leaf, though. On the contrary, I’ve been smoking more gars on account of all my time off, in between and during various home improvement projects. I’m tempted to list them all off here, but that’s not really what this site is about.

The next few weeks are going to be busy for sure, so I don’t know if I’ll be posting a ton during that time, but I will try. My wedding is on June 23, and after that I’ll be in Hawaii for 10 days or so. Even more important for this site, however, is June 19-20, when me and Brother Dicksbain will be making our pilgrimmage to Casa de la Fuente at Caesar’s Palace. Good times to be sure.

Right now, I’m smoking a cigar in my new garage, which has been fully finished, and it’s a good feeling. I set up a computer out here so I can post and smoke at the same time. In this case, a super-sweet Oliva Robusto Serie O. Onto the reviews…. First, however, I would like thank Brother Dicksbain for carrying the torch during my absence. Much appreciated.

Uncle Moneybags (who has less money now that he’s bought a house and quit his job, funny how that works).

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The Leafy Times Brothers wish you and yours the happiest Thanksgiving. Enjoy the time off, watch some football (3 NFL games this year!), eat some turkey, smoke a special cigar, and give thanks for the great things in life.

We’ll be posting some reviews and articles over the weekend once we recover…

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Note: No “good cigars” were harmed for the above pictured stunt. I used an old Consuerga Sultan that had been sitting naked in my garage through the cold winter and hot summer…I probably should have used one of the horrible JRCIGAR Halloween special gars in protest.  JRCIGAR Halloween 2006 = Worst ‘Special’ Ever.

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A great cup of coffee compliments a great cigar, especially as the temperature begins to fall. I came across this fine blend from Caribou Coffee and had to share it with the world.

From the Caribou:

Obsidian Dark Roast Blend is hand-blended mix of African and Indonesian coffees. We’ve roasted this blend to the darker end of our spectrum, fully developing the body and deep, fruit notes that abound in these coffees.

Finishing in a decadent bittersweet chocolate finish, we believe you’ll find this a wonderful coffee for entertaining or enjoying as the weather begins to cool.

It’s simply put, the best coffee I’ve ever had and I highly recommend it with a fine oscuro or maduro cigar such as the Arturo Fuente Double Chateau Fuente Maduro. Very dark, but finishes smooth and without the bitter aftertaste the usually follows a dark roast such as a French roast. It’s only available for a short time, which is the only reason I can’t give this a perfect 10 score. Stock up now!
Leafy Coffee Rating: 9/10
Purchase Online Here - $12.99 lb

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JR inadvertently sent me a five pack of CAO Gold Robustos, instead of the box I ordered.  After some initial hassle on the phone about sending the five pack back before shipping the box, they agreed to ship the box immediately–and they threw in the five pack for free.  Nice to see a company that values its die hard customers.  Kudos to JR.

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As the Hero (Brother Delonne) leaves Canton [Firefly Reference], I can’t help but feel a bit depressed now that it’s over. We had a wonderful time smoking premium cigars and hanging out like the good old days in the Spruce Garage here in Hudson, OH. We even went to an Indians vs Angels game. The sad part is these glorious days of hanging out and doing really nothing are few and too far between now. For two extremely busy professionals, these sessions of simply sitting back and NOT doing anything are worth more than any vacation or therapy session. We used to do this 3 of every 4 weekend in a month when I lived in SoCal just less than a year ago. I love everything about Ohio except that my Brother is 2,041 miles away…

A full review of our activies and especially the Hudgar 06 lineup review to follow shortly.

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Buy any box of MONTECRUZ NEGRA CUBANAS at regular price and get 30 Montecruz Chicos.

With deals like this, I might just stop checking JR every Wednesday.  A free box of “chicos”?  And what’s a Chico you ask?  It’s a 4.5×36 tiny filler cigar.  Every Montecruz I’ve ever had is overrated and to simply offer a free pack of “Chicorettes” is insulting…keep trying JR!
Brother’s Purchased?:
PPG (price per gar): $1.12
Deal Rating:
Deal Direct URL: Click Here

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1. La Aurora Preferido, 5 X 50, Robusto, Dominican
2. Arturo Fuente Hemingway Work of Art, 4.88 X 60, Perfecto, Dominican
3. Litto Gomez Diez, 5.5 X 54, Chisel Puro, Dominican
4. Perdomo Estate Vintage 1991, 5 X 54, Regente, Nicaraguan
5. Padron 1964 Anniversary Exclusivo, 5.5 X 50, Exclusivo, Nicaraguan
6. Punch Rare Corojo 2006, 5 x 54, Regente, Nicaraguan
7. CAO Cameroon Robusto (5 x 50)
8. CAO Brazilia Gol (5 x 56)
9. CAO Black Storm (5 x 50)
10. CAO Gold Robusto (5 x 50)
11. CAO Criollo Pato (4.75 x 50)
12. Mystery Purchase from Port Royal Tobacconist

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It’s been a long time since I gambled on purchasing “Bargin Cigars”. Most of the time these come in Gallon Paint Cans … and they taste like it.

I found myself with a $70 credit over at JR Cigar after I returned some poorly received Royal Jamaicans. I decided that I would once again try a cheap cigar in hopes of one day finding another hidden treasure (ie, Great, cheap cigar).

I settled on the TABANTILLAS ROMEROS 4.5 x 52 @ $29 for 25 cigars. They should be arriving in time for a review this weekend. I’m cautiously optimistic. I figure, the picture looks good on JR’s site, how bad could they be?

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