Congratulations to Uncle Moneybags on his recent wedding in Paso Rubles, CA last weekend. We had some great times and smoked some fine cigars to celebrate. Before the wedding, we hit up Casa Fuente in Las Vegas. While we found some of the smokes their above retail prices, they had an amazing stock of every Fuente cigar you could imagine. We smoked the 21-ESG Robusto and purchased a few dozen smokes.

Moneybag$ in White, Dickbain in Black getting ready to smoke some Opus Xs.

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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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Avalon Cigars is a company you may have not heard of till now, but I imagine you will be hearing more and more about them. They’re a boutique cigar company based in Clarksdale, Mississippi. They use a Miss. Delta Pecan wood in the aging process, instead of the traditional cedar. We gratefully received a sampling of cigars from co-founder Tom Ramsey.

You can read more about Avalon Cigars here: www.avaloncigars.com

I decided to start with their “everyday smoke” named the Juke Blue Maduro. All of their cigars are name after Delta blues musicians. I must say, I really appreciate an American cigar company sticking with American heritage. Sure, they could have named these “Super Havana 4000’s”, but going against the grain in their marketing should pay off and help them stand out in the cigar crowd.

Back to my Juke. The presentation is superb. The cigar is double banded; First with a cool silver band that covers the bulk of the wrapper. Then a blue band with the JUKE print on it. The wrapper is a dark, oily, and no massive veins popping out The overall construction is great. Perfect burn and top-notch draw.

The taste in very unique. It started with a sweet clove spice and as it burned, it became more and more complex. Molasses, cocoa, and anise were just some of the multitude of flavors I experience while smoking this cigar. The most surprising factor was the pecan aroma that you smell from the smoke and also taste with every puff. Very different and actually pretty good too.

Overall, this was a great cigar. If this is their “everyday” stick, I can’t wait to try the “Masters” series. Honestly, if you see this stick for sale, buy it…you won’t be disappointed.

LT Rating: 8.5 / 10

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I finally got to try the CAO Gold Maduoro. This is a bit of a sleeper gar; I didn’t even know CAO was making a revamped version of this cigar until a friend told me about them. I didn’t believe him, but then, sure enough, started seeing them advertised on various websites. I bought this particular cigar at Vendomes because I wanted to try it before investing in a box. What an amazing smoke. CAO took everything good about the traditional Gold line (classic mildness, smoothness, etc.) and stepped it up by adding a sharp, toothy maduro wrapper. Draw and burn were the same (not perfect, but decent enough). It’s the best of both worlds. A triumph. Try it today, you won’t be dissappointed! CAO has also released a maduro version of its Black line. I haven’t tried it yet, but you can be sure I will.

LT Rating: 8 / 10

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For whatever reason, I’ve always avoided the Indian Tabac line. There’s something about it that always bothered me, whether it was the exploitation of the Indian heritage, or something else. Nevertheless, feeling the pinch for some good cheap cigars, I gambled on a box from cigarinternational.com the other week, and I have to admit they are not half bad, especially for $45 bucks for 25. In particular, the Grand Reserve Cameroon has loads of flavor and packs a fairly mean punch when you get it going. If you smoke it slower, it’s surprisingly mild. Not too many gars allow you to control the amount of flavor this much. They are definitely a solid bargain cigar. That said, like most bargain gars, a few were cracked and several were unsmokeable due to draw issues. In two words: Inconsistently good.

LT Rating: 6.5 / 10

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Although the name is a little odd, this was a suprisingly good smoke. A rich blend of aged Piloto Cubano and Mata Fina tobaccos covered in a dark broadleaf Ecuadorian wrapper. Picked up a 25 pack of these from Cigar International a few weeks back for just $39.99. I’m told they retail for far more than that, but I’ll have to take their word for it, as I’ve never seen these for sale anywhere. Suprisingly mild, with a long finish, these are well made (if not imperfect) and far above average for a $2 stick. I would recommend them if they were on special again.

LT Rating: 7 / 10

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I first tried the Punch Rare Corojo line with my brother at the Jake during Hudgar 1.0, while drinking a tallboy in the warm Cleveland sun. Good times (even though the Angels lost). While less memorable, I recently had a Rothschild from this same line. It was surprisingly good and lasted over 50 minutes. Good draw and burn, with loads of spice and pepper. While I won’t be running out and buying a box of these anytime soon, they are far superior to the average Punch, which always taste bittery to me.

LT Rating: 7.5 / 10

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