I used to be a 3 or 4 cigar a day smoker. For a variety of reasons, 11 or 12 years ago, I cut WAY back and only smoked 2 or 3 a year. Until a couple of months ago. Anyway, I had (still have) a bunch in my humidors, so I haven't bought cigars, kept up with new brands or lines, or read magazines or anything for a long time. Here are a few thoughts from a castaway whose been out of decent society for more than a decade.
First: PRICES!! WTF happened? Some stuff that used to cost $80 a box in 2008 is now $160! It's not SCHIP, and it's not inflation. SCHIP added about $10 a box, and handy-dandy online inflation calculators tell me that general inflation has added $16 or $17 to an $80 box. So, my the $80 box should be coming in at around $107-ish. It really can't be as simple as cigar manufacturers taking standard blends, tweaking them a little (if at all), revising the band, adding a narrow strip band below the first calling it "Serie F" (or what the F ever), then jacking the price up by $50. Is it?
Second: RING GAUGES!! WTF happened? I really am trying to keep an open mind about this one. Some things become fads for good reasons. I've ordered some larger stuff, been puffing. But when you have this big paper towel tube sticking out of your face, you have to puff and puff and puff to get the smoke from one end to the other. Maybe I’m a wimp. You also get less of the more expensive wrapper and binder because the ratio of wrapper to filler goes down as the cigar radius increases (see, you do use geometry in real life). The result is that pound-for-pound, large ring gauges are cheaper to make (yet, prices have gone up - see gripe No. 1 above). I mean, I don't care what other people wanna smoke, but it seems like the large gauges are crowding out smaller offerings like lonsdales. I like a good lonsdale.
I'm hangry!
