Although most folks around here know this, in case any Newbies or Lurkers glance at the thread...
Graycliff started out as a cigar you could only get at the Graycliff Hotel in the Bahamas. According to their website:
The Graycliff Cigar Company, beginning production in January 1997 with a single roller in foyer of the Graycliff Restaurant, has now expanded to an award winning boutique Cigar Company with 16 master rollers, each an expert in the art of cigar rolling. The Graycliff Cigar Company produces five brands of cigars: Graycliff, G2, Bahiba, Cabinet Selection by Graycliff and the newly introduced B-Cuz by Graycliff.
As confirmed by the powers-that-be from here at C-bid in earlier threads, the Graycliffs that Cbid has and that the folks that own the Mothership sell are NOT made by Graycliff in the Bahamas by those 16 rollers. The name has been licensed and they are gennerally made/ mass produced in Nicaragua or Honduras especially for the owner of the Mothership & related companies like Cbid.
This was from Trish at CBid on this forum long-long ago:
We pay a fee to use their name. Its called a licensing fee, kinda like the fee you pay to be able to put your pro sports teams' names on t-shirts, jerseys, etc.... [G]raycliff is aware of it as they rake in the money. Nothing underhanded and no one has ever said that these cigars are from the Bahamas. We'll make mention of their name in the marketing information but again, nothing underhanded there.
You may not like how 95% of the products in the world are marketed, but that doesn't make it wrong. There's a lot of things I don't like: Pistashio ice cream, high credit card interest rates, kids mouthing off to their parents. But most of it I can't fix. So, like the pistashio ice cream thing, I just don't buy it. if you don't like the Graycliff cigars we sell, don't buy them.
And in a later follow up from her:
"[Graycliffs are] a sanctioned product, made in a different location.
If you want the real deal Graycliff cigars, you MUST purchase them from the hotel in the Bahamas. They don't distribute them anywhere else, to the best of my knowledge. So its safe to say that if you're purchasing it from us, its not made in the Bahamas. If you do your homework, you would find this information out and not be looking for them on an auction site.
If you were to buy a t-shirt that said Dallas Cowboys on it that wasn't licensed by the NFL, that would be a knock-off. If you go to Chinatown in NYC and buy a 'coach' purse that isn't actually made by Coach, that's a knock-off. If you buy a Graycliff cigar that you don't like, was made in Honduras but is licensed to a company that had it made in Honduras, that is NOT a knock-off - its a cigar you don't like."
Contrary to what Trish said (and to be fair this is an old post so things may very well have changed) it seems you can get genuine hotel-rolled Graycliffs in some places, but you are talking $20 and up per cigar.
Now none of that means the CI/Cbid Graycliffs are necessarily bad, but don't be confused.
Long time ago, I picked up some Graycliff Platinums (a type I don't see around anymore) as part of a sampler at CI and they were outstanding. I got another batch later on and they were nowhere near as good. Tasted blah and unraveled. Have not been tempted since then.