Just opened a sealed box of 2007 Don Pepin Garcia CC (Black Label) Belicoso, I was mortified to find that nearly half have split wrappers at the head.. Bummer. Not sure if they are salvageable, they will likely have smoking issues.

I bought a few boxes and never got around to inspecting this one but the rest are fine. The rest also have super old yellow cello; these belicoso's were the very first run as they were not packaged with cello which was added shortly after production. Perhaps not having the cello made them a little more sensitive to humidity issues. I know a few people here bought some from the same source so check if you have not already done so.

You win some and you lose some...fortunately it wasn't all of them. Worse things can/have happened to better people, so I suppose this is more of a PSA to check all boxes even from the most trusted sources.

Pectin repair.

^ yup... as was pointed out to me at one time, not a bad idea to scrap one cigar and use the wrapper to cut small patches for the others...

hmm, I didn't think about that. I'll have to try it. I'll research now, anyone know a good source or brand to use for this pectin?

I would say sacrafice one of the cracked ones to fix the rest of them. This way you will be using the same wrapper! Reagards 🇨🇮 l

I had a similar experience with a box of Viaje samurais, the box had been sitting for about 6 months, opened it up and about half of them had cracked and split. Sacrificed one to make patches for the rest and they smoked fine. It was rather annoying, but at least I was able to save them.

As has been stated, pectin and some spare capa leaf. Shouldn't be hard to find another current cigar with a similar capa leaf from Pepin, or take the worst of the damaged and cannibalize it.

BTW, splitting / damage at the head of a cigar is often (but not always) shipping damage caused by rough handling and the cigar slamming into the wall of the box. If all of the cigars have nearly identical damage, it could very well have been shipping. A lot of times, it'll be many little cracks or the head will have a crack that goes around the circumference of the cigar. Too much humidity or erratic humidity either tends to split the cigar at the foot and then progress towards the head or sometimes will cause a section of the cigar to crack in the middle as maybe how that one cigar was bunched / rolled and the tobacco expanded or contracted more there than in other places.

Then this must have been a handling issue. I'll do exactly what you recommend and cannibalize the worst one. Since the cracks are at the head I won't be smoking up to the patch anyways.

ZRX, thank you for the link.

😎

Hey ZRX can you send me that link to. I have looked for pectin locally to no avail.

Can't be certain without seeing it, and sometimes not even then, but I just wanted to toss that out there as something to consider so you aren't going nuts worrying about your humidors unnecessarily.


If you aren't going to be smoking that far up the cigar, then you could patch it with anything and save yourself one cigar, although if the mouthfeel of the leaf on your lips was intended to be part of the experience, then you lose that. Some cigars this is a factor, but for most it's not.

Admission: I once used tape on the head of a cigar to make it smokeable. Looked a bit weird, but I don't hold cigars between my teeth and only barely bring them up to my lips to smoke, it wasn't that big a deal.

PMS Shaun