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BATTLE OF THE BANDS

New issue of Cigar Magazine explores the impact of cigar bands

Los Angeles, November 21 – Cigars as we know them today began production in the 1600s in Cuba. It wasn’t until 1850 that bands appeared, credited to Dutchman Gustave Bock, who made one of the most popular (and therefore copied) cigars of the age.

Bands of all shapes and sizes are produced now and the new issue of Cigar Magazine explored their impact by sending its test group of 12 cigars to two different volunteer tasting groups: one received cigars with the bands on and one received cigars which were numbered. How were they scored?

Cigar Magazine scores cigars on three aspects: appearance, taste and construction, so the results were shown for each aspect individually, rather than as a whole:

• On appearance, the aspect which should be influenced the most by the presence of a band, there were some wide differences. Only one cigar – the C.A.O. Brazilia Samba – received the same score with and without a band, at 88 out of a possible 100. Five cigars had point totals within two points, but six had scores that varied from three up to seven points with the band being the only difference!

The biggest differentials came on the Padron 4000 (a 6-inch by 54-ring Toro), which scored only 77 points without the band, but 85 with it. The Romeo y Julieta Aniversario Toro (6 x 54) scored 81 points without a band, but 88 with it, tied for third-best. Conversely, the La Finca Fifty Four Robusto (5 x 54) scored a paltry 78 with the band on and 84 without one!

The top scorer in the group was the Excalibur Royal Sterling Fortis (7 1/4 x 54), which scored 90 points with its elegant silver band on, one point better than the Montecristo White Toro (6 x 54). Without bands, the top score was 88 by the Montecristo and by the C.A.O. Brazilia Samba. The Excalibur dropped a little to 87, tied for third with the Ramon Allones Reserve Hermoso No. 1 (6 x 54).

• Taste shouldn’t be substantially impact by the presence of a ban, but once again, half of the scores were different by four or more points. The highest score for taste of any of the cigars was an 89 for the Padron 4000 with the band on, followed by an 87 for the C.A.O. Brazilia Samba. Without bands, however, no cigar scored higher than 86: the C.A.O. and the Ramon Allones Reserve. The Padron dropped, sans band, to just 81 points, earning a three-way tie for eighth place. The La Finca, at 78 points easily the worst of the cigars on the band-on taste scoring, moved up to 83 points without a band, ranking fourth.

While the Padron dropped eight points from band-on to band-off, the Montecristo White dropped six points from 86 to 80 and the Bolivar Cofradia No. 654 (6 x 54) dropped from 87 to 82. The winners in this comparison on taste were the Ramon Allones Reserve, from 82 to a tie for first at 86 points and the Excalibur Royal Sterling, which moved from 82 with its band on to 85 points sans band.

• Construction would seemingly not be impacted much at all by band presence; either the cigar draws well and burns even or it doesn’t. But still, four of the 12 had surprising differentials of four or more points: > Padron 4000 scored 89 (first) with its band on, but just 79 (last) with the band off.

> Bolivar Cofradia No. 654 scored 86 band-on (fourth), but 82 (seventh) band-off.

> Romeo y Julieta Aniversario Toro scored 84 (eighth) band-on, but 79 (last) with the band off.

> The La Finca Fifty Four had the lowest score (80) with the bands on, but without a band, it scored 84 points to rank in a tie for fifth.

The magazine’s coverage made no comment on the overall results, but the differences were startling. Packaging, marketing and “branding” makes a difference that earns brand loyalty and creates higher prices. Even in cigars, just like in everything else.

The new issue also includes a lot of other highlights:

• An in-depth look at Tony Hyman’s on-line National Cigar Museum, a project that started when Hyman began collecting cigar boxes as a boy in Redlands, California in the 1950s. He now has more than 30,000 cigar items and is creating on-line exhibits on his site that everyone can appreciate.

• A great story by Frank Seltzer about one of America’s great cigar towns, Red Lion, Pennsylvania. At its peak in 1941, some 400 million inexpensive, short-filler cigars were made there. The cigars were more or less all the same; one historian remembered that a company owned by his grandfather had 63 labels for the same cigar!

But this small town which had such a big impact on the cigar trade in the East saw its cigar fortunes decline in the 1950s and evaporate in the late 1960s. But one of its more famous brands lives on: Wolf Brothers. Founded in 1899, the brand is known for its machine-made Rum Crooks and Rum Crookettes, which still sell about three million combined sticks each year.

There’s still an active cigar box factory in Red Lion and on New Year’s Eve, recognizing the history of the place, an eight-foot-long fiberglass cigar is raised to the top of the municipal building (an old cigar factory, of course) to bring in the new year.

And there’s much more crucial reading in the new issue: an introduction to the work of the Cigar Association of America, a note on Port and cigars, the art of cigars as it has related to the holiday season and an important, lengthy feature from British composer Joe Jackson entitled “Smoke, Lies and the Nanny State.”

The latter is critical reading and we urge all of our readers to examine it closely, either as reprinted in the new issue of Cigar Magazine or at Jackson’s own Web site.
~ Rich Perelman

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