 Fat Albert would love today’s romance with the large ring gauge
Los Angeles, October 12 – Sometimes, bigger is better.
“We generally say that 10-20 years ago, the Lonsdale size (6 1/2 inches by 42 ring) was the most popular size,” explained Cooper Gardiner, General Cigar’s Vice President of Marketing. “Generally, people smoked ring gauges between 38 and 46.
“Recently, bigger ring gauges have become popular. Our new items always will have a Robusto (5 x 50) size. Today, the average range for popular ring gauges is between 46 and 52.”
That’s putting it lightly.
In 1996, in the heat of the Cigar Boom, Sanford Newman – head of the J.C. Newman Cigar Company – brought out Diamond Crown, an all-54-ring line which became a big hit as soon as it was introduced.
At the time, the biggest-ring cigars were novelty shapes in the Casa Blanca and Dominican Original line of mild cigars. The Casa Blanca Half Jeroboam and Jeroboam shapes, distributed by J-R Cigars, were five inches and 10 inches long, respectively and had ring gauges of 66, beyond the one-inch-thick ring gauge of 64. The Dominican Original line, distributed by Mike’s Cigars, offered the Gorilla (5x66) and Fat Tub (10x66) sizes.
Not to be outdone, however, Nick Perdomo debuted his Inmenso line (pictured above) of 70-ring gauge cigars in 1998 with two shapes of five or six inches long. And in 2001, his Tabacalera Perdomo launched the Cuban Parejo line of fat shapes, with the smallest cigar at 56 ring, four at 60 ring, two at 62 and the Galaxia at 10 inches long with a ring gauge of 100. It’s currently the fattest cigar on the U.S. market, suitable for impressing your smoking friends or for a game of nerfball on city streets.
The big-ring virus is not exclusive to the U.S., either. Even the Cubans have been infected. For many years in post-Revolution production, the only sizes with ring gauges of 50 or more were the robusto (50 ring) and two torpedo styles of 5 1/2 or 6 1/8 inches and a ring gauge of 52.
However, the Cubans have been busy recently with new introductions in bigger sizes:
• The Cuaba Salomones size – a big perfecto – was introduced in June 2003 and weighs in at 7 1/4 inches long with a ring gauge of 57;
• The Trinidad Robusto Extra, introduced in November 2003 with a ring gauge of 50 and a length of six inches;
• The Montecristo Salomones – another perfecto – but slightly shorter at 6 7/8 inches long with a ring gauge of 57;
• The San Cristobal de la Habana Muralla was introduced in March 2004 as a torpedo with a length of seven inches and a 54 ring gauge;
• The Montecristo Edmundo, introduced in May 2004, is a size up on the robusto format at 5 1/4 inches long with a ring gauge of 52.
It’s a positive development for smokers who are looking for more intense flavors from their cigars. The larger ring gauges give manufacturers the opportunity to increase the complexity of the flavors in their blends and this can make for a more interesting cigar.
The trend toward ultra-large-ring cigars is getting a little silly, however. Who can cleanly open a 60-ring Cuban Parejo Rothschild without resort to a butcher’s cleaver? Savvy makers have been creating their extra-large-ring cigars in the form of torpedos or perfectos, making it easy for the smoker to open the head of the cigar and get it into the mouth. This allows a very delicately-blended cigar like Miami’s Moore & Bode to offer their 82-ring Full Brass in a torpedo format that is actually accessible to the smoker, instead of being left on the bottom of the humidor . . . or worse.
Sales reps of major brands we spoke with confirmed that the robusto is usually their top-selling shape in any line, followed by the churchill (usually about seven inches long with a ring gauge of 48-50) and the torpedo, usually featuring a ring gauge of 50-54.
Bigger is better . . . up to a point. And when the point is at the end of a perfecto or torpedo, it’s an invitation to the enjoyment to the complex blend that only the largest cigars can offer.
As the happy party boy said to Jack Webb, playing 1920s bandleader Pete Kelly in the 1955 picture “Pete Kelly’s Blues,” “Here’s a cigar . . . light it up and be somebody!” Good advice, if it’s 50 ring or more!
In the Senate of the United States of America:
The Senate finally voted, 69-17, on Monday to pass the “Foreign Sales Corporation/Extraterritorial Income Act” which included the so-called “tobacco buyout” and did not give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration control over tobacco. The bill now goes to President George W. Bush for signature, with indications that he will sign it into law.
Although the Senate also passed a separate bill calling for FDA control over tobacco, there is little interest in it in the House of Representatives and it is expected to die there.
~ Rich Perelman
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