Written by Gary Korb
Saturday, December 19 2009
Today I had a day off from work. One of the things on my to-do list was to get the humidity up in one of my cigar humidors. The crystals in the humidifier died and I had to do a little juggling. I replaced it with a standard, round green foam model I had lying around that held significantly more water than the crystals. Apparently, it didn't have suitably sized holes for releasing moisture. My humidity dropped from 65% to 60% in three days.
Searching again through my collection of spare parts, I found a small
XiKAR crystal jar humidifier and decided I'd put it on the bottom of the
humidor in the hope that the two units would bring the humidity back up.
In order to do this, I had to remove all of the
cigars. It's amazing what you find when you start digging around. I totally forgot I had some of these cigars. I found a Cuba Aliados Limited Edition double
perfecto with a
cedar over wrap. A Gurkha Titan. A Camacho Liberty. Lots of Rocky Patels, like the last two
Honduran Classic Maduro Double Coronas from a
box I split with Hayward over two years ago. There was an Old World Reserve I got the wedding of an industry colleague, still in its cello. Printed on the cello are the names of the bride and groom. Since it's a keepsake, I may never smoke it.
Here's one I totally forgot about: A Carlos Torano Descandencia: a gorgeous cigar they debuted four years ago in New Orleans that was infused with chocolate sherry. (You can see it in its tube in the photo above.)
Another one I forgot about was a Troya Clasico blended by
Don Pepin Garcia. That one's gotta be at least 4 years old, too. It's also obsolete.
The only buzz kill during the whole process was, the
wrapper on my one and only
Oliva Serie V Ligero Torpedo Maduro (YES, Maduro), was starting to come undone just below the
band. (Maybe there's something to be said for smoking some cigars sooner than later.) Anyhow, I had no vegetable
gum to properly reseal it, so I used a little polyglycol solution. Then I removed the cedar wrapper from an
Arturo Fuente Chateau Rothschild, and it fit perfectly around the cigar to hold the wrapper in place for now. You can also see the Oliva V Maduro in the photo above. It's on the right with the green silk band at the
foot.
Once I got all the cigars out, I noticed those on the bottom two rows were all very supple and well-humidified. The wood in the base looked like it had been well seasoned, too. I put the crystal jar in the right front corner (you can see the top of it in the shot), carefully replaced all the cigars in as reverse order as possible, and shut the lid. That was about two hours ago. Just before writing this I check the box and the RH is still only at about 62%, but confidence is high.
Just as certain songs bring back memories, digging through many of these cigars did as well. I'm curious if anyone else has had a similar experience. If so, leave a comment here, or on the
Cigar Advisor Facebook page.
Happy smokes,
G~
