Friday, September 24 2010
It all started with an old Q&A column I found while doing a little site house cleaning. The question from the reader was, "I read somewhere that overruns and seconds need to be aged up to six months before they can be a good smoke. The article said that when cigars are not picked as firsts they are bundled up immediately and sold, therefore they do not get aged. Is this true?"
Every manufacturer has their own way of "processing" bundle cigars. Sure, there are plenty of dog rocket bundles out there, but keep in mind that even the tobaccos used in overruns and seconds have been cured and aged prior to rolling. As for the methods used, that's up to the factory, and whether the finished cigars in these two categories had been sent to the aging room prior to being bundled, that may remain a mystery in some cases. However, I can tell you that since this article originally posted, the quality of seconds and overruns (for the most part) has improved immensely. Of course, I can only speak about the quality of bundles sold at Famous Smoke Shop, some of which are truly outstanding.
So let's get to the point. Just about all premium
handmade cigars will improve with extra time in your home
humidor. It can take as little as a couple of weeks, a few months, or up to a year depending on your taste and your patience. If "firsts" age-up nicely, there's every reason to believe that "seconds" will, too.
Home age your cigars on a per-cigar basis - that goes for all cigars. If they taste "green" or bitter, give them a few weeks and see how they taste. If necessary, give them a few months. If they don't improve after that, they were probably lousy in the first place. There's no sense in wasting a lot of time on something that's never going to get any better, and you can probably use the room in your humidor.
A
couple of bundle-buying guidelines
For many cigar smokers, buying bundle cigars is a hedged bet. They assume some of the cigars will be dogs (bad draw, bad burn, funky flavor), but the low price point usually makes up for the majority in the pack, which are generally OK. Another point of interest is that many bundle cigars on the market today are firsts; La Floridita (shown at top), Flor de Oliva, and Occidental Reserve Connecticut are a few good examples.
If you look around, there are some very good quality bundles that are very consistent in quality and flavor - and not all are seconds either. Some that come to mind are El Cobre (Oliva), Famous Value Lin
e Nicaraguan 400 (Chin Alvarez), Famous Nicaraguan 5000 (Protolasa) & 6000 (Amilcar Perez), ), Supervisor Selection (Alec Bradley), Flor De Gonzalez, Baccarat Sumatra 1997, and Rocky Patel Selects Classic.
In closing, go for the higher quality bundles and you probably won't have to extra-age them much, if at all. But if you do, you can count on them to improve as well as any other fine premium cigar that comes in a box.
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Postscript (September 27, 2010): In an email I received from Jose Blanco at Tabacalera La Aurora (DR) on this subject after its publication, he wrote: "Seconds, at least in our factory, have the same standards as our regular cigars (firsts), so the aging process is the same." - G.K.
