cigars of yester-year VS. Todays?

[Prine]

Awesome information and read, thank you!

 

[SouthernerInSask]

Some people actually liked beetles back in the day....

Lasioderma is an indoor pest, living within the tobacco and other plants it consumes throughout all four stages of its life: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. The problem lies not so much in the amount of leaf it consumes, but in the by-products of its existence: dust, its corpse, and "refuse." Oddly enough, as respected a source as Scientific American Supplement (January, 1920), noted some cigar smokers preferred cigars laced with this refuse!

http://www.gosmokeshop.com/1298/primer.htm

 

[ssaka]

The "respected source" was obviously an idiot...

STS

 

[herfdog]

Reading early twentieth century documentation on the matter of tobacco beetles proves them to have known quite some information already back then about the beetle and how to erradicate it. You can see there https://books.google.ca/books?id=GCJdBZUOGZMC a book from U.S. Government Printing Office, 1919 named "farmer's bulletin" which is all about agriculture. In issue 846 they talk about said beetle and how to prevent it.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=GCJdBZUOGZMC&pg=RA4-PA42&dq=what+is+cigar+beetle+refuse&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PJomVdb_G4vwsAWgzICIAg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA

They don't say anything about smokers liking it, but present it as "... the quantity consumed is usually of far less importance than the presense of refuse, dust, dead bodies of the beetles, etc., which soil the manufactured product or make it unsalable and worthless."
They also talk about how to prevent it, with a section about cold storage (but being the early 20th century, technology was not what it is now, and they suggest "the lowest temperature that can be obtained" <-- 0 kelvin anyone? ROFL)

I'd tend to say yester-year or today, nobody likes them... Or, as @ssaka said, that other source is an idiot.

 

[tedp]

Well, when I used to have conversations with people like Mark Twain and Ulysses Grant in my day the cigars were just tobacco rolled up...not all that great and they didn't have the complexity they do now. The storing of them was usually in places underground where the RH was better otherwise they'd just dry out and smoke like a piece of firewood. As the decades worn on cigars were beginning to catch on and there was more to the art of growing and rolling them but most were machine made while the handmade ones were far too expensive for the everyday person. It wasn't until the early 70's that strides were made in the development and growth of the manufacturing and growing of quality tobacco...we're lucky to be alive in this century where the quality is unsurpassed and we have a ton of brands out there.

Those were the days huh Gary! Some of the herfs that Ulysses used to put on were epic!

 

[johnnyflake]

Couple of quick points:

1 - Many of today's machine made brands, AyC, El Producto, Hav-a-Tampa, etc were premium handmade cigars in the 1940s and 1950s, in fact many were "clear Havana" meaning they were made of Cuba grown fillers and often wrappers also. The owners of these brands were concerned about rising costs over the years so they started making micro adjustments to maintain price and profit margin, over the course of decades this resulted in what was formerly a handmade Clear Havana becoming the machine made partial tobacco products they have become today.

2 - The green hue was because the most popular cigars of the time were made with Candela wrapper, this wrapper fell out of favor over the course of the late 60s and 70s.

3 - Cigars on the whole were significantly smaller, the most popular format was a 5 x 42 corona vs the 6 x 52/54 toro it is now.

4 - Cigars were significantly milder on the whole.

5 - Maduro was associated with cheap, lower grade cigars in both the machine and handmade segment - funny given how much more expensive true maduro-seed wrapper is to utilize on cigars today.

6 - Five decades ago the only handmade cigars as we know them today construction and blend wise were those being handcrafted in Cuba, hence establishing Cuba as the leader in the manufacture of handmade premium cigars, albeit on the whole most of the blends were also milder and bulk of the vitolas smaller. However Cuba did make 7 x 47 churchill and 7 x 49 double corona formats and some robusto formats.

7 - It wasn't until the exile of the primary cigar makers from Cuba that the handmade industry began to establish itself elsewhere and today prospers as it does.

Imo, I believe the handmade cigars we get today are overall significantly better. Far greater range in tobacco diversity, blends, strength levels, formats, complexity, etc. etc. Even our friends in Cuba have started to take their cues from others by expanding their range in formats, blends and higher quality limited releases.

BR,

STS

I am not out to start an argument, but #6 above is not correct, in the least. In the 1940s, 1950s & into the 1960s, there were at least a dozen manufacturers of, Hand Made/Hand Rolled, cigars in New York and at least a half dozen in Chicago. They were also in Florida and in California. They were very well made and often custom blended for their clients. During that time, many of the hand made cigars and machine made cigars, were made using Cuban Tobaccos, in their blends. These cigars were referred to as "Clear" cigars on the labels and packaging.

 

[ssaka]

Not an argument, just correcting my error, I am aware of variety of these US made handmades, but their distribution to my knowledge was very limited... I should have stated "almost all" instead of "the only"... there are no absolutes when it comes to cigars.

Thanks,

STS

 

[Shlippy]

Well, all I know is that George Burns smoked el producto's all the time. I decided to buy a 5 pack and . I gave the rest to my wife's grandfather.

That's all I can say on the subject.

Burns said he smoked those because they didn't go out on stage. Not sure if that was him just trying to save face for smoking a cheap cigar for 75 years

 

[johnnyflake]

Burns said he smoked those because they didn't go out on stage. Not sure if that was him just trying to save face for smoking a cheap cigar for 75 years

I remember reading some where, years ago, when doing some research, that he was gifted 5 boxes a month by the manufacture.

 

[K Williams]

I started out with Garcia y Vega cigars in the early 1990s. I wouldn't even consider smoking one now.

 

[Sirspanksalot]

I started out with Garcia y Vega cigars in the early 1990s. I wouldn't even consider smoking one now.

I used the candela ones for my blunts in HS

 

[Cigary43]

Those were the days huh Gary! Some of the herfs that Ulysses used to put on were epic!

Right up until he got so drunk that he'd chew on the wrong end of the cigar and blister his tongue and you could never understand his orders afterwards....crazya$$ sumbitch.