Plugged Cigars
- Thread starter jmatkins
- Start date
It really depends and can go from sporadic to nightmarish. I had a box of VR Familiare's in which more than half were very difficult to smoke. A box of Clasicos from the same marca ended up being petite coronas. . .:disappoin Most of the time I find the problem is far worse with the smaller ring gauges, such as corona and lonsdale sizes. I have rarely had the problem with 46 and above. Some sticks can be loosened with a poker of some type, but not always. Others can sometimes be "trimmed" to remove the offending plug, if it is short and at either end. In my experience the problem was far worse in the poor quality control years of the late 90's. Vintages since 2000 have had far fewer problems, again IMHO. . .:smokingbo
If it was just a twisted filler bunch or a fat vien, you should be cool. If it's due to over humidiy you may want to let then sit a while longer to dry out a bit or "dry box" for a day before smoking another one. Generally the cigars from one roller end up on a sorting table and get mixed with other roller's work. That's my take on it.
avid toker
Regulator
Impossible to say...if these are from the '99 or '00 boxcode, feel around the band area where majority of the plugs tend to be. If all is well there, squeeze up and down the length of the cigar in search of any hard spots which might indicate plugs. Another tip might be to check the bunching at the foot compared to another cigar that you know draws well. That might be able to give you some indication but it's not entirely accurate. Other than that, there's nothing else you can do to determine whether the rest of the cigars are plugged.
so far, 2006 and later have been about 98% unplugged. Older ones apparently had more problems but habanos sa has started draw testing every cigar (or so they say) recently.
Broadway Joe
Formerly Havana Joe
I've heard the same thing about the draw testing, so that should eliminate any recent draw issues. I've only ever returned one box of smokes for being plugged. They were R+J Habanos and it was a vendor that I never tried before, so needless to say I retuned them and got another imediately...
If you're having issues, I'd contact the vendor, most have a 100% satisfied or your money back kinda deal.
I try not to look....:crosseyed
Wow sorry to hear that. Sadly as Avid said from '99 thru '01 a fair amount of cigars have had this problem. Sometimes dry boxing will help. Interesting though that this happened with DC's typically I've found this to happen more with smaller ring gauge cigars like Lonsdale then the Larger one's.
My experience is that plugged cigars come in all dates, brands and sizes. Just bought a box of Cifuentes Partagas about 2 weeks ago and everyone is, at best, a tight draw; at worst I'd call them plugged. Tried a standard plug tool on them, as I do with most plugs I find, and it doesn't do much of anything.
Do any of you have experience with any tolls that are successful at improving plugs, or tight draws?