Blind Cigar Swapping

The Cohiba Club Blind Swap

Rarely do we get to do a truly blind cigar tasting. Simply taking the bands off of cigars that you’ve purchased yourself doesn’t quite cut it because in the end, chances are you’ll know what you bought. To really do it properly, you must depend on someone else providing the cigars for you to judge. Alas, we’ve come up with a way to do this which should prove to be fun and educational.

Between our regularly-scheduled monthly herfs, a few of our club members will be engaging in our new blind swaps. The following is an explanation and guidelines for how these blind swaps may be accomplished.

· This is a swap in which we'd simply trade equal numbers of cigars to each other.
· Since our regular herfs are usually four weeks apart, how about picking three rather different cigars to trade.
· Three because you'd have 3 weekends in which to smoke them before presenting your findings at the next herf (my kind of homework).
· They'd be unbanded at the time of swapping in order to conceal their identity, but numbered (of course) so that the 'giver' of the sticks knows which is which.
· I suggest picking cigars from different price ranges to make it interesting, so one would be 'a little spendy', 2nd a middle-of-the-road one, and last a bargain stick (country of origin could be different too).
· The recipient of the three blind sticks will not know which is costly or cheap and is encouraged to make that guess as part of his evaluation.
· Prices might range: $10-$12 for the high-end cigar, $7-$9 for the medium one, and $4-$6 for the value stick (one with great potential that you feel might surprise somebody).
· Also, the vitola shouldn't be overtly recognizable, like a Fuente Short Story, or an LFD Mysterio.
· So for those of us with cigars, it may simply be a matter of plucking a couple from your humidor and maybe supplementing with one more interesting choice from a shop to round out the trio.
· For those with no cigars at home, a quick stop by CigarLand in Shoreline will get you in the game.
· By trading, you're getting back roughly the same as what you gave away, so in reality, you're spending the money on yourself anyway.
· Remember, it's not a contest, only a 'blind' taste-test. There's no winning or loosing, just rating objectively (which we'd never get to do otherwise).
· To make it more interesting, we could also try guessing other stuff about them like where they're from or who they're made by.