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Cigar
Aficionado magazine was a pioneer in the rating of cigars, in the tobacco
business.[1]
Brief
history
They started
their reviews as soon as the publication of the magazine began in 1992 and, in
the fall of that same year, they presented their first tasting, conceived with
the purpose of providing consumers with information that would help them choose
their cigars in that wide and complex market.
In 1995,
with an unprecedented boom in the premium cigars market, they decided to expand
the coverage of Cigar Aficionado with a newsletter called Cigar Insider, which
began circulation in January 1996. The newsletter rates entire brands and
offers information on the entire line of cigars size by size, while the
magazine rates the cigars themselves.
With the
intention of being totally reliable, from the first moment they decided that
the tastings would be blind, and it has continued to be so for 29 consecutive
years that they have been doing them. This form allows to ensure the
impartiality of the process, discarding any prejudice or favoritism that the
taster may have with a particular cigar or brand.
The
process in general
Cigars are
evaluated on their merits without regard to brand, country of origin, type of
leaves from which they are made, or prices, ensuring that the best cigars are
selected in as objective a process as possible.
Every day
throughout the year, both the magazine and newsletter editors smoke, in their
offices, the cigars that the tasting coordinator buys from retail stores. The
rings on the cigars are replaced with a simple numbering band and a code is
created for their identification, before they are handed over to the tasting
panel, currently made up of five members.
Cigars are
rated in four categories: appearance, smoking characteristics, taste, and overall
impression. Each category is scored with points and the final score is the sum
of the points assigned in each category, with a maximum score of 100. If there
are large variations in the initial round of scoring (beyond 15 to 20%), the
cigars are tasted again.
The Top
25
The Top 25
is a contest between the highest rated cigars in the year, from both Cigar
Aficionado and Cigar Insider. The basis for the first round are the cigars that
scored at least 90 points during the tastings. From there, and after a second
and a third round, the number of cigars is reduced until reaching the selection
of the winning cigar and the remaining 24.
Although
the winner is almost always the cigar with the highest score, the panel
reserves the right to award it to a finalist with other factors that may weigh
in his favor, such as, for example, if he shows a subjective quality, if he it
is new on the market, if it has an attractive price or if there is something
about it that differentiates it from the others.
It is interesting
to mention that each annual ranking is a clear reflection of trends and the
prevailing tastes and interests of smokers at any given time.
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