Cigar Aging Article

[beyonder]

A while back I saw a link to a lengthy article on cigar aging that covered the science behind cigar aging and impact on flavor of storing in closed boxes versus storing out as singles, temperature, humidity, etc. Discussed chemical processes, etc. and the different flavor profiles that could be brought out by storing or aging in cabs, boxes, versus loose, etc.

Unfortunately, I'm dumb and didn't bookmark it, and I've searched this site and on google and for the life of me can't find the article. If anyone knows which article I'm referring to or has some ideas, please let me know or provide a link.

Thanks in advance.

[M1903A1]

A while back I saw a link to a lengthy article on cigar aging that covered the science behind cigar aging and impact on flavor of storing in closed boxes versus storing out as singles, temperature, humidity, etc. Discussed chemical processes, etc. and the different flavor profiles that could be brought out by storing or aging in cabs, boxes, versus loose, etc.

Unfortunately, I'm dumb and didn't bookmark it, and I've searched this site and on google and for the life of me can't find the article. If anyone knows which article I'm referring to or has some ideas, please let me know or provide a link.

Thanks in advance.

If it's the article I'm thinking of, it was in a Russian cigar magazine that is now defunct. Try Googling "Queen of Aromas"; I think that was the name of the article. And yes, it was an amazing read.

[Nathan King]

If it's the article I'm thinking of, it was in a Russian cigar magazine that is now defunct. Try Googling "Queen of Aromas"; I think that was the name of the article. And yes, it was an amazing read.

The magazine was Cigar Clan. "Queeen of Aromas" was in Volume I of the 2005 English supplement. The article was penned by Willy Alvero; however, I have not had any luck tracking it down.

[nick2021]

Thanks for sharing will check this out for sure

[Nathan King]

I'll let you know if I can find it. If you find it let me know. I would like to read it as well.

[markem]

It would be great if that article could be found. Until then, I think that we just need to stick to Nickerson's Rule of 3*


* - j/k. Anyone with a specific set of rules that claim things like "no cigar gets better after 3 years" is known, at least in some parts of the cigar world, as a "Nickerson". This is not a term of endearment.

[Bill86]

:r If three years was the peak of a cigar then a Sir Winston would never taste good. After 2 years they are still plenty harsh and need much more age. But I bet that extra year would turn that harshness for 80% of the stick into completely non existent :rolleyes:

[BnBTobacco]

I'll try to check this out.

[NCRadioMan]

It would be great if that article could be found. Until then, I think that we just need to stick to Nickerson's Rule of 3*


* - j/k. Anyone with a specific set of rules that claim things like "no cigar gets better after 3 years" is known, at least in some parts of the cigar world, as a "Nickerson". This is not a term of endearment.

Nobody bad mouths the Rule of 3! Nobody!


:r

[Blueface]

Nobody bad mouths the Rule of 3's! Nobody!


:r

:tpd:

The Nickerson Rule #3 rules!!!

[MiamiE]

I remember this!

[d'am]

The magazine was Cigar Clan. "Queeen of Aromas" was in Volume I of the 2005 English supplement. The article was penned by Willy Alvero; however, I have not had any luck tracking it down.

I love me a good challenge...and damn this was hard! Turns out that yahoo search has the article cached. Here you go:

http://74.6.238.254/search/srpcache?ei=UTF-8&p=cigarclan.com%2Farticles%2F2005%2F1%2F05%2F&fr=yfp-t-312&u=http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=cigarclan.com%2farticles%2f2005%2f1%2 f05%2f&d=5060742957302587&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=961b59a0,a2fce1e&icp=1&.intl=us&sig=4G5TiUAWav6I4NRhG4.bzw--

[sam a]

I love me a good challenge...and damn this was hard! Turns out that yahoo search has the article cached. Here you go:

http://74.6.238.254/search/srpcache?ei=UTF-8&p=cigarclan.com%2Farticles%2F2005%2F1%2F05%2F&fr=yfp-t-312&u=http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=cigarclan.com%2farticles%2f2005%2f1%2 f05%2f&d=5060742957302587&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=961b59a0,a2fce1e&icp=1&.intl=us&sig=4G5TiUAWav6I4NRhG4.bzw--

thanks!

[Swif]

Thanks for find the article. Very interesting read.

[rgrecco]

Marking for a later read

[TheRiddick]

Time to buy a 5er, stick it in a large empty humi and voila, 4 months from now you have perfectly aged "5+ year old" cigars. Who needs years of careful aging? Pass that crack pipe, please...

FWIW, seems the writer read or attended some wine related courses/literature as many of the assumptions, and I can't call them anything but that since some of the "findings" presented directly contradict common knowledge/experience, are dead wrong. Anyone who has worked with wine barrels will tell you that there is no mechanism for tannins to "vanish/escape" even with years of air drying the wood, they "soften" oak tannins by burning the staves while assembling barrels, the greater the burn the softer the tannins in the assembled barrel. Also, many of the flavor characteristics described belong to wine world mostly, I have yet to taste a cigar with a "mushroom" taste, yet plenty of older FRENCH wines display that trait, just one example.

And that "10 year" over the hill limit is also a big pile of BS, from personal experience as well as from plenty of others'. Plenty of cigars taste great with 30-40 years on them (one wouldn't age Garcia & Vega, though).

This article comes from a nation that pretty much doesn't smoke cigars and what's sold there is 99% fake. But, hey, impressive charts/graphics and all that...

[toasterhead]

Excellent article, thanks. Similar to MRN's thoughts on aging.

Dave

[beyonder]

That's the article I was looking for. Thanks for the find!

[T.G]

Time to buy a 5er, stick it in a large empty humi and voila, 4 months from now you have perfectly aged "5+ year old" cigars. Who needs years of careful aging? Pass that crack pipe, please...

FWIW, seems the writer read or attended some wine related courses/literature as many of the assumptions, and I can't call them anything but that since some of the "findings" presented directly contradict common knowledge/experience, are dead wrong. Anyone who has worked with wine barrels will tell you that there is no mechanism for tannins to "vanish/escape" even with years of air drying the wood, they "soften" oak tannins by burning the staves while assembling barrels, the greater the burn the softer the tannins in the assembled barrel. Also, many of the flavor characteristics described belong to wine world mostly, I have yet to taste a cigar with a "mushroom" taste, yet plenty of older FRENCH wines display that trait, just one example.

And that "10 year" over the hill limit is also a big pile of BS, from personal experience as well as from plenty of others'. Plenty of cigars taste great with 30-40 years on them (one wouldn't age Garcia & Vega, though).

This article comes from a nation that pretty much doesn't smoke cigars and what's sold there is 99% fake. But, hey, impressive charts/graphics and all that...


Greg, thanks. I was wondering what your take would be on some of the points in that article. I started having a hard time taking the author seriously when he went off on the flavors/aromas marrying bunk and some of the other stuff started sounding a bit "off".

I don't think that everything he says is without value/merit. but gospel it's not.

[Swif]

Time to buy a 5er, stick it in a large empty humi and voila, 4 months from now you have perfectly aged "5+ year old" cigars. Who needs years of careful aging? Pass that crack pipe, please...

FWIW, seems the writer read or attended some wine related courses/literature as many of the assumptions, and I can't call them anything but that since some of the "findings" presented directly contradict common knowledge/experience, are dead wrong. Anyone who has worked with wine barrels will tell you that there is no mechanism for tannins to "vanish/escape" even with years of air drying the wood, they "soften" oak tannins by burning the staves while assembling barrels, the greater the burn the softer the tannins in the assembled barrel. Also, many of the flavor characteristics described belong to wine world mostly, I have yet to taste a cigar with a "mushroom" taste, yet plenty of older FRENCH wines display that trait, just one example.

So like a fine whiskey as I have been told, in the wine industry they burn the oak barrels as well?

Not a be fan of ether, but I can have a little whiskey on the rocks. Wine is defiantly not my cup of tea.

And that "10 year" over the hill limit is also a big pile of BS, from personal experience as well as from plenty of others'. Plenty of cigars taste great with 30-40 years on them (one wouldn't age Garcia & Vega, though).

This article comes from a nation that pretty much doesn't smoke cigars and what's sold there is 99% fake. But, hey, impressive charts/graphics and all that...

So like whiskey so I have been told, wine producer burn the oak barrel?

I am not a big whiskey drinker but I can have it on the rocks every once and a while. As far as wine I can not stand the stuff.

[Nathan King]

I love me a good challenge...and damn this was hard! Turns out that yahoo search has the article cached. Here you go:

http://74.6.238.254/search/srpcache?ei=UTF-8&p=cigarclan.com%2Farticles%2F2005%2F1%2F05%2F&fr=yfp-t-312&u=http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=cigarclan.com%2farticles%2f2005%2f1%2 f05%2f&d=5060742957302587&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=961b59a0,a2fce1e&icp=1&.intl=us&sig=4G5TiUAWav6I4NRhG4.bzw--

Excellent work. I did not try Yahoo. It appears Google does not have it cached. Thanks a million!

[Nathan King]

It appears Yahoo has removed the article from the cache. I have made the article available as a PDF here. (http://members.cox.net/nathanking/Aromas.pdf)

[sjnovakovich]

The article has now disappeared! I did a search and results come up BUT... all of the links result in a 404 Forbidden error.
:(

That sucks!!:confused:

[joeobx]

It appears Yahoo has removed the article from the cache. I have made the article available as a PDF here. (http://members.cox.net/nathanking/Aromas.pdf)

The article has now disappeared! I did a search and results come up BUT... all of the links result in a 404 Forbidden error.
:(

That sucks!!:confused:
try this link

[msayewich]

Thanks alot NathanKing. Great article.

[sjnovakovich]

Excellent article, and very informative. While my many years of cigar smoking experience causes me some minor disagreement with the length of aging :2, I now understand aging to a greater degree as well as understanding better the process through which the cigars pass.

Thanks very much for providing this excellent and informative article!

Steve:tu

[bigdankcloud]

How many of you are of the opinion that if you have a humidor that is 90% full, that all of the smokes in there are going to suffer as it applies to aging? I'm not refuting or confirming it, I just would like to hear the opinions on this.

Personally, I'm in the middle of building a custom cabinet humidor, have had a couple of my desktops packed with good smokes for a while. I throught I was doing the right thing there so that humidity stays pretty stable and ages the smokes better, but part of that article seems to say that leaving little or no space means that I get little to no aging. I would like to disagree with that, based on opening and closing the humidor to get more fresh air in every so often while checking humidity/recharging beads.

I'm going to leave any possible benefits from active humidification devices and the "ammonia scavenging" of Shilala beads out of this.

[sjnovakovich]

How many of you are of the opinion that if you have a humidor that is 90% full, that all of the smokes in there are going to suffer as it applies to aging? I'm not refuting or confirming it, I just would like to hear the opinions on this.

Personally, I'm in the middle of building a custom cabinet humidor, have had a couple of my desktops packed with good smokes for a while. I throught I was doing the right thing there so that humidity stays pretty stable and ages the smokes better, but part of that article seems to say that leaving little or no space means that I get little to no aging. I would like to disagree with that, based on opening and closing the humidor to get more fresh air in every so often while checking humidity/recharging beads.

I'm going to leave any possible benefits from active humidification devices and the "ammonia scavenging" of Shilala beads out of this.

Although it's a good article, and an informative one, I would like to know something of the author's background and expertise. He sounds very knowledgable, but like you, I disagree with some of his assertions. Even though I have a Monte that currently has a good amount of empty space in it, I like to keep similar cigars packed together. It definitely aides in keeping the moistness of the cigars stable and I think they age fine. Again, I'm qualifying this by saying it is only MY experience and as they say on the web, ymmv.-(P

[Nathan King]

Although it's a good article, and an informative one, I would like to know something of the author's background and expertise. He sounds very knowledgable, but like you, I disagree with some of his assertions. Even though I have a Monte that currently has a good amount of empty space in it, I like to keep similar cigars packed together. It definitely aides in keeping the moistness of the cigars stable and I think they age fine. Again, I'm qualifying this by saying it is only MY experience and as they say on the web, ymmv.-(P

His name is Willy Alvero. Mr. Alvero is one of the world's foremost experts on Cuban cigars; he was the Habanos S.A. general representative in Moscow, Russia. I would say he has more cigar experience than the vast majority of the members at CigarAsylum. I can't figure out what is so controversial about claiming that the environment a cigar is aged in can have a subtle impact on flavor? Seems reasonable to me.

[M1903A1]

How many of you are of the opinion that if you have a humidor that is 90% full, that all of the smokes in there are going to suffer as it applies to aging? I'm not refuting or confirming it, I just would like to hear the opinions on this.

Personally, I'm in the middle of building a custom cabinet humidor, have had a couple of my desktops packed with good smokes for a while. I throught I was doing the right thing there so that humidity stays pretty stable and ages the smokes better, but part of that article seems to say that leaving little or no space means that I get little to no aging. I would like to disagree with that, based on opening and closing the humidor to get more fresh air in every so often while checking humidity/recharging beads.


I don't think "suffer" is the right word...they'll age, but at a different pace. If there's less room for air (and depending on just how airtight the container is), then the aging process would proceed much slower (and perhaps with different results) because of the lack of available oxygen inside the humi.

[sjnovakovich]

His name is Willy Alvero. Mr. Alvero is one of the world's foremost experts on Cuban cigars; he was the Habanos S.A. general representative in Moscow, Russia. I would say he has more cigar experience than the vast majority of the members at CigarAsylum. I can't figure out what is so controversial about claiming that the environment a cigar is aged in can have a subtle impact on flavor? Seems reasonable to me.

Thank you, Nathan. Now I have a little background on Mr. Alvero and can put a little more stock in what he states in his article. I do have a number of cigars that are much older than 10 years. Most are Fuente's of one type or another, and I must say that they are continuing to age well and hold their flavor. I've smoked plenty of Cubans (Cohiba, Parties, R&J, and others), and I suppose I would be considered odd to most people on the forum, but I really don't like them much at all. I enjoy cigars that are very full bodied, and in my experience a full-bodied cigar takes some aging in order to remove the harshness. Again, all of this is just my two cents (:2) base on my tastes and experience (about 40yrs.).

[Mirrorlure7m]

I just read the Volume 1 is there any other volumes available ?

[Nathan King]

I just read the Volume 1 is there any other volumes available ?

The magazine is no longer in business; however, the following link includes some other articles:

http://www.en.cigarclan.com/

[kgoings]

Great Article, after reading some of the responses here I thought it would be full of a bunch of hooey.

He talks of two types of aging, not that one is better than then other, nor one is faster than then other. Just different. I've never tasted mushroom in a cigar, but I've never aged my cigars in that method (oxidation a couple cigars in a large box with lots of air) and I think 99% of the people on this board age the other way (reducing, humidor chocked full with less air) the reducing method he says creates the tertiary aromas we most often hear about, earthy nutty, and the marrying of the aroma's.

As far as the 10 year comment, he says FEW cigars can clear the 10 year hurdle and that the quality of the tobacco is the biggest factor on how long you can age a cigar. Not than NONE can be aged over 10 years.