[Mr. Ed]

Originally Posted by lenguamor

As a smoker, all you want is to know that the cigars you love, that those you value and enjoy, will be available when you want them.

If you like the smaller gauges and the cigar-making world as a whole is moving toward larger gauges, that's worrisome; when that happens to the exclusion of the vitolas you hold dear, you react like a dog who's just had his tail stepped on: you yelp and maybe try to bite something.

My first cigar, and the only size I smoked for decades, was a corona. Since I discovered ninfas, that became my favorite vitola. I will always prefer a corona, petit corona, ninfa and lancero to any other size. Over the last decade I've seen the cigars I hold dearest discontinued in favor of larger gauges.

That does tend to piss one off.

I couldn't care less what anyone else smokes; as long as it's not a Kuba-Kuba anywhere near where I'm smoking one of my cigars.

But when a pattern of larger rings displacing those I love and enjoy becomes institutionalized to the point where I can't even find my preferences anymore, then yeah—there's gonna be resentment.

That's not to say that all 55+RG are bad; certain cigars like the FFP stand out as prime examples that a larger stick can still be a good one. But fact is, cigar shops only have space for so many cigars, and my preferences are getting pushed out in favor of the large stuff.

When I was at Casa Fernandez earlier in the year, they showed a prototype 7x70 they were working on. Now, CF's blends are all ass-kickers, across the board...put that in a 7x70 and what you have amounts to a prank, a novelty.

It leaves me wondering when this cigar passion of ours became a testosterone-fueled endurance contest.

Beer bong and a clown cigar, anyone?

I generally agree, except for the yelping like a dog part.