James Suckling retires

[akumushi]

Originally Posted by TheRiddick

If you want to question the content of the magazine, that is fine since it is not Suckling's call, its Shanken's. To question his knowledge of cigars is simply ignorant and poorly educated and your statement that consumers know as much is highly questionable in itself, I dare you to name one consumer who knows as much, I can easily point out a number of "holes" (be it historical perspective or tobacco growing/fermentation/processing) in many a post on this board and others and I am not an expert on cigars by any means and certainly not on a level Suckling is. If you'd want to point out a number of cigar makers who know more than Suckling does, sure, I will be the first one to agree with the premise, but consumers? Not even close.

All I see is personal attacks and I am guessing they are mostly driven by envy of Suckling's great and easy (and more over, PAID for and, thus, FREE) access to the high life many wouldn't mind leading themselves.

Do not confuse and use envy with Suckling' actual knowledge of the subjects he wrote about. I am not a huge fan of his writings, Kramer sometimes comes up with more relevant and thought provoking ideas, but Suckling certainly knows his s**t.

If Suckling does have this excessive knowledge as you say, it hasn't come across particularly strongly in his published work in CA in the time I've been reading it. If he regularly did more overt cigar history and processing content like that I would definitely have a higher opinion of his ouevre. Maybe, as you said, that is the editor's fault and not his own. Maybe he's far more interesting in person than the way he comes off in that publication, but as far as readership is concerned, I won't miss his editorial there, and that's what we were talking about here.

On your point of consumer VS. industry insider, you don't need to have encyclopedic knowledge of cigar history and cigar production to rate, recommend and review Habanos, you need first hand experience of the product; to have smoked a lot of them in a wide variety, and while I won't mention names out of respect, there are a lot of members of this board that have smoked a lot of Habanos, including rare and HTFs, whose opinion I would trust a hell of a lot more than Sucklings. Is that naive? Possibly, but maybe I prefer to listen to people who I've had interactions with that don't come off in a pompous manner rather than just taking Mr. 100 point CGR on his word because he is a so called "expert."

If people don't listen to a guy's views despite his vast and superior knowledge maybe it's because he comes off in a prickish way that's disconnected from the populace. Frankly, I don't seeit as envy on my part because there are plenty of BOTL on this forum smoking a lot more expensive smokes than you see being reviewed on cigar aficionado, with completely enviable stashes, that don't get slammed left and right from the people who make up the base of readership and give guys like Suckling their jobs and fund that lifestyle in the firstplace.