Certified Cigar Sommelier scam

[Don Fernando]

Certified Cigar Sommelier Scam. The other day, we read about a Cigar Sommelier Certificate and people proudly claim that they are now an official Cigar Sommelier. It’s by a company called The International Association of Cigar Sommeliers, founded by the Cuban Yamir Pelegrino who calls himself ‘sommelier of the stars’.

HABANOS SOMMELIER

The cigar sommelier term became popular due to Habanos. Habanos introduced a sommelier competition as part of the Habanos festival. The competition was born out of the need to tell the true story of the cigar. And the competition made sure only the best of the best would compete and earn the prestigious title of Habanos sommelier. A deep knowledge of the Cuban cigars, each vitola, blend profile, history and perfect pairings is needed to participate and stand a chance at the stage. It takes years of smoking and pairing, years of listening to and learning from masters in their craft. And then you can compete for that tile. Even Habanos doesn’t offer courses to become a sommelier. They do offer courses to learn about Cuban cigars through the Habanos Academy.

But not anymore. For a few hundred American dollars and a few hours of your time you can call yourself a certified international cigar sommelier. And it’s appalling. An insult to every single expert in the world. A degradation of the world sommelier and a slap in the face to everyone in the cigar industry. A few hours of your time and a few hundred dollars doesn’t make you an expert, a sommelier. It makes you a gullible victim of a scammer. Nothing more and nothing less. A naive victim of a scam.

YEARS OF KNOWLEDGE

Tobacco and cigars are a complicated matter. Thousands of components need to come together. From the soil, the seed, the conditions to the blend, the vitola and the pairings. You can spend your whole life in the cigar industry and only have scratched the surface. Ask people who aren’t born in the industry but are now renowned brand owners like Pete Johnson and Litto Gomez. In the Handrolled documentary, both are modest. Johnson says that he’s in no way a master. And Gomez recalls his first steps in the industry, he compared learning about tobacco by drinking water from a fireman’s hose. There’s so much information yet you can only drink so little at a time. Another example is Rocky Patel, who worked the fields and factories for years, making thousands of blends before he dared to put his name on a cigar. It simply takes that long to learn the complicated matters of tobacco. It is simply impossible to learn in a few hours, for a few hundred dollars.
Of course, people learning more about tobacco and what it takes to make a great cigar is fantastic. But don’t line the pockets of a scammer. Buy a ticket to Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras or the Dominican Republic. Join the group tours that many factories are having every year. You will learn much more, you’ll have more fun and a first hand experience on tobacco plantations and in cigar factories. You can touch the tobacco, smell the fermentation rooms, and if you’re lucky even try to roll your cigar. Instead of a useless, meaningless certificate that isn’t accepted anywhere, you’ll have a stamp in your passport and priceless memories. Don’t fall for this Certified Cigar Sommelier scam.

https://ministryofcigars.com/certifi...ommelier-scam/

[Don Fernando]

Part 2:

International Association of Cigar Sommelier scam part two. A few weeks ago, we gave our opinion about the International Association of Cigar Sommelier course. And we called it a scam. Something we still stand behind. The article got quite some attention. We received a lot of positive feedback, yet IACS responded on her Facebook. But we also got some heat, probably from a few of the so-called cigar sommeliers that can’t handle the truth. And fiercely defend the IACS so they can deny that they lost $850 on a worthless piece of paper. Some of them even went as far that they accused us of not allowing comments on the article. Which is an even bigger joke than the certificate, all comments were approved.
Ministry of Cigars - International Association of Cigar Sommelier scam part two
and the answer is yes, the certification is a scam
IACS REPLY
A lot of the positive feedback came from the industry itself. And our article inspired finetobacconyc to write an article as well. And the podcast The Lounge Experience dedicated a full episode on the scam. From within the industry, we only received one negative response. That came from a fellow blogger who wrote in a private message that we, as an industry, should protect each other. That we are already under attack and should not shame others. We strongly disagree with that. To protect the industry we need to weed out the bullshit, name and shame the scammers. You can’t protect the industry by staying silent when you see people being taken advantage of. You can’t stay silent when you see opportunists drag the reputation of the industry down. The only way to protect the industry is by exposing those kinds of actions.
In their response, IACS denied that they are a scam. Of course, they did, but when you look at their statement, the actually confirm our point. They write “learning about cigars is a lifetime journey” and “We know the ideal cigar education should take months”. And that’s exactly why this certificate is a scam. This is a one day course, and at the end, you can call yourself the very pretentious, yet completely irrelevant ‘certified cigar sommelier’. And that is the scam part. Any certificate that you get for just paying and attending a class isn’t worth the paper that it’s printed on. And if it’s a title that doesn’t exist, from an organization that isn’t recognized by anybody, it’s nothing but a scam.
SELLING KNOWLEDGE
Now, is selling knowledge wrong? No, absolutely not. Selling knowledge is perfectly fine. There are several courses available, given by wonderful knowledgable people. Sautter Cigars is offering courses, Habanos is offering courses. All without certifying them with bullshit pretentious titles though, that’s a huge difference. And, if IACS is speaking the truth in their statement, some of those knowledgable people actually contributed to their course. This is great, anybody who’s able to share the knowledge, culture, and passion is helping our industry. We have no issue with that. The issue is by coming up with a certificate and handing it out to everybody who sits in a classroom for 8 hours after paying a big fee. If it was just a diploma or certificate of attendance, fine, but a ‘certified cigar sommelier’? Bullshit, scam, and borderline con artist style.
Then it comes to the quality of the lessons. Now, we haven’t done the IACS course, we are not falling for a scam. So we can’t judge the quality of their course first hand. Maybe it is a high quality and comprehensive course. But if we see Instagram posts from someone who had just done the course with an obvious fake Cohiba, then we wonder. A certified cigar sommelier, trained by the IACS, should know better right? We are not certified cigar sommeliers, yet we spotted that it was a fake cigar immediately. If you wonder about the photo, we have decided not to publish the photo. Feedback someone who we highly regard mentioned that it would personally humiliate the poster, and that’s not what we aim to do
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https://ministryofcigars.com/interna...scam-part-two/