c.gar’s 2020 Cigar Journey Year in Review

A year ago, I decided to embark on a quest to track and rate every cigar I smoked in 2020. This post is a summary of my 2020 cigar journey.

First things, first. I decided to create my own system to rate cigars based on my criteria for a cigar. After reviewing the rating system by Cigar Aficionado, Cigar Journal, etc., I decided to rate the following on a scale of 0-10:

• Price
• Draw
• Burn

Most rating systems do not take price into account but to me, price matters. When you smoke the number of cigars I smoke, I have to consider going bankrupt smoking OpusX cigars.

I also decided to rate the following on a scale of 0-5:

• Smoke
• Construction

My thought process was simple, a cigar with a lot of smoke that looks good is desirable but not as important to me as price, draw, and burn.

Lastly, I rated the overall experience of the cigar on a scale of 50-100. Using a little math, I wrote a formula that normalized the data on a scale of 50-100 for ease of reference and comparison to other rating systems. Here are the results of my cigar science experiment.

The Raw Data

Here’s a summary of the data I collected for the year:

• Cigars Smoked: 643. Wow, that is a lot of cigars and probably 40% more than I would have smoked in a non-COVID year. I have a cigar room in my house and can smoke at any time. Since I worked from home most of the year, I had an opportunity to smoke a cigar while working. Given how much I enjoyed working while smoking a cigar, I really wish I could build a smoke room at my office! I long for the old days (before I was an adult) when you could smoke at the office! Well, cigars that is.
• Average Number of Cigars: 1.8 per day.
• Total Cost of Cigars: $3,387.33.
• Average Cigar Cost: $5.27. I am quite happy with an average below $6.00 a stick. This is a combination of brick and mortar and online purchases.
• Most Expensive Cigar: $40. The most expensive cigar I smoked was an OpusX Angel’s Share. It took me two years to find one and my rating of 84 reveals that is was not worth the wait. I love OpusX cigars but the Angel’s Share is not my favorite by a long shot.
• Least Expensive Cigar: $0. I received a number of free cigars in 2020 from friends and relatives. I also received a few free cigars at The Great Smoke 2020. Thanks, Steve Saka for the Sin Compromiso! Yes, I could have figured out what the street price was and use this but one of my goals was to figure out how much I spent in cigars, not how much they were valued at.

Top Five Most Expensive Cigars

The following lists the most expensive cigars I smoked in 2020. Most of these were unicorn cigars that I located through various sources. Clearly my unicorn cigars are mostly Arturo Fuente cigars!

1. Arturo Fuente OpusX Angel’s Share $40.00
2. Arturo Fuente OpusX Lost City               $29.90
3. Arturo Fuente Don Carlos Edición de Anniversario  $28.90
4. JC Newman The American $18.50
5. H Upmann 175th Anniversary $18.00 and Arturo Fuente Don Carlos The Man $18.00

Top Five Least Expensive Cigars

Disregarding the free cigars I received from family and friends, the following are the least expensive cigars I purchased in 2020. 

1. H. Upmann Connecticut Grupo de Maestros $0.40.
2. Romeo y Julieta Petit Bully $1.30
3. El Rey Del Mundo Cafe au Lait $1.35
4. Rocky Patel Cargo $1.41
5. Drew Estate Undercrown Maduro Coronet $1.48

I purchased the H. Upmanns as an add on to an H. Upmann box purchase and received a five pack for $1.99. The Romeo y Julieta, El Rey Del Mundo, and Undercrown Coronet all make sense as they are small cigarillos. The Rocky Patel Cargo is the absolute best short filler cigar ever made. They are affordable and taste great. We love them so much, Cigar Intel named Cargo our 2014 Cigar of the Year.

Top Five Quantity of Cigars Smoked by Company or Major Brand

1. Drew Estate: 118
2. Rocky Patel: 56
3. CAO: 54
4. Arturo Fuente: 51
5. H. Upmann: 33

Forty-eight percent of the cigars I smoked were the top five companies listed above. I was shocked to see that my Drew Estate consumption was twice as high as the other four on the list.

Top Five Quantify of Cigars Smoked by Brand

1. Drew Estate Undercrown Maduro: 93
2. Rocky Patel Vintage 1992: 32
3. CAO Amazon Basin and Rocky Patel Cargo: 31
4. H Upmann Vintage Cameroon: 26
5. Nicahabana Perfecto: 24

It is not secret that I absolutely love Undercrowns. I had no idea how much I loved them until now. I would have smoked many more of the CAO Amazon Basins if I could find them. Since they were discontinued, I am slowly smoking my remaining inventory. Last on the top five list is a cigar from a company called Nicahabana. Who the heck is Nicahabana? Nicahabana is a cigar shop in Ybor City, Tampa, FL that rolls their own cigars. They are ultra boutique and make a Perfecto that is delicious!

Highest and Lowest Rated Cigar

My highest rated cigars were a Sobremesa Brûlée from Dunbarton Tobacco and Trust and six Drew Estate Undercrown Maduros with a score of 95. If you haven’t tried the Sobremesa Brûlée, you are missing out on one of the most amazing cigars ever released. 

My lowest rated cigar of the year was a Nicahabana Perfecto with a score of 44. The thing tasted like crap and blew up in my hands. Such is the risk when purchasing from an ultra boutique company. The rest of the bundle was delicious.

Conclusion

This was a fun experiment for most of the year. Towards the end, I was tired of filling out the spreadsheet but pushed through to see the final results. I don’t plan to do it again. I plan to simply enjoy the cigars I smoke.