Five Out of Five Stogies? Again?!?

As you know, StogieGuys.com gave two cigars a heralded five out of five stogies in recent reviews: the Davidoff Grand Cru No. 3 and the Cuban Cohiba Siglo V. These reviews generated a windstorm response from Stogie Guys Nation in the form of comments and emails—even lengthy discussions (or, rather, debates) on other websites.

So we thought it would be worthwhile to refute the notion that the prized five out of five stogies rating should be reserved only for sticks which have already received elite status in the cigar community.

First of all, it’s worth repeating that our reviews are measured by a much different ratings system than those of other leading cigar reviewers. We believe an individual’s cigar preference cannot and should not be measured by exact numbers, and therefore decided to implement a much simpler metric. You can read all about this on the About Our Ratings System page.

There, we describe what various ratings are supposed to mean in straightforward, sans-jargon terms. You will see we denote five out of five stogies as such:

These cigars are truly an occasion. We recommend you give these babies your full and undivided attention. If not, you’d better be at a wedding or some other significant celebration.

So, you see, five out of five stogies doesn’t necessarily mean the cigar is perfect. It just means we found the stick so enjoyable, we recommend you save it for special events. After all, you can go to any cigar magazine or any other cigar website on the planet to find an exact number rating (if that’s really what you seek) for any given cigar.

Finally, one of the main criticisms we received is that readers just didn’t think the aforementioned cigars were worthy of five out of five status. If you had these cigars (or any others we review) and came to different conclusions, that’s fine. Leave us a comment or contact us and explain why. We love this feedback; it’s one of the reasons we started the site in the first place.

But please don’t tell us just because a certain cigar hasn’t received elite notoriety amongst cigar aficionados that it isn’t worthy of our praise. One of the other main reasons we started this site was to offer well-formulated rebuttal to the status quo.

That said, thank you, Stogie Guys Nation, for your feedback. We appreciate your loyal readership and value your varied opinions.

One final note: Remember that the best cigar is the cigar you like the best.

–Patrick A