Stogie Tips: Cigars and Dating
20 Apr 2010
If your cigar collection is anything like mine, there’s usually a surprise lurking. Sometimes it’s a cigar I swear I’ve never seen before, other times it’s the long forgotten survivor of a box purchase.
But even in my generally disorganized state, there’s one piece of information I almost always have at hand: how long the cigar’s been sitting in my humidor. That’s because I have a system I’ve actually managed to keep up with. It’s simple, cheap, and quick. Although I’m incredibly impressed with computerized databases, I know my limitations. I might start off OK, but I’d never keep up.
I’ll acknowledge up front that my system does have a drawback. It really doesn’t work on single cigars that aren’t sheathed in cellophane. But that’s a limitation I’m willing to live with.
Let’s start with boxes. It’s hard to get any easier. I just take a Sharpie and write the purchase date on the bottom.
For individual cigars, I simply take any sticky label laying around, write the purchase date on it, cut the label if necessary, and stick it to the cello. I know some smokers use a Sharpie to write the date on the cellophane itself. That works, but I’ve always worried the odor from the ink could seep through and infect the tobacco.
Of course, you’ll still have to hunt for your cigars. But when you find a stick you want, you can quickly decide whether it’s one whose time has come or whether it should have more time in the box.
photo credit: Stogie Guys
Patrick Ashby
Co-Founder & Editor in Chief
Patrick Semmens
Co-Founder & Publisher
George Edmonson
Tampa Bureau Chief
While I've tried this, I generally keep most cigars without cellophane, so this doesn't really work for me. Instead I use a simple google docs spreadsheet that tracks all my purchases and acquisitions, and therefore the contents of my humidor. Because I usually purchase in bulk, it is easy to update and keep track of.
Isn't it great finding hidden gems in the bottom of the humidor? Last week I found a Partagas Short lurking beneath some old Fuentes.
For naked cigars I have a buddy that takes post-it notes and cuts them into about 1/3 strips so each strip has a bit of the sticky part still. He then writes on it and wraps it around so the sticky part only touches the rest of the paper and not the cigar. Seems to work well for him.
You know, when I saw the headline I thought you were going to talk about how Cigars work with eHarmony or Match.com, but the topic you settled on works, too! 🙂
I keep cellophane on my smokes to protect them from getting banged around and damaged in the humidor. When I want to age some smokes a year or two, it's easy enough to just affix a label with month and year that I purchased the sticks. I don't bother with exact date because it's pretty irrelevant when it comes down to it: unless you bought a box that shows "box date" on it somewhere, you have no idea when the cigars were rolled, boxed, or shipped, much less how long they may have been sitting in your retailer's humidor. Therefore, the only date you can really depend on is when you bought them and if you're aging for a year or two (or more) why put anything more than month and year?
DMJONES – I don't really disagree, and I have quite a few that are dated with only the month and year. The truth is when I go to write out the labels I just seem to write MM/DD/YR without thinking.