Aye. All the R&Js are pretty good, Cuban or Dominican. Nick A On Nov 3, 2011 7:52 AM, "Jason Green" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Cuba exported a lot of talented rollers and farmers to the DR and other > spots, which in turn made those places much better. At least I think that > is how it went. The Fuente guys were Cubans I believe. > > I know the rep was well deserved at one time, but at the time I was in > the business (about 10 years ago) , Cubans were a gimmick. They were > good cigars that were more status symbol than they deserved. Cohiba is a > perfect example. I had people routinely offer me thousands for boxes of > real Cuban Cohibas, and they were no better than Romeo y Julietas, and > not as good as the Fuente. They were great, no question. Just not as > great as people seemed to think. > > Ever see the 100 year old, box pressed cigars found in a New York > basement? People went nuts for those. They sold for about 75 bucks a > stick. Talk about a gimmick. When the cigar craze was at its peak, > people basically lost their minds. I had to get out of the business for > ethical reasons. It was a very dirty business. Very predatory, with an > unbelievable amount of shenanigans. > On Nov 2, 2011 6:49 PM, "Raymond E. Feist" <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> On Nov 2, 2011, at 6:13 PM, Jason Green wrote: >> >> > I haven't tried the brick house yet. I'll give those a shot. There's a >> > great cigar bar in Lake Forest (OC), I'll have to see if he stocks >> > them. >> > >> > I used to have a great connection for Cubans (I worked in the cigar >> > business at the time) but I was never blown away by them. It seemed >> > more like a gimmick than anything. >> > >> > Fuentes makes a great cigar. >> > >> >> >> It's not a gimmick. I've talked to enough people older than I to believe >> it was a perfect storm of soil, tobacco, the art of rolling cigars, etc. >> The problem was the Communists almost completely depleted the soil. Like >> a lot of the Russian and Chinese idiots of the same political stripe, >> Castro believed that if they just decreed it, it would happen (whatever >> "it" was). In the case of cigars, while he immediately alienated the US, >> the rest of Europe and the Eastern Block happily bought Cuban cigars. So >> they overgrew the crops. >> >> Now, Cuba is coming back, and in a few more years will be fully >> integrated into the community of nations. Mostly we're just waiting for >> Raoul to follow his brother into retirement. Even the Albanians don't >> believe the Communist cant coming out of Cuba. We'll have Cubans legally >> in US stores within ten years. Maybe five. >> >> But one unintended consequence of the Cuban Revolution was that cigar >> makers got better, tobacco crops got better, and some serious money went to >> the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Cameroon, and other places that would >> have stayed in Cuba otherwise. >> >> Best,R.E.F. >> ---- >> www.crydee.com >> >> Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by >> stupidity. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>
