I Blame JohnnyO : PM re "Sick Period"

[El Presidente]

 

It all started so innocently with the following response to a thread on a client thinking of returning a box of D4 to a Euro vendor. 

"Sounds like a sick period to me. Put them away, visit them in a couple of years. John"

 

Hey Rob

JohnnyO made a comment on a thread this afternoon about a "Sick Period".  I have used the search facility as well as google and I am more confused than ever. Would it be possible for you to give me an industry nderstanding?  the question that gnaws at me is why do some boxes get it and some boxes don't? I mean, out of a mastercase can you have say some D4 boxes smoke great and others in a sick period?  Can it even be stick specific in the same box where some are sick and others smoke great. Sorry for the bother". 

 

Many hands make light work. Over to you good people 

[Hammer Smokin']

sick periods are like plume

[Bcrowell]

I believe a good cigar will taste good even with a long trip and humidity changes.  I have never had a bland "sick" cigar turn into anything other by resting it for a few years.  

 

[RDB]

Cigars are a natural product that changes over time… some improve with time, a few improve a lot with a lot of time. They all need weeks or months of rest to stabilise after big changes in temp & humidity.

Sick period? Not really.

[Islandboy]

Haha...talk about a loaded question, the responses will likely be all over the place, leaving the poor guy more confused than ever.

I know very little about the historical documentations of “sick periods” that I’ve heard exist in books such as Min Ron Nee’s, but I’ve definitely observed a distinct, temporary change in taste for the worse, generally in years 1 ½ - 3, in roughly half my boxes. I can’t really offer any empirical evidence that “sick periods” exist, or what may cause them, other than observing what I’ve described. It may simply be subpar storage conditions on my part, who knows. But the majority of boxes affected pull out of it and turn their taste around for the better sometime after year 3. 

To further project just how crazy I am, I’ve noticed a common undesirable taste element that almost always signals this temporary decline - if you’ve ever been around a monkeypod tree when the seed pods are going off and falling to the ground, there’s a sickly-sweet odor that I assume comes from the fermentation of these seed pods. Me no likey this smell, and this is often the overriding taste I get.

At least I’m crazy in a harmless way. 

[jonnyfromiranny]

Copy/pasting part of an article that prety much sums up my opinion:

Many experts do recommend ageing your cigar; they believe that it can help produce more subtle flavours from the tobacco and round off the often ammoniac notes that are found in fresh cigars. This is likely because tobacco is essentially ‘plant matter’, therefore - over time - organic matter will ferment and oxidise, resulting in flavour evolution in many different ways. Firstly, nicotine content is likely to drop and smoothen the overall flavour of the cigar, making it more complex in a way and, secondly, the excess moisture will disappear allowing the smoker a much smoother smoking experience. After ageing Cuban cigars for some time, many aficionados find that while the flavours have developed, the body and strength has significantly mellowed. The most pleasant thing about ‘mellowing’ is that it get rids of ‘ammonia’ and other bitter-tasting chemicals, eliminating the ‘off’ flavours that aficionados may sometimes experience.

I like to buy medium-full cigars and age them to get some of the nicotine content down and improve smoothness. I smoke 90% of my cigars past 8pm and a young cuban can sometimes keep me up past 2am (like the HU2 I had last week!) As months/years pass, body becomes more mellow and all is good.

[...]

All I've been able to gather about the subject in the past 10 years is often contradictory and mostly anecdotal, so good luck getting hard facts 😊

Based on my own personal experience, I have bought two boxes that really stood out. Bought a fresh box of BPC '12 which started reeking of ammonia after having it in my humidor for a few months (you could smell the ammonia from a few feet with the box closed), then eventually offgassing and smelling normal again after about six months or so.

Bought a year-old box of HU No2 '13 which turned sour within a few weeks of having it home and the smell eventually subsided about a year after.

Two anecdotes, no idea what happened in each case but they eventually became good cigars. My conclusion is that patience can be rewarding 😅

[DaBoot]

The good old if the cigar is bad now, give it a few years line. 
 Classic 😁

[El Presidente]

Just now, DaBoot said:

The good old if the cigar is bad now, give it a few years line. 
 Classic 😁

 

 

 

[Sir Diggamus]

I have experienced the “sick period” in cigars several times throughout the years. My last experience started in mid-2020. I picked up a box of H. Upmann Majestics with a late 2018 code. I rested them the customary 30 days and then enjoyed my first one. It was harsh and terrible tasting. Had I not acquired these from a reputable source I would have sworn it was leaves from the local woods. I tossed the cigar just before the halfway point thinking I couldn’t remember the last time I had a cigar so bad.

Later on in the year, September or October I tried another. This time the harshness had subsided and light flavors of spice and cream were noticeable, not jumping out, but obscured. It wasn’t a great cigar, but I didn’t pitch it.

I smoked another in early 2021 and the same obscured flavors were present but now more center stage, and joined by a couple of others and more nuanced. I look forward to smoking the rest.

It has gone that way the few other times I had “sick” cigars, but that seemed the most noticeable to me.


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[Edicion]

Was discussing this matter recently and the below information provided a plausible explanation. True or not, can't say with certainty but I buy it. 

"Most smokers of premium, hand-rolled cigars will never experience an ammonia smell with the cigars in their collection or in a tobacconist’s humidor. But, believe it or not, ammonia gases are a standard byproduct of the fermentation process with tobacco.

As an aside, the first time I discovered the relationship between ammonia and tobacco leaves happened quite by accident. Many years ago, I was given an impromptu tour of a tobacco warehouse here in Ybor City. At one point, we came to a storage area and when my friend opened the sealed door to a refrigerated section, the smell of ammonia hit me like a ton of bricks and almost knocked me off my feet!

After tobacco leaves have been picked at the farm and cured in the curing barns, they are stacked in bundles called “hands” which in turn are stacked together into piles called “pilones”. The weight of the tobacco generates heat, up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This heat causes an exhausting of ammonia and other unpalatable organic compounds found in tobacco leaves which makes the cigars smell like ammonia.

So, if this fermentation process is meant to remove the ammonia compounds from cigar tobacco, why is it that the consumer sometimes comes across this smell? It all depends on the manufacturer and its standards. If a fermentation process is cut short or the tobacco is not aged long enough, the ammonia smell can still be present when cigars are shipped. Typically, this condition is found in Cuban cigars and is commonly known as a “sick period”. Under-fermented tobacco is said to be “green” (an industry term with no relation to the color of the leaf). I have also heard that a second fermentation could occur due to the wrapper leaf being wet prior to rolling but, I could not substantiate this as fact.

If you come across a box of cigars with an ammonia smell you most likely would not want to smoke them. Technically, there is nothing wrong with the cigars and there is a simple (if time-consuming) way to get rid of this ammonia aroma."

[Habana Mike]

37 minutes ago, Edicion said:

If you come across a box of cigars with an ammonia smell you most likely would not want to smoke them. Technically, there is nothing wrong with the cigars and there is a simple (if time-consuming) way to get rid of this ammonia aroma."

The simple way is to let them age out of the ammonia stage. Of course it is time-consuming, it takes time ;).

Much more common years ago than today as processes, product and processing have changed over the years.

[LordAnubis]

I think this sums it up.

[El Presidente]

Just now, LordAnubis said:

I think this sums it up.

Mus......you need to stop working from home. 

as an analyst.....your presentation standards appear to be dropping woefully low 

[PigFish]

Yet another gift to help you through being sold a shit box of cigars from the cigar industry.

 

[gustavehenne]

I used this term on a post the other day and probably misused it in the context of what people are writing above. I've not been in the cigar game long enough to monitor the relative progression of the cigars, but I do find that cigars just having been sent to me that have spent days in transit do require some time down. I've tried some cigars straight off the truck and they have tasted bland, sometimes muddled etc.

Wait a number of days - usually around a month - and the cigars pick up and taste of something great.

Subjective, hell yeah

[GaryK 54]

11 hours ago, El Presidente said:

 

 

 

Truer words… aging will bring out the potential in a young cigar with interesting and good flavors. In short, it knocks off the rough edges of youth, mellows the nicotine, and let’s the blend complexity emerge. Having said that, I have never found that aging makes an uninteresting or bad cigar flavor-wise become good. 

[SCgarman]

4 minutes ago, Lord Verulam said:

Sick period is a made up explanation for folks hoping a bad cigar will get better or that a good cigar that’s too old will come back to life again


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It is a made up fallacy. Perhaps true decades ago when older varieties of tobacco needed years of rest in the box before they were smokeable. I got into Cubans around 2008 with the TEB 08 boxes of RASS and BRC and even then cigars were fantastic even with less than a year of box age on them. The poster with the bad tasting D4's needs to just suck it up and accept that once in awhile you will get a crap box. If you cannot accept this I will say it again. Go the Fuente or Padron route or another NC well reviewed brand. We all have at one time or another have received a box that is sub-par. If you expect perfection in every box, you will be surely disappointed. 

[Puros Y Vino]

We're dealing with a product made of 100% organic matter. The "sick period" IMO is a thing.  I've maybe had 2/3 boxes that went through it over the years.  It's unmistakable.  You crack open the box and smell ammonia, cat piss, etc, etc.  In one case I have a box of Monte Espy 1's from around 2009 start to get stinky around 2015 After I had smoked half the box.  As an experiment, I took the box outside. It was a nice sunny summer day.  I put the sticks into a ziplock, and placed it out in the sun to "sweat".  I also left the box out in the sun to bake out any residual odor.  I lit up a cigar and waited.  After about an hour I unsealed the ziplock and a strong vegetal odour came out. The sticks were a bit warm, nice and spongy with no visible damage.  The box smelled proper again too.  I socked them away in the humidor and checked about two weeks later. The ammonia was pretty much gone.  The cigars odor was normal. Truth be told, I only wanted to leave them out for 15 minutes, but I got distracted by my cigar.   This "experiment" was a bit of a fluke and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else.  Maybe air them out in the shade instead?  FWIW. This worked. 

Another sour batch I have are are bundle of 2012 era Hamlet Lanceros.  When I received them fresh, they smelled normal. About 6 months in, they got funky.  I didn't want to repeat what I did above but I would air them out every 6 months or so over years indoors.   Only in the last few years or so have they started to lose that funk.  On the bright side, they've smoked well over the years. 

A third box that comes to mind is LFDC Casanova's.  (2017 Italian RE). Smoked one fresh around 2018.  The wrappers had a few green spots, otherwise they were a nice rosado hue.  But, when I smoked it, it was full of green pepper and ammonia. Very odd cigars. They looked proper but smoked like they were rolled right out of the curing barn.  I haven't had one since. 

I've been smoking since 2009 and have enjoyed the fruits of my "labour" in aging boxes I purchased back in the early days.  There is definitely a process at work that takes the edge off cigars that were bold/strong.  RACF and Cazadores for instance.  Mind blowing power when fresh.  Now they are smooth, flavourful, bold cigars that don't give me the nicotine sweats.  I've also purchased many aged boxes around 2010/12 that smoked great then and are more refined now.  In one case, I've had some 2009 Mag 50's taste stronger/bolder over the years.  That goes against the grain of what is "known".

These are my observations.  I'm sure others have had similar or contrary experiences as well. Every crop of tobacco is surely different from the previous one.  There's no real way to benchmark the tobacco's performance.  There are far too many factors involved.  But, I'm convinced these little sticks continue to evolve over time. Sometimes for the better, maybe for the worse and possibly not at all?