Experiences of ageing decline?

[Fugu]

On 8/15/2022 at 8:08 PM, MrBirdman said:

In general I feel cigars that truly continue to improve past, say, 6-8 years are the exception

It’s funny how different perspectives can be - at 6-8 yrs, an untouched box of (almost any) CC of good provenance I’d consider transitional, from young to very early maturing stage, often still youthful. 😅

[djrey]

The oldest Cubans I have smoked were from 2012ish. In experience they all held their core flavors very well and only changed in intensity. They smoothed out but remained complex. 90% if not more of aged NC that I have had are wildly disappointing. Complete loss of flavor and generally end up tasting like dull cardboard with some smoke. Latest example of this was a 2013 Tatuaje Selecion Cazadores. These even remained in their foil wrapper for their whole life. Such an incredible bland and boring experience. Nearly threw it out halfway. 

[jakebarnes]

I had a 2006 Partagas Serie du Connaisseur 1 last weekend that had a ton of life in it. Honestly, the best cigar I've had in a while--at least the top cigar this year. 5-10 years is a really great sweet spot for a lot of marcas where they really tend to shine, IMO. Weirdly enough, I find that "lighter" cigars really grow up in that window. But to each their own. Who knows how the 2020 stuff will age

[Bijan]

I think this is something most members don't have much control over (except maybe the vacuum seal experimenters).

You either have a sensible amount of cigars, and smoke them within a sensible time frame.

Or you have a less sensible (insane) number of cigars and some of them are going to age 10+ or 20+ years.

Most of us enjoy smoking cigars and buying cigars.

Is someone with a handful of boxes going to sit on them for 10 years? No... (ok, well maybe some of the people on reddit)

Is someone with an overabundance of boxes going to stop buying completely and pare down their collection to a 5 year supply? No... (unless their wife gets involved)

If the question is about buying aged vintage cigars from someone else then yeah 15-20 years+ and some will have dropped off a cliff, I don't know enough to say if that's just due to poor storage, but I wouldn't be surprised if that is the cause. I've only had one super bland aged cigar that I was 99% sure of the storage, but it was a 20 year old Cuaba...

 

[joeypots]

I haven’t had cigars that I bought fall off of a cliff.  I don’t smoke many that are under 5 years of age but I don’t smoke more than 2 or 3 a week so I don’t have to have a crazy large stash to keep my self in aged smokes. I have had cigars from box passes and gifts that were expired but it’s really only a few. If you buy more cigars than you smoke and keep them in their boxes in some type of humidor/coolerdor your Cuban cigars should be terrific for many years and will certainly change in character either to your taste or not.