My 2022 Top 25

[hrs1]

It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  I'm smoking a Lusi and sipping some scotch while the kiddos are down for an afternoon nap.  I feel like I've spent the last few months analyzing 2022 to plan for 2023 between my work and personal life.   But, I haven't really examined my cigar smoking yet.   The forum Gods have declared it Top 25 of 2022 review week.   I keep a log of my smoking notes.  With all the time and money put into the hobby, why not run some numbers and see if I can pull together my own Top 25?

Time to fire up the spreadsheet 🤓  

I smoked a fair amount of Cubans in 2022.   I had 303 in total.  Roughly 6 per week.   A decent enough sample to pull together a Top 25.  Unlike CA, I assure you that I smoke all my cigars well into the final third  

Unpacking the sample set ... err ... my smoking habit in 2022, it's clear I like variety.  I had 46 different cigars spread across 15 marcas.  I smoked BBFs the most.  But, ~80% of my consumption was spread across 25 cigars:

While I like variety, I have a clear preference for Cohiba.  ~80% of the cigars I smoked were spread across 8 brands:

Before diving into the scoring, a few more disclaimers on my smoking sample.  I started building out a stock of Cubans during the pandemic, so my sample is young.  It should go without saying, but I didn't rate what I didn't smoke.  My tastes might not line up with yours.  Reader beware: the following scores are only indicative of what smoked well to my palate in 2022 from (mostly) 2019-2021 regular production boxes in my inventory.

Pulling up the scores, I can confirm that Cuba did indeed put out great smokes from 2019 to 2021  My average score was 92.6.  The worst smoke was an 80.  The best was a 98.  The standard deviation was 2.4 points.  

Let's be clear:  I do not have a rigorous scoring methodology.  I make a few notes and jot down a score after smoking.  I enjoy reading reviews here and elsewhere.  I especially appreciate watching Rob & Ken when they manage to post reviews ... cough .... These and a myriad other factors are likely biasing my scoring.

No matter.  Stack rankings should do the trick  

As luck would have it, filtering my list for cigars that I have smoked five or more times gives me ~80% of everything I smoked.  It also comes to 25 different cigars 🍀 

And with that, my Top 25 of 2022:

While 2022 was a cluster from a number of angles, at least it made for some great smokes     

Looking forward to 2023, I hope the situation in Cuba improves, prices come down and supply increases.  It would be great to explore some more marcas (ERDM, Juan Lopez, Sancho Panza, SCDLH, SLR and VR come to mind) and try out other cigars from my favorite marcas (Mag46, P898, HdM San Juan, BPC, Double Edmundo or Exhibicion No. 4, to name a few).   Regardless of how things unfold, I can say this for sure:  I'll be smoking more Nudies and MoFOHs and fewer Cohibas in 2023  

[Chucko8]

Nicely done. 

[Low]

Beautiful writeup, and nice data collection. One day, I'll get there. But for now, I'll just stick with my "damn that was good, I should get another box" 

[Mossome]

Well done. I find it strange seeing Sir Winstons near the top and Mag 50s near the bottom. Personally, I find the Mag 50s to be the most similar to HUSW in the marca. 

[westg]

I like the tôp 3, with you on that. I have smoked some amazing R&J Churchill over the last year ...all from 2015 however.... gorgeous PSP stock

[Rhinoww]

An inspiration. 
 

I might have to put together a Google doc I can keep in my phone. Have had a cold So only one stick so far this year and it was a farm roll so still very doable. Annual reviews are a great tool

[jakebarnes]

Great to see your year in review @hrs1! Lots of great ones on there! Hope the Lusi treated you well yesterday!

[gormag38]

Some banger sticks in there! Great top 25 

[hrs1]

13 hours ago, Low said:

Beautiful writeup, and nice data collection. One day, I'll get there. But for now, I'll just stick with my "damn that was good, I should get another box" 

This is the way  

12 hours ago, Mossome said:

Well done. I find it strange seeing Sir Winstons near the top and Mag 50s near the bottom. Personally, I find the Mag 50s to be the most similar to HUSW in the marca. 

Totally agree - the Mag 50s share a very strong family resemblance with the HUSW.

I love the Mag 50s, but they got dinged on consistency (2.7 point std deviation in score vs 0.9 points for the HUSW).  When they're on, they can hit 95+ for me.  

In terms of flavor, the thing that separates the great Mag 50s from the great HUSWs is the nature of the sweetness.   The Mag 50s are more "fruity" when on (I invariably note something like "juicy fruit", peach, etc).   The HUSW has a more caramelized sweetness (I usually note something like Cola or Rootbeer) when they hit  95+.  

Also worth noting:   the Mag 50s I smoked were largely from a 2020 box of tubos (TPL NOV 20) with one from 2017 (OBM MAY 17).   The HUSWs were all from an EOS OCT 18 box.   For the one Mag 50 from 2017, I did get more caramel than I got from 2020 examples.  So age might be at play here.  Looking forward to cracking a box of Mag 50s from 2009 (thanks Rob!) to test this theory soon  

12 hours ago, westg said:

I like the tôp 3, with you on that. I have smoked some amazing R&J Churchill over the last year ...all from 2015 however.... gorgeous PSP stock

Love the RyJ Churchill! One from UEB OCT 2017 was one of my top individual smokes of 2022 (reviewed here).  Sadly, I didn't get to smoke any 2015s last year - all mine were from 2017, 2020 and 2021.  Hope I can change that in 2023 🤞 
 

10 hours ago, Rhinoww said:

I might have to put together a Google doc I can keep in my phone. Have had a cold So only one stick so far this year and it was a farm roll so still very doable. Annual reviews are a great tool

To my mind, definitely worth the effort.  The facts that Cuban cigars from '19-'21 are great or that I like a variety of brands with a soft spot for Cohiba weren't exactly revelations to me.   But there are nuggets that definitely pop out.   Even more eye opening when you look at performance over time or against price paid vs current or expected price  

8 hours ago, jakebarnes said:

Great to see your year in review @hrs1! Lots of great ones on there! Hope the Lusi treated you well yesterday!

Best smoke of 2023  Made the exercise even more enjoyable - thanks again for the bomb!  Gotta hit that Regios soon.

 

 

[Capn_Jackson]

I’ve been working on my own list since NY’s Day. Not as rigorous or calculated as yours, and also a few NC cigars on my list,  but still based on how many I smoked and how much I enjoyed them. I’ll post it up here in a day or so.

[hrs1]

2 hours ago, Capn_Jackson said:

I’ve been working on my own list since NY’s Day. Not as rigorous or calculated as yours, and also a few NC cigars on my list,  but still based on how many I smoked and how much I enjoyed them. I’ll post it up here in a day or so.

Nice!  Looking forward to see how Padron's fared against the CC