Lounge Lizards This Week: Por Larrañaga Picadores No. 1 with seven year aged Flor de Caña Rum Gran Reserva, friends buying and sharing fake Cuban cigars and running cigars under water.

[El Presidente]

One of the great cigar listens today regardless of what you are doing. 

 

Por Larrañaga Picadores No. 1 with seven year aged Flor de Caña Rum Gran Reserva. The guys answer a listener email about friends buying and sharing fake Cuban cigars and Senator shares his newfound appreciation for running cigars under water.

 

 

[TomsRibs210]

Tried water on a Padron 1964 Exclusivo Maduro last night. I felt like a fool but flavor seemed slightly enhanced. This could have 10000% been psychosomatic. 

[LizardGizmo]

2 hours ago, TomsRibs210 said:

Tried water on a Padron 1964 Exclusivo Maduro last night. I felt like a fool but flavor seemed slightly enhanced. This could have 10000% been psychosomatic. 

I watched Senator do this last night on this same cigar and the ash held on for 3 inches before he had to knock it off. He said it was one of the best Exclusivos he's had in awhile. Like you, I'm still not sure if it's in his head. Will be trying it myself soon. 

[Chris P. Bacon]

As always, great week!

I think you should do a blind test. Run some under water and some without. Distribute them randomly.

[LizardGizmo]

19 hours ago, Chris P. Bacon said:

As always, great week!

I think you should do a blind test. Run some under water and some without. Distribute them randomly.

This is a fantastic idea! Thank you 

[GP012]

Another enjoyable episode!

I found the warranty seal conversation intriguing. I'm not sure if I agree with the sentiment that the serials are fully compromised and shouldn't be considered at all, but rather that the serial shouldn't be the only factor in evaluating legitimacy. Provenance, bands, box codes, serials, etc should all be part of that evaluation, not just one single factor.

It's very easy to get a legitimate serial number and use it for fake warranty seals. IIRC, HSA uses (used?) sequential serial numbers for each box, as opposed to some form of randomization. I can't confirm this at the moment as the verification website is giving a "bad request" error, but I recall if you had a serial ending in 498 for example, some range within 20-40 or so consecutive numbers above/below would be the same type of cigar and packaging tied to a master case.

For as valuable as Bond Roberts' Advanced Search and data is, bad actors can easily generate plenty of "legitimate" serial codes for Fauxhiba Robustos just by mining completed auction results and then adding +/- numbers to generate multiple "official" serials.

What intrigues me is what other data is associated with each serial? Based on grey market vendors defacing the numbers/barcodes, we have to assume the serials are linked to the original distributor in some form, but what else? I remember on a previous episode, someone recommended a digital scan of the bottom of the box to be used as another verification tool - that, the serial number and all the other evaluation metrics would certainly make it much easier. Sadly, there's not a chance in hell HSA would ever do that though.

[JohnInCleveland]

Everyone’s focused on the watering of cigars and they glossed over those delicious sausage-casing wrapper Picadores, you’ve got me salivating over here from the review.

In all seriousness, I can’t wait to hear where this water thing goes. I’ve got a lot of old cigars and I'm very tempted to try this with. Pandora’s box is officially opened.