I can honestly say that I agree with the No.5 cigar being the Exclusivo maduro. I smoke quite a few of these during the week. Funny thing is I sold more Warlocks in the last 2 days than I've sold all year...no chit.
Isy...have you smoked one of the Warlocks? If so, what are your impressions?
One thing about the Top 25 List that has me scratching my head. Now that the CA Editors picked the Padron 1964 Anniversary Series Exclusivo Maduro as the #5 cigar...why is it number five this year? This cigar has been around for almost 18 years and has just now received it's highest ranking since it's creation. Is that because there is weaker competition this year?...or because one of the Editors finally got around to smoking one? Why all of a sudden this year? This is the third time this has happened and captured my attention. In 2006, the 1964 Anniversary Imperial was selected at #3...not that it didn't deserve it's ranking, but why select it after all that time? Same for the first time a Padron Exclusivo was selected in the Top 10...back in 2005, but in a natural wrapper that time.
The Exclusivo Maduro has always garnered high praise (within the Aniversario line) in the past, but to make it to the Top 10 this year is quite the feat considering the recent competition of new releases...as it was for the Imperial five years ago and the Exclusivo Natural one year before that. We all know that Padron cigars are some of the most consistent cigars in the marketplace, hardly ever a stinker in a box and their flavor profiles are the same year after year, box after box...which is why I use the Padron cigars as the example of my confusion. The blends didn't change, the cigars taste the same today as they did the day they came out. This particular cigar has been one of my top 5 since day one, as is most of the 1964 line, and the robusto has always been my favorite of the bunch. It's nice to see the adoration given to a proven winner and one of the best regular production smokes for the money...but I'm still perplexed.
When I see the selection of a Cuban cigar on the Top 25 list that has been around for many, many years, I don't bat an eyelash...I mark that up to a good crop year, a very slight change in the blend or some other element in ever changing world of inconsistent Cuban cigars. Picking one of the regular production cigars now and then I get.
When we see a newcomer to the cigar world on the list, we all understand that...it's a new cigar, a new blend, and what very well could be a unique flavor profile (like a DE Undercrown) unseen before in the cigar marketplace. Picking one of them is the way it should be, especially if it's a 'one off' blend never to be seen again...like the Padron 44, 45, 46, 80th..or a Cuban Regional Release...a one shot deal. Personally, that's what I expect to see mostly on this list year after year...new product hitting the market, getting noticed.
Now in 2007, CA picked another regular production Padron in the 1926 Series #9 as Cigar of the Year, only it's 5th year in in existence...even that I can justify as being there. It came to market, albeit very good from day one, but still took some time to get the attention of the Cigar World and catch on to the every day smoker. Let's not kid one another, there are so many cigars to pick from that we as consumers can only smoke and invest our money on a relatively small portion of the offerings.
But the selection of the Exclusivo maduro has me baffled once again. What are the CA Editors thinking as they put this list together....what's their base criteria? Here's how they put it on their website....
"Choosing this group of superb cigars was a comprehensive and exhaustive task. We tasted more than 700 cigars during the year for the reviews printed in Cigar Aficionado magazine and Cigar Insider newsletter. From that we culled a list of top-scoring cigars, selecting more than 60 to taste again. All had achieved outstanding scores (90 points or more in our 100-point scale). Our tasting coordinator went to cigar shops and bought the cigars once again. He removed their identifying bands and gave each a new code before passing them out to the senior tasters. Each cigar was resmoked and scored, and the best made our Top 25. "
So they smoke over 700 cigars a year (since they started the Top 25 list) and just got around to picking the Exclusivo Maduro this year....
Now, like Tom said previously as this pops up every year...is CA throwing Padron a bone for their advertising dollars spent during the past year? It's hard to argue the quality & taste of the Exclusivo Maduro and say it's not deserving...but what gives Marvin?