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Saving dried cubans

whiskey_sippers

whiskey_sippers

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 20, 2025
Messages
105
First Name
Todd
I met a friend of my daughters at her wedding. We got to talking and I told hom about my youtube channel. He told me hiw he went to Cuba before the ban was put back in place and brought back a box if cigars amd never opened it. It has spend the last 8 years sitting on a shelf.

He offered to send them to me, they arrived today. I don’t see a lot if damage except a crack on one, but they are dry as a brick.

I have placed them in a rubbermaid with a bunch of 69% boveda.

Is that the best way to try and revive them? I have a compressor driven electronic humidor, would it be better in that with temp and humidity control?

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Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Todd.

Once a cigar is dried out, it is no longer of any value. You simply can't restore the evaporated and dried out oils which are what provide the flavor in cigars.

Sad!
 
I'd try for S&Gs. It will take a while to get them back to smoking %, but Jeff is correct about the oils.
 
Have them in a rubbermaid with 69% packs. Going to come back in 2 months and check them
 
CigarStone said:
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Todd.

Once a cigar is dried out, it is no longer of any value. You simply can't restore the evaporated and dried out oils which are what provide the flavor in cigars.

Sad!
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Well doesn't hurt to try, sticking them in the corner and see what happens.
 
whiskey_sippers said:
I met a friend of my daughters at her wedding. We got to talking and I told hom about my youtube channel. He told me hiw he went to Cuba before the ban was put back in place and brought back a box if cigars amd never opened it. It has spend the last 8 years sitting on a shelf.

He offered to send them to me, they arrived today. I don’t see a lot if damage except a crack on one, but they are dry as a brick.

I have placed them in a rubbermaid with a bunch of 69% boveda.

Is that the best way to try and revive them? I have a compressor driven electronic humidor, would it be better in that with temp and humidity control?

View attachment 101931View attachment 101932View attachment 101933View attachment 101934View attachment 101935
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Beetle holes? Looks like it from a couple of the pics…
 
....yeah. Crunchy cigars have had the good stuff, the oils, dried and crystallized out of the tobacco. You can re-humidify them, but they are gone, baby, gone. Sorry......
 
As many have stated they won’t recover fully but I have some experience with this and can tell you if you slowly rehydrate them you may be surprised how good they still smoke. Unfortunately the aging potential is likely shot but they may still smoke well. I’ve had some incredible smoking experiences with rehydrated cigars over the years.
 
lucasbuck said:
As many have stated they won’t recover fully but I have some experience with this and can tell you if you slowly rehydrate them you may be surprised how good they still smoke. Unfortunately the aging potential is likely shot but they may still smoke well. I’ve had some incredible smoking experiences with rehydrated cigars over the years.
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I am going to give it atry, if they recover an are nice smoke great, if not then no loss they didn't cost me anything.
 
I would go w the lowest % boveda they make for a month or so instead of starting at 69. I think the general consensus is Cubans are better at 65 anyway. But I dont smoke them so I may be way off.

There is also the wrinkle of where they come from. Were they on this guy's shelf where the house humidity wasn't bad? I dont know your or his local. There is always the assumption that the house environment was not conducive to storage. Now if he had them on the shelf in his garage next to the wiper fluid....

What the hey. Give it a try.

HT
 
whiskey_sippers said:
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I am in no way an expert, the while the cigars look ok, those bands are off. In the 4th pic, you can see that he white squares on the one label gets cut off and then you can notice that the "habana, cuba" is in different spots height wise on the band. Pretty sure they are fake or at least the bands are fake. But still worth trying to refresh their humidity and trying them after at least 6 months like Gary said. BUT, given that they may be fake and or not work out to begin with, a fun experiment would be to take that one with the perfect circle hole in it and cut the cigar open down the middle. See what the insides look like and check for anything off.
 
modo22 said:
I am in no way an expert, the while the cigars look ok, those bands are off. In the 4th pic, you can see that he white squares on the one label gets cut off and then you can notice that the "habana, cuba" is in different spots height wise on the band. Pretty sure they are fake or at least the bands are fake. But still worth trying to refresh their humidity and trying them after at least 6 months like Gary said. BUT, given that they may be fake and or not work out to begin with, a fun experiment would be to take that one with the perfect circle hole in it and cut the cigar open down the middle. See what the insides look like and check for anything off.
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That's a good catch Ben! At least if they are fake it won't be such a heartbreaking loss?

I wondered about the bar code in the first pic as well. The box code should provide some more evidence.

I blew up the fifth picture and the "Habana, Cuba" is all over the place on the different cigars.

ETA: Upon further review, there are a couple of things wrong. The white outline around the head is not there, the "Habana, Cuba" should be centered up and down. I would conclude that these are fake.

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Well i know for a fact the guy bought them in cuba, but i guess they could still sale fakes there. Here is the serial number
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modo22 said:
I am in no way an expert, the while the cigars look ok, those bands are off. In the 4th pic, you can see that he white squares on the one label gets cut off and then you can notice that the "habana, cuba" is in different spots height wise on the band. Pretty sure they are fake or at least the bands are fake. But still worth trying to refresh their humidity and trying them after at least 6 months like Gary said. BUT, given that they may be fake and or not work out to begin with, a fun experiment would be to take that one with the perfect circle hole in it and cut the cigar open down the middle. See what the insides look like and check for anything off.
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This is what happens, when you have inmates in cell block C making the bands.. :cool:
 
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