Cigar Watch

T he Cuban cigar is a wonderful thing, requiring upwards of 100 steps to complete the coveted masterpiece.From the planting of seeds to nailing the box shut, the intricate process follows a tradition that has changed very little over hundreds of years. When produced properly and aged sufficiently, an authentic Habanos is truly the finest smoking experience one can ever hope for. Shortcutting this process would deny the full pleasure and value that so many smokers have come to expect from abox of genuine Cuban cigars. It is unfortunate that a guide like this is necessary, but to protect the good reputation of Cuban tobacco, we must attempt to make it difficult for those who seek to fool us with inferior products.

In my travels around the world, I have purchased many boxes of genuine Cuban cigars and encountered my fair share of fakes. I learned very early that fake cigars, although appearing authentic, are inevitably a disappointment, due to poor quality tobacco and inferior construction.

When visiting Havana, I am constantly badgered by young men on the street promising me "Buen tabaco, cheap, cheap." Many times, out of curiosity and the hope of scoring a deal, I have followed these fellows to the typical sweltering, small room in a rundown tenement. Upon our arrival, my escort would leave for a moment and then return with two or three other men and several boxes of difficult-to-find, large-size cigars. I would take a quick look and decline by saying the cigars were "falsos" (fake) and not worth five dollars. The young man and several vocal supporters would swear most sincerely that the cigars were indeed very real, stolen from the cigar factory by their dear Aunt Carmen, who works there. In truth, the boxes were stolen, but the cigars were made of inferior leaf found somewhere on the black market and produced by shoddy rollers working out of private homes.

The fake-cigar scenario is more common than ever these days, with so many new smokers looking for Cuban cigars. Add to this the increasing sophistication of counterfeiters, who have begun manufacturing boxes that look very real. The newest fad on the streets of America are Cuban cigars called "second quality." I can assure anyone that there is no such thing as a factory second from Cuba. If the cigar is flawed, it doesn’t leave the country. Any sub-par cigar rolled by students or found to contain defects is distributed within the country.

Before attempting to spot fraud cigars, it helps if you understand how Cuban cigars are produced and distributed. All Cuban cigars are called Habanos, and are controlled by a government corporation of the same name. Cigars are collected each day from the various factories and sent to the Habanos warehouse to await distribution. Located throughout the world are authorized Habanos dealers who get a large portion of these cigars, although the quantities shipped represent only a small proportion of what the dealers desire. A much smaller portion of the factory output is divided amongst the 20 or so domestic cigar stores, almost all of which are located in Havana.

Every week or two, the Havana stores receive an allotment of cigars, mostly small cigars but also a few of the large models (robustos, churchills, torpedoes, double coronas) that everybody is looking for. You cannot hop a plane to Havana on a whim and buy any cigar you want. Large-size cigars are very difficult to find. Relatively few are produced, and only a fraction are sold in Cuba. Spread these precious few around to all the domestic and international dealers vying for them, and you can understand why few storebought Cuban cigars ever reach America.

While it is possible to buy Cuban cigars in countries such as Mexico and Canada and then resell them in America, there is minimal profit in buying a box in Mexico for, say, $325, and reselling it for $400. Tobacco taxes usually nullify this third-country concept in every country but one: Spain. Factor into the equation the risk of losing cigars to customs, and it becomes clear that reselling cigars bought abroad doesn’t make much business sense. Smugglers are interested only in making money, and their preferred method is to buy a box of counterfeit cigars for $30 in Havana and sell it for $400 in the States. Even if they wanted to buy legitimate Habanos they couldn’t, since there aren’t enough available. Store prices in Cuba have risen 40%, in the last year, forcing even more smugglers to the dark side in an attempt to maintain large profit margins.

Thus, the counterfeit cigar business is booming. Hundreds of street hustlers in Havana will offer to sell cigars to anyone who doesn’t look Cuban. The more sophisticated smugglers operate large private factories that turn out thousands of boxes of the top brands, although the tobacco quality and construction of these cigars will never approach the strict quality standards of a real Cuban factory. The Cuban police are trying to control the situation, but so far they are losing the battle. Additionally, some of these illicit cigar factories have sprung up in Central America, where there is an abundance of good rollers and tobacco. The cigars are shipped to the U.S. as non-Cubans and re-packed in counterfeit Cuban boxes.

The bottom line is that the cigar craze in America has awakened a deep thirst for Cuban cigars, which has spawned a whole underground industry. Unfortunately, the counterfeiters are getting better and better at their craft.

CIGAR INSPECTION

An encounter with any individual selling Cuban cigars, whether in New York City or on the streets of Havana, should be approached with skepticism. If you’re viewing four boxes and locate a serious discrepancy with one box, there is a good chance that all four boxes are fake. If you’re unsure of the authenticity, sit down and smoke a cigar with the salesman. Try and choose a sample cigar that looks wrong or feels hard and may be rolled too tight.

Here is what you should look for:
Box Appearance. Ideally, the box should be in good condition, free of scuff marks and smudges. You don’t want a box that looks like it’s been passed around for six months looking for someone stupid enough to buy it. The first thing to consider is the box’s weight. If it seems excessively heavy, you might want to have a closer look. For some reason, many of the fake boxes are manufactured with plywood of excessive thickness. Another reason for a fake box being too heavy is that the cigars are rolled by amateurs who crammed too much tobacco into the wooden tobacco press, forming a very hard and, typically, very wet tobacco stick - a technique that simplifies the task of attaching the wrapper. Fakes are almost always wrapped too tightly because it is easier to produce a uniform shape when wrapping a hard blank.

A green and white warranty seal should be visible on the left front side of the box. The seal’s color can range from forest to lime-green. Inside the seal is an insignia that contains a shield with a hat resting on top. The fold line of the seal should run directly through the center of the shield. Do not be overly concerned if your box’s seal has been broken; opening boxes is a common practice during inspections in Cuba to check for defects. On the box lid’s upper right comer should be a white Habanos sticker, pasted diagonally. On the bottom of the box you will find a Habanos heat stamp. Look closely to make sure it is a heat stamp and not an ink stamp. Below the heat stamp should be an ink stamp (in any color) that will tell you where the cigars were manufactured and when they left the factory. This stamp is referred to as the NIVEL ACUSO. Developed many years ago, this code is actually the Latin term for " you are accused." Following is a description of how the code is used:

The ten letters correspond to ten numbers, one through ten, as follows:

                   N  I  V  E  L   A  C  U  S  0
                   1  2  3  4  5   6  7  8  9  0

The first two or three letter denote the factory which produced the cigars. See the box below for a list of the best known factories and the abbreviation used in the NIVEL. ACUSO.

The remaining NIVEL ACUSO characters indicate the month and year the cigars left the factory. For example, a NIVEL ACUSO reading OLSC, translates to 05/97, or May of 1997. The NIVEL ACUSO is the best key to learn where the cigars were produced, which is very important in determining the quality of the cigars. The factories located in Havana usually are associated with better consistency and higher quality than those located elsewhere known as provincial factories.

BOX CONTENTS

You are now ready to inspect the contents of the box. Upon opening the box, you should see a loose paper flap that protects the cigars, as well as a slender piece of wax paper running across the bands. The wax paper should be cut clean, with perfectly straight edges. Resting on the cigars should be the Habanos warranty, printed on a small piece of parchment. Remove the warranty, pull back the flap, and smell the tobacco. You should find the fragrance very pleasing, with a rich, deep aroma. Cuban tobacco has an unmistakable smell. If you are lucky enough to sample a cigar, make sure you draw on it before actually lighting up. If you aren’t offered a sample to smoke, try sucking on the end of an unclipped cigar. This may seem rather strange, but it is one of the best ways to tell if the tobacco is good quality. Obviously, this requires a little know-how, but after some practice you will be able to recognize the signature flavor of Cuban tobacco.

The cigars should be uniform in both color and shape; consistency is very important. The wrappers should be tight and free of large veins; avoid cigars whose wrappers appear dry and chalky. Small golden spots on the wrapper are normal, produced by a slight burn when a ray of sunshine is magnified by a drop of water on the leaf. The top face of the cigar may appear flattened, or what is known as box-pressed. This is particularly true for torpedo shapes. Remember that the cigars should always be tightly packed. The caps should look identical, all resting an equal distance from the top of the box. Tap the box to align the heads if they are staggered. The foot of the cigar should be cut clean and straight, and the bands should be identical and aligned perfectly. Poor printing registration on cigar bands is fairly common, so it is difficult to point to this as a flaw. The wrapper color can vary slightly from light to dark, but never to the point of what you might consider a maduro color. Cuba does not produce maduros.

Feeling the cigar is probably the single most effective way to ascertain quality. The true talent of a professional cigar roller is the ability to place exactly the right amount of tobacco in a cigar from head to foot. An amateur places tobacco unevenly, giving the cigar hard spots and soft spots. A hard spot is a clog in the cigar, making a smooth, easy draw impossible. A soft spot will cause the cigar to burn unevenly or go out. Feel the contents of a cigar by firmly pressing your thumb or forefinger into every inch of the stick. The wrapper should feel soft and moist and the tobacco beneath firm and even. Practice on a cigar that you know draws well and you will acquire the feel. Search for hard spots and, when you find the worst example, smoke the cigar as a test. If the draw is off, you just saved yourself the price of a box-full of disappointment.

If the top level of cigars look good so far, pull the paper flap out of the box and open the lid a few inches. Turn the box upside down and knock on the bottom a few times to dislodge the cigars. The ends of the cigars should drop into view. This is your chance to view the inside of the cigar. The tobacco should be brown, usually dark and never green. The density of the filler should be even, with enough space between the leaves to allow air flow. If the filler appears too tightly packed, almost solid, the cigar will be plugged. Look for leaf veins that appear as small, light-colored twigs inside the cigar. A very common mistake of counterfeiters is the failure to remove the central vein from the leaf before rolling. This is a sure giveaway. Genuine cigars contain whole leaves that run from end to end, allowing a natural channel for the smoke to follow. Fake cigar producers use whatever they can find for filler, and that usually includes leftover tobacco scrap. Rarely do they blend tobaccos to achieve flavor balance. The result is very often a horrible-tasting cigar. If you ever buy a Cuban cigar that won’t draw and tastes terrible, open it up with a razor and see what’s inside.

Y ou are now ready to inspect the cigars packed in the box’s bottom layer. The wrapper color of these cigars should be almost identical to that of the cigars on the top; a noticeable difference is a tip-off that the product is fake, since counterfeiters often place the junk on the bottom. If you were a little suspicious when you examined the top layer, be especially thorough with the bottom. If the cigars stick to the lining paper, especially the cigars on the far left or right, it means that the box was produced so quickly that the glue was not allowed to dry before the box was loaded. This is common among fakes.

The final marker of authenticity is a little-known but always reliable flaw that appears on most fake boxes. If you examine the thin cedar lining separating the two layers, appearing on the upper right corner should be a small half moon-shaped cut-out for your finger. This cut should be perfectly curved, with a clean edge; it is machine-made and should be free of any imperfections caused by a human hand. The remainder of the liner should be cut to perfectly fit the box, with approximately an eighth of an inch clearance around the edges. The surface should be free of cracks or splits that are a sure sign of salvaged wood. If you receive a box which has a divider made of cardboard instead of cedar, the box is surely not authentic.

Not all boxes of factory-made Cuban cigars are perfect and meet the criteria described here. They are, after all, a handmade product being produced in a country that routinely experiences shortages of raw materials. In the last few years, the tobacco crop has been strong, allowing Cuba to increase production to meet growing worldwide demand. New factories have been opened and new rollers trained. The production push has strained quality control, especially in the area of packaging. Hopefully the worst is over now and the leadership at Habanos can focus again on quality and consistency.

For those who love Cuban cigars, the best protection is to purchase from an authorized Habanos dealer, such as the La Casa del Habano stores, located in many major cities around the world. If you live in a country that bans Cuban products, you must do your best with what is available. Always be wary, keeping the mindset that most of the product you encounter is, unfortunately, not what it is represented to be.

Michael Douglas provides tours of the Cuban cigar industry. He can be reached at the Cubatravel office in Mexico at (52) (66) 309220, or E-mail him at: info@cubatravel.com.mx .

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Cigar Watch provides cigar ratings, information on how to smoke a cigar and enjoy the experience and tips on how to identify fake cigars. We are a cigar club whose members contribute reviews of their favorite stogies and rant or rave about their experiences with smokes.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 10:14 am and is filed under Articles, Fakes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.