Potential?

R

rx2010

Professional Pusher
I always hear people talk about potential in a cigar. I've even noted to myself a time or two "this cigar should be better with age"

but uh, what is potential? How does one smoke a not so great cigar and think to themself "this cigar sucks, but in a year it will be solid gold!"

thoughts? comments?
 
<TABLE id=HB_Mail_Container height="100%" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0 UNSELECTABLE="on"><TBODY><TR height="100%" UNSELECTABLE="on" width="100%"><TD id=HB_Focus_Element vAlign=top width="100%" background="" height=250 UNSELECTABLE="off">Nobody likes to admit they made a bad choice. So they say "potential".

By the way this Thread has "potential"!:r
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My opinion on this is that sometimes you smoke a cigar that has a young flavor, something tastes off, or the burn is not good, so you may think that after it has some time to stabilize and lose some of its immaturity it will be a good smoke. There are also times where I've smoked a cigar and later prayed I didn't waste my money on a dog rocket. In this case I was looking for potential, but probably wouldn't ever find it. Good question.
 
I personally think that only good cigars have potential. Nothing that starts off bad is likely to get any better. When I think about a cigar's potential, I'm usually thinking about the good flavors melding to become a little more balanced, or some of the harshness that might take away from good flavors dissipating. Just my :2
 
rx2010 said:
I always hear people talk about potential in a cigar. I've even noted to myself a time or two "this cigar should be better with age"

but uh, what is potential? How does one smoke a not so great cigar and think to themself "this cigar sucks, but in a year it will be solid gold!"

thoughts? comments?
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Sometimes the flavor profile will be out of balance, or strike the wrong chord in your palate, or taste young with ammonia in the finish. There may be good flavors mixed with not so good flavors. Many times age will marry the flavors properly & ween out the negative aspects.

Sometimes it's just a matter of taste. I love turnips, but a lot of folks hate them.

Keeping that in mind, a dog rocket will always remain a dog rocket. You can't polish a turd.
 
I always thought that cigars with a slight ammonia-ish flavor, or overwhelming spice would have 'potential' to age and mellow out. Like in my (only) review of the Tatuaje hermosos I said that I would bet it'd taste better with a few months on it because of overwhelming spice in the first third.

*shrug*
 
physiognomy said:
I personally think that only good cigars have potential. Nothing that starts off bad is likely to get any better. When I think about a cigar's potential, I'm usually thinking about the good flavors melding to become a little more balanced, or some of the harshness that might take away from good flavors dissipating. Just my :2
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:tpd:
 
rx2010 said:
I always hear people talk about potential in a cigar. I've even noted to myself a time or two "this cigar should be better with age"

but uh, what is potential? How does one smoke a not so great cigar and think to themself "this cigar sucks, but in a year it will be solid gold!"

thoughts? comments?
Click to expand...

That means "We believe they used tobacco to make this so there is a chance someone, somewhere will one day enjoy smoking this"
 
physiognomy said:
I personally think that only good cigars have potential. Nothing that starts off bad is likely to get any better. When I think about a cigar's potential, I'm usually thinking about the good flavors melding to become a little more balanced, or some of the harshness that might take away from good flavors dissipating. Just my :2
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:tpd: but you may choose to read this to see why I think a certain cigar may have ageing potential.
 
dwhitacre said:
<TABLE id=HB_Mail_Container height="100%" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0 UNSELECTABLE="on"><TBODY><TR height="100%" UNSELECTABLE="on" width="100%"><TD id=HB_Focus_Element vAlign=top width="100%" background="" height=250 UNSELECTABLE="off">Nobody likes to admit they made a bad choice. So they say "potential".

By the way this Thread has "potential"!:r
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ooooh.....that's just cold, bro. haha
 
rx2010 said:
I always hear people talk about potential in a cigar. I've even noted to myself a time or two "this cigar should be better with age"

but uh, what is potential? How does one smoke a not so great cigar and think to themself "this cigar sucks, but in a year it will be solid gold!"

thoughts? comments?

kansashat said:
Sometimes the flavor profile will be out of balance, or strike the wrong chord in your palate, or taste young with ammonia in the finish. There may be good flavors mixed with not so good flavors. Many times age will marry the flavors properly & ween out the negative aspects.

Sometimes it's just a matter of taste. I love turnips, but a lot of folks hate them.

Keeping that in mind, a dog rocket will always remain a dog rocket. You can't polish a turd.
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Click to expand...

As kansashat put it, "Keeping that in mind, a dog rocket will always remain a dog rocket. You can't polish a turd."

Thank you. That says it all. But aging a cigar that has a "Harsh" taste can mellow its harshness by sitting in a humidor for an extended period of time. In fact, there will be enhance flavors by allowing the cigar to sit and allow the natural oils to come to the surface of the stogie. That is Potential! But a bad cigar has very little to "no hope of rescue." :2:gn"El Dogo Rocketo!"
 
Advil said:
I always thought that cigars with a slight ammonia-ish flavor, or overwhelming spice would have 'potential' to age and mellow out. Like in my (only) review of the Tatuaje hermosos I said that I would bet it'd taste better with a few months on it because of overwhelming spice in the first third.

*shrug*
Click to expand...

Were you right? or has it not been long enough?
 
People using the term potential to describe non-cuban cigars confuses me.

Cuban cigars until recently used very young tobacco and required aging to develop some of the more characteristic flavors. Hence the term potential.

Many of the better NC cigars already use aged tobacco, or are aged prior to shipment, at least long enough to take the edges off and develop signature flavor profiles. The exception being tatuajes and Illusiones. Both can benefit from long term aging IMO for a number of reason. In addition, there are so many NC cigars that are just one off crap that don't benefit one little bit how long you "age" them. They will still suck.

A 10 year old fighting cock is not going to taste like a Cohiba or Padron 1926.
 
I'll go ahead and offer the one dissenting opinion here.

I once gifted a friend of mine a box of La Stinkas err... La Fincas (hey, he loves cheap stuff). Anyway, about a year later, we were smoking together and he opens up his humidor and says, "I haven't even smoked these La Fincas - I'm probably not going to smoke them. Do you want them?". Naturally, I obliged.

So not thinking too much of them, I lit one up and was very pleasantly surprised. My experience with the La Fincas having a year of age on them was light night & day from a fresh one.

It wasn't great-great, but it wasn't all too bad either. Ultimately, it was a much better smoke a year later. I don't know if this works with Fighting Cock -- I probably wouldn't try it to find out :)
 
My experience with pipe tobacco is that a good tobacco gets better with age and if its bad, it just gets old and stays bad.
 
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