Lonely at the top

I went window shopping today for havana cigars, and I realized with force that which has been coming at a trickle for many years now.  As if veterans from some long ago war, old cigars are losing their comrades on the left and on the right.  If you were to take just one brand, El Rey del Mundo, quite appropriately, "King of the World", you could see the sad trend in full effect.  Where once there were over 20 sizes of El Rey del Mundo available, most online shops carry but one consistently.  You can find a shop here and there with 3-4 sizes, but that is really a lucky occasion.  WONDERFUL cigars, like the Grandes de' Espana.  Full-flavored mini cigars like the Demi-tasse.  Gone for the most part.  Those that aren't are being closed out fast; petit coronas, lonsdales, etc.  Streamlining the marketplace, using the best tobacco to produce the best-selling cigars.  It's a strategy.  And maybe in the end no one will care much about it one way or the other.  And certainly I am no influential voice in the matter.  But when you've been making cigars for 500 years or more, and you take real pride in saying it anywhere people will listen, it seems a shame to gash and trash that history to become a more modern entity.

But this is not much more than the same thing I said in my first blog entry or my first week.  The reason it comes up again is because there is no choice anymore.  No joy of shopping.  Believe me, as a man I do not know how comfortable I am with people thinking I get joy out of shopping.  But looking through a discount vendor's "rack", there is one ERDM cigar, the Choix Supreme.  A fine cigar, but not exactly one that makes me continue to browse.  I either have them or I don't.  There is no 2nd or 3rd option.  It's a disgrace to be perfectly honest.  This was once considered the most expensive Havana cigar...no, not considered, it simply WAS the top of the line in price and quality.  Then Montecristo came along and became, over time, the most popular brand.  Cohiba came along in the 60's and became the most expensive.  A lot of people look at ERDM today and think, 'ehhh, who cares, I've never heard of them...I've heard of the Honduran version, they're great!"  Sigh.

The Cohiba, Montecristo and Romeo y Julieta brands have all the choices.  Partagas SEEMS to be fading away in choices, too now, but something tells me it will never get that bad.  But now if you want to try a new ERDM cigar, you had better be a fan of the Ediciones Regional.  There are a half-dozen or more.  Some are good, some are bleak.  Poor old Bolivar, almost all of it's Ediciones Regional are papery and disappointing.  Or so says people who smoke em.  There are a few cheerleaders here and there, but maybe they are just propping up some cigars that have every right to be head-exploding Rolled Gold, but instead, do no justice to the name Bolivar.

I think it's because since the revolution occurred, Cuba STILL has not treated havana cigars as unique brands.  They are just a way to make hard currency with a beloved old product.  But in the old days, the Hoyo de Monterrey cigars were famous because of a special flavor that came from the tobacco being grown at one famous plantation, the Hoyo de Monterrey.  Partagas was world famous for it's mindblowing spice and pepper and inimitable taste and quality.  But the people who had a stake in building the brand, marketing it worldwide as better than this cigar or that cigar, all that individual drive is gone.  Replaced by a marketing organization that markets them all as one product.  How can you properly CARE about your cigar brands if they are all basically the same cigars?  And it wouldn't be the only time someone has whispered that the cigars are all the same inside except for the bands.  Am I saying that now?  Of course not.  There are a lot of things wrong with Communism.  The difference is, I don't CARE about communism.  You can run your country however you like Vietnam.....China....Cuba.  Knock yourself right out.  But that is no way to support a time-honored trade like the production of Cuban cigars.  The problem is, no one in the whole process really seems to care.  I will grant it that being a torcedore is great job in that system.  Better even to be a factory manager or marketing director.  But in a country where all brands are one, there is no reason to be great.  Cuban cigars stopped being utterly sublime the day Fidel Castro rolled into town on a jeep and nationalized all the cigar manufacturers.  They stop being great after the soviets pulled out.  Now they are perched at very good, staring ho-hum in the face.  It's not too late to save the whole thing.  It's too late to give the brands back to the original owners and expect them to come back in and pick up where they left off in 1960.  But it's not too late to tell Orlando Padron, "Hey, come back and take over this plantation and develop a Cuban Padron".  Or to say, Senor So and so, you are a top notch tobacco man.  I want you to take over Romeo y Julieta, in a factory that rolls only Romeo y Julieta,  You grow it, cure it, roll it and box it and we will buy it at Habanos and sell it to the Americans.  I know this is innefficient.  I know they have PRACTICALITY in spades down there on the island.  But what they gave up to get there, to me, has diminished the product, clearly.

Hey, I don't know how to fix it, I just know it's broken.