The flat cigar

In an interesting exchange I saw the other day, a guy was asking if his cigars were fake, because the cigar on the far left of the box was far wider than the others.  This points a spotlight on the common anxiety involved with people who should not be purchasing cigars, but have done so anyway, and now are facing a box of cigars with no experience in determining just WHAT they are looking at.  Your first box of havana cigars is certainly an adventure, but this was a new one for me.  I have heard almost every single quirky item that people point to to tell another person that they have been duped. I have heard every worried question over this facet or that.  But the fat cigar on the left is a new one.  I have never thought about this cigar negatively.

 You can find one in almost every dress box of havana cigars.  This is a cigar which undergoes a more intense box press owing to it's position directly above the cardboard spacer lying on the far left side of the bottom layer.  Where 12 of the top layer cigars lie atop other cigars, which give a bit and deform slightly themselves, this semi-rigid, square cardboard tube does not give.  This forces the cigar on top to flatten significantly.  I love this cigar. 

Why is there a cardboard spacer in a box of havanas?  Well, it's because there are 25 cigars in a box.  How does one evenly divide 25 cigars into two layers?  Most cigar companies place 13 beauties on top, and only 12 on the bottom.  They fill the space with a cedar block or a cardboard tube.  The cigar above it is pressed extremely flat.  It looks cool, it smokes great, and being a Padron fan for decades, it hits all my 'box press' buttons.  So tonight, I pulled out a few from my stash of "top-lefters", a Punch Double Corona and a Bolivar Coronas Extra. 

Yes, I have a stash of them.  I generally remove this cigar and store it separately out of habit.  (I have bizarre fetishes.)  So tonight I will smoke one and review it here.  The Punch is a 2000 edition, and the Bolivar is a 1998 cigar.  Stay tuned....