All right, we are here with the Cigar Vishnu podcast in the Cigar Vishnu Lounge in New York City at the headquarters of M. Shankin Communications. I'm David Savona, the executive editor of Cigar Vishnu. Joined today by Greg Matola, our managing editor. Hello, Greg. How are you?
SPEAKER_02You know, I never thought I would ever be on a podcast ever. And here I am, but very happy to be here.
SPEAKER_00I I could sense your enthusiasm. This is great. So what are we talking about today? Today we are talking about pricey cigars. I mean, what price is uh in the news nowadays? Uh everything seems to be more expensive. Gas is more expensive, airline flights are getting more pricey, uh, your T-bone steak in a restaurant is a little bit more than you used to paying for. And cigars, too, have come up in price, especially in recent years. Uh, we've seen cigar after cigar hit and exceed the $100 price point, and that kind of takes us to what we're smoking right now. We are both smoking cigars that retail for $100 or more for a single cigar. There's $250 worth of cigars between the two of us right now. Well, which one are you smoking? Yeah, so I'm smoking the Rocky Patel Conviction, the Toro size. There's only one size in this brand. It's a one-size brand released in 2024. It is a heralded cigar. It was uh number seven cigar of the year for 2024 on Cigar Vichinado's top 25. I remember that. Yeah, we gave us a rating of 95 points. It's uh Nicaraguan smoke, all Nicaraguan on the inside with a Mexican wrapper, San Andreas wrapper. And Greg, what are you puffing today?
SPEAKER_02Also Nicaraguan, also 95 points. And I think this also came out in 2024. This is the Monte Cristo from the 1935 uh anniversary Nicaragua series, but it is the doble Diamante, because there is a Diamante that came out as a follow-up, which is about 25 bucks. And then they came out with a double Diamante, 150 bucks. And the first question is always what makes these cigars so expensive? And in both cases, your cigar and my cigar, the answer is the same. A finite amount of very, very aged tobacco. Now I remember Rocky Patel talking about conviction the Nicaragua tobacco is from his maiden crop, which I was actually there for when that was growing in 2014. Tobacco that he grows himself in Nicaragua. Uh and uh especially the uh I was there for the crop in SLE. So I remember seeing it, and and you know, he was really proud of it, but he didn't know what he was gonna do with it. So he put most of it away and now it comes in uh conviction. And for the this Monte Cristo, it's also aged tobacco. Uh, this stuff is from AJ Fernandez.
SPEAKER_00So so what's the deal with the expensive cigars? I mean, we're we're talking about two examples here that give you can't say bang for the buck, but they certainly uh uh give a high score for the high price. I mean, these are two 95-point smokes. And when we rate them, we rated these cigars like all the cigars we rate. They were rated blind. So they came to us without these bands. We didn't know what they cost, we didn't know what they were. Of course. Uh so these are classic cigars. 95 points and up is a classic rating on our scale. Not every expensive cigar gets a high rating. These live up to the uh to the expectation. But uh where's where did this trend begin, Greg? When when did cigars start getting more expensive? What do you think? We always had expensive cigars.
SPEAKER_02You had not like this, not this expensive in 2014. There was Davidoff release there, Oro Blanco. Davidoff always a pioneer of the uh high price game. But that was a $500 cigar. Uh 2016, then it was like that was a royal, like a royal salamon, that was over a hundred bucks, but it wasn't quite a trend yet. I think in 2022, when Habanos decided to double and triple the prices of Cohiba and Trinidad, making standard cigars in those lines really expensive, and the special editions over a hundred dollars. I think that was kind of a test market for the rest of the world because they released an anniversario cigar for 300 bucks. That was a limited edition, and the thing sold. And I think the rest of the industry kind of took notice and said, okay, there actually is a market for this. So in 2024, both these cigars come out, and they weren't the only ones doing that.
SPEAKER_00Oliva has a uh very pricey cigar, Placencia's had pricey cigars. There's we have a listicle on our website, cigarapicionado.com, and poor Greg's constantly updating that because there's always new cigars coming out that sell for $100 or more. And very recently, you we we added, you added uh the standard cohibas because now there are standard cohiba cigars that sell for more than $100.
SPEAKER_02See, and that's the huge difference because most of these cigars are limited edition cigars, limited run, like I said before, finite amount of tobacco. They make a couple of hundred boxes, and then that's the end because that's the end of the tobacco. Uh with the cohiba, those are all regular, regular esplenditos, regular lanceras, regular robustos, all going for more than a hundred bucks MSRP.
SPEAKER_00And those are boxes of 25. So you look at a box of 25 cohiba robustos, that's a you're you're spending $2,500 to take that box home if you can find it.
SPEAKER_02And that's everywhere. Now, not everyone will remember those who would travel internationally, those who like to shop around for cohibas. You could shop around for a good price. You could say, okay, I'm not gonna buy in Hong Kong, I'm not gonna buy in Canada, I'm not gonna buy in London because it's super expensive. I'll go to Germany, I'll go to Switzerland, go to Cuba, or go to Cuba, where it was the least expensive. So there were differences in the price of cohiba. In 2022, when Havanos raised the price, well, they also, as you remember, fixed it to the Hong Kong dollar, which I think at the time was was the most expensive market. Uh London was pretty high too before the V uh the V8, but it doesn't matter anymore. You can't shop around.
SPEAKER_00It's as those days are gone.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's as expensive in Havana as it is in London if you want to get uh Monte Cristo. And to your point, like you said, if you can find it. Remember the last time we went to Havana together?
SPEAKER_00Bare shelves, bare shelves, expensive cigars if you could find them. Uh we did see people with bricks of cash buying cigars and uh and taking them home. It used to be uh I remember my first trip to Cuba, 1996. Uh, you could find a full box of cigars, not cohiba, but but good cigars, $50, $60, and back when they were priced in US dollars. Uh not anymore. That's uh the price for a single cigar for a lot of different vitolas. Well, remember the the the Coeba Bahicis came out in 2010.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, don't remind me of the city. No, no, I'm bringing up that story. Yeah, yeah. That's that story where we went to the Casa del Habano in Havana, I think it was at uh Habana Libre.
SPEAKER_00Habana Libra, yeah, the old Hilton.
SPEAKER_02And you were able to get a box where those cigars, the 52s, right, were 30 bucks a pop. And you said, nah, that's kind of pricey. $30 for a cigar. Yeah, three hundred dollars.
SPEAKER_01Thirty dollars a cigar.
SPEAKER_00I'm like, that's too much money to spend on a box of cigars. Now, Greg, tell tell us what I missed out on. Because that $300 box of cigars years ago, not that many years ago, what does that retail for?
SPEAKER_02Uh I think now the BHK 52, when we just updated it, I think it's comes out to that's the smallest size in the Behake line. It's about $265 per cigar. So you could have got them for $30 each, and now if you can even find them, you're gonna be paying $265 a piece.
SPEAKER_00And there were stacks of them. I should have bought them. I made a mistake. Let's talk about where we came from because yeah, I I've been smoking cigars for a long time. So have you. I'm a little older than you, maybe a little older than you. Uh joined Cigar Avicionado in 1995. So what I remember buying a box of cigars right before I started. It was one of my go-tos. It was a box of Hoyta Monterey Excalibur number threes. Smoked them all the time. And I spent all of $35 for that box of cigars, which uh, you know, it was was quite a deal at the time. I I think cigars were underpriced back in those days. They're now a luxury product and priced a lot higher. Uh, and looking at some historic numbers, we did a story in our 30th anniversary issue that showed the progression of prices over the years. The average price of a non-Cuban cigar in our tastings in 1992 was $2.93. There were cigars that cost $1.50, some that cost $2. There were a couple of higher price ones in there. Go to 96, that came up to $4. 2006, 20 years ago, $6.43 on average. 10 years ago, the average price was $10.42. Nowadays, Greg, what do you think the average price was in our most recent issue for one tasting category? I did the numbers, you don't know the answer, so I'm I'm testing it here. Average is probably not up to $20 yet, but I think it goes uh $17, $16, $17. Very good guess. It actually is almost $20. It was $19. Wow. Yeah. That was an expensive category. There were a couple of $35. There was a $35 cigar, a $44 cigar, and a $55 cigar. This episode of the Cigar Vishnata Podcast is brought to you by the Big Smoke Las Vegas, taking place November 6th and 7th. It's the biggest cigar event of the year. Two nights of Big Smoke evenings with the world's most famous cigar stars. Incredible spirits, food, and music, all in a cigar-friendly atmosphere. Our cigar seminars include a tasting of the number one cigar of the year and a presentation by superstar Guy Fietti. It's the Big Smoke Las Vegas weekend. You can find out all about it at Las Vegas at Viggsmoke.com.
SPEAKER_02If you remember, say 20 years ago. Some days I do, some days I don't. Well, 20 years ago, there were a few $20 cigars. But those, a $20, $25 cigar, that was a splurge. That was a really expensive cigar. Not many cigars reached that that price point. You had a few Padrones, some Davidoffs, some of the Fuente Opus X stuff, even though if uh just as a side note here, they they never had an MSRP of that. But the stores always charge $20 plus because they could. But for the most part, that was a huge splurge. And it's like now the huge splurge is the hundred dollar cigar or the $75 cigar. I mean, even our cigar of the year for 2025, it's $75 retail price.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Now you talked about special uh special qualities. Why are certain cigars more expensive? We're talking about uh limited tobaccos in these cigars. Uh with that cigar of the year, they're using some of their oldest tobaccos. And there's also a limitation. They have, I think, two rollers that make that size. It's a special shape. It's only their second perfecto.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a large salamone size, lots of curves, lots of tapers. I was there. Yeah, you were there in the factory. Yeah, I was there in January, and I saw one of the rollers, and he's just there, and that's all he makes. And he's and that day he was the only guy authorized to make the salamones to their uh to their specs.
SPEAKER_00Are you urging him to make them faster to get more of them? Everyone wants that cigar. It's cigar of the year.
SPEAKER_02When I go there, George Padron really watches me like a hawk. So he should.
SPEAKER_00He've got your notebook, you're gonna you're writing down all his secrets.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and you know, I'm I'm not above stealing cigars off the table, and he knows that. So, but no, I didn't I didn't get any.
SPEAKER_00So, where do we go from here? Do you think uh we're we're reaching uh uh an end to this trend? Are cigars going to continue to get more expensive?
SPEAKER_02I don't think we're we're seeing an end because if you look at other markets, once prices go up, there's a new floor. You're talking about how the price of everything goes up. Look at airlines. Okay, now there's gonna be a new a new surcharge for this or for that, more bag, you know, more uh increased price for baggage or just a fuel charge because of oil. Okay, but then when the oil prices start to stabilize, those airline prices don't go down anymore. Nothing goes down anymore. I think we just have a new floor. I remember hearing online because nothing, nothing gets people riled up online in the cigar world like like like prices. Sure. Prices really, really stoke the internet outrage. And one of the refrains I would often read is um for anyone doing an expensive cigar, oh, they're pricing themselves out of the market. Cohiba's pricing themselves out of the market. And I say that's not true. I say they're just pricing you out of the market. They're changing the demographic. A different segment of the market will be buying cohiba now, but they will sell everything they make and they will do it at whatever price they ask for.
SPEAKER_00Now, that said, we're with their expensive cigars here, expensive cigars we've talked about, special cigars, maybe something for uh, you know, uh a splurge, and maybe not for everybody. The good thing about the cigar market is even with these expensive cigars and this trend of rising prices, you you still can find bargains if you know where to look. Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Even within the Monte Cristo line. So I'm smoking the top of the top, the double Diamante. And it delivers 95 points, and it tastes different than the other ones. But if you look at the core line, the uh the the regular 1935 Nicaragua, not an expensive cigar. It's in that $10 to $15 range, and it's a fantastic experience. It's uh cigars from that line got number two on our top 25 on more than one occasion. The number two, uh the number two size got number two, and then the espesso, I think, got number two in 2025.
SPEAKER_00And that's not a hundred dollar cigar. Well, we mentioned Padron, the current cigar of the year with their $75 smoke. Padron makes a host of different brands. Uh the core line, the thousand series, uh, relatively inexpensive, certainly inexpensive compared to the Cigar of the Year. You could still get a regular for lack of a better term, or core Padron for about $10 or maybe less, depending on the size. Uh Fuente, which makes very expensive cigars, uh Opus X 25, uh that could be $44 or more, and depending upon where you buy it. Uh you can get a core Fuente for less than $10.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the the Magnum Rosado line, the Rosato Magnum R line. I always fit it's it's such a long name. I always forget the the uh the right name for it. But that is a really good cigar, and it is not a super expensive cigar. Opus X, it gets all the press. The expensive stuff gets all the press. But there's some great Fuentes, great padrones, great Rocky Vatel core line. Look at the emerald. So we're highlight so we're highlighting the conviction right now, which in 2024 was a top 25, but this year it was the it was the emerald. Which is a $10 or $11 cigar and a fantastic smoke. So no, you you don't have to spend $100 to get a great cigar, absolutely not. But yeah, if you want the very, very distinct experience of seeing what a cigar tastes like when it's composed of uh 10-year-old and older tobaccos that still have plenty of uh plenty of character, you're gonna have to pay for it.
SPEAKER_00Looking at the very upper end of the market, what what's the most expensive cigar on our uh on our listicle? What what would how high does it go?
SPEAKER_02I think without having in front of me, it's the it's the Cuban Trinidad fundadores, but it is aged for 10 years. Now it comes in a in a big ST duPont humidor, this this beautiful humidor. So part of that cost, that humidor is factored into the cost. It comes with 55 of them. Uh it was aged aged 10 years last year, so if you had it now, it's 11 years old. But that humidor of 55 cigars uh goes around $60,000. So we're talking more than a thousand dollars a cigar.
SPEAKER_00More than a thousand dollars a cigar. Would you ever pay that much money for a cigar? At uh what you're paying me now, no. We'll work on that, Greg. We'll work on that.
SPEAKER_02But if you decided to give me some crazy bonus, I I'm I'm I might splurge.
SPEAKER_00It's certainly not a cigar for everybody or for every occasion. And these expensive cigars come with uh usually come with uh extra special packaging, maybe for for collectors for special gifts. But if you're you know smoking uh just a if you're a regular everyday smoker, there's there's still plenty of values out there. And that's why we have the the best buys in every issue of the magazine or smart purchases that cost usually less than seven, eight bucks. Uh we have our top 25 every year, which also always includes our best buys of the year, cigars that are 88 points or higher, usually less than $8 per cigar. You know, well, we we we try to find the best cigars in the market and also low, not only uh showcasing the highest scores, but also the best buys. Because some people are looking for uh everyone likes the value. I mean, you know, it doesn't matter how much you make, even even people who fly private jets want to get banged for their bucks sometimes.
SPEAKER_02But you look at top 25, it's not all 40, 50, 60, 70, 100, 100 cigars. And uh it just goes to show why it's so important. And these are cigars that uh that all go through the same blind process. And I know this is this is a subject of another podcast, but it shows why it's so important to smoke blind because uh all information is can be potentially prejudicial. If you know it's a cheap cigar, it may affect how you judge it. And if you know it's a super expensive cigar, the same thing. It's best to not know anything other than you're smoking a cigar.
SPEAKER_00That's the way to do it. Otherwise, you'd be uh you'd be biased. And and sometimes if you know it's an expensive cigar, you might be biased against it. Like, oh, I I can't possibly like that. No, no cigar is worth that. Or you might say, well, it's got to be better because it costs a hundred dollars. Exactly. Yeah, that's why the blind tastings are so vital to what we do and why we do it all the time. You know, that that special, uh, we've been talking about that cigar of the year. There is a chance to smoke that. It's hard for people to get. If you go to our Big Smoke Las Vegas at the seminars this November, uh George Padron will be up there talking about the cigar, and the seminar guests will get the chance to smoke one of these true rarities. Oh, we're handing those out? We are handing for the seminar. Yeah, get your seminar tickets now if they're still available when you hear this podcast. Uh, we are giving those out at the Big Smoke Las Vegas.
SPEAKER_02I hope I can get one.
SPEAKER_00I've I haven't smoked one since uh since when we smoked them for the top twenty-five. If it's hard to for Greg to smoke, it's hard for you to smoke. Cigar prices going up. Uh going up and staying up. Going up and staying up. And that's why we're here to try to point you to the right cigars. Whether it's a $100 cigar or a $5 cigar, we call them like we see them, we smoke them blind. We're trying to give you the buying advice that uh that you require to become a better cigar aficionado. So thanks for joining us today on the Cigar Avisionado podcast. Be sure to check out more episodes on YouTube and on cigaravicionato.com. And always visit us on our website for the most up to date buying advice. I'm David Savona for Greg Matola. Thanks for joining us today.