I’ve been receiving a lot of e-mails asking for an index that would allow visitors to easily search through reviews and, more importantly, sort the reviews by rating and by name. It has been on the to-do list for a while and I finally managed to dedicate some time to build one. The new index includes the cigar name, the origin, the reviewer’s name, the approximate cost of the cigar and the rating. I think it’s pretty slick. Please report any bugs & issues you might find and enjoy!
Last year, we started posting short reviews of budget smokes, those that we keep for yard works and other not-so-special occasions. It turned out to be quite a good idea as we received a lot of encouraging comments and e-mails. Of course, we are going to continue the series in 2010. Here is the list of cheap cigars that we reviewed in 2009:
In the “Blog Highlights” series, we are taking a look back at the best cigar reviews & articles published on CigarInspector.com in 2009. Enjoy.
In January, after the successful redesign of the blog, there have been some very nice reviews. One of them concerns the Partagas Shorts (read the review), a great Cuban petit corona, that even managed to make it in the list of best Cuban smokes of 2009.
Soon after that, Nathaniel reviewed two cigars from H. J. Bailey, Connecticut & Maduro (read the review), manufactured at the Camacho factory in Honduras.
We also had a few discussions that generated a fair number of interesting comments. One of them concerns our preferences when it comes to cigars. Another one tackles the implicit etiquette rule following which one has to remove the band while smoking a cigar.
The whole CigarInspector.com team wishes you a Merry Christmas and a warm holiday. Peace!
We are always willing to publish quality cigar reviews here at CigarInspector.com. A few days ago, I received an e-mail from a cigar aficionado known as The Cap’n. He is a seasoned reviewer, writing for several cigar manufacturers and newsletters. He gladly allowed me to publish some of his reviews (all of the cigar – and beer – reviews can be found on his personal blog). As soon as I saw the reviews, I didn’t think twice – I’m pretty sure you will enjoy them.
Happy reading!
As soon as I realized that most of our cigar reviews concern smokes that cost above $8 (and the survey results seem to confirm that need for budget smoke reviews), I started thinking about a way to add more reviews for cheaper, under $5 cigars. The difficulty is that very often cigars in this price range do not provide a very rich flavor profile and doing a full review may seem pretty useless.
This is why the concept behind the “Cheap Smokes” series is to describe the cigar in just a couple of paragraphs (a picture of the stick is always welcome!). Just as well, we are not going to rate the appearance, construction and flavor, giving an overall “thumbs up!” or “thumbs down!” verdict instead. Hopefully we will be able to make it a weekly item.
If you are interested in telling us about your favorite budget smokes, we will be happy to publish your reviews. Get in touch with us to get started.
Just letting you know that a few days ago we set up a mobile version of CigarInspector.com specially designed for iPhone / iPod touch. I would like to thank @mattmaronna and @xjv for helping me test it.
If you encounter any bugs, please report them via the contact form. Enjoy!
In order to get closer to our readers and have more points of contact, we recently created our own page on Facebook. Becoming a fan will let you easily follow our updates, participate in discussions or post your cigar pics. We are also planning to run contests exclusive to our Facebook fans…
