CigarMadness2106 Entries

A wholehearted thanks to all of those cigar producers who chose to enter our contest.  While we had hoped to get 64 entries, like the basketball, we were not that lucky.  Many expressed interest, but far fewer actually entered.  To be fair, the entry process was challenging.  To enter a cigar producer merely had to fill out  a form with the details of the cigar being entered.  There was no cost for entry.  Each cigar producer had to provide 22 cigars for every entry.  This allowed for each cigar to be smoked by the judges during every surviving round.  During early October and November our staff, particularly reviewer Doug Pope spent hours on the phone cajoling producers to enter.  The final result was slightly over 30 entries.  Those entries are listed below.

The best thing I can say about this entire experience is that it was a pleasure to smoke so many good cigars.  At the outset I had no idea how we were going to chose a winner.  But, each cigar was judged independently by our 4 intrepid reviewers and score on a 10 point scale in each of the following categories:

• Aroma
• Ash
• Construction
• Appearance
• Feel
• Taste
• Burn
• Smoke Volume
• Smoke Time
• Complexity
• Other

The scores were tallied and the highest 16 moved on to the sweet 16 whose cigars are listed below: