My Cuban Cigar Mule

I was fortunate enough to have a friend who is also into cigars and vacations in warm places such as the Bahamas. This year he and his wife decided that they would try Cuba, even though they had heard that Cuban 5 star equaled a 4 star or less elsewhere and that the food in the majority of places was awful. Anyway, he asked me to prepare a list of 50 cigars that I would like him to pick me up.

He had never been to Cuba and nor have I, so neither of us had any idea what to expect when it came to cigar shopping there. With that said I put together a list of 10 different cigars, asking or thinking he could get me 5 of each. I found a Cuban Cigar price list on the web and it seemed to suggest that my list would cost about $500 cdn in Cuba. The retail cost for the same list here in British Columbia where I live would have been approximately $1750 plus HST of 12%. Here is the list…

Brand	Cigar	Size	Count	Cdn Price Per	Cdn Total
Montecristo	Open Eagle	5 7/8" X 54	5	33.75	168.75
Montecristo	Open Master	4 7/8" X 50	5	27.50	137.50
Partagas	Serie P No 2	6" X 52	5	29.50	147.50
Cohiba	Maduro 5 Series - Genios	5 1/2" X 52	5	52.75	263.75
Cohiba	Behike BHK 56	6 1/2" X 56	5	81.28	406.40
Hoyo De Monterrey	Le Hoyo du Député	4 3/8" X 38	5	19.05	95.25
Hoyo De Monterrey	Epicure Especial	5 1/2" X 50	5	27.25	136.25
Vegas Robina	Famosos	5" X 48	5	24.00	120.00
Romeo Y Julieta	Churchill	7" X 47	5	33.35	166.75
Fonseca	No. 1	6 3/8" X 44	5	21.70	108.50
Total			50		1,750.65

Now for what really happened.

My friend went to two different government stores in Cuba and found that they both had long lines of tourists waiting to buy cigars and that the selection at the stores was very limited.  He couldn’t find most of the cigars on my list. He tried but it wasn’t happening. Oh well, who knew, we didn’t.  He did however still bring me back 50 cigars and opening those boxes was a lot of fun, knowing that the day before they were in Cuba and that in minutes they were going to be in my humidor starting the slow process of aging.  I can’t wait to smoke some of these cigars. So here is the list of cigars that I actually received…

Brand	Cigar	Size	Count	Cdn Price Per	Cdn Total
Montecristo	Open Master	4 7/8" X 50	6	27.50	165.00
Partagas	Serie P No 2	6" X 52	6	29.50	177.00
Cohiba	Maduro 5 Series - Genios	5 1/2" X 52	10	52.75	527.50
Hoyo De Monterrey	Epicure Especial	5 1/2" X 50	3	27.25	81.75
Romeo Y Julieta	Churchill	7" X 47	13	33.35	433.55
Montecristo	No. 2	6 1/8" X 52	12	21.70	260.40
Total			50		1,645.20

I don’t have the actual Cuban unit price.  The total cost was $520 cdn, so a savings of $1,127 without including the HST of 12% which is freaking awesome.

Now for the cigar porn. Here they are just unpacked.
 

And here they are packed into my humidor along with the other 50 I have collected since Christmas.
 

It has been five days since I received the cigars, and I have my humidor up to 67% humidity and a temperature of 71 degrees.  When I first put the cigars in the humidor the humidity plummeted to 55% from 70% and the temperature soared to 76 degrees. I have had to maintain the humidifiers everyday, in fact I have had to add and additional gel pack.  I think it will take another week or so to get everything back to normal.

Now I have to decide which one to try first. Hmmm…