Blog & Cigar News | Mardo Cigars

What's going on everybody? This is Gerard, with Mardo Cigars and another episode of Monday's with Mardos. We are going to talk about starting your collection of cigars and how to properly store them so you can age these cigars. But before we get going, I need you to click on that subscribe button, click on the bell to be notified for every single week of new episodes.

In some cases when we get cigars that are recently made, there are still going to be some lingering hints of ammonia and these do need some storage and some aging for that aging process to take place. So, we're going to go into three easy steps, how to properly condition these cigars for the prime aging to smoke them. So, let's get right into it.

Step 1

Okay, so step one, we're going to talk about seasoning techniques and also how to check a seal in a humidor. We do have a previous YouTube video of how to season a humidor. But still today I am a firm believer that every humidor is going to be case-by-case situation depending on the size, how small it is, how big it is, there's some odd shape triangle looking humidors, that will be seasoned differently because they have compartments and drawers. So the bigger the humidor, how much more time does it need?

Also, Boveda has made it very simple for us consumers with the 85% humid packs that are basically created to season humidors. Check out their YouTube channel as well and they have many, many ways of breaking it down and making it simple for us on how to season a humidor. Also, checking a seal on a humidor. I am a firm believer that you get what you pay for, type of thing, because a humidor that's gigantic and it costs only $200 and it's beautiful, I would question that. A lot of times a lot of these humidors are not true solid wood. They're very porous, the interior of the humidor is Spanish Cedar lined with a little veneer that's like maybe less than an eighth of an inch thick, so it's very thin.

I would rather have true Spanish Cedar inserts in the humidors and when I look for that, we're going to be talking, upwards of like five, $600 up to $3,000 for a very nice humidor. Vigilant is a very nice company that makes cabinet style humidors. We got Prometheus, Diamond Crown, Elie Bleu. So, a lot of very, very nice humidors and these... keep in mind guys, I know they cost a lot of money, but it's a piece of furniture that you want it to last 20, 30 years within your lifetime and you can even pass it on. And that's going to make a big, big difference in your seal of your humidor throughout the life of it.

Another little technique, I always throw a lit flashlight inside the humidor, close the lid, go in a dark room, see if there's any shining through the lid, especially back of the hinges. If they're not very good hinges, that's going to happen. So stay away from the less expensive humidors that's going to help your seasoning and your seal big time. So we'll get into step two next.

Step 2

Okay, so step two. We're going to talk about should I keep the cellophane on the cigar and there's many mixed messages here. I have aged cigars many times with the cellophanes off and people tell me, "Well you're going to get too much Cedar hints on this cigar", and that's not true because I did it in an acrylic humidor. So there was no real sense of Cedar on my cigar, other than I did use very small strips of Cedar that come in boxes of cigars that we buy. You know, whenever they want to divide the layers in a box, they use that Cedar, well I'll cut just little tiny pieces so I can separate the cigars between each other so they don't touch each other. And I've done that and the reason why I did that is not on purpose and not to be irritating is because there were Cuban cigars and Cuban cigars don't have cellophane on them.

So when it comes to aging Cuban cigars, if you want to keep them in the box, that's a very good idea. I don't like to do that is because I don't have visual on the bottom layer of my box, making sure that there are no beetles. So that's very, very big. Especially have very expensive cigars. Like I have a couple of the Majestuosos those are very, very expensive sticks, anywhere from $500 to $700 a stick. So I like to have a visual on my Majestuosos Behike these don't come with cellophane. Cigars that do come with cellophane, I like to keep them in there. Number one, it does keep the Cedar sent out when I do have them in a Cedar lined humidor. And another thing is that it doesn't touch the other cigar. It does protect the cigar as well, and the cellophane does turn a color that is a huge indicator that the cigar has been aging for a very long time. So it goes from clear cellophane to a very dark, dark tint color, which is just putting a smile on my face knowing it's very aged so that's really cool. That's step two. So we're going to go right into step three and wrap it up.

Step 3

All right, so step three or question three that we get asked is how long should you age cigars for? There are some cigars that should not be aged more than three months because it's not going to make a difference. This cigar will have only one strand of the Ligero. A lot of it is very seco. It's a very inexpensive cigar, very mild, very diluted. The only reason why you'd even age it, maybe two or three months, is just to get rid of the ammonia and it's still lingering in there so it's just a little bit softer on the palate.

In my opinion, I don't think cigars should be aged really more than three years. I do still want the oils in this cigar, also in the tobacco. I've seen cigars aged seven years, I've seen cigars aged for three years, that same cigar. I have had the luxury of tasting cigars, a lot of Opus X, I don't think get any better. I smoked a seven year one, about a month ago, and I didn't really see any difference if I were to add a cigar that was aged two years.

Now, one thing I wish I had done is, once I started aging cigars, I never had really kept a log book and I wish I had because I would love to see something published from someone that actually has a logbook and broken down by brand and by size and how long they aged it and was it worth it or not. It's going to come to your experience. Some cigars, like I said, are not worth aging more than three months, but to me I think aging a cigar three, four, five years, at the most, is good enough because if you're going to age it very a long time, you may... You are going to lose some of the oils on the wrapper and the filler, the binder, it's going to happen. I don't care how well humidified the area is.

Air is the biggest enemy in anything that we have. It breaks down everything, even running shoes. When you go... I used to be an avid runner. They say if it has a shelf life more than six months, it has some integrity loss because it breaks down. So with that being said, let me know in the comments what you guys think about seasoning your humidor, talking about aging cigars and also talking about how to properly store them when you want to age them. Other than that, I'll see you in the comments, and my name is Gerard. Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel like us on Facebook and follow our Instagram. Peace out.