We use a pretty straight forward scale of 1-100. It’s something that was popularized in the cigar industry by Cigar Aficionado, and it is something I used since I began reviewing cigars in April of 2008. I had started my own website, acigarsmoker.com before taking a job in the cigar industry in December of 2011. Prior to that I reviewed cigars for Smoke magazine, wrote stories for a magazine based in Germany and was a writer for The Cigar Network magazine. In 2014 I moved to New Hampshire to handle online sales for Two Guys Smoke Shop’s e-commerce site, 2GuysCigars.com. I also became a member of the award winning podcast, The Cigar Authority. Most recently, I’ve become a published author of an article on Social Media influencers in Cigar Journal magazine.
We take a lot into consideration when producing our scores. The flavor profile means the most (70%), followed by the aroma (15%) and mouthfeel (10%). We do take into consideration the color and price but collectively these only account for 5% of the total score.
Our Scoring Explained:
1-70 avoid at all costs.
71-75 Won’t avoid, but won’t buy
76-80 Below Average
81-85 Average
86-89 Above Average
90-92 Very Good
93-95 Excellent
96-97 Outstanding
98-99 Exceptional
100 Epic
The Pairing: Often when we drink, we enjoy a cigar. Two of our passions in life are adult beverages and cigars. When we drink our bourbon for the first time it is by itself. We formulate our review, and save the draft. We then sit down a second time at a later date, partake in the first sip again and verify our tasting notes and finalize the score. It is at this point we light up a cigar and offer how a particular smoke changes things up. The cigar has no reflection on the final score, though we do reference how it would change things if it did. Often at times this could raise the rating over 100 because we use a plus/minus 10 on the pairing.