Machine Made Cigars, Black Sheep or a Better Deal?

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mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
The premium cigar culture, with it's aisles within humidors and smoking lounges hardly offers machine made cigars. In fact, it is a little hard to find machine made cigars of the Hav'a'tampa, Swisher Sweets, and King Edward ilk, but they are certainly around. I remember King Edward cigars from the late 1950's and 60's, when they were a standard grocery store and drug store brand. I smoked Hav'a'Tampas in college when the student union offered study desks with desk lamps and ashtrays. Kind of a comfortable way to do a little homework or people watching. Any fond memories or bad experiences with machine made cigars?
 

weezell

Lifer
Oct 12, 2011
13,653
49,163
These nasty machine made cigars are the BOMB in my book. Been smoking them since I was a kid...
BJvWLeF.jpg
 

tobefrank

Lifer
Jun 22, 2015
1,367
5,005
Australia
I used to smoke short filler machine-made cigars in the Netherlands. Some of them are pretty good, just not the same standard as hand rolled long filler cigars.

My favourite short filler cigar was/is Justus Van Maurik After Dinner. We used to buy a box of 10 and smoke through it in an evening with 3-4 friends.
 
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Bluemonter

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jun 29, 2021
161
456
Their is one machine made cigar I actually like, Belindas . It’s a Habanos made with short filler. I never seen it for sale for export.
I used to get these, many years ago, from JRCigar. Cellophane wrapped bundles.
Decent smoke from what I can recall.
Check their web site, maybe they still offer them....
 
May 2, 2020
4,664
23,771
Louisiana
Machine made cigars are short leaf filler. They are made to be economical and you get what you pay for. They're basically like a hot dog, you take the stuff left over, grind it up and wrap. It isn't a matter of being a cigar snob, macine made simply aren't the same quality as hand rolled.

Do they still make Travis Club? My grandfather used to smoke those. If memory serves me well, I think those are machine made with long filler. I haven’t seen them in well over a decade though.
 

karam

Lifer
Feb 2, 2019
2,341
9,012
Basel, Switzerland
These nasty machine made cigars are the BOMB in my book. Been smoking them since I was a kid...
BJvWLeF.jpg
100% concur. Last summer I spent quite a bit of money smoking various Cubans (Cohiba, Montecristo, Partagas), as well as some from other countries like Rocky Patel and another brand I can't recall, including some Maduros which really didn't do it for me. They were ok but not special. Frankly they all tasted more or less the same to me, with some preference for the Montecristo Tubos over all the rest.

At the price of 50, even 100g of pipe tobacco, or the price of 5-6 Toscanos to one Cuban stick the balance was really not in their favour. I've smoked hundreds of Toscanos since, and no more "proper" cigars.
Or as a friend of mine put it "It's ok to prefer KFC to ribeye".

Comparisons with pipe tobacco were inevitable, but I won't go there because I am not a cigar smoker, much less an experienced one.
 
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dcon

Lifer
Mar 16, 2019
2,636
21,489
Jacksonville, FL
I keep several Cuban machine mades (Jose L. Piedra, Guantansmara) in my stash. I do not mind the occasional domestic machine made but, the wrappers are not much different than cigarette pulp.

The best machine made cigar that, I have smoked was, the now discontinued Cuban Los Statos Deluxe. I swear, if you smoked one of those blindfolded, you would have had difficulty differentiating it from a puro. It used to be the best cigar bargain in the world.

BTW, Swishers used to be great for lighting fireworks:)
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
If I'm going to smoke a ten dollar cigar (which is hardly the top of the heap), I want to sit down and pay attention. So machine mades might be a sort of "everyday smoke," when you might have to re-light and you don't have an hour.
 
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kcghost

Lifer
May 6, 2011
13,159
21,432
77
Olathe, Kansas
I wouldn't smoke machine made cigars due to the short leaf filler unless I was out of tobacco. Can be smoked while doing yard work.
Nothing wrong with Macanudo. The have long leaf filler and for the most part very bland. The Hyde Park (kind of toro) is pretty good.