Here is the proposal for a blind tasting:

Flashman and I have come up with this little event. It will be held in Montreal, Quebec, on a weekend in July. The options are the 12th-13th, 19th-20th or 26th-27th, so let us know which weekend would be the best for those interested.

There will be 8 cigars tasted; a mixture of CCs and NCs. The goal of this is to have people rate the cigars and try to guess their origin and brand, and most importantly for everyone to have fun.

Finally there would have to be a $130 entry fee, which would solely go towards the purchase of the 8 cigars that will be rated. I would be in charge of acquiring the cigars, removing the bands, and assigning numbered bands to the cigars.

Let me know if you are interested, and/or have any suggestions. Hope to see you there.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Dusko007,

Have we met?

quote:

Originally posted by QM:
Have we met?

Almost, Dusko came to MTL the week before Ozz did... He met with sal and me...

Also, if this works (if we have enough people), I may be able to provide shelter for one night to one person coming in from the US (or elsewhere in Canada) -- if said person in not allergic to cats or French speaking small children...

quote:

Originally posted by flashman:
if said person in not allergic to cats or French speaking small children...

haha, i love the french speaking small children comment....

i like the sound of that... I'm in..

are we talking about 4-5 hours per evening ?? or the entire days

quote:

Originally posted by salibas007:
i like the sound of that... I'm in..

are we talking about 4-5 hours per evening ?? or the entire days

Not sure yet... What do you think would be the best option?

i think we can cover some ground in 3 to 4 hours per night.. it should give us time to smoke up to 3 cigars each...

2 days, 3 cigars each. for a total of 6 cigars..

I don't think we should be smoking more than 3 cigars per person in one sitting.. and even at 3, we are pushing it.. I know from myself.. when "chain" smoking.. 3 is my limit.. because that last one never tastes the way it's supposed to...

I'd even suggest we cut it down to 2 cigars.. but that might make it logistically impossible.. as we'll need a couple of sessions to go through 8 cigars

Wow you guys make me wish I live closer to the border!! Sounds like fun!!

I hear you on that. I would be interested on trying to set up something like this in Chicago. Not sure how far you guys are, but sounds like a lot of fun.

Matt

I agree with Sal, 6 might be a better idea. I think we still need about 5 hours per night though.

how about doing this on the weekend and then doing like 4 per day, 2 in the early afternoon, then 2 after dinner....and then repeat the next day....that away you guys get the 8 in that you want and you aren't chain smoking and you have food in between groups of cigars to break up the old flavors left on your palate...its just a suggestion because i don't have any idea as to when or how long you guys plan on being together...

Just to add a suggestion. You guys should print out faces of Gordon Mott, David Savona, Greg Mottola, James Suckling, and Marvin Shanken and wear those while smoking. The question is, who's going to adopt Suckling's hair style?

quote:

I would be interested on trying to set up something like this in Chicago.

If you do, I would participate.

quote:

Originally posted by Boknows:
Just to add a suggestion. You guys should print out faces of Gordon Mott, David Savona, Greg Mottola, James Suckling, and Marvin Shanken and wear those while smoking. The question is, who's going to adopt Suckling's hair style?

It won't be Sal nor me, we're of the hairless bunch.

But we could adorn the official Fidel Castro look : outdated Adidas track suits.

quote:

Originally posted by bburnham17:

quote:

I would be interested on trying to set up something like this in Chicago.

If you do, I would participate.

In fact, we could do it in parallel in several cities. It wouldn't be a problem to have all the same cigars if each city's "organiser" synchonises with Dusko...

quote:

Originally posted by Boknows:
Just to add a suggestion. You guys should print out faces of Gordon Mott, David Savona, Greg Mottola, James Suckling, and Marvin Shanken and wear those while smoking. The question is, who's going to adopt Suckling's hair style?

LOL
I can imagine what that would be like after 4-5 hours of smoking and drinking.

Sounds like a lot of fun. Wish I could be there.

My friends and I did a similar thing a few years ago. Over the course of a day, we did 4 sticks. 2 NC and 2 cc. For the NC, we used a VSG and a PAM. For the CC we used a Cohiba Robusto and Epi2.

To make it fair, a non-participant unbanded them and clipped them all the quite generously so that at least the PAM was not as easily recognizable.

The pre-light recognition factor is hard to control because if your participants are experienced, there is a good chance they will be able to spot which are which just by eye and easily by smell. We tried blind folds at first, but quickly realized after 5 minutes that it was silly and not really practical for such a long period of time.

Well I have to say, there is no contest. Out of 8 guys who did this, I would say 5 or 6 out of 8 consistently tossed the NC and did not care to smoke more than 1/4 into it. Anyone with a palate a bit more sensitive than a goat should be able to easily tell the difference between a NC and CC in a few puffs.

After you realize that recognition is not even an issue, you are back to squabbling over whether there is a psychological factor involved.

It might help to compensate for the recognition factor if the cigars are all of the same vitola and similar wrappers.

Padrons are pretty easy to recognize, so they wouldn't be good candidates...

Thoughts?

Oh - and I'd be willing to help coordinate something in Atlanta...

Perhaps, then, we should score them first -- without trying to determine origin -- and then concentrate on origin. Or even not consider origin at all and score them on their own merit... Hm. I wonder...

And cool : we might already have Montreal, Chicago and Atlanta aboard !