For those interested, My Father The Judge Grand Robusto is the cigar of the year from CA. The top 10:
https://www.cigaraficionado.com/top25/2024
#11-25 coming tomorrow.
How can cigars that have been around for a while and not even be on previous lists be #1 or top 10 this year?
I like My Father a lot...but....
...and Brick House has been around forever, I like it but top 10?
Isn't it the same as wine? You get an exceptional batch of the source material, perhaps owing to climatic conditions or refinement of procedures?
In that case, add a label with the vintage. Nope, I call bullshit.
Wine, like liquor, has a long history of government regulation worldwide that impacts its labelling. Tobacco products have never really had that. It went from zero regulation to regulatory hostility.
I'm not defending it, but this is not remotely new for CA. Especially for Cuban cigars, CA has always identified good "vintages" in their ratings database. I don't know if they've done that for non-Cubans or if this is new (I don't pay much attention to CA). But we're not really surprised, are we?
NO! Stop defending CA!!! Their list is strickly made up of those that pay to play.
I'm just kidding, Bret. I'm not really that worked up about this. I'm not at all surprised, yet every year, I think it'll be different.