A year’s worth of ratings can provide enormous insight regarding the state of the premium cigar industry, but that much information can be difficult to recall all at once, which is why we’ve compiled this detailed analysis of 2021. It’s our annual, data-driven examination of 12 months’ worth of blind tastings, putting the spotlight on the countries that produced the highest-scoring cigars and the brands that consistently rose to the top of our 100-point system. Not to ignore your wallet, this report also serves as a price guide showing which countries delivered the best (and worst) bang for your buck.
All the scores compiled here are a result of our blind-tasting process. During evaluation, our panel of reviewers do not know the identity of the cigars, as the original bands are removed and replaced with a numbered label. Blind-tasting is the only true way to remove bias—conscious or not—and arrive at the most objective conclusions about any given cigar, and it’s the way we’ve rated cigars since 1992. Between the six issues of the magazine and the 24 issues of Cigar Insider, our twice-monthly newsletter, we rated 628 handmade cigars in 2021, most of which came from the four major cigar producing countries of the world: Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Cuba. Forty-three percent of the cigars from that grand total (268 cigars) scored 90 points or higher. This is an extraordinary show of consistency, especially considering the continuing logistical challenges of the pandemic.
This story is from the March - April 2022 edition of Cigar Aficionado.
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This story is from the March - April 2022 edition of Cigar Aficionado.
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A High Steaks Game - Gallaghers restaurant, New York's oasis for carnivores, has thrived for 96 years, playing host to a colorful crowd of sports heroes, show people and classic characters
Dean Poll, the owner of Gallaghers Steakhouse on Manhattan's West 52nd Street, has to think both like a restaurateur and the curator of a museum with an entire wing of art. Only, instead of tending to European oil paintings, Poll oversees images of Old New York. I work here every day. I am thinking about the food and staff, Poll says, sitting in a corner that could be called baseball cove. Over his right shoulder are stills of Lou Gehrig and the Yankees' Murderers' Row manager Miller Huggins. Jack Dempsey is clowning, grappling with a bat also held by Babe Ruth. "To Helen Gallagher, sincerely Babe Ruth," the inscription reads. Poll gestures toward signed caricatures of Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. "So I lose, to a certain extent, the importance of what's on the walls. But the photos are the decor. They lend some hominess to the place. It's the heart and soul of this restaurant. It's not cheap decoration. The only thing missing is the cigar smoke", adds Poll, who fancies a Partagás 8-9-8 It's what this restaurant is for 96 years.
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"Two kind of people in this world," Ray Liotta's character says in the 1997 movie Cop Land. Pinball people and video game people." If you're 50 or older, you might fall into the former group of gamers who are enthralled by the ringing bells, snapping flippers and the captivating combination of mechanics and electronics that make pinball irresistible. While it's the ultimate Sisyphean game-the eternal (and doomed) effort to keep an 80-gram, carbon-steel ball from going down the drainfor those who love it, it couldn't be more fun.
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