The Performance Rankings were introduced in 2012 as a statistical analysis based on the average numerical score of all cigars assessed on Cigar Coop. It is meant to serve as a barometer in terms of how the cigars were assessed.
Today we slice this data by Country of Origin – a category introduced for 2015. This is not meant to be an award, but a look at how scoring went, and what can we learn from it.
The big change is that the calendar year (January 1, 2019, through December 31, 2019) was used as opposed to the old Cigar Coop Year formula (Post Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving). For the 2019 year, a total of 174 (down from 199 in 2017) cigars were considered for this analysis. The average score for the entire set of 173 cigars was 89.99. (Statistically, this was down 0.75 points from 2018 when the average was 90.74)
We used the following criteria to implement this:
- The cigar must have its score published during the 2019 Calendar Year: January 1, 2019, through December 31, 2019.
- All cigars scored were eligible regardless of release date. The goal here is to see how the factory performed during the Cigar Coop Cigar Year.
- The majority of the cigars smoked are from the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Nicaragua. As a result, these three countries have a significantly larger sample set than other cigar producing countries. Therefore, the sampling data has been divided into two groups – small and large. A large sampling group had 17 or more cigars assessed.
Large Sampling Data > =17 Cigars
| Rank |
Country |
Avg Score # of Cigars (2019) |
Avg Score # of Cigars (2018) |
Avg Score # of Cigars (2017) |
Avg Score # of Cigars (2016) |
Difference (2019 vs. 2018 |
| 1 | Dominican Republic | 90.19 (53) | 90.59 (66) | 90.85 (70) | 91.44 (83) | -0.40 |
| 2 | Nicaragua | 89.96 (91) | 90.97 (90) | 91.07 (83) | 90.62 (115) | -1.01 |
| 3 | Honduras | 90 (17) | 90.23 (22) | 90.23 (22) | 90.30 (21) | -0.23 |
Small Sampling Data <17 Cigars
| Rank |
Country |
Avg Score # of Cigars (2019) |
Avg Score # of Cigars (2018) |
Avg Score # of Cigars (2017) |
Avg Score # of Cigars (2016) |
Difference (2019 vs. 2018 ) |
| 1 | Costa Rica | 91.33 (3) | 91.50 (8) | 91.75 (8) | 91.55 (11) | -0.17 |
| 2 | Mexico | 91 (1) | 90.00 (1) | 91 (1) | +1.00 | |
| 3 | United States | 89.66 (3) | 91.83 (6) | 88.75 (3) | 91.25 (8) | -2.17 |
| 3 | Cuba | 89.33 (3) | n/a | |||
| 3 | Italy | 85.00 (1) | -n/a | |||
| 3 | n/a | 85.00 (1) | -n/a |
Assessing the Results
- Similar to 2018, there was a decrease in the sample set for 2019 as we increased our Feature Story and IPCPR coverage, thus reducing days we reviewed.
- The Dominican Republic and Nicaragua continue to be the two dominant countries in terms of cigars reviewed. This is very much reflective of what is coming into the U.S. market.
- After Nicaragua outperformed the Dominican Republic for the past two years, the Dominican Republic moved back ahead for 2019.
- Nicaragua also had one of the biggest drops in average score – by nearly a full point. While stricter scoring standards were implemented in 2019, the standards were applied equally to all reviews, so this infers there was a decline.
- After being statistically flat over the past three years, Honduras dropped 0.23 points.
- This is the first year we implemented Cuban reviews. More will follow in 2020.
- Cigars produced in the United States, Costa Rica, Mexico, Cuba, and Italy were reviewed in 2019, but ultimately each of these countries had too small a set of data, but are included for reference purposes.
- For those wondering how the 2019 Countdown compares with the averages: 1) Nicaragua (16 cigars), Dominican Republic (8 Cigars), Honduras (3 Cigars), Mexico (1 Cigar), Costa Rica (1 Cigar), and the United States (1 Cigar). While Dominican Cigars outperformed Nicaragua in terms of the performance of cigars reviewed, Nicaragua still landed the most spots on the Countdown.
