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 Vitola – a new category introduced for 2015. This is […]
2020 Year in Review: Country of Origin Performance Rankings
William Cooper Feature Story No Comments 2020 Performance Rankings, 2020 Year in Review, Cigar Coop, Feature Story
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 […]
2020 Year in Review: Factory Performance Rankings
William Cooper Feature Story No Comments 2020 Performance Rankings, 2020 Year in Review, Cigar Coop, Feature Story
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 Factory – a category introduced for 2017. This is not meant […]
2020 Year in Review: 2020 Cigar of the Year Countdown Post Game Report
William Cooper Feature Story 1 Comment 2020 Cigar of the Year, 2020 Year in Review, Feature Story
The 2020 Cigar of the Year Countdown is now in the annuls of history. With the Countdown completed, it is time to look at some of the numbers. In this article we look at two items: Feedback that we commonly received on the Countdown over the past month. A breakdown of the cigars on the […]
2020 Year in Review: Top 12 Cigar Industry Stories and Themes of 2020
William Cooper Feature Story No Comments 2020 Year in Review, Feature Story
For the tenth consecutive year, we bring you our selections and analysis for the Top 12 cigar industry news stories and themes for the year. Unlike how we consider cigars for our Cigar of the Year Countdown, these news story selections are based on the actual calendar year for 2020. These stories are individual stories […]
Feature Story: Costa Rica – In My Mind’s Eye, Part 2, A Visit to Tabacos de Costa Rica
William Cooper Feature Story No Comments Costa Rica, Feature Story, MBombay
Over the past few years, cigars produced in Costa Rica have performed extremely well on Cigar Coop as evidenced by the performance ratings over the years. When the opportunity presented itself to visit the Tabacos de Costa Rica factory located in Costa Rica, I was quite intrigued to find out why these cigars were consistently […]
Feature Story: Company Performance on the Countdown for the Decade 2010-19
William Cooper Feature Story 1 Comment Cigar Coop, Cigar Coop 10 Year Anniversary, Cigar of the Decade, Feature Story
This year Cigar Coop celebrated its ten-year anniversary. Late in 2019, we completed the last Cigar Coop Cigar of the Year Countdown for the Decade of 2010 through 2019. One thing that I wanted to look at was how cigar companies performed overall on the Countdowns done during the decade. This was covered by two […]
2020 Year in Review: Performance Ratings for Sponsored Cigars & Samples
William Cooper Feature Story No Comments 2020 Year in Review, Cigar Coop, Feature Story
In 2020, Cigar Coop is unveiling some new performance rating categories and today we are unveiling two: Impacts of Sponsored Cigars on Scoring and Impacts of Samples Used on Scoring. For as long as I have been involved with cigar media, the two things always thrown up to me are “sponsors compromise ratings” and “free […]
Summer of ’20 Spotlight: Altadis USA
William Cooper Feature Story, Summer of 20 No Comments Altadis, Feature Story, Henry Clay, Onyx, Romeo y Julieta, Summer of 20, VegaFina
Altadis was one of the “Big Four” companies that was not planning on attending the 2020 PCA Trade Show. For the most part, Altadis has been gradually rolling out new products throughout 2020 as opposed to putting all of its energy into the summer months. Altadis also seemed quite prepared handling the impacts of the […]
Summer of 20 Spotlight: LH Cigars
William Cooper Feature Story 1 Comment Feature Story, Lavida Habana, LH Cigars, Summer of 20
This past summer LH Cigars put out a couple of cigar releases with a common theme: “Ecuadorian Vuelta Abajo.” It’s a tobacco leaf that owner Nick Syris has considered one of his favorites. Back in 2017, Syris worked with this wrapper on a cigar that he would collaborate with “Island Jim” Robinson on known as […]