Variety Is the Spice Of Life: The JR Premium Cigar Sampler Blog!
It happens all of the time—a smoker buys a box of premium cigars because a friend recommended them, or because he read a review, listened to a salesperson, or, in the worst-case scenario, liked the picture of the Corona-smoking elephant on the box. Beginners and seasoned herfers alike agree that it takes time to find your perfect brand. Early in my career, when I donned the now-defunct green JR apron and hustled stogies all day, many of our regular customers, several of whom had been smoking since the Garfield administration, still couldn’t find a stinkin’ cigar that they liked!
Sadly, sometimes a cigar that you enjoyed for years suddenly becomes unsmokable due to various reasons (perhaps your medication has made your go-to stogie taste like olive loaf?). Every so often, the quality of a once-reliable stick goes down the crapper. Or, after many years of romancing Ol’ Reliable, you simply just got sick of it. These, my frustrated friends, are good reasons to look into ordering a premium-cigar sampler pack to jump-start your taste buds.
Cigar samplers are sold in packs of various sizes and, most of the time, these packs are sorted by type, country of origin, flavor, or wrapper color, and offered in numerous ways, including gift sets, wood boxes, plastic zipper bags, and, on rare occasions, wooden travel humidors. If a manufacturer is heavily promoting a product, you’ll probably also get some kind of free swag, such as an ashtray, cutter, lighter, and/or other stuff that you really don’t need, but are probably thrilled to get; heck, free is always good! Be forewarned though: if you need a new toaster oven or pair of pajamas, you’ll want to look elsewhere.
If you are buying cigars for a friend, or you want to upgrade Uncle Benny, whose cheap stinkers smell like the Elephant Pavilion at the Bronx Zoo on a hot day, you may want to take some time to find out the general type of cigar that the recipient likes. Once you target someone’s strength preference, you’ll find that the following very popular JR samplers are excellent examples of gift presentation. (What? Did you think I was going to write a whole blog without plugging our stuff? Too bad, I got bills to pay!)
Altadis 10-Cigar Dominican Sampler (Mild to Medium Assortment)
https://www.jrcigars.com/item/cigar-samplers/altadis-10-cigar-dominican-sampler/aldjr10
Medium Money-Saver Sampler (Medium Bodied Assortment)
https://www.jrcigars.com/item/cigar-samplers/medium-money-saver-sampler/mmmsmp
Octet of Nica-Goodness (Full Bodied Assortment)
https://www.jrcigars.com/item/cigar-samplers/octet-of-nica-goodness-sampler/ongsmp
Let us say, for example, that not one living soul has a clue what Murray the barber smokes, and thus, the above list is unhelpful. Then just take a guess and get him a well-known, top-quality sampler featuring premium cigars that every smoker has heard of like H.Upmann, Macanudo, Montecristo, etc. However, you may want to push forward and keep up the detective work; maybe some friend or family member has overheard Uncle Benny praising a cigar brand other than the dog-rockets he buys at the same gas station where he gets his sushi! It’s not worth the effort, you say? Then just stop reading this blog, and get the son of a bitch an ugly tie!
I’m sorry, but I have no tolerance for laziness and disdain from shoppers buying cigars as presents. You see, we aficionados love cigars as much as life itself; like the tasting of a fine wine, smoking a cigar is an occasion unto itself. We inspect the cigar with all of our senses. How does it feel? How does it smell? How does it taste? Starting from one little seed, the well-aged cigar that sits in our collective mouth has made a journey that has taken it halfway around the world…and, still, many regard it as simply a smelly bad habit? Bastards.
On the retail side of the biz, yours truly witnessed thousands of spouses, family members, and friends stumble into our store, often holding their noses, (yes, I’ve seen this many times) and buy the first inexpensive smoke they see without any thoughts of pleasing the poor cigar lover on the receiving end. Sadly, this is just a nuisance purchase to them. Meanwhile we cigar smokers actually take the time to buy the folks on our lists something special without passing judgment. And if you’ve ever tried to negotiate a fragrance department during the holiday season without collapsing from the pungently complex aromas of a French whorehouse, you will know what I’m talking about. (Sorry for the rant, for the billionth time, I digress!)
Once a person has gone through one or more premium sampler packs, he or she will have a better idea of which cigars to purchase in the future. These packs make ideal Christmas, Chanukah, birthday, Kwanzaa, Passover, and “Congratulations on being discharged from the mental hospital!” gifts, appreciated by novice, experienced, and psychologically unstable smokers alike.
Many times, finding that perfect cigar never completely happens. And, after all, who says you have to stick with one brand? Does anyone eat pickled herring every single night for dinner? (Okay, maybe that was a bad example, but you know what I mean.) The discovery of new brands, sizes, shapes, and wrapper colors is what makes this wonderful hobby so enjoyable! Here at good old JR Cigar, we always have tons of diverse samplers available. And, other than constantly buying single after single, is there a better, more fun, and more affordable way to discover the fascinating world of premium handmade cigars? You can bet your ash there ain’t!
So “sample up” today and have some fun!
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