How do you use cigar ratings?

[bobbyg29-cl]

Inspired by Colin’s interview on DWSC last week I thought I would it might be fun to talk about cigar ratings. Here are some of my random thoughts…

I receive catalogs from several retailers (CI, Thompsons’, etc) and as I flip through these I always think: is there any cigar out there that is NOT a “93 rated gem” or “92 rated beauty”? While I would agree that there are a lot of great cigars on the market they can’t all be in the top 15% (with a rating higher than 85)! We need to change the way we rate cigars and the way we think about cigar ratings. I don’t think it would disrespectful at all to give a cigar a 50/100 rating if we all understood that a 50 is a good average cigar. That way we would have a lot more room at the top end to separate cigars. For example, in CA’s top 25 Cigars of 2006 they gave the La Aroma de Cuba a score of 91 and the Padron 1964 Anniversary a score of 92. While the La Aroma is a good cigar there is no way in my opinion that it is only 1 percentage point worse than the Padron, that difference is within the rater’s margin for error! In fact in their entire top 25 list scores only range from 91-94. Any mathematician or scientist would tell you this is a terribly inefficient way to measure things.

I liken this issue to something I am dealing with now in my job as a teacher: grade inflation. As a higher and higher proportion of students in each class are given a grade of ‘A’, grades become less and less meaningful. An ‘A’ grade is meant to indicate performance that is exceptional, much better than average. You can’t have the majority of students in a class being much better than average! An average is an average. In the same way you can’t have the majority of cigars being 90+ rated. A 90 or above (which is like an A grade) should indicate an exceptionally good cigar. If most cigars have a 90+ rating than we need to change our conception of what an average cigar is. They way it is done now it seems as though the “average cigar” that is used for point of comparison is a White Owl!

For these reasons I only use cigar ratings very rarely. In particular when I am thinking about buying a sampler with a cigar I have never tried before I usually go online to make sure that it doesn’t have really low ratings. But other than that I find them totally useless.

[jitzy]

i dont belive in those ratings the only thing i'll look at is this couse it gives alot of different opinions http://www.top25cigar.com/reviewdatabase/

[NullSmurf-cl]

Oh, oh, a high rating! Let me rush to buy a box!

Nope, that ain't gonna happen. However, if I fairly consistent low ratings, I usually believe it.

[GoinFerSmoke]

I use them mainly as a guide to what "could" be out there but also add into it, friends and fellow BOTL'ers input too...

[mrgatorman]

Im not a big advocate of the ratings within CA or many other mags. I would rather ask you guys what you thought of a stick. That being said. I have looked over Colins template and I think its pretty thurough. It not only gives the "new to review" a way to get going and post nice complete reviews, but it also offers someone that hasnt really enjoyed all aspects of a cigar a guide of sorts to allow someone to really take in allaspects of a cigar and really get so much more out of it.

[ilovecl-cl]

I pretty much use them when I get something from the B&M, or a bomb and have not really heard alot about it. I like to have some idea of what to expect before I smoke it.

[mills]

I have to agree that cigar reviews and self promotion are kind of like movies. They are all "fantastic, a must-smoke. You will die immediately if you don't smoke this cigar!" I do like that CI writes about budget cigars in their catalogs as kind of a "they're not great, but hey, for less than a buck each, what's not to like?"

I also agree that in theory an average smoke should be a 50, but I don't think you'll ever see that. I had some cigars from CVM that I would rate as about a 3 (out of 100, not 10), but you'd never see that rating.

However, with the grade inflation, it is possible to have a class full of A students if you are grading them by how well they know the material. It's criterion referencing. There's a lot to say about this, but it's not the right thread.

[Research-Colin-cl]

Hi Guys, I'm glad to see that people are interested in this. I remember when I first started smoking cigars and a shop in Boston used to put the CA ratings on the shelf in front of the boxes. I confess buying cigars based on the ratings. With more experience I figured out that those ratings tell you very little, as everyone on this thread seems to have found out. I think that when you look at the ICRS (my system) you'll find that the point spread is more like what you are talking about. It is 1-10 and a 5 is a good cigar. In two weeks on DWSC we'll be walking through the rating system with some Graycliff sticks so we can all put my system to the test then. The two big things that the ICRS does is that it spreads ratings out much more thoroughly and it asks for a detailed review. Having a more meaningful number is of course a good thing but I think everyone will agree that no matter how precise you get with numbers, people will still individually deviate a little from the ratings. Nevertheless, if used right, the ICRS will make ratings much more clear. What I think might even be more useful is that the ICRS asks for all kinds of detail. If you read someones ICRS review of a cigar you could probably almost taste it, smell it and see it. That alone makes it better than the magazine evaluations. As it stands, you've got half the cigars described as medium bodied and leathery... Surely there's more to say than that.

I haven't looked yet but I think Stogie is going to put up the ICRS form shortly if he hasn't already. I recommend reading through it and thinking about the different headings and flavors as you smoke it. Filling in everything can be a bit intense and time consuming. If you're up to doing the review fully, I think it can be useful for your reviews on this board. Let me know how it goes.

Just to clarify again, I think the ICRS is great as a tool but it can be a little intense so if you just want to relax with a stogie, don't try to fill out the form while you're doing it. However, if you want to write a very informative review for cigarlive, try going through the form and coming up with a rating. I think we'd all be interested in what people think.

Colin

[JSC]

I like to use them to get an idea of what I want, which normally changes when I get to the B&M because I have changed my mind. I do like reading them and comparing tastes when I smoke the cigar.

[SingleMaltScott-cl]

I don't "use" them for anything. I find them mildly entertaining and quite often so full of crap that I can't believe what I am reading. If you listen to the guys on DWSC club, the last two shows in particular, you will gain some amazing insight into the leading magazines 'rating systems' and how 'biased' they can be, depending on the (fill in the blank, country of origin, size, advertising budget of the manufacturer). I just threw in that last one because I think it has some impact.
One thing I was surprised to learn is what low regard CA seems to hold for Dominican Cigars, according to Colin's research. I wonder how Carlito and the folks from Ashton feel about that considering the mounds of money they spend each issue.

[alanf]

Originally Posted by bobbyg29

Inspired by Colin’s interview on DWSC last week I thought I would it might be fun to talk about cigar ratings. Here are some of my random thoughts…

I liken this issue to something I am dealing with now in my job as a teacher: grade inflation. As a higher and higher proportion of students in each class are given a grade of ‘A’, grades become less and less meaningful. An ‘A’ grade is meant to indicate performance that is exceptional, much better than average. You can’t have the majority of students in a class being much better than average! An average is an average. In the same way you can’t have the majority of cigars being 90+ rated. A 90 or above (which is like an A grade) should indicate an exceptionally good cigar. If most cigars have a 90+ rating than we need to change our conception of what an average cigar is. They way it is done now it seems as though the “average cigar” that is used for point of comparison is a White Owl!

For these reasons I only use cigar ratings very rarely. In particular when I am thinking about buying a sampler with a cigar I have never tried before I usually go online to make sure that it doesn’t have really low ratings. But other than that I find them totally useless.

The problem here is we are talking about something purely subjective. Most tests, aren't. You either know the answer or you don't. There is no way to do that with a cigar. My dog rocket may be your golden goose or the reverse. So even if you spread out the ratings, you are still talking about something subjective. Unless someone can devise a purely analytical way to rate a cigar, and I doubt this is possible, ratings will only give you a general guideline. Anyone who looks at the top25cigar database can see how variable some ratings are. Now, let me give the big HOWEVER.

Years ago I used to write PC Computer Game reviews for several magazines. Game reviews are also a subjective thing. I may love a game and someone else may hate it. (My big example here is Outpost by Sierra, if anyone remembers that. I must have been one of the few people that liked it.) However, the PC Gaming world eventually discovered that if you found a reviewer that you mostly agreed with, that person could be a good indicator of whether you would like a new game. I think the same thing works with cigars. If you find a reviewer you tend to agree with and you have the same general tastes, a review by that person can give you a very good indication whether you will like/hate that cigar. Not all the time, but most of the time. But remember one thing, tastes tend to change and can be influenced by mood, what you ate, the social setting (or lack of it), the time of day, etc. What you liked yesterday, you may hate today.

[Mr Peat]

I never listen to ratings myself. They are just way to subjective to even be fair. Now if someone that knows me and my taste in cigars recommends a smoke to me, I'll give it a try. They are usually on the money that I will enjoy it. I've wrote my fair share of reviews which have made others smoke a cigar from their stash and that is pretty rewarding to me but when it comes to ratings like CA, I just laugh them off.

[prophetic_joe]

Cigar ratings just open up possibilities for me. They let me know what is out there and maybe what someone thought of it. It may make me pause in the Humidor the next time I notice that cigar and hell it might even help me decide to try it, but rarely does that happen. Usually if I try a cigar it's something I've heard about from a lot of guys on the boards or something that I just wanted to try on my own.

[Dogwatch Dale-cl]

Very interesting discussion!
I have not given much weight to CA's ratings, for most of the reasons other's have stated. I do find I spend more time going over & using Smoke magazine's ratings for a couple of reasons. First off, they use a larger panel of raters, and several of them are always more like us "regular" guys. They smoke enough to know what's good & bad, but aren't in any way tied up in someone's pocket. Secondly, they print descriptions of each aspect of the cigar from each rater. Those are worth more to me than the final number, however the number has generally proven pretty close to my feel for the cigars. I think that's why Colin's system is so inviting to me. It relies more on decriptive definition, which I believe will lead to more accurate numerical scores.

[sergione-cl]

Looking through any catalog you see that they are always filled with REALLY good cigar...it might be a bad one but they make it sound really good.

I use the scores as a starting point but dont take them to seriously