Many years ago I was with my mother and we were shopping at a Sears or something, and we saw a guy unloading a set of aftermarket rims for his vehicle to make it look terrible. The brand of rims were called Greed and in green lettering and it said, "when enough, is never enough". I thought that's someone who spent good money on a stupid upgrade for his vehicle, but the phrase was quite catchy. It brought me over to the following topic...
Here’s a topic in question. When does a cigar become, too expensive? If you shop online for “luxury” brand smokes. you will eventually run into Davidoff. One particular smoke is the Davidoff Oro Blanco which has an MSRP of $500.00 each or a box of ten for $5000. This had me thinking about the different sides of this very expensive coin, and I believe there are two viewpoints to this argument.
Point 1. They are for rich people who like to show off.
The fastest knee-jerk reaction to spending hundreds of dollars on one cigar is that it’s no better than a 20 dollar stick and it’s only for people with more dollars than sense. You, like us, are in the 98th percentile of cigar smokers; a box or bundle or two here and there, and always looking for a bargain. Rich people, however, do not share our concern for price, or quality, or value. Think of Gurkha, they have some very expensive cigars, for example the Gurkha HMR or His Majesty’s Reserve. This cigar has an MSRP of $750 each. The claim to making this cigar worth this much is, according to their website, “The HMR blend is comprised of a 15 year Connecticut Maduro wrapper with 12 year old Dominican binder and filler that’s aged with one bottle of the world’s finest cognac.” The cognac this cigar is infused with is Louis XIII, an expensive bottle of cognac from Remy Martin.
Point 2. There is a purpose to this purchase.
What if the company deems these cigars worth this price tag for legitimate reasons? I don't mean Gurkha I've already expressed my opinion on them already, but lets take the Davidoff Oro Blanco. One of the main reasons they believe it is genuinely worth this much, is because of the classic economic equation time = money. The tobacco they use to make the Oro Blanco is, on average, about 12 years old. That means an Oro Blanco purchased today has tobaccos that were harvested in 2010 from a very specific region of the Dominican Republic. The cigars are then only crafted by rollers with over 15 years+ experience, and each cigar is personally inspected by Master blender Eladio Diaz to make sure they are at optimum quality. Then each cigar is aged another year before they are packaged and sent out. Davidoff charges this much because of it's limited availability and demand for this tobacco. If you want to show up, you have to pay up.
All this is well and good, however it's all down to what you believe is worth your money. If you have the funds and think this level of exclusivity is worth it, splurge and be happy. Ultimately no one's opinion really matters except yours, just know that not all hyper-expensive smokes are just to test the depth of your wallet, some actually put time and care into their products and the more exclusive it is, the more it costs.
My opinion is not the only that matters, this is debate that has been going on for ages and we are Cigar Tipsters would like to hear them, maybe. Drop us a line in our comments box or shoot us an email and then we will read it and decide what to do with it! Thanks for reading.