Bugged Out

Don’t be afraid to freeze your imports. It may just save your precious stock.

Have you recently received a beautiful box of Cubans from a friend, or ordered them from a favorite resource overseas? If you’re anything like me, there are few things more exciting than getting a new box of Cubans. I just got a new box of Romeo Y Julieta Short Churchills. They were gorgeous, displaying all the signs of good things to come: consistent oily wrappers, consistent color and sweet, toasty aroma. So, you probably think I lit one up the moment I got home?

Wrong. In fact, they went right into the freezer! I’ve got too many top-quality aged cigars in my humidor to let the annoying cigar beetle to tear them up.

The beetles hatch and begin to eat away at your cigars, leaving pin-size holes in your most beautiful sticks. It’s a bad day when you open your humidor to find your smokes looking like someone shot them with birdshot. You’ll even find small bits of chewed up tobacco leaf. And, to add insult to injury, you can even spot these suckers dancing around in your box!

Despite treatments in Havana to combat this pest, many of the best Cuban cigars still come packed with the dreaded cigar beetle. The only remedy is to freeze your Cubans for 48 hours, then pop them in the fridge for another 24 hours to allow them to gradually thaw. Do that and the pesky critters are gone. It works, and it doesn’t destroy your high-quality smokes.

But you can’t light them up right away. It’s important that you remain patient and allow the recently frozen cigars to regain their composure in your humidor for at least two weeks (even longer if you can do it). In fact, it’s best to wait until the beautiful oily coat reappears on the wrapper leaf. It will definitely come back, so long as your humidor maintains a steady 70% humidity level. When it does, invite a friend over and light up the way Habanos were meant to be enjoyed… bug free!

John von Brachel

3/26/08

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