How do you handle your mail-order cigars?

[tonycasas]

This is something that has been discussed quite a bit, but I am curious what you all do with your cigars once you receive them via mail order.

First, I live in a VERY rough climate for cigars. I’m in a desert. The summers average above 100 degrees and we get a total of 11 inches of average rainfall per year. That’s right. It’s dry as hell here. That being said, it’s not the idea place for cigar smokers who aren’t at least a little **bleep** about how they treat and store cigars.

What I have noticed is that when cigars get delivered, especially in the summer months, the excess of heat causes a lot of the moisture to be released from the cigars. This is no problem for those that come packaged with Boveda packs or any other two-way humidification system. But other times, they come a bit moist. In this case I’ll usually dry box them for a day before dumping them into my humidor. For the record I keep the collophane on if the cigar has it, but I’m not too much of a stickler about it.

Now comes the part I’m interested in. How long do you all normally wait to smoke them after receiving mail order cigars? Not only am I impatient, but I also feel that a consumer should be able to smoke a cigar pretty quickly after receiving them. This pertains mainly to the humidification issues and not so much on aging a cigar for flavor. That’s a whole other box of worms that I’ll go into another time. I normally try to keep them in my humidor for at least a week before lighting up. This is a bit of a standard for me that I try to follow, but sometimes haste gets the best of me. I have noticed that as long as I do the dry boxing during the summer that the cigars perform pretty well even up to a day or two after receiving them.

I think I am mostly curious to see how you all handle this. I suspect that different demographics may change quite a bit of the process for each of you. Is anyone else here living in the dry desert? How do you cope with humidity?

[FTB_Anthony]

If it comes pre-packed with a boveda and the cigars aren't cracking on a pinch test, then I may not be able to restrain myself and dive right in, however if they have been shipping for a while or come without a humi-pack, then I like to put them in a humidor for a bit to reacclimate before trying to smoke one. Coming from where you are at Tony, or where I used to live in the SW, almost anything coming in had to rest for a bit due to the dry climate.

[MatthewFolger]

If I get an order mailed, it's usually in pretty good shape as is, but I tend to like my cigars in about 65% humidity, so I put them in my humidor for at least 2 weeks to acclimate to that.  However, not above saying that if it's a cigar I am really looking forward to, it may be mere hours between package opening and lighting it up.  Don't judge me! 

[Sandi_518]

I store my mail-order cigars in Tupperware for at least 2 weeks so they can rest or settle.  Depending on when I plan to smoke, I may not smoke these cigars immediately (after the 2 weeks), and the cigars will continue to rest until I decide to smoke them.

[RegC]

For me it depends on where I'm ordering from and distance/# of travel days. Also if they include boveda packs or not, some I'll smoke within a day or two others I'll let rest in the humidor a week or so. Can't help you with the desert question though 🙂