Please readers do yourselves a big favor: never buy Cuban cigars anywhere but at an official LCDH government store or you will be buying FAKE CUBAN CIGARS. Yes you can even buy fakes in Cuba, cigars made from second rate tobacco grown in someone's backyard, mixed with who knows what. Any cigars you buy on a back street from a guy with no shirt are fakes! Anyone who says he has a friend who gets them from someone in the factory who smuggles them out is selling you fakes; that story is as old as the hills. Don't be ripped off, buy only at authorized Habanos stores!
Sitting in the spacious living room of his apartment in the upscale Miramar neighborhood, where most of the city’s top government officials reside, Mr. Phillips poured Cognac and held out a tray of unbanded cigars...
Senor Phillips must be one hell of an English teacher. I'll bet the Cuban people can hardly wait for the American version of his type to arrive.
Senor Phillips must be one hell of an English teacher. I'll bet the Cuban people can hardly wait for the American version of his type to arrive.
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If you paid ten to twenty dollars a stick in Cuba they saw you coming. Twenty bucks a box thrown down from the upstairs backdoor of the factory was the going price. It didn't take long for them to learn how to be capitalist.
It was YOU they saw coming. You paid $20 for garbage, not authentic Habanos, but fakes. No one throws boxes of genuine Cuban cigars out of factory windows either. What a bunch of nonsense! Because people repeat lies like this they end up getting ripped off. Believe it or not there are loads of fake Cuban cigars in Cuba! They are made of substandard tobacco grown in backyards, not properly cured, etc. and placed in authentic looking packaging.
I had the good fortune to legally arrive in Havana on December 17, 2014, the day President Obama abruptly sort of opened relations with Cuba. Our hotel the Melia Cohiba had a lovely cigar boutique in the lobby and smoking Cubans and drinking seven year old Cuban rum with my friends in the evening around the pool was a supreme pleasure. Upon returning to the USA via Miami with more than my allotted $100 of cigars, I was greeted at customs with a smile when I stated I was returning from Cuba. "Welcome home". That was it.
Please note that the Miramar neighborhood is incorrectly placed on the map. Although Googling "miramar havana map" puts it where it's shown in this article, that is actually a street name in Regla, a neighborhood across the bay from Old Havana. The Miramar neighborhood where La Casa del Habano is (a store where I have been) lies west of Vedado, on the far left edge of the map. Google "La Casa del Habano, Havana, Cuba" instead to find its correct location.
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I was in Cuba over the weekend and got taken in by a similar scam - one can look up the net for a Cohiba Esplendidos scam. Someone tells you that they have access to a cooperative which sells cigars at a fraction of the price and you go along. The scammers repeat the same urban legends which the author repeats as truth - cigar rollers can take home some of the real stuff and roll for two more hours and these are as good as any in the factory. It looks like the author and the cigar aficionado club of expats have been smoking fake cigars forever. I have a box of 25 esplendidos bought for CUC 180 - the box is fake, the cigars are fake - definitely floor sweepings, even the tobacco smell has vanished after two days and I am keeping it as a reminder not to get fooled again.
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Congratulations you paid $80 for $0.50 worth of fake Montecristos made from floor sweepings and substandard tobacco. Oh yes, I'm sure you're the envy of all of your cigar smoking friends.
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I find it hard to fathom how the New York Times can publish an article such as this. One that publicizes and glorifies fake cigars and obviously written by someone that knows very little about Cuban cigars I don't blame the writer, this is just one of the many articles written by lazy writers who may be more enchanted by getting to the island than by the accuracy of their stories. Shame that for many that will soon be new visitors and Cuban cigar smokers may use this as actual information.
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Author, why did you purchase possibly fake cigars from a guy on street and not at a LCDH?
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Thank you Mr. Stodghill for telling me what none of the many travel brochures I've been pouring over did not. You wrote "Smokers in general enjoy rare freedom in Cuba, a carte blanche to light up in virtually any restaurant or bar." Now I'm not as eager to travel there as I had been.