Review Types

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At halfwheel, we don’t just review any cigar. The reason isn’t that we don’t have enough time (although it may seem like it), but rather we believe that most blogs cover roughly the same cigars. While it’s a wide range of cigars, there’s also a lot of overlap. While one more perspective wouldn’t be a bad thing, we believe that looking at cigars that generally aren’t covered is far more beneficial. In general, we review cigars that are vintage, rare, hard-to-find, expensive or not yet available. On occasion, we drift away from those genres, but for the most part cigars meet one or more of those qualities. We’ve divided cigars up into categories (although not every cigar has a category) to help better organize the site for you.

One major change for halfwheel reviews is scoring. All cigars reviewed will be scored according to halfwheel’s scoring guidelines. If for any reason a cigar cannot be scored, we will not review it.

CUSTOM ROLLED
These cigars are almost always Cuban and are rolled by a variety of different star rollers who develop their own unique blends. While they are not as consistent as regular releases, these cigars are not usually one-offs. Examples of popular rollers include: Hamlet, La China, Santos, Yolanda, Monsdale, Juanita, Alfredo, Reynaldo, Taboada, Cueto, etc.

You can read halfwheel’s custom rolled reviews here.

ERs/ELs
Edición Limitadas and Edición Regionals. These are annual releases from Habanos S.A. that are limited in quantity and generally a bit more expensive than your typical Habanos. ELs are special sizes and oftentimes different wrappers that are released in various limited quantities. ERs are generally specific sizes of a brand that are otherwise not available. They are released to specific Habanos distributors and released only to that region.

You can read halfwheel’s ER and EL cigar reviews here.

FACE-OFF
This is not a specific type of cigar, rather type of review. Face-Off Reviews comprise of two authors (at least one of which is a halfwheel staff member) smoking the same cigar (not the same actual cigar, rather another identical cigar) and providing their individual thoughts as the review progresses.

You can read halfwheel’s face-off reviews here.

Lancero50
Lancero50 was a series of reviews done by Charlie Minato while still writing for TheCigarFeed between May and June of 2010. During this time, Charlie reviewed fifty different non-Cuban Lanceros in fifty days.

You can read halfwheel’s Lancero50 reviews here.

PRERELEASE
These are cigars that are identical to their production counterparts in terms of blend and size, but may be missing full packaging. There is no set date as to how far in advance they must be in regard to their release.

You can read halfwheel’s preproduction cigar reviews here.

PREPRODUCTION
A cigar that is in various stages of blending, packaging or aging, and is NOT ready for the official release. A preproduction cigar usually does not have final bands, boxes or even names (or is missing some combination of all). Sometimes they are the same blend in different sizes and Ring Gauges (to test the blend). Unlike in the past, WE WILL SCORE preproduction cigar reviews.

You can read halfwheel’s preproduction cigar reviews here.

REDUX
Redux Reviews are not a specific type of cigar, rather a type of review. These reviews are roughly half the length of a normal cigar review and are posted every Monday morning. Redux Reviews take a cigar that we have looked at prior in the form of a full review, and offer thoughts on that cigar at least six months from when it was originally reviewed. For the most part, these take on two forms. For all of the reviews, we try to smoke a cigar that came from the same box as the cigars that were responsible for the original review. The times when that doesn’t happen are when a prerelease/preproduction cigar is part of a Redux Review. In the case of prereleases/preproduction we aren’t always able to have a cigar from the same batch given the difficult in acquiring. In addition, whenever we are doing a Redux Review of a prerelease/preproduction, we will smoke at least one of the regular releases as part of a Redux Review. Either:

  • A. We have an additional prerelease/preproduction for the Redux Review. We will smoke that aged prerelease/preproduction cigar and a regular production release. This will shed light if there were any differences between the two different releases.
  • B. We don’t have an additional prerelease/preproduction. We will smoke regular release versions of the cigar to evaluate are Redux Review.

You can read halfwheel’s redux reviews here.

VINTAGE
These are extremely aged and typically rare cigars. All vintage cigars reviewed will be AT LEAST 25 years old, and will consist of both Cuban, non-Cuban and Clear Havana cigars. Vintage cigars will be marked by a date in parentheses next to their name.

You can read halfwheel’s vintage cigar reviews here.