CigarsInternational BlendLab - pretty cool concept and a lot of fun

[DogRockets]

I had heard of CI's BlendLab before, but had never tried one until the Cigar Bum Orgy last month. At the CI Hamburg location they have an entire room dedicated to BlendLab cigars. I'm going off of memory, but I believe they said there are currently between 65-70 cigars in there at the moment. Which is interesting to me, because they are never featured in the catalogues we receive each month.

The concept of BlendLab is pretty simple - manufacturers create test blends and give them to CI to sell. CI does not list the manufacturer on the cigars. It is identified like WA-6552 (I smoked this one). The first two digits indicate the manufacturer, but they staff is pretty tight lipped on this. The next two digits 65 mean 6.5 inches. The 52 is ring gauge. They tell you the wrapper, binder, and filler details and country of origin. That's it. Then you smoke them (essentially an unbanded cigar) and see if you like it or not. BlendLab - Cigars International

During the Orgy, the manager of the store took me on a tour of the room, asked me types of cigars I like, and then pointed me in the direction of certain BlendLab cigars to try.

The others at the Orgy ended up picking up some BlendLab cigars to smoke as well, and on the Friday of the Orgy, we sat in a room smoking a lot of test blends to see if we liked them and could guess who made them. Some we got right, some we got massively wrong. @04EDGE40 about fell off his chair when he found out the brand of his favorite BlendLab smoke.

It was an absolute blast to try these out. I picked up some more that evening and can't wait to try them at home.

Out of our group, the favorite was RY-444. We ended up buying a wheel of 50 of these and splitting them amongst us. BlendLab - RY-444 - Cigars International The weird thing was, the sales staff and some of the online reviews called this cigar a pepper bomb, which none of us at the Orgy could see at all.

So, has anyone else tried these out before? If not, I recommend you do. It was awesome and made Friday an absolute blast at the Orgy.

Here is a link to the complete current line-up BlendLab - Cigars International I think there is a sampler you can buy of them as well. If the website isn't good, I'd recommend calling the Hamburg location, tell them what you like, and see if they can make a sampler for you (note: I'm not sure if they can ship or not). If they can't ship, just hit up @Demuths1770 . He lives close by. Make him pick them up for you. He'd be happy to ship them!

[04EDGE40]

The fan favorites are the RY-444 and the FB-554. The RY-444 was a complete shock to all of us. Without saying what it is, the rest of the line is complete garbage.

The FB-554 is not terribly surprising when you find out who blended it. It was an absolutely delicious maduro.

If anyone wants to try out some really solid smokes (even great smokes if I do say so myself) without preconceptions about the maker/blender, try out the BlendLab! Plus they're cheap

[jhedrick83]

I visited the Hamburg store about 2 years ago and grabbed a bunch of blend labs to check out. I loved the idea. Some were bad, some were ok and there were some really good ones! IIRC I enjoyed a ZF-544 the most. I really liked how they had it all laid out in there and listed the Wrapper/Binder/Filler and nothing else. If you like blind reviews, Blend Lab is awesome. Fairly reasonably priced as well, $3.50-$6 on average if I remember right. Does that sound about right @DogRockets ?

[HTML5 Gordon]

Wow, this is very cool - I didn't know anything about this. I'm going to have to try a few random blends whenever I next order something from CI.

[DogRockets]

I visited the Hamburg store about 2 years ago and grabbed a bunch of blend labs to check out. I loved the idea. Some were bad, some were ok and there were some really good ones! IIRC I enjoyed a ZF-544 the most. I really liked how they had it all laid out in there and listed the Wrapper/Binder/Filler and nothing else. If you like blind reviews, Blend Lab is awesome. Fairly reasonably priced as well, $3.50-$6 on average if I remember right. Does that sound about right @DogRockets ?

Also, DogRockets is awesome too. His cigar insight is unmatched and I'm not surprised he just dropped this BlendLab knowledge on us fellow bums. What would Cigar Bum do without him?

Correct on all accounts!

[DogRockets]

I wonder if there is a list somewhere of the Success Stories from the BlendLab that turned into production cigars. They had a couple listed in their showroom, but, they aren't ones I'd brag about to be honest. There have to have been more considering how good some of the test blends were we tried.

[Cardinal]

So after you smoke em they'll tell you the mfg?

[Sticky B]

Yummy Yum Yummers








....and still no sign of "pepper blast" anywhere

[DogRockets]

So after you smoke em they'll tell you the mfg?

Not normally, but Bums at an Orgy can be very persuasive. Plus we had spent multiple thousands of dollars there, so we were much preferred customers at that point!

Yummy Yum Yummers

....and still no sign of "pepper blast" anywhere

Glad to hear Sean! Glad it wasn't our toasted palates that couldn't pick up that pepper.

[droy1958]

Not normally, but Bums at an Orgy can be very persuasive. Plus we had spent multiple thousands of dollars there, so we were much preferred customers at that point!



Glad to hear Sean! Glad it wasn't our toasted palates that couldn't pick up that pepper.

That's why I only smoke one cigar a month. Palate protection.....