CIGAR SMOKIN' AND BS

From the questions being asked here sometimes, many are newcomers. I want to say what recently happened to me.
I recently had a major water leak in my house while I was on vacation. In addition to losing most furniture and possessions, my humidors were moldy inside and out. While construction was going on I was living off site.

I replaced a humidor and refilled it. About two weeks later I notice white spots on some cigars! "Oh No! mold followed me!" I thought. Then I calmed down and I recalled what is known as cigar plume. Also called bloom. These are harmless white spots that sometimes form on cigars during the aging process. They are based on the oils inside the cigars. It appears as fine, white, powdery 'dots' and they easily brush off and don't leave any discoloration behind. Mold, OTOH, is not uniformly round, and can have a color to it. When you brush off mold with your finger, there's a discoloration that remains on the cigar.

If you are really unsure what you're seeing, you can take the suspect cigars and put them inside their own humidor bag and wait it out and see if it's mold, as it will get very much worse over time. I hope this helps someone and prevents them from possibly throwing away perfectly good cigars.

 

The growth I noticed in my situation was mold, I checked it under magnification.

 

There’s some science out there claiming plume is a myth and is actually a form of mold

 

I’m a huge beer, whiskey and cigar nerd. Those get most of my hobby money.

 

This is what I use also

 

No glass tops. I just opened the boxes and took a pic.

 

I was in Miami to run some errands and I stopped by one of those cigar shops in Little Havana . They were really pricey and didn’t get a chance to spend more time d/t dermatologist appointment. Learnt a lot and got a box of Rocky Patel Toro based on owner’ recommendation and it fit to my budget. I checked online and actually wasn’t a bad choice.

 

The boxes the Cubans showed up in.

 

I didn't post because I doubted you, just to provide some info to others.

 

I love the German health warnings!

 

I've seen those guy's report. They only looked at 10 cigars they picked out, which isn't enough of a sample IMO. Of course a cigar can show signs of plume AND also have mold.
I've had obvious mold from my destroyed humidors, and I've also experienced what was described as plume, and plume was very different from the mold growth, and was just a tiny round white speck that just flicked off. The mold had a definite green or blue tinge to it and had a "spreading" look to it.

 

In the right conditions I’ve never seen either. And I own and smoke a lot of aged sticks. I’ve had moldy sticks from people, but none from my own stock.

ETA: that being said, I’m not a scientist and don’t plan on doing any investigations. I’m just going to keep smoking. And if it’s light mold or plume I’m going to smoke on.

 

I’m there...

 

I really love cigars... back before I had a truck payment, I could afford 'em.

 

I keep hovering over the checkout button on CI....
Probably see how much take home I have after the extra 8 hours of x1.5 and 8 hours of x2 I'm putting in this week.