Very fair Sean. It appears this one was a dud roll, or had a savage twist somewhere in the filler. Unfortunately, it happens and chalk up this experience as being a trooper and pushing forward with a review even though most would have pitched it without smoking. Easy to do with a $1.50 cigar. Less so with a $10 to $15 cigar, but I think we have all had to do that at some point in our cigar journey.

You mentioned my buddy Frank has been smoking samples out of the same chest of 50 your samples came from for several months and recently bought my last chest of 50. As always, I encourage Frank to let me know if he has any problems when he removes the cello and cracks open a sealed box. His most recent communication was to ask if I had more chests for sale. I think he'll be sad when he finishes up his current chest because I'm all out of aged Machitos.

I once found a sealed box of 50 Punch Rothschild double maduro riddled with mold under the inner cello. Sad, but it went right in the garbage. The other two boxes of the same cigar, of similar age, were checked and found to be just fine. I suspect the ruined box may have had a few wet cigars in the wheel that ruined the rest over time.

I've only refunded Frank for some Brick Hanauer distributed Encanto cigars. 3 of 4 boxes he tried didn't draw worth a darn and were unsmokable. Very poor quality control on these cigars.

To your point, stuff happens and I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to remember the limited instances when long term aging didn't work out, or I had some real duds taking up space in the humidor.