25 Point Checklist for Identifying Real Cuban Cigars \ First, you should buy cigars from a real, brick-and-mortar cigar shop, not on the street. Even then, you should thoroughly examine the goods before paying. A seller who’s legit won’t mind your caution. Here’s what to look for when buying Cuban cigars: 25 Point Checklist for Identifying Real Cuban Cigars The Cigar 1. Real Cuban cigars come packed in boxes that are marked with the distinctive Habanos seal in the upper right-hand corner on top of the box, and a Cuban warranty seal (the “Made in Cuba” stamp) on the left. 2. Real cubans are rolled with supple, soft whole leaves. You should find twig-like stems at the cigar’s ends, not green tobacco. 3. When you touch the cigar, there should be no hard or soft spots. It should be uniform throughout. 4. The cigar should be uniform in color, as well, with no dry, chalky texture. You should only see a dark brown color when you look at the ends. 5. The top face of the cigar in the box may be a bit flattened, or what is known as “box pressed.” 6. The caps should all look identical, all resting at equal distance from the top of the box. 7. The foot of the cigars should all be cut clean and straight. You should never find that one is longer than the other. 25 Point Checklist for Identifying Real Cuban Cigars The Cigar Band 8. Counterfeits seldom duplicate the embossing that gives most cigar bands texture. 9. The raised gold lettering on a real Cohiba has bold print and deep colors. Fake ones typically have a bland print and washed out color. 10. A real Cohiba band is 15 mm, or 9/16 inch. A fake one usually is 17 mm, or 11/16 inch. 25 Point Checklist for Identifying Real Cuban Cigars Anatomy of a Cuban Cigar Box 11. A box of real Cubans is always in perfect condition. There will be no smudges nor scuff marks of any kind. Colors will be vivid, not dull or faded. 12. The words Habanos s.a., Hecho En Cuba will be stamped on the bottom of a legitimate Cuban cigar box. It should also say Totalmente a Mano, which means “handmade.” If the additional letters “TC” appear, they stand for “tripa corta,” meaning the cigars include short- leaf filler tobacco instead of full leaves. The few machine-made Cuban cigars are labeled “Tabaco Mecanizado” and no longer carry the Habanos s.a. name. 13. The bottom label should be a heat stamp pressed into the box, not an ink stamp. There won’t be any typos. 14. The bottom of the box should also have a code for the factory where the cigars were made, plus a date stamp indicating when the cigars were put in the box. 15. The green seal, the medallion on the left side, should always have the edge of the lid cover running right through the middle of it. 16. A box of Cabanas will have a white Habanos sticker pasted diagonally on the box’s upper-right corner. 17. In the box, there should be a thin sheet of cedar with no cracks or splits cut to match the box. It should have a machine-cut half-moon shape in the upper right-hand corner. 18. The top and bottom rows of cigars should each have a small strip of wax paper running across the bands. 19. A unique bar code is applied to every single box. 20. If the package has a glass or plastic top, it is a fake. 25 Point Checklist for Identifying Real Cuban Cigars The Warranty Seal 21. A green-and-white warranty seal must be visible on the left- front side of the box. 22. The seal’s color can range from forest to lime green. 23. The seal includes an insignia that contains a shield with a hat resting on top of it. 24. To make it harder to copy the latter marking, Habanos S.A. (the worldwide exporter of Cuban cigars), issued a new version of this seal in March 2010. 25. The new seal has a hologram on the far-right side and a bar code on the far-left. Holograms are relatively expensive and technologically hard to copy. These additions, along with watermarks and incredibly strong adhesive, mean the label can’t be easily duplicated, and can’t be removed without ruining the box completely. Under President Obama’s trade normalization rules, Cuban cigars are no longer illegal in the U.S. if they are bought in Cuba and brought home for How Many personal use. They still cannot be sold in the U.S. nor purchased over the Internet or while in a third country (like Canada or Mexico). Today you can legally bring a limited number of Cuban cigars into the Cuban Cigars United States from Cuba. Restrictions that still exist should change as normalization proceeds. Current U.S. Custom and Border Protection rules allow “persons authorized Can I Bring to travel to Cuba” to buy tobacco (and alcohol) products while in Cuba for personal consumption while there, and to return to the United States with Home to up to $100 worth of tobacco products acquired in Cuba. Specifically, the rules adopted in January 2015 state that: “The value of merchandise purchased or the U.S.? otherwise acquired in Cuba that is imported as accompanied baggage ... cannot exceed $400 per person, of which no more than $100 of the merchandise may consist of alcohol or tobacco products (or a combination thereof), and provided that the merchandise is imported for personal use only.” Note that if you want to bring home Cuban rum, that’s going to cut into your cache of cigars. You’ll be assessed a flat-rate 4 percent duty on tobacco and alcohol imports up to $100 (i.e., $4). Any tobacco (and/or alcohol) products exceeding the $100 value limit will be seized, according to the rule change announcement. The thaw in relations has also made it easier to travel to Cuba, though authorized travel from the U.S. is still officially limited. Simple “tourism” is not yet allowed. Officially, Americans can Can I Go to travel to Cuba for: • Family visits. Get my • Official business of the U.S. government, foreign governments, and certain intergovernmental Cabanas? organizations. • Journalistic activity. • Professional research and professional meetings. • Educational activities. • Religious activities. • Public performances, clinics, workshops, athletic and other competitions, and exhibitions. • Support for the Cuban people. • Humanitarian projects. • Activities of private foundations or research or educational institutes. • Exportation, importation, or transmission of information or information materials. • Certain authorized export transactions. The U.S. Department of State says all travelers to Cuba, including religious workers, should contact the Cuban Embassy in Washington to determine the appropriate type of visa required for their purpose of travel. If you are an American in Cuba, you are allowed to bring up to $100 worth of Cuban cigars into the U.S. if you buy them in Cuba and transport them in How much your own luggage for your personal use. That sounds great, but before you get a travel visa and jump on a plane, you may want to know how far your $100 will – or should – go with your should I pay friendly barrio tobbaconer. Turns out that, even in a centralized communist economy, quality and cost vary by brand. Cigar Aficionado magazine reported price points per cigar in for Cuban January 2015 ranging from 6 cuc ($6.78) for a Partagas Serie D. No. 5 (16 per $100 limit) to 31 cuc ($35.03) for a Cohiba Behike BHK 56 (3 per $100 limit). For the 17 cigars listed, the average price was about 14 cuc, or $15.82 cigars? (7 per $100 limit). (All cigars in Cuba are priced in Convertible Cuban Pesos, a CUC, which are valued against the American dollar. The exact exchange rate is officially 1:1, but fees charged for making the exchange bring the effective rate to $1.13 per CUC.) There are also limited edition cigars that top 100 CUC each, which you’re not getting off of the island through U.S. Customs anytime soon. The standard-size box of Cuban cigars contains 25 sticks, which means you can bring full boxes of some low-end smokes home under the $100 import limit. On the other hand, smaller boxes are already showing up in some Havana shops, providing options for importing a full, unopened package of higher quality cigars within the $100 cutoff. It’s no leap to expect more packaging aimed squarely at travelers from the U.S. as more of us begin to show up looking for Cubans to take home. If you are an American in Cuba, you are allowed to bring up to $100 worth of Cuban cigars into the U.S. if you buy them in Cuba and transport them in How much your own luggage for your personal use. That sounds great, but before you get a travel visa and jump on a plane, you may want to know how far your $100 will – or should – go with your should I pay friendly barrio tobbaconer. Turns out that, even in a centralized communist economy, quality and cost vary by brand. Cigar Aficionado magazine reported price points per cigar in for Cuban January 2015 ranging from 6 cuc ($6.78) for a Partagas Serie D. No. 5 (16 per $100 limit) to 31 cuc ($35.03) for a Cohiba Behike BHK 56 (3 per $100 limit).