10 Premium Cigar Sampler - $20 shipped - (add an Artisan Hamilton Humidor for $15 more)

Decent

Quote from gonepostl : Decent

What sticks do you prefer? Have you found any other inexpensive ways to try the many brands? TIA

$2 a stick when you add shipping is a decent deal. The op though must be an employee of Holt's though the way the post is written.

It's really hard to beat these introductory deals but they are much better for a new smoker than an experienced smoker with preferences established, so I wouldn't recommend it as a gift for a "cigar person". Most regular cigar smokers (myself included) would probably never get around to smoking most of these.

The humidor is very basic but will do an okay job. Toss a boveda pack or two in there and you should have a pretty low maintenance setup.

Quote from z6joker9 : It's really hard to beat these introductory deals but they are much better for a new smoker than an experienced smoker with preferences established, so I wouldn't recommend it as a gift for a "cigar person". Most regular cigar smokers (myself included) would probably never get around to smoking most of these. The humidor is very basic but will do an okay job. Toss a boveda pack or two in there and you should have a pretty low maintenance setup.

I'd have to disagree. These are some really quality smokes and it's nice to try something new every now and then...even if you are stuck in your Davidoff rut

PS. That's exactly what I did. Just popped a $5 75% Boveda pack in to my $30 glass top humidor I got on Amazon. Works great

Quote from sparky129 : $2 a stick when you add shipping is a decent deal. The op though must be an employee of Holt's though the way the post is written.

No affiliation with Holts, I work in car insurance. I am however a husband/dad who tries to find good deals and thus I'm on SD quite a bit. Holts is the best online cigar company I've tried so far out of Thompson, CI, and Cigars.com. Holts had the best overall value, customer service and fastest shipping of the 4 I've tried. Plus they don't spam you to death with calls and emails.

PS. I can't afford the $8-12 per stick my local shop charges for any decent stick. Hence I'm doing some samplers on these online retailers...

Quote from firedogee7 : No affiliation with Holts, I work in car insurance. I am however a husband/dad who tries to find good deals and thus I'm on SD quite a bit. Holts is the best online cigar company I've tried so far out of Thompson, CI, and Cigars.com. Holts had the best overall value, customer service and fastest shipping of the 4 I've tried. Plus they don't spam you to death with calls and emails. PS. I can't afford the $8-12 per stick my local shop charges for any decent stick. Hence I'm doing some samplers on these online retailers...

Holt's definitely is one of the best online cigar retailers. Never had any issues from them and they periodical have some good deals. I waiting for the Rocky Patel 5 for $12 deal to come back.
And I fell you on the local B&M. I spent a ton last Friday because the La Flor Dominca rep was there. I try to support the B&Ms when I can to at least sit in the lounge and smoke, but it can hit the pockets if you are not ready. I get some online, I get some at the B&M, especially new cigars I don't want to buy a 5 pack to try.

Quote from iota_kbc : Holt's definitely is one of the best online cigar retailers. Never had any issues from them and they periodical have some good deals. I waiting for the Rocky Patel 5 for $12 deal to come back. And I fell you on the local B&M. I spent a ton last Friday because the La Flor Dominca rep was there. I try to support the B&Ms when I can to at least sit in the lounge and smoke, but it can hit the pockets if you are not ready. I get some online, I get some at the B&M, especially new cigars I don't want to buy a 5 pack to try.

Good words, thanks for sharing

Yah, happy to see cigar posts, my partial newbie, partial experiences smoker self will chime in.

I started getting into cigars the end of last year, and bought up all kinds of bundles, 3 cheap humidors, and in general leaned towards quantity over quality, not knowing any better because all the cigar sites put great write-ups about how wonderful they are (and rather dubiously seem to block bad reviews) I had about...40 sticks that I think I will never smoke.

Once you figure out your tastes, and the fact that smoking a cigar is a time-consuming endeavor, at least for me, I don't really have any tolerance for wasting time on mediocre cigars. That's not to say you have to spend a bundle to get good ones. For me, damn near EVERY Alec Bradley cigar I've had, I loved. American Classic, Mundial, Prensado, Tempus, Coyol. With the AC, Tempus, and Coyol, those aren't too expensive. I've also been loving Oliva Serie V and Melanios, along with My Father Le Bijou and Flor de las Antillas. Some of those are spendy, but at $5-8/cigar for many of those (and if you shop sales, substantially cheaper) you can have a really nice collection of things you enjoy smoking, rather than feeling compelled to smoke.

Now I'm all about boxes of varieties I know I like, and storing them mainly in "Tupperdores" with a Boveda pack or two, and some slats of Spanish Cedar.

My personal recommendations to get a nice sample of brands that tend to be highly rated and haven't let me down:
Alec Bradly
My Father
Oliva
Arturo Fuente
Padron (Pretty spendy)

But end of the day, have fun with it. Just because one person likes it doesn't mean you will or won't. I've had GREAT success with Best Cigar Prices. Had one issue, and their customer service was beyond phenomenal. Cigars International had been OK, but they ran into some warehouse software issues that badly delayed a lot of folks shipments, and the one interaction with customer service I had for a minor issue was met with indifference, which made the great service at BCP that more pronounced.

Haven't tried Holt's, but I haven't heard anything bad about them.

The tl;dr - IMO these are mostly "OK" sticks. If you get into the hobby, you won't look forward to smoking many of them. Check out Cigar Afficianado and Puff.com for good, aggregate cigar reviews

Be careful! Not a slickdeal!

I bought a similar setup about 10 years ago and one thing lead to another and consequently have spent thousands on cigars

Seriously though, most of these samplers are crappy cigars. You are going to be lucky to like one of them. If you are drinking beer for the first time, you don't want to drink Old English 800...

Buy a tupperware and a Boveda pack (69%). $13. Go to reddit's cigar market (reddit.com/r/cigarmarket) and post that you are a noob and want to buy a sampler. Better deal even though it might cost a few extra bucks.

My 2 cents

Quote from busterjonez : Be careful! Not a slickdeal! I bought a similar setup about 10 years ago and one thing lead to another and consequently have spent thousands on cigars Seriously though, most of these samplers are crappy cigars. You are going to be lucky to like one of them. If you are drinking beer for the first time, you don't want to drink Old English 800... Buy a tupperware and a Boveda pack (69%). $13. Go to reddit's cigar market (reddit.com/r/cigarmarket) and post that you are a noob and want to buy a sampler. Better deal even though it might cost a few extra bucks. My 2 cents

Nah, you are off base here. Most of the brands and sticks in this Sampler are top notch and a great value for 2bucks each shipped. You could pay 3x that for similar stuff as a newbie - but to use your own beer analogy - you don't start your beer drinking career with $12 bottles of Chimay lol

I've been smoking cigars for quite sometime. I don't get the negatives on this deal. these are quality smokes for a great price. I refuse to be a cigar snob