PCA Magazine Winter 2020

56 PCA The Magazine | WINTER 2020 PREMIUMCIGARS.ORG | BY PH I L LEDBETTER, Up Down Cigar, Chicago, Illinois The Tobacconist AT THE END OF THE YEAR and the beginning of the next, we start to see various “Top XX” lists being released. These come from bloggers, magazines and other sources, and we retailers all have our opinions on the merits of these lists. Often, the rated cigars are limited editions long sold out or, better yet, cigars that can’t legally be sold in the USA. Other times, there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to how the rated cigars qualified to be rated in the first place. Most of these lists probably aren’t seen by your customers besides maybe ratings for the bigger firms. It also seems to be more and more common that if the cigar isn’t rated in the top 5, the consumer doesn’t really care. So what is the point of all these ratings and lists if they don’t truly help retail sales? At Up Down a few years ago we decided to stop criticizing other lists and start making our own “Top 25 New Cigars of the Year.” We set out clear qualifiers and the staff was given a list of eligible cigars and time to rank Your Own “Top 25” List Is More Valuable than Theirs Top 25 Y O U R C I G A R | | H H H