My renewed subscription to Cigar Afficionado

I have recently renewed my subscription to Cigar Afficionado.

I stopped buying the magazine a few years ago because it was just "too American" for me. I usually consume a lot of American culture without being too critical, but there was something annoying with Cigar Afficionado : because they have less access to Cuban cigars, and because of political background, I always found them very critical of Cuban production and somehow very supportive (biased?) towards Dominican, Ecuadorian, Honduran or American production... Besides the magazine is filled with ads for non-Cuban cigars using Cuban cigars names (yes I know that is rather confusing), in plain words you will find ads and articles about non-Cuban Cohiba, non-Cuban Romeo y Julieta, etc. So you really have to be well versed in cigar culture already to understand what is going on, ie. that we are not talking about the genuine product. For me that is border-line counterfeiting... So much for Castro's government illegal appropriation of private businesses!

But hey, as we say in French, "only fools never change their mind" or to put in Master Yoda's words "only a Scyth thinks in absolute". The magazine is still one of the best news source for the industry and is rather well crafted. To be fair I would say that their position on Cuba and Cuban production is probably more balanced that I initially thought (though I maintain they are too generous in their evaluation of non-Cuban production). The long interview of Castro conducted by Shanken in 1994 is probably the closest thing to good journalism any cigar magazine has ever published. And anyway a magazine that gave Cohiba Esplendidos (I am talking of the real Cuban brand here ;-) its highest mark in its latest issue cannot be all wrong!