Scoring out of ten so the number means something
A score is a sorting tool. It only sorts if you use the whole scale.
Most people score everything between 7 and 9, which is a three-point scale wearing a ten-point costume. A score is only useful if it separates things, and separation requires being willing to give a 5.
Decide what the numbers mean, once
The definition matters less than its stability. One that works:
- 9–10: I will buy a box.
- 7–8: I would buy more, but not instead of my favourites.
- 5–6: Fine. Would smoke if handed one.
- 3–4: Finished it out of politeness.
- 1–2: Put it down.
Written like that, the scale is about future behaviour rather than abstract quality — and future behaviour is the thing you will actually want to look up later.
Guarding against drift
Scales creep upward over years as your palate settles and you stop buying things you dislike. That is fine as long as you know it is happening; it stops being fine when you compare a score from this year with one from four years ago as if they meant the same thing.
The cheap defence is to keep a couple of reference cigars — one you rate high, one you rate mid — and rescore them occasionally. If the reference moves, the scale moved.
Do this: score before you look up what anyone else gave it. Reading a 95 first makes an 8 feel like a mistake, and a scale you adjust to match strangers is not measuring your taste any more.
Score the cigar, not the evening
A cigar smoked after a heavy meal, in wind, or with a strong drink in the other hand is a different experience from the same cigar on a quiet afternoon. You cannot control for that entirely, but you can note it — and a one-line remark about the conditions is what stops you retiring a good blend on the basis of one bad evening.
On half points
Half points look precise and add nothing: nobody can reliably distinguish 7.5 from 8 on tobacco. If you feel the need for them, the real problem is usually that everything is bunched at the top of your scale — solve that instead.
One scale, used every time
Ligero scores every tasting out of ten, on the same scale for everybody and every entry, because a scale you can reconfigure is a scale that stops comparing to itself. Save the score with a couple of sentences and the journal sorts by it later — including when you publish a review, where the score travels with it.
Read next
Writing a tasting note you will still understand next year
Three sentences beat three paragraphs, if they are the right three.
Tasting & notesWhy "would buy it again" beats any score
A number rates the cigar. A yes or no rates it against everything else you could have bought.
Storage & ageingPast thirty cigars, memory stops working
Not because you are forgetful. Because the questions get harder than recall.