Writing a review another person can actually use
Your note is for you. A review is for a stranger with a different palate.
A private note can be shorthand. A review has to survive being read by someone who does not share your scale. Three things do that reliably; the rest is decoration.
The three that travel
- A comparison. "Sweeter than a Padrón 1964, less peppery than most Nicaraguans" is readable by anyone who has smoked either.
- Construction. Draw, burn, ash — close to objective, and the thing most likely to affect somebody else's evening.
- Would you buy it again. No calibration needed, and it is the sentence people actually act on.
State the conditions
How long it had rested, what you were drinking, whether it was the second cigar of the evening. Any of those can move a verdict by a point, and mentioning them is what separates a review from an assertion.
Do this: write the review as if the reader is deciding whether to spend their own money tonight. That framing removes most of the decorative vocabulary automatically.
Negative reviews
They are more useful than positive ones and harder to write well. Separate what went wrong — a plugged draw is a manufacturing fault, "too strong for me" is a fact about you — and say which it was. A review that blames the cigar for the reviewer helps nobody.
Length
Shorter than you think. Nobody reads the fourth paragraph of a cigar review, and the useful parts almost always fit in five sentences.
The review is the entry, plus a verdict
Publishing in Ligero does not mean writing something new: the cigar and your score come from the entry you already wrote, and you add a verdict in your own words and, if you like, "would buy it again". Nothing is published until you choose to publish that particular tasting.
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.
People & reviewsHow to read somebody else’s score
A number from a stranger is a fact about the stranger.