It’s getting to be that time of year again where temps are cooling off and the rain is rolling in – and that means it's time to talk once more about setting your cigars on the counter to enjoy a headache free experience!

Similar to dry boxing, letting your cigars experience the world without their protective humidors allows them to acclimate before you set them ablaze. This alleviates issues with the outside world being too dry or wet for your cigars.

But what about the downsides? So far, I’ve yet to experience any! As long as you don’t orphan your cigars on the counter and put them away when you aren’t able to get to them in time, I don’t see an issue. I’ve even left them out overnight and had a great experience the next day.

Our humidors are set up for the perfect conditions to age cigars and keep their oils, but the reality is that a stogie that’s about to be sacrificed to the cigar gods can do with much less absolute humidity. The oils won’t have time to evaporate, but you may find that an extensive dry boxing session improved the overall experience – like when you pack a travel humidor and forget about it for a week just to fire one up and stare in awe at the perfection.

The only time I wouldn’t recommend this is when you live in the desert. I only shortened my counter time to about 20-30 minutes in that case, because the desert is a cruel beast that will suck your cigars dry if you forget about them.