Old cigarettes

I stopped by a local tobacco shop, plopped down 8 bucks and got a pack of nat Sherman hint of mint. I had a couple and they seem okay but I learned that the name has changed to just hint due to some law. I estimate that the pack has been sitting on the shelf in the store for at least one and a half years. Do you think they are bad or stale? Would a fresh pack taste better?

Needless to say I am never going back to that shop.

Cigars can keep for many many years without degradation of quality. The key is whether the tobacco has been kept at a proper humidity and temperature. So they may be perfectly fine, but they are probably dried out. If you have a friend with a cigar humidifier it might help restore them if you stick them in there for a few weeks. They probably won't be as good as new but it still should help.

When I worked in my father's corner store, cigarettes could go stale at around the 6 month mark. So, there is a likelihood that your purchase migh be stale. Flavoured cigarettes are more prone to going stale than unflavoured varieties.

I've tried this with a small humidor (about 120 cigar size) and haven't had real success rehydrating dried out cigarettes. If they stay in the pack, the humidity doesn't get inside easily. Maybe a few weeks would work, but I've only tried a few days. Taking them out, they hydrate quickly but the paper gets stained. I can live with that.

The bigger problem here is the potential for the flavoring to go rancid with time.