Last Sunday I was out and about and came across a couple cigars that I hadn’t tried yet, so I bought them. I smoked a couple this week, although by Saturday it had gotten ridiculously cold, so I opted for a shorter smoke so as not to over-tax my propane heater. I started off with the Oliva Serie V 125th Anniversary Edicion Limitada. I thought this would be priced higher, but it was reasonable $10, and well worth it. It wasn’t all that long ago that I felt like I was really going top-shelf spending $8-12 on a cigar. Times have changed. Still, what else could I do for an hour and a half or more that costs less than $10? This is an interesting figurado, it’s tapered at the foot, once you burn past the first inch and a half it may as well be a parejo. It measures 5½” x 54 overall and is Nicaraguan filler and binder wrapped in a Sungrown Ecuador Habano leaf. That narrow foot not only makes it easy to light, but seemed to make the opening few puffs pretty sharp and powerful. It settled into leathery and earthy with some cocoa sweetness. Overall I really enjoyed this cigar. I haven’t smoked a lot of Serie Vs lately, they have to be priced higher than this one. It’s highly recommended. By the way, the 135 refers to the anniversary of when Melanio Oliva started in the tobacco business, Oliva cigars has only been around for about 30 years.
Next up was another cigar connected with Oliva, from the recently acquired Cuba Aliados brand. I smoked a bunch of these in the ’90s when they were made by Rolando Reyes and existed alongside Puro Indios in their lineup. I can’t say I remember too much about them, but I know the Cuba Aliados brand was a favorite of Steve Saka back then. This one is made by Ernesto Carillo, it has an Ecuador Sumatra wrapper, Nicaraguan binder and Dominican and Nicaraguan fillers. Ernesto is kinda famous for using Sumatra, and I like Sumatra. The cigar I smoked was a 6″ x 54 torpedo, and I probably selected that because it was the only vitola the shop had available. This was a really nice tasting cigar with a sweet spice. It’s burn and draw were perfect and I quite enjoyed it. It was closer to $15, so I don’t think I’ll smoke a lot of them, but it was worth the money. I’m a fan if EPC from way back, so that probably worked in the cigar’s favor.
Like I said, Saturday was super-cold, and I know we weren’t along in this weather pattern, a lot of the country seems to have had a cold snap. below a certain temperature, my propane heater doesn’t do as good a job. This is the perfect time for shorter cigars, so I had a La Patissier No. 50 from the PCA show that would fit into this scenario perfectly. It’s 4 3/8″ x 50, not tiny, but not huge. I don’t smoke a lot of Crowned Heads cigars, and this particular one was made at the Pichardo factory before they had the falling-out. I don’t recall where they will be having this made, it might be made by Ernesto Carillo which would connect all three of today’s cigars in some circular way. Anyway, this cigar has a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper, Jalapa binder, and fillers from Costa Rica, as well as the Ometepe and Pueblo Nuevo regions of Nicaragua. My guess would be that future iterations of this cigar will not have the Puebla Nueva tobacco, as that seemed to be a favorite of Luciano Marielles. This cigar was really good, although I’m a little surprised to see it was Broadleaf, it didn’t smoke that way to me. It started out bold, and had an exotic spice that I couldn’t put a label on. It was very good, I may see if I can find some of these older ones so I can see if it changes.
A week or so back I smoked a La Gloria Serie S, their new San Andrés offering, and I guess I bought a couple of them and forgot that I had, because I couldn’t remember where it came from. Last week I got some samples of these and smoked one yesterday. I’m going to set them down for a while, lets just say that I had pretty much the same experience the guy who smoked one on Dojo’s last Smoke Night Live show had. I like San Andrés and I love La Gloria, so I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. More to come on that. That’s all for today, until the next time,
CigarCraig
Bradley event with “The Player” Jon Lipson, a 
