Oliva Serie V Lancero

Initial Thoughts

I’m often intimidated by a lancero sized cigar. It’s long and skinny and looks very frail to me. I feel like I could snap it any time. It has a more dignified look to it compared to big fat 54 ring gauge cigar. But your sake I overcame my fear of the long and skinny and decided to pick one up and review my first Lancero.

I purchased this Oliva Serie V Lancero at a local Oliva event put on at a shop south of  Nashville. I decided to go to this shop because I heard they were the only place in town that carried the Liga Privada line. So I figured I could kill two birds with one stone. It was a great event, I met John the new Oliva rep for my part of the country. He was a great guy and I felt bad for him because it was pushing 95 outside and he was stuck wearing a suit. That’s my nightmare. We chatted for a bit a and just BS’ed a lot, but he’s a great guy representing a great brand.

I believe the deal for this event was something like buy 3 get 1 free and an entry into a raffle or something. So I think I bought 5 and got Oliva’s new Serio O maduro. But I made sure to pick up Oliva Serie V Lancero because I’ve had the Serie V blend before and it is spectacular and like I said I wanted to try a lancero shaped cigar.

Looks

Looking at the Oliva Serie V Lancero I’m taken aback. I’m just floored at how they create these things. I know it’s not as thin as a cigarette or a cigarrillo but it’s still very small compared to a typical ring gauge. The long skinny nature of this cigar reminds me a cigarette being held in a fancy pants (yea I said fancy pants!) holder in some victorian style household. It’s not something that I’m used to and like I said it scares me a bit!

The band on this cigar is stunning. A dark brown background trimmed with gold and red. A nice glossy finish makes the colors on the band just pop out at you. The traditional Oliva logo dominates the top part of the band and encircled is the stamp of Serie V letting you know the blend of this cigar. If you rotate the cigar in your hand on the side you will see ‘Liga’ on one side and ‘Especial’ on the the other. Which means Special League, for those of you that came here to learn elementary Spanish!

The wrapper on the Oliva Serie V Lancero is flawless. A beautiful Colorado Claro, somewhat reddish brown colors. Very oily and would sheen in the sunlight. The overall look of this cigar is very impressive.

Function

The function of the a cigar is incredibly important to me. I want to know that the cigar is going to draw easily and be a pleasure to smoke. Not something that I have to constantly touch up and relight. I perform my standard pinch test and roll the Oliva Serie V Lancero through my index finger and thumb to check for any soft spots in the filler. It took longer than normal since this cigar is 7″ long, but it came out just fine. Not one soft-spongy spot on the barrel.

Next I inspected the triple cap on the head of the cigar it was placed perfectly and looks beautiful. I enhanced the photo some so that you could see the lines of the cap easier. Since I had not smoked a lancero before I was a little curious as to how to cut it the head. I’ve been using my recently purchased V Cutter but I figured the head of the lancero was a little too small so I opted for my double guillotine blade. This worked out great!

Even though the cigar is 7 inches long it drew air through the barrel perfectly without any hindrance so I’m ready to get this thing smoking!

Smoking

I tried a new technique with my matches for this cigar. I struck the first match and held the tip of the flame to the foot of the Oliva Serie V Lancero and toasted it all the way around waiting for it to turn a light grayish color. Then I took a second match and struck it and began drawing some air through the cigar. This new technique worked unbelievably well. Honestly I feel kinda dumb not trying this before, but thats how I light cigars with a torch lighter I’m not sure why I had never tried it with matches. Oh well now I know!

Right from first light this cigar was burning straight and without an issue whatsoever. There wasn’t a lot of wind out either which obviously helped with the burn staying straight. I was concerned that this cigar might start to having trouble burning the 2nd or final third, but it powered through all the way staying consistent to the nub.

I couldn’t get the ash on the Oliva Serie V Lancero to hold longer than 1″, which was a little disappointing, but I guess you can’t always get perfection right? The ash was a great looking one though nice and tight with a soft gray color with streaks of black in it. It would have been quite impressive to be able to hold this thing out for a couple of inches though.

Flavor

Ok, so the Oliva Serie V Lancero  looks great, smokes great, but how does it taste? Well I have to say one thing, if you like a peppery bold cigar then this is your stick! As soon I lifted the foot of the cigar to my nose I almost instantly sneezed due to the pepper. As soon as I put the head of the cigar to my lips I picked up a nice spice somewhat of a red pepper flavor that left my lips slightly tingling.

The flavor stayed very consistent all the way through this cigar. I could pick up hints of wood and leather, but the overall flavor note was pepper with a spicy finish. This cigar really hit it’s stride in the 2nd third, it transitioned into a full bodied smoke that was began giving me a nice nicotine buzz and I still had a third left to smoke.

The final third of the Oliva Serie V Lancero stayed consistent with the spiciness and had developed nicely into a full bodied cigar. I noticed I tried to smoke this Lancero quickly because it was a smaller ring gauge and I don’t think I gave it proper resting time between puffs.  This led to a little tar build up around the head of the cigar. The flavor became a little bitter but cleared up after a few minutes (or maybe I got used to it). However, I won’t make that mistake on my next Lancero.

Overall the flavor on this stick was fantastic, a good dose of spice and a solid undertone of wood and leather.

Would I Buy It Again?

Without thinking twice. For me this is one of the best blends of cigars out there.

Is It an Every Day Smoke?

I don’t know if the Lancero vitola is an everyday smoke, but the Serie V blend definitely is.

Would I Buy a Box?

I could see myself buying a box of these, again I’m not sure if the Lancero is my go to vitola, but maybe the belicoso or torpedo vitolas would be more up my alley.

Conclusion

The Oliva Serie V Lancero is a great fantastic cigar. Great looking stick, perfect draw and construction. The flavor profile was wonderful. This cigar is an absolute steal in the $6-8 range. If you have tried it already you need to.