Before this review starts... one warning... no puking when you see my ugly mug, but it's pretty hard to smoke a cigar, take and pose for photos on a smartphone and hold 2 dog leads
:-)
OK, so today the dogs have been in all day - they decide they'd quite like to go out as all the kids from the local school are trekking home. I don't know if this is a 'local' thing, but apparently, when you are a school kid, and you see someone with a dog, you bark at the dog. You tend to scream when my dog then gets told to 'go on', because you think I'm inciting the dog to attack you, rather than to stop sniffing a pile of dog sh*t on the pavement.
So, any way, before leaving the house, I clip and check the pre-light draw. It's an easy draw, with hints of spicy chocolate and leather. Construction is virtually flawless... this is my first Oliva stogie, but this seems to be the norm, which can't be a bad thing.
The initial hits upon lighting are spice, with a nice amount of smoke covering my tongue. After negotiating a couple more feral 'yoof', I come to the lake, and get some peace. The smoke develops a more leathery quality to it - not exactly like licking a pair of rugby boots, but hell, I always seemed to enjoy chewing on leather. The spicy flavour is still dominant, but not over-powering. As I come round the corner, a young mother is about with her family, and her parents. She berates me for smoking a cigar near her child, and I have to remonstrate, and point out her own father is smoking a roll-up cigarette while carrying her son. I give her a sh*tty look and walk on.
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The ash on this smoke starts out pretty much white, but slowly morphs in to a salt'n'pepper kind of grey. As I work through the smoke, the flavours develop nicely, with the leather beginning to work through the spice, and a kind of 'chocolate off the ice cream stick (COTICS)' hint in the background. I'm really enjoying the profile, and the draw is still spot on. The cigar is suffering from what I like to call '(Cuban) Self Correction Syndrome', in such as while there are minor (and I mean minor) burn problems, in two or three puffs, they sort themselves out.
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Trudging through the woods, the stick opens up a little more, and the COTICS hint from earlier is now having a bit of a punch up with the leather and spice, but in a good way, with the spice and leather on the tongue, and the COTICS giving them a swift kick up arse on the exhale. I've gotta say, while the profile of this cigar is more 'sat on the porch with a rocking chair' than 'bugatti veyron on the autobahn', I always enjoyed watching the world go by, rather than fly by.
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Coming back round the end of the lake, I get to perch on a bench and take a small break, and with the cigar coming in to the final 3rd, it's a good chance to get a feel for any changes in the flavour. The spice isn't so much going away, as mellowing out. The leather is a little more pronounced, and it's great. COTICS keeps twanging at the back of my tongue, and the top of my throat... yummy! Anyway, the dogs are getting bored, so I head back home, and move to my back garden for the last couple of inches. The ash starts lightening again, and the spice hits up again, a bit of a sucker-punch at the end of the smoke.
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Overall, I really enjoyed this smoke, and would certainly consider purchasing these again. I must admit, the lancero is one of my favourite vitolas, and this one didn't disappoint. While it isn't the most mind-blowing smoke I've had, it's is by no means a bad, or even mediocre, smoke, it's damn good, with good flavours, construction that was near enough perfect, and I had a good time smoking it. Winner.
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:-)