I know, I know, I reviewed this 5x48 cigar not too long ago but The Longfiller Company, who imports these great cigars in The Netherlands asked me to revisit these box pressed cigars as they recently came available on the Dutch market with a price tag of € 9.00. It is made by Don Pepin at the Tabacalera Cubana factory. The Connecticut broadleaf wrapper comes from the Oliva farm while the filler and binder are from Nicaragua.



I like the simple band and the fleur de lis gives away that this cigar is part of the Pete Johnson empire. The wrapper is dark, oily, leathery and only has a few minor veins, just a few thin ones. I don't smell anything when I sniff the cigar. The construction feels good, and the triple cap always looks good. The predraw is good and I get a little pepper on the tongue.



I taste a spicy coffee flavor with some sweetness and a peppery aftertaste. After an inch these flavors have transformed into a mild and sweet dry leather flavor with a spicy aftertaste. The feeling in my mouth is dry.



Halfway I taste a lot of spicy herbs with some cedar wood. The flavors are sweet and spicy. Near the end I taste a spicy leather with herbal flavors again, the cedar has disappeared.



This cigar lasted me for 50 minutes and gave me a lot of thick smoke. The draw and burn were good and the white colored ash is firm. I would call this cigar full flavored and full bodied. I love this cigar, the only downside is the short smoke time.



Would I buy this cigar again? Damn sure I will

Appearance: 8 / 10
Construction: 8 / 10
Draw: 8 / 10
Burn: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 8 / 10
Aroma first part: 8 / 10
Aroma second part: 8 / 10
Aroma third part: 8 / 10

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“Le Comptoir du Tabac des Gaves et de l’Adour” is a French tobacco company that grows quality tobacco in the south west of France near the Spanish border. With help from a Cuban tobacco grower from the Pinar del Rio region they created a French puro, Navarre, of which I reviewed the Double Corona a few years ago. A few weeks ago I visited Huis Verloo in Antwerp and noticed that there is a limited edition maduro robusto out and I just had to try it.



The 5 x 50 cigar looks pretty with the tasteful band and the extra "limitee maduro" band. The wrapper is nice and dark, oily and smooth with one big vein running over it. The top is triple capped and the construction feels great. The cigar has a peppery barnyard aroma.



The first thing I taste is a full earthy coffee flavor with a mild sugary sweetness on the background. The flavors are a bit burned. After a few puffs I can also taste some sweet chocolate. After an inch the sweetness tones down a bit.



Halfway I taste a sharp pepper with the previous flavors, but the pepper is the dominant flavor. The earthy coffee disappears and is replaced with a nut flavor, macadamia, toast and chocolate. Near the end the pepper fades a bit while the toast gets stronger.



In the beginning I had a bit of a crooked burn but it corrects itself and doesn't give me problems during the rest of the smoke. The smoke is medium thick and I get just enough. The ash is pepper and salt colored. This cigar is full flavored and medium bodied. I purged it and didn't get a flame at all. It lasted me 75 minutes.



Would I buy this cigar again? Hell yes. Not often, as they are pricey, but I need to get a few for special occasions.

Appearance: 7 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Burn: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 7 / 10
Aroma first part: 7 / 10
Aroma second part: 9 / 10
Aroma third part: 8 / 10

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I smoked and liked quite a few La Flor Dominicana double ligero cigars even though I never reviewed one, why I don't know. But it's time to change that and so I decided to light this La Flor Dominicana double ligero 660. The name is a mystery to me, whenever I hear 660 I expect a 6 inch cigar with a 60 ring, but this 660 is only 4⅝ x 60. The double ligero cigar line is made from Dominican binder and filler that is grown on the La Flor Domincana farm wrapped in an Ecuadorian sun grown leaf. This thin but fat cigar has a price tag of € 6.50 in The Netherlands.



The wrapper is nice, dark and oily but it feels fat and even a bit sticky when I touch it. I don't see any real veins. The construction feels hard. The cigar has a mild barnyard & straw smell. The predraw is a bit on the hard side and I taste pepper and raisin.



I taste a mildly bitter coffee flavor with a hint of chocolate and some pepper. After a quarter of an inch I also taste some wood instead of the coffee with every now and then a hint of creamy chocolate. These flavors don't change much in the first half of the cigar except that the chocolate seems to fade away and the wood gets a bit stronger.



Halfway I also taste some nut flavors and some toast with the wood. The wood and toast disappear at the two third mark and all I taste is nuts with some herbs.



Even though this is only a 4⅝ long, or should I say short, cigar, it lasted me for two hours. I got a lot of smoke, but the smoke was thin. The draw was good, just like the burn. I had some minor burn issues but I didn't have to correct it. The light gray ash is firm. I would say this cigar is medium to full flavored and full bodied, with a nice build up.



Would I buy this cigar again? I will buy more La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero but in another vitola, a 60 ring is too big for me.

Appearance: 8 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 7 / 10
Burn: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 7 / 10
Aroma first part: 7 / 10
Aroma second part: 7 / 10
Aroma third part: 7 / 10

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Now if you browse through my reviews you might notice that I am not a big Rocky Patel fan. Most of the RP cigars I smoked I did not particularly like, and I regret that because I do have sympathy for the brand and I wish I loved their cigars.



When I visited the US in may 2009, our first stop was Corona Cigar Company at Sand Lake in Orlando where we would herf with some botl's we met on this site. Catfish bombed both me and SmokeyNL with a huge nuke including 4 coffins of Rocky Patel "A" cigars. Catfish told us that even the Rocky Patel rep was surprised to see those things show up, as even he couldn't get them.



I have a lot of contact with Catfish and he invited me to stay at his family home when I visit Florida again later this year. So I knew I would enjoy this cigar, if it was not for the taste of the cigar, I would at least enjoy it knowing that this cigar was gifted to me by a good friend who I would be smoking again in a short while.





This "A" has a length of 8½ inch and a ring of 50. Now is 50 not thin, but due to the length of the cigar it looks thin and elegant. The wrapper is nice, oily and dark and looks a bit like leather. There are some veins but they are really thin. The bands are awesome. The cigar feels well constructed and that translates in a good predraw, that tastes like raisin. The cigar has a mild hay aroma.





I taste a full coffee flavor with hay. After half an inch the coffee fades away a bit but the hay remains at the same strength. A bit later the coffee disappears completely and I get hay and earthy flavors from the cigar.



Halfway I taste some cacao powder, but unfortunately that flavor doesn't stick around. The cigar makes my mouth dry, especially in the back of the throat. There is absolutely no development in flavors, which is a big disappointment.



This cigar lasted me for two hours and twenty minutes. I got a medium amount of smoke which is quite thin. The draw and burn are good. The pepper and salt colored ash is firm. This cigar is medium bodied and medium flavored.





Would I buy this cigar again? No, I just don't like this blend.

Appearance: 9 / 10
Construction: 7 / 10
Draw: 8 / 10
Burn: 7 / 10
Smoke & ash: 7 / 10
Aroma first part: 6 / 10
Aroma second part: 6 / 10
Aroma third part: 6 / 10

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A few years ago Oliva called a sales meeting to talk about creating a mild smoke, but the response from the sales team was that there was a bigger demand for a full bodied smoke so the Series V was created. Now, a couple of years later Oliva decided to create a mild cigar anyway and they came up with the Oliva Connecticut reserva, made from Nicaraguan filler and binder with an Ecuadorian Connecticut wrapper. I smoked the Toro, a 6x50 cigar that has a fixed price tag of € 6.00 here in The Netherlands. I was reluctant to smoke it, as I am not a big fan of Connecticut tobacco, but on the other hand, this is an Oliva stick and Oliva never let me down so far as you can see in my reviews of the Master blend 1 torpedo, El Cobre torpedo, Oliva V lancero, El Cobre toro, Oliva G tubo, Oliva O maduro torpedo, Oliva V torpedo, Oliva special S toro, Oliva O maduro torpedo *revisited*, Oliva V lancero *revisited*, Oliva V churchill, Oliva V maduro 2009 release, Oliva V maduro 2008 release, Oliva Master blend 3 robusto and the Flor de Oliva maduro robusto.



I like the simple yet tasteful white band. The wrapper is light colored, a bit yellowish brown. The wrapper is smooth, shiny, oily and has some minor veins. The construction feels a bit soft, but equally soft. The predraw is good but tasteless. The cigar has a nice mild smell of hay and wood.



The cigar starts with a bitter espresso taste with some sweetness and spicy. After half an inch the flavors get a little musty but fortunately that musty flavor disappears soon. After an inch I taste an earthy flavor and pepper, the flavors aren't very nice.



Halfway I taste that classic Oliva sweetness that I taste in a lot of their cigars while I never ran into that specific taste in any other cigar, combined with some cedar wood. This is the flavor that sticks around for a while and only gets a little bit peppery spicy along the way. At the end the cigar loses the sweetness but the cedar wood and the spiciness stay around.



This smoke time of this toro is an hour and five minutes. The draw and burn are very good and I got a lot of thick white smoke. The pepper and salt colored ash is firm. This cigar is full flavored and medium bodied.



Would I buy this cigar again? No, I will get another Oliva stick instead, one without Connecticut leaf

Appearance: 7 / 10
Construction: 8 / 10
Draw: 8 / 10
Burn: 8 / 10
Smoke & ash: 8 / 10
Aroma first part: 6 / 10
Aroma second part: 7 / 10
Aroma third part: 7 / 10

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