Cheap Ash: Vista de Cuba by Oliveros

Posted by Chris

April 12, 2010

You can thank my wife for today’s review. I took her to the cigar shop on Saturday and asked her to pick out a cigar for me to review. I figure that would be a good way to possibly try something different without any of my subconscious biases. She didn’t disappoint, because she managed to pick out a cigar I probably never would have tried.

Name: Vista de Cuba
Company: Oliveros
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Shade
Binder: Dominican Broadleaf
Filler: Nicaraguan & Dominican Ligero
Price: $3.11 per stick
Comes in: Boxes of 20
Vitola: Churchill (7″ X 52)

To be perfectly honest the Vista de Cuba is not the most impressive looking cigar. The wrapper is extremely veiny and discolored and there are a number of hard/soft spots. This cigar can best be described as rustic. But I’m not one to write a cigar off before sampling, so I clipped the end a took a few pre-light draws. There was little resistance, and I didn’t pick up more than a tobacco flavor. Pre-light aroma was just like hay. So with a butane torch I got down to business with this cigar.

The Vista de Cuba started out mild with hints of sweetness and hay. It burned fairly straight, but produced a flaky ash that made a mess all over my shirt and pants. Oddly enough this cigar actually held a long ash. As I smoked further into the cigar I began to pick up notes of nuts along with the hay and sweetness. This was the extent of flavor changes. The cigar burned well all the way to the end, but didn’t excite my taste buds.

Overall this was an unimpressive cigar. There was no complexity to the cigar, and in a churchill that just becomes boring. However, I do think this cigar has a spot in my humidor as a “yard-gar.” Quite simply this cigar is in the perfect price range to be smoked while mowing the lawn.