Flor de Oliva bundles bury bigger budget butts

I have loved Oliva Cigars since I first gently bit into and lit one many years ago. And I always said that their cigars (expecially their bundled maduros, in my opinion) we worth considerably more than they were charging for them. So, I guess I shouldn't complain that their prices over the years have increased to be in line with the quality of these fine Nicaraguans.

The Maduro robusto bundles feature a medium to full-bodied cigar (5 x 50) with all Nicaraguan long filler. Sweet? Kind of. Nutty? A bit. Great taste and burn for a cigar costing much less than comparable quality cigars? Absolutely!

Although the price increase over the years has kept it from being my everyday smoke, I still pop for a bundle every now and then and make it my number one in-between cigar.

Part of my criteria for judging a cigar is how well it handles re-lighting (a reality in all of our lives since finding the opportunity to smoke an entire cigar is rare) and the Oliva bundle cigars can take a biting and keep on lighting. The Oliva bundled cigars are all long-filler, expertly hand-rolled and create a sturdy ash that compares to much more expensive sticks.

You will still find them online for about $35.00 for the natural and $50.00 for the maduro in bundles of 20. I'm quite certain they used to always come in bundles of 25, further inflating the price. But still an amazing deal.

I first discovered Flor de Oliva cigars probably 12 or 15 years ago. At that time I had some Cigar Pages on one of my comedy web sites. Those pages are still there, even though they're quite outdated. Feel free to visit them and send me insulting emails about how lame they are.

Back then, I did a review of the Oliva bundles which was ultimately found and read by Jose Oliva, of the Oliva family. He contacted me, thanked me for the positive review and proceeded to send me a bundle of the robustos and a box of their new (at the time) box-pressed cigars. A very nice and appreciated gesture. Now, if I could only get all of the other cigar manufacturers to do the same, I could save a big pile of money and take care of some of the other "necessities" in my life.

I keep telling the kids that the powdered milk is going to taste a lot better once Daddy gets the water turned back on. But look at that ash. :)

Based on taste, burn and price, these cigars get 8 out of 10 smoke rings.