The Sunday Stogie this week is a Flor De Oliva Churchill Maduro.
7 x 50 from Nicaragua

As I'm still fairly new to the cigar world, I tend to poke around a lot just to see where I am with cigars. You know, trying to figure out my cigar identity, what do I like, what doesn't agree with me etc. If you ask me these questions about pipes and pipe tobacco I could provide volumes of definitive answers as I've been a pipe guy for all my adult life and a couple years of my childhood. Not so with the stogies though.

Yeah, I know the Flor de Oliva is not a particularly high brow cigar but it was an easy and available way to check out the maduro wrapper so I took it. How did it do? I'd say it did quite well. My observations:
  • Perhaps this is the difference between "Mild to Medium" that I'm used to and "Medium to Full" which the FDO is rated but this one made me pretty relaxed. I wasn't dizzy or nauseated but I could feel that this one had some wollop to it. For me at least, evening is a good time for this cigar.
  • The construction was remarkable, not too loose, not too tight, the wrapper looked good too with not too many veins and no stems or sticks evident
  • It had a nice full, "french roast coffee" sort of a quality about it, very tasty, very enjoyable.
  • It burned slowly and produced a nice pale gray (off white) ash.
  • The only thing I would ding this stogie on is burn, it wasn't particularly even but other than that it was a good smoke. Although I'm not sure I'd smoke one of these first thing in the morning. Perhaps my go to Sumatra wrappers should stay in that role.


Overall, yes, I would probably pack a few of these in the humidor for that end of the evening before bed smoke.