Mission Zero
Lately, I've been on a breakfast cigar kick of sorts. These are not always, but typically, lighter in color and strength, which often means digging into our collection of shade-grown natural cigars.
One of the blends that I revisited recently, and found myself dissecting, was the Oliva Connecticut Reserve. A standard-looking light cigar with the typical mixture of an Ecuador shade-grown Connecticut-seed wrapper, and then all Nicaraguan internals.
Marketed as medium, not mild, and featuring a 92-point-rating from Cigar Aficionado in 2023, this blend appears to have something more than what meets the eye. It's also an Oliva production, so you know it's going to contain some A-grade leaf and excellent construction from foot to cap. But is it enough to surpass the impressively built, and equally understated Gilberto Oliva Blanc that I reviewed a little while back? I guess we'll just have to see, won't we?
Unlit Impressions
Unimaginative would be the best way to describe this cigar, at least from a visual standpoint. Stereotypical cigar banding, branding, and wrapper usage make the Connecticut Reserve look so unexciting that it borders on being generic in nature. The wrapper is powdery and paper-like in texture, but it doesn't have any signs of defects or flaws, and packs Oliva-grade construction and roll quality.
Fresh denim blue jeans, rose water, egg custard, and a light mixture of generic wood and cinnamon are all that can be smelled down the length of the wrapper. Sweet cedar and cinnamon toast manage to up the intrigue a fuzz down near the foot, as light spices and tropical fruit fill in underneath. The open end of the cigar gets better the more you sniff, with a tease of spicy white pepper and stronger cereal grains coming out as you go.
Tastes off the unlit cigar are nearly identical to those of the foot and wrapper, with a stronger tropical dried fruit flavor, additional pepper spiciness, and a smack of nuttiness added to the aftertaste, bumping complexity up a notch.
Digging the Sound of This Cigar? You Might Also Like...
Oliva "Gilberto Oliva Reserva Blanc"
La Palina "White Label"
Montecristo "White Series"
- Wrapper
- Connecticut Shade (Ecuador)
- Binder
- Nicaragua
- Filler
- Nicaragua
- Origin
- Nicaragua
Initial Smoke
Buttery, sweet biscuit crackers, cream cheese, sweet citrus, and the faintest kiss of cinnamon make their mark on the first minutes of this blend's cigar flavor profile. It's definitely mild up front, but on the finish and within each retrohale, a portion of smoke is reserved for spicy cedar, giving a pleasing punch toward the end of each exhale.
1st Half
Within no time, those cracker notes go salty, and the entire cigar flavor profile slips into familiar doughy Connecticut shade territory. Still on the milder side on every front, the citrusy tanginess of the blend builds, with a grainy, dry cereal note growing slowly inside. Retrohales maintain the upper hand, with a fluid sweetness driving those dried tropical fruit flavors forward.
Sweet, creamy, citrusy, and buttery as can be, the shift back toward those biscuit crackers slowly takes place in the second third. Smoke flow is as lazy as the movement of flavors within the blend, and before long you realize that you are enjoying the texture of the medium-bodied smoke just as much as the cleanliness of the tobacco itself.
2nd Half
But as the cedar tastes get spicier and drier, caramelized sugar notes take form, and the cigar flavor profile pushes closer to medium. Tangy aftertastes and a dry, toasty bread note may have replaced the raw doughiness from earlier, but thanks to the smoothness of the cigar, it feels well-timed and appropriate.
Puffed rice and a papery taste that seems out of place punctuate the final third's approach with both pleasant and unappealing characteristics. While the puffed rice notes are very nice, with their airy sweetness and subtle exposure, that paper flavor is sharp, dry, and a touch chemical-like in a Xerox copy sense. However, the texture of the smoke is still velvety smooth, and the stronger tastes from earlier manage to overcome these sharper secondary notes.
Parting Puffs
Spicier and a sliver darker, cinnamon and that tangy citrus attribute bounce back for a moment, only to become sharp, spicy, and bitter. This was the case in my sample smoke as well, so definitely not a Parting Puffs portion that is worth pursuing.
Ash / Burn / Smoke / Draw
Like most of the cigars from Oliva that I have smoked over the past two dozen years, the Connecticut Reserve performed admirably when it came to combustion and ash build. The trick to this blend, or at least this robusto vitola, is to smoke as slowly as possible. Even with a V-cut or a punch, this cigar has a very open draw, so overheating and charred off-flavors will form quickly if you are not careful. Additionally, smoke texture is most certainly as advertised, with chewier, medium-bodied clouds coming forth from each pull.
Final Thoughts
Even with a perfect burn score and some seriously good smoke textures, the Connecticut Reserve couldn't get enough momentum going to score some much-needed points for flavor and complexity. It's a tasty cigar, with a lot of citrus, toast, and butter in places, but the overall magnitude of the cigar blend is not as deep as what I was hoping to find.
This strikes me as more of a "starter cigar" for noobies than one that was intended to please medium-powered puffers. All of the potential is there, but the blend struggles to execute its mission when the chips are down, only evolving in finite amounts throughout its burn time. Those sharp paper tastes and unpleasant finishing notes in parting puffs also hurt the overall score, with the tired banding landing square in snoozer territory.
That's not to say that there weren't some very good moments in the stick, especially earlier on, when the blend first got underway, and both body and flavor began to grow bigger than predicted. You just may have to settle for an uneventful second half and skip parting puffs entirely to keep this one from falling off your radar. As for me, I think I'm going to stick with the Gilberto Oliva Reserva Blanc as my go-to light cigar from Oliva until something better comes along...
Stogie Specs
| Cigar | Oliva "Connecticut Reserve" |
| Wrapper | Connecticut Shade (Ecuador) |
| Binder | Nicaragua |
| Filler | Nicaragua |
| Factory | Nicaragua |
| Size | 5″ x 50 (Robusto) |
| Strength | Mild |
| Pairing Drink | Homemade Salted Caramel Mocha |
| Rating | 4.2/5 |
- Wrapper
- Connecticut Shade (Ecuador)
- Binder
- Nicaragua
- Filler
- Nicaragua
- Origin
- Nicaragua
The Connecticut Reserve is a cigar of remarkable quality and flavor that combines the cedar and cream aromas you crave, with the build quality that you have come to expect from Oliva. That powdery, butterscotch-colored Connecticut shade wrapper creates a buttery, mild-medium cigar flavor profile that is equal parts citrus-forward and sugar-laden, with nary a sign of strength along the way,
With its impressive construction, near-perfect combustion, and free-flowing draw, this blend's reliance upon darker, heavily aged Cuban-seed Nicaraguan long-filler leaves makes this stick one of our top options for mild-to-medium cigar smokers. This is another one of those staples in the cigar world that only seems to have gotten better over the years.
