Oliva Serie V Roaring Twenties, a $300 Cigar, Heads to Stores

[JohnS]

Oliva Serie V Roaring Twenties, a $300 Cigar, Heads to Stores

November 22, 2024 - Charlie Minato

Almost 18 months after it was first announced, the most expensive cigar in Oliva’s history is finally on its way to stores.

The Oliva Serie V Roaring Twenties Super Limited Edition is a unique 6 x 60 double perfecto. Like the rest of the Serie V line, it will use an Ecuadorian wrapper over a Nicaraguan binder and fillers from Nicaragua. But everything after that is decidedly different from a normal Serie V.

This release not only uses different bands but ones that are much more intricate with small areas of the band cut out to expose more of the cigar’s wrapper. The boxes look nothing like the standard brown Serie V boxes and instead feature an image from the 1920s that shows a woman dancing on a rooftop.

Each box also comes with a gold Le Petit by Les Fines Lames cigar knife. While the knife is functionally the same as other Le Petit knives, this design can only be acquired by purchasing a box of the Roaring Twenties cigars. Vandermarliere Family of Cigars—the parent company of Oliva—is an investor in Les Fines Lames.

There’s also the price: $300 per cigar or $3,000 per box of 10. Production is limited to 300 boxes, two-thirds of which are to be sold in the U.S.

Like some other companies that have made cigars at similarly eye-popping prices, Oliva says that it will donate all of its revenue from the sale of this cigar to charity, specifically, the Oliva Helping Hands Foundation,” which helps provide schooling for children in Nicaragua.

In addition to the knife, each box also comes with a chance to win a trip for two to visit Nicarauga to see the foundation’s Oliva Esculea Elemental, an elementary school in Estelí, Nicaragua, the same city where these cigars were rolled.

“We’re so excited to present this cigar to the world,” said says Fred Vandermarliere, ceo of Vandermarliere Family of Cigars—the parent company of Oliva—in a press release when the cigar was announced in the summer of 2023. “The idea was born before a worldwide pandemic took people’s freedoms away. I see it much more as an artwork than a product to smoke… Especially when such an ode contributes to a better future for the local communities that make it all happen.”

That statement was made nearly 18 months ago and while the project mostly looks the same as did in July 2023, some things have changed. First, the cigar knife is now included. Second, it was originally announced that Daniel Marshall, a California-based humidor maker, would make the boxes, but the production boxes were not made by Marshall.

Finally, when Oliva first showed off the project, the bottom half of each cigar was covered with gold foil. It wasn’t just decoration, the cigars were designed to be smoked with the gold still on the bottom. The gold will get hot enough and eventually melt into the ash. This is similar to a concept that Marshall uses for his own golden cigars, except his cigars can be entirely covered with 24-karat edible gold foil.

Source: https://halfwheel.com/oliva-serie-v-roaring-twenties-a-300-cigar-heads-to-stores/445001/