Click here to join The Daily Caller’s “Cigar Hunter” email list. Subscribers are automatically entered to win prizes from time to time.
“Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.”
If you know what that means, buy yourself a cigar. You’ve earned it for sitting through a university seminar on Dante Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy.”
Here are the Cliffs Notes: “Abandon all hope, you who enter here.” That’s the final inscription on the gate to hell in “The Inferno” — the first part of the epic Dante poem.
Yes, inferno literally means “hell” in Italian. I doubt the folks at Oliva Cigar had that in mind when they named a private-line cigar they make exclusively for the Famous Smoke Shop, and I can’t imagine they wanted fans of milder cigars to abandon all hope. (Update: the always-helpful Scott Shemtov at Famous Smoke informs me that it was his company, not Oliva, that picked the name.)
Smoking the “Inferno by Oliva” isn’t a hellish experience. It is, however, a pepper factory in a neat little Nicaraguan package.
The going rate online is $20.99 for a 5-pack of robustos (5 inches x 50 ring gauge), which is a pretty good deal at retail. Be aware, though, that the price probably isn’t going to go down since the cigar is made exclusively for one retailer.
But a funny thing happens when you start a cigar column: People send you free cigars. Famous Smoke sent me a few Infernos to try, so my cost for this review is a big fat $0.00. (Note to self: Launch a big-screen TV column as soon as humanly possible.)
I had the pleasure of sharing a pair of Infernos with my good friend Kelly Maher, the brains behind RevealingPolitics.com, while she was in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday. She’s my first guest smoker and, I hope, not my last.
We both agreed that pepper was the primary flavor of this full-bodied cigar, but Kelly had a more nuanced take. “It’s more like a habanero pepper, where it slowly creeps up on you — and then ‘Bam! It’s pepper!’ — than it is like a jalapeño, which is ‘Bam!’ immediately.”
I didn’t think to tell her that the Inferno’s dark Nicaraguan wrapper leaf is cut from — drum roll, please — a Habanero leaf. Go figure.
Inferno is all Nicaraguan, though its Ligero filler is likely grown from Cuban seed. If you like Ligero tobacco — think the La Flor Dominicana Double Ligero with some of its smoothness and most of its spice — you’ll love this far less expensive cigar.
The first smell and taste from the Inferno was a hint of dark chocolate, as it is with some darker-wrapped smokes. But when the pepper flavor mixed in, I was reminded of my favorite guilty-pleasure candy: the Lindt Excellence Chili dark chocolate bar. it has little flecks of red chili pepper in it, and it’s a fantastic idea.
Exhale the smoke and take a sip of water, and you’d swear you were nibbling on one. (RELATED: Cigar Hunter: Burning the midnight maduro)
“It’s that subtle thing,” Kelly told me. “It’s smooth and chocolaty on the front end, and then, ‘Whack!'”
Now, as our president would say, let me be perfectly clear: This is a peppery cigar, but it’s not overwhelming like the Cu-Avana Punisher or the 601 La Bomba. It’s more like the 601 Blue Label maduro, which I think is one of the best pure smoking pleasures available at any price. I like that cigar so much that I mailed one to Kelly last month when she was feeling down.
The Inferno is manufactured at Oliva’s Tabolisa factory in Esteli, Nicaragua. Esteli is on the Pan-American Highway, less than 100 miles from Managua. Its climate and soil are absolutely perfect for tobacco growing. So it’s no surprise that the region became a landing pad for Cuban tobacco-grower refugees between Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution and his 1962 decision to put the entire cigar industry under his new government’s thumb.
Plop yourself in Esteli, and the plantations are everywhere. Padrón has a factory in town. So does Carlos Toraño, and also Joya de Nicaragua — the factory that started the big Esteli boom.
Segovia Cigars also rolls its popular Casa Magna cigars in an Esteli factory constructed with cathedral-like vaulted windows. I’ve read that tourists tend to make the sign of the cross as they pass by, not knowing what goes on inside.
And, of course, Oliva has a factory there: It cranks out 50,000 cigars every day. This is a company that has only been selling cigars for 17 years, and it’s already one of the highest-volume manufacturers in the premium market.
That probably has something to do with the Oliva family’s much longer history with tobacco cultivation. Melanio Oliva started the ball rolling in the Pinar del Rio region of Cuba in 1886. (That’s not a typo.) So these people know what they’re doing.
High-end Olivas can go for $11 or $12, so ultimately I wasn’t sure what to expect from a cigar whose full retail price is $4.20. But what I got was a smooth smoke with a lot of that peppery flavor. It was packed firm with a smooth wrapper, and the first draw was frankly better than some of the higher-end Oliva cigars I’ve tried. Definitely a better draw than Oliva’s “presidente”-size monsters.
The Inferno was a 70-minute smoke — not so good for a quickie tobacco infusion, but great for the daily commuter in search of a breakfast cigar. The ash held together very well, and I didn’t have to relight it. This was a low-maintenance cigar. (RELATED: Cigar Hunter: A cheap Brazilian that doesn’t involve your girlfriend)
Midway through the smoke, the pepper-bomb quieted down into what I would call a medium-bodied taste. But the flavor profile never got truly interesting. I caught hints of coffee and the cocoa taste got a bit sweeter as I smoked. But like hell itself — no matter what Dante would say — this cigar isn’t the most complex thing in the world.
It is what it is: a relatively delightful pepper bomb infused with chocolate. It would have been nice if a new flavor came in as the pepper quieted down, but I kept reminding myself that this was a bargain-priced cigar to begin with.
There was one surprise toward the end, as the lost souls in Inferno’s pepper-ringed level of hell reasserted themselves, and the otherwise velvety smooth experience gave way, just for a minute, to something pungent and woodsy.
By this time I was almost at the nub. I almost wish I had tried this in a larger size — Oliva also makes a 6 x 50 Toro and a 7 x 50 Churchill — so I could find out if that strong wood flavor, ringed with the smell of wet kindling, would continue.
At the end of Dante’s “Inferno,” the poet and his guide climb out of hell on Easter Sunday and gaze up at the stars in heaven. After thousands of lines of depressing and diabolical poetry, the immediate contrast is breathtaking.
Maybe that was just his way of saying that after an Inferno, you really need to smoke something lighter.
Next up will be whatever I smoke in Morocco next week. Who knows?