The cigar industry has changed quite a bit in the last decade or so. With the smaller boutique companies emerging, they tend to focus on mall small batch, limited edition lines with high quality but very low inventory. There is not a company in the market today that doesn’t have at least 2-3 hard to find limited edition cigars. However, in the early 2000s, this wasn’t really the case. With the exception of some of the Opus X line from Fuente, there weren’t really any limited productions that would become rare. Then there was Oliva.

J. Cortes cigars is now the owner of the Oliva Cigar Family brand as of 2016. But in 2003, Oliva released the first Master Blend Series. After its immense success they followed it up in 2005 with the Master Blend Series 2 and then finally in 2006 with the Series 3. Since then there have been no new Master Blend releases, but the Series 3 is in continuous production. However, in the market for rare non Cubans, the original Master Blend Series is about as rare as it comes.

They were a rich blend of purely aged Nicaraguan tobaccos. They were packaged in a very ornate wooden box with a beautiful tobacco field art print on the top. What these cigars even more unique was the fact that a laser print of the logo was etched right onto each cigar. While originally priced for $8 a piece, which was a decent price for the time period, I have seen boxes of this on the secondary market for over $2000, making them one of the prized possessions for a cigar collector.

With the creation of the Oliva Serie V in 2007, the Master Blend Series was put on hold, with only the #3 still in production. It is still an outstanding cigar with a very rich and storied history. Make sure to try out one of Olivas finest smokes right now at Cigars.com