Oliva Serie V Showdown – Lancero v Torpedo
Some cigar reviews are about flavor.
This one turned into a psychology experiment.
The idea started after watching my buddy Mr. @LordoftheLancero over on Instagram spend enough time around skinny cigars that I finally decided to stop treating Lanceros like mythical woodland creatures only spoken about in cigar forums and old tobacconists.
So instead of reviewing an individual cigar, this became something far more interesting:
What actually changes when the vitola changes?
Not the blend.
Not the company.
Not the tobacco philosophy.
Just the geometry.
Because after years of smoking the Oliva Serie V line, I realized something uncomfortable:
I already know what a Serie V tastes like.
We all do.
Pepper.
Strength.
Dark Nicaraguan richness.
Authority.
The interesting part wasn’t whether the Serie V was good.
The interesting part was whether changing the size fundamentally changes the experience itself.
And somewhere between the Lancero demanding patience like a tiny tobacco sensei and the Torpedo broadening everything back into familiar Serie V territory, the answer became obvious:
Vitolas don’t just alter flavor.
They alter behavior.
They alter cadence.
They alter heat.
They alter concentration.
They alter expectation.
Same cocktail.
Different straws.
By the Numbers
• Cigars: Oliva Serie V Lancero vs. Torpedo
• Storage: 69% RH
• Pairing: Club soda and poor decision-making memories
• Cut (Lancero): Straight cut
• Cut (Torpedo): Deep V-cut via Colibri SV
• Smoking Duration (Lancero): 1 hour 10 minutes
• Experiment Objective: Determine how vitola alters the Serie V experience
The Lancero Experiment
I expected the Lancero to feel delicate.
Not weak — I know the Serie V blend far too well to expect softness — but maybe refined, elegant, restrained.
Nope.
This thing still walked into the room wearing steel toe boots.
Immediately though, one thing became obvious:
The draw was significantly tighter than anticipated.
Not plugged.
Not problematic.
Just noticeably more restrictive than the broad open highway most thicker vitolas provide.
And honestly, that alone started proving the point of this entire experiment.
The Lancero immediately demanded a completely different smoking style.
Slower cadence.
Smaller draws.
More patience.
A Robusto lets you smoke recklessly.
The Lancero feels like it wants paperwork submitted before every puff.
What made the experience fascinating, though, was that despite the restrictive draw, the construction itself was phenomenal.
Burn line?
Laser straight.
Smoke production?
Excellent.
Touchups?
None.
Relights?
None.
This skinny little psychopath burned with the precision of a machine-calibrated death ray for nearly six full inches before finally showing even the slightest signs of waviness.
Which honestly made the tighter draw even stranger.
Usually when airflow gets restrictive, construction problems begin appearing somewhere else.
Not here.
This thing simply demanded discipline.
Draw Your Lance-ro
The strangest part of the entire Lancero experience was realizing how much of the battle was happening in my own head.
Because visually, a Lancero LOOKS like it should smoke softer.
More delicate.
More refined.
More dainty.
Meanwhile this Serie V Lancero spent the entire session aggressively reminding me:
“The V is still the V, dummy.”
The pepper remained.
The strength remained.
That familiar dark Nicaraguan backbone remained.
If anything, the thinner format concentrated those characteristics even further.
And the further into the cigar I got, the more obvious it became that the biggest difference wasn’t necessarily flavor itself.
It was concentration.
The Lancero compressed everything.
Smoke texture felt denser.
Pepper felt sharper.
The entire experience arrived with more precision and focus.
The longer smoke path and smaller ring gauge essentially concentrated the blend into a narrower, more intense delivery system.
At the same time, I found myself constantly psyching myself out.
Every instinct kept telling me I was smoking too slowly and the cigar was about to go out.
Meanwhile the Lancero just calmly kept burning like an absolute champion.
Dead straight.
Consistent.
Composed.
Honestly, I think the cigar handled the Lancero format better than I did.
Because as the final third approached, another difference became impossible to ignore:
Thermal management.
The Lancero absolutely has a thermal ceiling.
You cannot smoke it aggressively.
Heat builds faster.
The narrower chamber reacts more dramatically to cadence.
The concentrated smoke intensifies quickly.
This vitola demands finesse.
A thicker cigar says:
“Smoke me however you want.”
The Lancero says:
“You’ll smoke me correctly or we’re BOTH going to have a bad time.”
And yet, even after finally developing some heat and slight burn waviness deep into the smoke, the cigar corrected itself naturally without intervention.
No panic.
No unraveling.
No meltdown.
Just physics eventually entering the chat.
Ultimately, I finally had to bid adieu before needing a roach clip and suddenly remembering entirely different smoking activities from younger years that were significantly less legal and substantially less expensive.
And honestly?
I finally understood the appeal.
The Lancero wasn’t trying to overpower the Serie V blend.
It was trying to focus it.
Man the Torpedos
After giving the palate a brief reset and allowing Pepper Department to clear me for additional duty, it was time for the Torpedo.
Unlike the Lancero, this one received a deep V-cut courtesy of the Colibri SV.
And immediately my brain started questioning reality again.
Because somehow the Torpedo felt both smoother AND more pepper-forward simultaneously.
Which honestly shouldn’t make sense.
Except maybe it absolutely does.
The thicker vitola immediately felt more familiar.
More complete.
More traditionally “Serie V.”
The smoke broadened out considerably compared to the concentrated punch of the Lancero.
Not weaker.
Just wider.
And that’s when the entire experiment finally clicked into place.
The biggest difference between these cigars wasn’t necessarily flavor.
It was delivery concentration.
These are the same cocktail.
We’re just drinking through different straws.
The Lancero felt like sipping through a tiny coffee stir straw where every draw arrives compressed and intensified.
The Torpedo feels like drinking the same cocktail through a milkshake straw.
Broader smoke.
Bigger delivery.
Smoother integration.
Less concentrated force.
Same DNA.
Completely different experience.
Construction Comparisons
What made the comparison even stranger was the construction behavior.
The Torpedo had actually spent over thirty days resting comfortably at 69% humidity.
The Lancero?
Fresh arrival.
Brief tupperdor orientation.
Immediate deployment.
Yet somehow the fresher cigar dramatically outperformed the rested Torpedo in burn precision.
Now to be completely fair:
The Torpedo was not burning badly whatsoever.
No relights.
No touchups.
No construction failures.
But it wasn’t performing with the absurd laser-straight precision the Lancero maintained for nearly six inches either.
The Torpedo felt more organic.
More natural.
Less clinically perfect.
Which honestly made the Lancero’s performance even more impressive in hindsight.
The Millennium of Aftermath
This ended up being one of the most educational cigar sessions I’ve had in a long time.
Not because I discovered some hidden flavor note.
Not because one vitola “won.”
But because smoking these back-to-back finally forced me to understand how dramatically vitola changes the smoking experience itself.
The Serie V blend never stopped being the Serie V.
What changed was how the blend arrived.
The Lancero sharpened it.
Focused it.
Concentrated it.
The Torpedo broadened it.
Smoothed it.
Opened it back up.
Neither felt objectively better.
Just different.
And honestly, that may be the most important lesson of the entire experiment:
Sometimes we aren’t smoking different cigars at all.
Sometimes we’re simply drinking the same cocktail through different straws.
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