2022 Big Smoke Las Vegas Seminars: Lunch With Oliva Cigars
When you start your day with a heroic number of cigars (six of them, for any who smoked their entire way through the Boveda bag of goodies, plus the breakfast cigar) as well as five different samples of Scotch, you need a hearty lunch. And that’s precisely what was prepared for the seminar audience.
Following the morning presentations, the Big Smoke crowd moved over to the adjacent room for a comfortable meal delivered by the Resorts World waitstaff. Lunch was hosted by Oliva Cigar Co., and because you can’t have a Big Smoke without smoking big, before being seated at their tables everyone was handed an Oliva Serie V Melanio Churchill, the No. 8 Cigar of 2020.
It was a three-course lunch that began with a crisp Caesar salad, not too heavy on the dressing. The main course, a quintessential cigar-smoker’s entrée: blackened New York strip steak with fingerling potatoes, roasted fennel and a peppercorn sauce. Dessert was a pineapple upside down cake with coconut cream.
Steak calls for red wine, and the waiters poured Rodney Strong Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma County Reserve 2019. There was also iced tea, as well as coffee.
Fred Vandermarliere, the owner of Oliva, took to the podium for a brief welcome. He spoke about the importance of tradition, emphasizing that his goal after his company acquired Oliva in 2016 was to avoid changing Oliva’s winning ways, namely the company’s ability to make amazing cigars. He also spoke about the recent news of Gilberto Oliva Sr. being named to Cigar Aficionado’s Hall of Fame, which is commemorated and celebrated in the November/December issue.
As soon as dessert was served, the diners lit up their Oliva Melanio Churchills, putting a final smoky touch on a day of fine cigar after fine cigar. For some, this was the end of their Big Smoke weekend, but for many others, they had the Big Smoke evening to attend in a few hours, with even more cigars in their future.
Read Next: The 2022 Big Smoke Las Vegas Evenings
Don’t Miss A Big Smoke: The Big Smoke Meets WhiskyFest takes place March 4th at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. Click here to buy tickets or to get more information. And the Big Smoke will return to Las Vegas next fall.
