In 2016, shortly before the Trump administration began, there was another regime change taking place as well, only it was in the world of premium cigars. Family-owned Oliva Cigar Co. was acquired by J. Cortès Cigars N.V., a family-owned Belgian company known for producing machine-made, mass-market smokes. Its young CEO—named Frederik Vandermarliere— merely 34 years old at the time, vowed to maintain Oliva’s quality while strengthening the brand. Now, seven years later, it seems he’s done all he can to keep that promise.
A line of palm trees on the Pan American highway move in the wind. It’s a clear day in Estelí, Nicaragua, and you can see mountains in almost every direction, but it’s unusually breezy this January afternoon. Another gust of wind rustles the palm fronds, only this time, the breeze brings with it Vandermarliere, the owner of Oliva Cigar Co. Surrounded by flowers and meticulous landscaping, he ascends the garden-like steps of a massive, 180,000 square foot tobacco processing facility quaintly called Las Mesitas—the little mesas—and holds up a cigar.
“You see that?” he asks. The cigar has the cartoonish look of a caveman’s club with a bulbous top and severely tapered end. Then, he turns it upside down. “Look. It’s like the trunk of a palm tree,” he suggests, holding it in the air against the view of a Royal Palm. You might know this cigar as the Oliva Serie V 135th Anniversary (91 points), a limited-edition figurado that came out last year. “That was my inspiration. This cigar is my contribution to Oliva,” the 41-year-old says with a slight chuckle and unmistakable Belgian accent.
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