Nub Connecticut 660 Gordo Review

Overview

The Nub Connecticut 660 Gordo occupies a curious and deliberate place in the modern cigar landscape — a mild-mannered giant that defies both the traditional vitola proportions and the expectations of what a Connecticut Shade wrapper can deliver. Born from the collaboration between Steve Saka, Cary Rosenblum, and Oliva Cigar Co., the Nub concept was originally a radical rethinking of form: by compressing a long cigar into a short, fat shape, the theory went, the smoker would spend more time in the ‘sweet spot’ where flavor peaks. While the 660 Gordo abandons the stubby silhouette that made the brand iconic (it measures a full six inches by a 60-ring gauge), it retains the Nub ethos of fat-ring construction and reliable engineering. This cigar is rolled in Estelí, Nicaragua, on the factory floor where precision is second nature, and the result is a smoke that feels generous, unhurried, and reassuringly consistent. The Connecticut Shade wrapper — pale golden straw, silky, and almost veinless — is grown in the Connecticut River Valley, a region that has defined American wrapper tobacco for generations. Beneath it lies an Indonesian binder and a filler core of Dominican and Nicaraguan long-leaf tobaccos, a blend calibrated to deliver creaminess without heft. This is not a cigar for those seeking complexity as an end in itself. Instead, it is a meditation on balance: a smoke that stays in its lane, executes its promise, and asks nothing of the smoker except attention to the present moment. At an everyday price hovering between $10 and $14, the Nub Connecticut 660 is a value proposition that feels like a small luxury — a gentle giant that makes no apologies for its size or its mildness. In a market increasingly dominated by power and novelty, there is something quietly subversive about a cigar that simply delivers good, honest smoking pleasure without pretense. The flavor arc is deliberate and linear: the first third opens with cream, toasted white bread, and soft cedar, with a delicate sweetness of fresh hay and vanilla that coats the palate without any aggression. A retrohale reveals a fleeting white pepper tingle that vanishes almost as soon as it appears, a gesture toward complexity rather than a full embrace. The second third deepens into toasted almond and cashew, with notes of dried apricot and a whisper of floral honeysuckle that keep the profile alive without overstepping. In the final third, a gentle woodsy earthiness and mild roasted nut quality develop, the sweetness tapers, and a faint mineral note closes the smoke with quiet resolve. There is no harshness, no heat, no unraveling — just a steadfast physical integrity that speaks to the skill of the rollers. The construction is textbook Oliva: an open-to-medium draw produces pillowy clouds of smoke, the ash holds in firm, light-grey columns for an inch or two, and the burn line stays even without fuss. The Nub Connecticut 660 is not a cigar that challenges the aficionado's palate or demands introspection. It is, rather, a warm handshake in a world of formal introductions — a cigar that says, ‘I am here to be enjoyed.’ For its intended audience — the newcomer, the social smoker, or the veteran who wants a low-commitment afternoon companion — it delivers with quiet dignity. That it does so in a format originally conceived as a radical departure from tradition is a testament to how far the brand has evolved. It is a cigar that belongs in the conversation as an exemplar of the modern mild-to-medium smoke, and it earns its place as a staple in the everyday rotation of any serious enthusiast’s humidor.