Mr. Porch and I each enjoyed one of these cigars last night in his garage, compliments of Cigars Direct. This was the second Arturo Fuente cigar I’ve ever smoked, and what a treat it was! My experience was not perfect, however. Let me explain.

This cigar came in a cellophane plastic sleeve, and had a cedar wrapper on it. Initial presentation was nice, even though I’m not much for gift wrapping cigars. This is a beautiful cigar. The veins were very small, and the wrapper was very dark and smooth with an oily sheen.

My initial cut let me know that this cigar was rolled very tight. I used a double guillotine cutter on this, and had trouble cutting through it. I put the cigar to my mouth for an initial taste and “test draw” and decided to cut it a little more. As I’m writing this review, I decided I need to invest in a punch for these type of cigars.

Before we lit our cigars, I checked for hard spots in it, and thought again how tight this cigar was, it didn’t have much give in the tobacco at all but it was consistent.

After lighting, Mr. Porch made mention about how there wasn’t much smoke. I had some trouble with my initial light. I try to light it with my butane lighter before puffing, I ended up having to puff while lighting. A bystander managed to get a decent picture of it. (Thanks Jon)

While smoking, Mr. Porch and I both decided that we really liked this cigar. Mr. Porch, who isn’t much for maduros commented on how smooth it was. I agree. After 25 minutes, he ashed for the first time.

The experience was near perfect until I started getting near the band, when one side started burning faster than the other. At one point, one side was burning about 1/4″ ahead of the other, then shortly thereafter it went out all together. Mr. Porch had to relight his twice, but he tends to tell more stories while he’s smoking and drinking beer.

As I progressed past the band, what was left of my cap came off. Probably because to cut it too much. It wasn’t a problem though, the cigar didn’t start unraveling or anything and continued to be a great smoke until I finally decided it was done - 1 hour and 45 minutes after lighting it. Mr. Porch made a cool 2 hours out of it.

Final thoughts:
When I was getting ready for this review, I did a little research on this cigar and learned that this cigar is a bit hard to come by and is known to be a very good cigar. Although this cigar is not huge (5.25” x 50) it sure did last a long time. Overall, a very good cigar. This cigar would have been an A- if not for the relights and my cap falling off. I’m rating this a very high B+. If this cigar was a bit cheaper, I’d probably have a bunch of them in my humidor. I’d be very interested to hear what others think of this cigar, if you need to find some you can fine these and other Arturo Fuentes cigars at our sponsor, cigarsdirect.com.

Posted by Sam in Arturo Fuente, Cigar Reviews

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