Cigar Review: A. Fuente Hemingway Best Seller

Hi all, Cigar Czar, today is a review I did a few days back on the Arturo Fuente Hemingway Best Seller. I actually smoked this the same night as the H. Upmann Vintage Cameroon, but decided I was not done enjoying myself at the lounge, and grabbed another cigar. The reason I grabbed this little puppy, is because it was little. It was late in the night and I didn't really want to dedicate myself to another hour and a half, especially since Edwards was closing soon.

The most interesting part about this cigar is without a doubt its shape. Its a perfecto which is a rare type of cigar due to its incredibly difficult wrap. According to Carlos Fuente Jr., on their Cigar Family site, "These cigars are extremely difficult to make so our production is very small. We accumulate the limited production of these cigars in the aging rooms and usually release them around the holidays, something special for our fellow cigar smokers to enjoy." And I must say, looking at them, I can see why. A very smooth wrap for something with so many curves in it, a small nipple at the end that rounds out to a wide curve and then going into a longer, taper towards the label. I'm sure if I were to attempt something like this, it would look more like something Jay and Silent Bob would roll.
The wrapper on this is a beautiful Cameroon leaf that was very smooth with little vein and had a nutty brown color, wrapped over a Dominican binder and long filler. I used my guillotine cutter which had no problem and there was little to no debris. The burn in the beginning was very interesting as the perfecto did not burn right, there was a large gap missing tobacco so it needed constant attention, if I stopped smoking even for a little bit, it would go out. Once past that gap however, she burned true to her name, perfect. The ash, which was a light gray color, had clung for a good length of the cigar.

The cigars pre-light flavor was a bit spicy, with just a hint of cedar. Upon lighting there was a distinct flavor of either a robust nut, possibly coffee laced with the aforementioned cedar. Because of the design, your mostly smoking the Cameroon wrapper at first which is where I think that lovely spiced wood was coming from. As the cigar widened up, you get more of the Dominican long filler which had a flavor of nut and a hint of cashew, mixed with the now easing cedar. Towards the end, as it tapers back, the flavors become a little more developed and the coffee more complex.

Overall the design of this cigar is a brilliant way to contrast different portions of the leaf against one another while smoking. The way the flavors mature and gain and lose character is really fun. I can see why Carlos Fuente Jr. was eager to bring this near dead form of rolling back from oblivion.