bobbyg29
CL's Mad Cigar Scientist
Registered: April 2007
Location: Mesa, AZ
Posts: 1719
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Review Date: Sat July 21, 2007
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Would you recommend this to someone? Yes |
Price you paid? In US$: $11.50
| Rating: 10
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Pros:
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complex sweetness with solid leather base, perfect construction and burn
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Cons:
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price and availabilty
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Arturo Fuente Añejo
Reserva Xtra Viejo Limitada #50
5.25” x 50
$11.50
**This cigar was aged for just over 1 year in my humidor.
ATMOSPHERE: Smoked on a clear morning after a rain storm on my patio paired with iced tea and “Freebird” the movie.
PRE-SMOKE:
Scent: This cigar has a very powerful aroma that I detected as soon as I took the cellophane off!! Very potent cedar and the nicest cocoa scent I have ever experienced from the wrapper and an unusual sweet odor (a mix of chocolate and citrus) from the foot.
Appearance: Dark chocolate brown (verging on black) wrapper that was incredibly oily and smooth with an amazing sheen to it. Perfect triple cap and flawless construction. Comes in a very nice cedar sleeve.
Feel: Fairly hard to the squeeze throughout.
Pre-light draw: A little tingle on the tongue after my punch cut and mostly leather and cocoa on the draw. This was the easiest cigar to light I have ever seen..it literally took me about 10 seconds.
SMOKE:
Taste & Flavor: The most complex sweetness I have ever experienced. Started out with a mix of chocolate and plum and a nice leather base. Some spice (not quite pepper) through the nose. At about 1/3 it became more savory and spicy with a nutmeg flavor. At about the ½ way point it developed an amazing maple syrup flavor and a very syrupy aftertaste. A 1” further into the cigar the sweetness reminded me more of raisin bread. Finally in the last 1/3 it became more like a mix of brown sugar and chocolate. The leather base was consistent throughout.Absolutely incredible!
Strength: Medium in strength will very full flavors!
Feeling: Wonderful cigar to chew on! Good resistance and wonderful sweet and savory flavors on the lips from the wrapper.
Scent of smoke: This cigar produced TONS of bluish, white smoke. In fact, I have never seen a cigar produce so much smoke when not drawing…it was like a little chimney. The aroma was nutty with some cocoa and strong grassy scents (and like the Opus it occasionally reminded me of marijuana smoke).
Heat: Never got hot or bitter.
Draw & Burn: Perfect draw and flawlessly even burn.
Finish: Long, bready and sweet finish that changed constantly with the different flavors in the smoke. Coats the mouth. I also got a lit spicy tingle that was not pepper but I couldn’t really identify it.
OTHER:
Ash: Beautiful white ash that held like a champion until I accidentally hit it against my armrest 
Duration: Very slow burning. I nubbed this beauty in about 2 hrs.
CONCLUSION: An incredibly complex sweet and leathery cigar that was easily the best maduro I have ever had! Initially I thought I was going to be disappointed because the flavor at the very beginning was nice but had no wow factor (like the Opus I reviewed last week) but then suddenly the sweetness began developing these amazing plum, maple syrup, and raisin flavors. And the sweetness was not overpowering in anyway and was perfectly balanced with the leather base. Like with most Fuentes the construction and burn were absolutely flawless. This was one of those transcendental smoking experience…incredible cigar and environment!! I would definitely recommend this cigar..especially if you can find it near it’s $10 MSRP…it is definitely worth the money!
FINAL RATING: 9.5/10
Cheers!
Rob
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Contributing Author and Resident "Cigar Science Guy", Team Stogie Fresh
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