Ah, the sweet, sweet Short Story

A Ernest Hemingway once said, Give me liberty or give me a ME Short Story.  The Arturo Fuente is the last in my brief foray into the world of non-cuban cigars, and of course, I saved the best for last.  Most smokers who have been into cigars for more than a few years have run into the Arturo Fuente Hemingway Short Story.  A fantastic little fireplug of a smoke that almost single-handedly led the way of cigar makers back into the world of figurados, and even moreso, the short, stout smoke.  These are wrapped in a dark, beautiful Cameroon wrapper, covered in tooth and oil.  A little plume is on the head.

A quick snip to both ends and it lights right up, pouring dark espresso and white pepper notes with a sweet edge into my mouth, and coating the tongue with a luscious finish.  I used to smoke about a box of these a year, along with my favorite H. Upmann Churchills. (a toro actually)Then I got into the H. Upmann 2000 pretty heavy.  Then they changed from Cameroon to another wrapper and I just lost the taste for them, the Churchills, I mean.  Then I discovered habanos and they all got left behind.  I was running far behind on troop support and picked up these various cigars to send out, and as usual, I pinch a few.  Well this smoke is just amazing.  In a Non-cuban sort of way.  Leave it to the Fuentes and the Padrons to consistently make great smokes that draw everytime.  The taste of well-aged tobacco is pretty great, and was missing from habanos for a long time.  Like the Don Carlos line, these Hemingways are just made to impress.  Of course, Habanos SA has been using more aged tobaccos in their smokes in the past 5-6 years, and it shows in my experience so far. 

This cigar presents exotic hints of various woods and a sweet cedar with delicate complexity.  There is a light creaminess and an even lighter peppery quality.  The burn is wickedly straight and the draw continues to be the perfect compromise of medium and med- tight.  The pulls and smoke production are utterly remarkable.  As I try to photograph the smoke progress, I ash the thing accidentally, so I can't show the ash line as starkly as I want to.  There is a bit of chocolate in there that is so confusing, I am not sure if it is coffee or choco.  I guess in that case, who cares, right. 

So good, so sweet, so aged, so fine, so short.  Nubbed this one and enjoyed it to the end.  Could have gone a lot further but hate smoke in the eye.