RealFreakinCigarReviews

Initial Thoughts

Another five-pack from my first batch purchase from JR.  This is my first taste of a Fonseca (hell, it's the first time I even *heard* of'em!)  I'm not expecting too much other than the experience of a solid cigar store smoke.  Except, as I am a big fan of individually cedar-wrapped cigars (that cedar always seems to lend a pleasing spicy note to whatever it's wrapped around), I do expect a bit of subtlety of some kind.

The Smoke

After un-celophaning and de-cedaring this dude, the sniff test revealed a weak yet pleasing cedary scent.  I always like to pass a cigar under the wife's nose too, to see what she thinks - in this case, "flowery" was her impression!  Weird, I just smelled some nice cedar-hinty tobacco (don't they ALL smell nice before you light them up?)

Anyway, after noting that the beautifully dark brown and mottled wrapper looked a lot like some well aged leather saddle bag, I noted some quite thick veins, and the way those veins caused some of the nearby wrapper to flake up off the cigar.  I don't think that caused any draw problems, because I believe the extremely tight packing on this sucker took care of that all by itself.  I'm talking tight; I feared pinching this sucker any more than I did would simply snap it in two.

However, even with the necessary pre-puff for each real puff and the not un-effortless draw, the flavor of this cigar was very very good.  It started out a non-bitter dark toasty, and continued that way all the way through, with hints of hops (as in beer) showing up mid way!  There's that "flowery" scent my wife detected!  This was in addition to the mild, delightfully tingly and spicy flavor imparted by the cedar wrapping.

If it weren't for the flakey wrapper and crowbar-like tightness, I'd give this guy a solid 8 of 10.  Unfortunately, the tightness and sloppy wrapper made experiencing it less than enjoyable and effortless. 

The Rating