Arturo Fuente Hemingway Short Story
Size: 4 x 48 (perfecto)
Tobacco: Dominican filler, Cameroon wrapper
Price: $5

Billy Ferriolo, from CigarsDirect (a great online site that specializes in high-end superpremiums), gifted me two of these cigars. I first reviewed them seven months ago, and was pleased that my experience this time was equally as good.

Appearance: Perfecto-shaped cigars are supposedly the most difficult vitola to create, and this line is crafted by the most skilled Fuente veterans. At first glance, it appears to be a short, skinny cigar that probably will last half an hour. The wrapper looks flawless and is slick to the touch. The prelight aroma, which is subtle and tangy, belies the spicy strength of the cigar.

Overall impression: The taste profile is identical to the Hemingway Signature, starting out mild-to-medium, and then steadily picking up spice and strength: a very complex smoke that you can nub to your fingers without ever feeling satiated. The spicy flavor settles on the back of the tongue and lingers for hours after the cigar is extinguished. It pairs great with a glass of single malt scotch. Even if you follow it with a lesser cigar (as I did on a lazy Sunday afternoon), the flavor of the Hemingway stays with you. What's particularly astonishing is that, for such a small cigar, it burns incredibly slow, almost an hour, without becoming too hot. Burn is straight as an arrow. I wrote seven months ago "The Hemingway may be the best non-Cuban cigar on the planet." I am now retracting that statement, but only because in comparison to the less expensive Sun Grown Fuente, the Hemingway Short Story never quite reaches the same level of complexity.

I score this a 7.5/10 .