Casa Fuente Lancero

[Don Fernando]

In 2009 I went to the United States for the first time, for a three week trip. The first two and a half weeks were all about a road trip on the east coast, all the way from Key Largo to Rochester in Upstate New York with a herf with people from Cigar Asylum each night. It was a great trip and made friends for life. For the final few days we flew from Albany NY to Las Vegas where about 30 BOTL and SOTL showed up and we smoked a lot. Now as a cigar aficionado you cannot visit Las Vegas without visiting Casa Fuente, which we did every day while we were there. And I bought a sampler of their house blend, the Casa Fuente that is sold only there and back then not available online but I recently saw them for insane prices at an online retailer.

Now back then I wasn’t in love with the lancero vitola yet, that came later when I had more smoking experience, which in my opinion you need before you are able to fully enjoy a lancero so I didn’t look for them. But a few years later I met Charlie Minato from Halfwheel at Intertabac in Dortmund and he hit me with a few cigars that weren’t available in Europe, including some Roma Craft and as a final surprise he says “I know you love lancero’s” and hits me with a Casa Fuente Lancero. Now am hardly ever at a loss for words, but this time I was. What a gift. I mean, Opus X filler and binder with a Cameroon wrapper, which is a wrapper I love, in my favorite vitola, hallelujah! And since I didn’t like Las Vegas and I never want to go back unless I have a very good reason I never expected to get my hands on these.

The cigar is partly wrapped in cedar with a nice orange piece of cloth on the foot. When I take the cigar out I see a nice, medium brown wrapper with tooth, a small water spot and minor thin veins. The construction feels good and the pig tale is always a nice extra touch. The ring is amazing, a beautiful dark brown, like a dark chocolate mousse color with thick golden outlines, very detailed and orange pin striping. The letters Casa Fuente are in gold and orange in a curly font with a black shadow. The ring is very detailed. As for the aroma, since the cigar has been wrapped in cedar for a few years that’s what I smell, cedar.

I cut the cigar since it’s too small to punch. The cold draw is great and I taste hay with a pepper aftertaste. It’s easy to light the cigar with a soft flame and I taste Cuban coffee right from the get go. After a few puffs it’s coffee with lemon. The coffee disappears and I taste a metallic flavor with some unsalted peanuts. After an inch I taste spicy cedar with some chocolate. After a third the spices disappear, now it’s cedar with some herb and lime. It then turn ashy, which is not very pleasurable to say the least, then I realize it’s because tar build up.
To get rid of the tar I cut off a little extra piece of the cigar. That helps ofcourse the flavor is now nice bitter like 72% dark chocolate. Soon some lemon and cedar shows up too. I also taste some spices again, nutmeg and pepper. After three quarters I taste nuts with spices and a little citrus. The spices are a mix that consist of nutmeg, cinnamon and more, the nuts are still there with some cocoa.

The draw is great. The cigar gives me a lot of smoke. The ash is white and very dense and firm. The burn is straight as an arrow and slow. The cigar is medium bodied. There is a lot of evolution and flavor. The smoke time is an hour and forty five minutes.

Would I buy this cigar again? Since Las Vegas is not in the plans it will be close to impossible.

Score: 93

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