Arturo Fuente Brevas "It's a Girl!" Review
Originally posted 9/19/2012 and rescued from the demise of another website.
This past weekend marked my daughter's first birthday. Aside from the excitement of the festivities, I also couldn't wait to fire up one of the sticks that have been resting for 1 year in my humidor. These were handouts when she was born.
The Background:
I purchased a box of Arturo Fuente Brevas Royales with cigars marked "It's a Girl!" to celebrate my daughter's birth last year, after trying several cigars that were on the cheap side of things. They looked the part, and I remember puffing on them and thinking - hey these are pretty darn good for the price! I hadn't smoked many cigars at that point, but they stood out as "the best" in my price range, and so they were purchased.
I have several cigars from this box left over from last year, which will be smoked over the next few years. I intend this to be a series of reviews as each year passes, reviewing how/if these cigars develop.
This review is also meant to help anyone looking for a box of cigars to purchase for the birth of their child, too.
The Review:
Pre-light: The taste is mainly sweet tobacco. Nice and straightforward. Upon cutting, there is a strange small rectangular "hole" at 12 o'clock, which means there are likely some small air pockets in the stick - this isn't a super expensive cigar, so I'm not surprised there are irregularities. It made no difference in the experience of smoking it.
Appearance: Pretty well constructed, the wrapper has some veins and a little bit of a heavy crease where the seams meet, but nothing extraordinarily bad or ugly. Overall it looks pretty nice. The box looks great. The cigars feature "It's a Girl!" in pink on the cello, with a pink stork. The band on the cigar looks just like the one on a Curly Head Deluxe that I've seen at my local brick & mortar.
1/3: Opening with lots of smoke, this stick starts earthy. There is a pronounced light leather flavor. The finish is mild with tobacco and leather notes. The burn is uneven, though I did smoke this on a windy night, which may have contributed to the unevenness.
2/3: The volume of smoke increases, and the leather flavor comes through strongly. The tobacco flavor in the finish now has hints of pepper occasionally. The burn mostly corrects itself, becoming slightly ragged.
3/3: The stick's flavor stays pretty consistent throughout, however the last third does feature a little more complexity than before. The dominant leather flavor gives way to light pepper, and the smoke volume increases a bit more. There is now more creaminess to the smoke. Cedar and just a light hint of licorice enter every so often on the finish.
Overall:
This is a mild smoke that borders occasionally on mild-medium to keep you interested. This is a cigar that will likely be enjoyed by an inexperienced and experienced smoker - approachable for new puffers, consistent and lightly flavorful enough for veterans. Though cheap in price, it is unmistakeably "Fuente" and I instantly recognized it as having an almost Fuente Short Story flavor to it, with a milder strength (after having smoked far better Fuentes over the course of the last few months). The retrohale is very mild, whereas other Fuente cigars I've retrohaled have given me a..."zing" in my sinuses. I liked how easy this one was to puff - big volume of smoke and just enough flavor without becoming too powerful.
Though mild, these things are Fuente through and through.
Conclusion:
When selecting cigars based solely on price, these seem to be a good deal. I only paid $70 for the box (and this is with exorbitant Illinois tobacco taxes) and I feel like I got a great deal.
If you're looking to celebrate your child's birth, but want to save some cash for diapers and formula (and better sticks for the veteran puffers), these things are great for handouts. I would never turn one down.
With 1 year's rest, these guys have mellowed ever so slightly, and the flavors got a little more interesting and pronounced (though to be sure, I've smoked a lot of different sticks this past year and I have more points of reference).
I still have several more to smoke in the coming years - a handful of which will be conserved and considered "unsmokeable" until such time that a young man asks for her hand in marriage. When that joyous day arrives, I will enjoy sharing these cigars with him, his father, and myself. They should be very well aged by then ;-) And, hopefully worth smoking still! It will be a special moment, no matter their state at that point.
Thanks for reading!
Update 2/10/2015:
I was blessed with a second daughter this past year, and immediately bought another box of these to age as well. They're not complex, in fact quite smooth and easy to smoke. They're mellower with age and although not a powerhouse or complex, they are still satisfying! I've heard these can vary depending on the scraps that are used to make them - and to be sure, my box from 2011 has something "more" to it than the one I bought last year for my youngest daughter. You never quite know what you're going to get with these perhaps, but from what I've found, you'll get a Fuente that's worth smoking.
