A strong Fonseca?

After getting JMitch hooked on a mild cigar, the Fonseca 5/50, I was interested in trying other cigars in the line. Perusing cbid I came across the Series "F" line from Fonseca. The "F" is for Fuerte, which is Spanish for "strong" or "full flavor." T

As far as appearance goes, this is a nice looking stogie. The cigar is a robusto, 5" long, with a 52 ring gauge . The wrapper is dark brown and the filler is a mix of Dominican and Ligero Cuban seed. It feels good in the hand and was compact.

The sucker was hard to light, and at first burned unevenly. I also struggled keeping it lit, most likely an indication that it was still wet despite sitting in my humi for 3 weeks. Once you got it hot, it smoked great, but it required a lot of attention, so I'll be curious how the 2nd one smokes after drying out some more.

I'm never sure how to describe "flavors" in a cigar. So I think I need to break down my reviews a little better into 4 different categories. Wrapper taste, the cigar/smoke taste, smell, and cigar potency.

That said, the wrapper had a mild taste to it, nothing special, but also nothing distracting. The cigar smoke was woody and uneventful the first half of the cigar. Around the halfway mark it started to get spicy and peppery and also started to provide a kick that provided a great buzz. I still wouldn't label this as a strong or full bodied cigar, but its potency was a solid medium strength. Finally, the smoke was plentiful and the aroma it produced was pleasant. It did not linger on my clothing as much as other cigars.

On my scale of 5, I'll give this cigar a 3.5, not quite enough taste or strength to give it a 4, however the great price that you can get these at (around $2 a stick) makes for a fine smoke. I'll be watching out for more of these as potential fillers when I want to combine shipping savings on cbid. If the next one burns better, I'll revisit this rating.

See how others rated the Series "F" at top25cigar.com