For those of you that don’t know…

In 2003, the Fuente Family released a special cigar as a promotion for dealers who won a contest…165 boxes of 25 Hemingway Classics with a Ecuadorian Sun Grown wrapper were released, and as far as I know (after quite a bit of research) those 4,125 cigars are the only example of this vitola with this wrapper and blend (there are some Hemingway Signatures and some Untold Stories with a Sun Grown wrapper out there, and rumors of a Work of Art Sun Grown, but I have been unable to procure one as of yet, which shames me even now!)…

Thanks to a great BOTL with a keen eye, I was able to purchase a box of the Hemingway Classic Sun Grown from one of the original dealers who won the contest back in 2003 (and was willing to sell it)…the box was unopened when purchased, and had been sitting in the humidor since then…(I split the box with said BOTL, he got 7 of the 25, and I got the rest)…

Here are some photos of the box from when I got it…

Interestingly, the Sun Grown wrapper is dark enough to almost be mistaken for a Maduro sometimes…I am a big fan of Sun Grown wrappers (I love the 8-5-8SG, the VSG and the Padrons), and I am also a big fan of the Hemingway blend as well, so I was looking forward to the best of both worlds being combined…

But enough of that, let’s get down to business, shall we?

• Cigar Reviewed: Arturo Fuente Hemingway Classic Sun Grown
• Country of Origin: Dominican Republic
• Factory: Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia
• Wrapper: Ecuadorian Sun Grown
• Binder: Unknown
• Filler: Hemingway blend
• Size: 7 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 48
• Vitola: Perfecto
• Est. Price: Varies Wildly (MSRP when released was $7.90 each)
• Date Released: 2003

The cigar itself is quite rough to the touch, with very little oil to speak of…it is a medium brown color and has smallish veins going up and down it’s length…The wrapper smells faintly of aged tobacco and pepper, and the cello the cigar came in has a nice brownish tint (as it should)…The cigar is also very firm when squeezed…

Immediately after torching the foot of the cigar, I got a flavors of creamy Leather mixed with tobacco and just a bit of pepper…quite a bit less then I expected, but there seemed to be very little actual flavors so far…

The Second Third started with a literal explosion of Spice…it calmed down after about 15 puffs, but stayed in the background for the rest of the stick…the sweetness from the first third all but disappeared (although I could still taste a bit of leather), and was replaced with a woodsy flavor that was underwhelming, to say the least…I also tasted a bit of old, stale grassy taste that was borderline unpleasant…

The Final Third is where this cigar really fell apart…I was rolling along, thinking that this was going to be another example of how a Hart to Find stick does not live up to it’s billing, when out of nowhere, the cigar got Extremely bitter (and more of that old grassy flavor)…not like “well, let’s keep smoking and it will get better” bitter, but more like “if I don’t put this cigar down right now, I am going to blow chunks” bitter…the bitterness overwhelmed ALL other flavors, and it was obvious to me that it was NOT going to get any better…However, I wanted to make sure (this is a whole cigar review after all), so I smoked as much as I could before finally giving up…it never got better (not even close)…

Final Notes:

• I was so surprised by the end of this smoke that I smoked 3 more of them at different times just to make sure (and had a friend smoke another with me)…the results were the same with all of the sticks…ok flavors (albeit nothing stellar) for the first 2/3rds, then a shitfest at the end…
• I have been very disappointed with some mid aged cigars lately (see my reviews of the Opus 952R and Padrón Millennium as examples) and I am starting to wonder if this is the Elephant in the Room when aging certain cigars…
• The Burn was great throughout the whole cigar, but the draw was too loose…
• The ash was VERY flaky, and did not stay on for more then 1/2 inch, no matter how hard I tried…
• The Final Smoking Time was 1 hour and 30 minutes...

The Bottom Line: “Disappointment” does not even begin to describe what I was feeling at the end of this cigar…I mean, I am not going to go out and mow down pedestrians with my car, but I was expecting a fusion of two of my favorite cigars, and instead I got a foul tasting mess…Every time I hear about a cigar that I have been wanting to try get a bad rating, the first thing I ask about is where the cigar came from, and where it had been stored, as storage conditions can be a HUGE factor in the quality of the final smoke…but since I know exactly where these cigars have been since they were released, I have to assume that these specific sticks have just gone WAY past their prime, perhaps never to return to anything close to their former glory…A sad day indeed, but there is always the next smoke…

Final Score: 65