Fuente Fuente Opus X No. 4

This was a cigar I received in a blind taste test (BTT). If you've never done a BTT I suggest trying it out because it tells you a lot about the inadequacies of your palate and lack of tasting ability. Opus X cigars are very hard to find and can get very expensive due to some price gouging. DO NOT BUY THESE CIGARS ONLINE, THEY ARE RIDICULOUSLY MARKED UP. Look for these cigars at local tobacco shops where prices should be reasonable. Most tobacco shops don't mark these up, but they do place limits on how many you can get since these are a limited release and in very high demand. Anyways this blind taste test goes to show that sometimes hyped cigars are actually pretty good.

The one I smoked is third (3rd) from the right

Initial Impressions: This was a petite corona sized cigar with a light natural wrapper. The wrapper was smooth and had a very nice oily sheen on it. Firm to the touch and no soft spots. Very faint pre-smoke aroma came off of this cigar.

Smoking: Great draw with plenty of smoke each puff. The burn was smooth the whole way through, no fixing up needed. It burned cool and slow, did not overheat at any point. The wrapper behaved well and did not crack or unravel. Perfect construction on this stogie!

Taste:This cigar was a solid medium-bodied smoke with no harshenss whatsoever, smoked this one down to the nub and it was smooth the whole way through. The cigar started off with a very nice medium tobacco taste, I could detect some "bourbon-like" flavors in the smoke (and I wasn't drinking any bourbon, imagine that!) along with a mild spiciness. The finish for almost the whole cigar was a very nice medium "cedar" like taste that stayed on the palate for a long time. About half-way through I could also detect some flavors I could best describe as "vegetal" which was pleasant. With about 2 inches left the flavors got a little muddled and I couldn't get as much complexity out of the smoke, but it was still very good. A mild aroma came off of this cigar while smoking.

Conclusion:Very good cigar here with perfect construction and a very good taste. It had a decent amount of complexity here, but became somewhat muddled in the second half of the smoke. It took about 45 minutes to smoke this one. I'm fairly sure I've had this cigar several times before. I would give it a rating of between 4 and 4.5 on my previous scale (i.e. very good); this was a very good smoking experience.