(Description taken from Cigar-coop.com website)
Less than a year after acquiring the Fonseca cigar brand, My Father Cigars has shipped its first rework of the storied marque.
The new Fonseca by My Father is completely different from the non-Cuban Fonsecas that were produced by the Quesada family, the former brand owners, in the Dominican Republic. Whereas Quesada-made Fonsecas typically included a mix of tobaccos from the Dominican Republic, Mexico and the United States, the Fonseca by My Father is rolled entirely from tobacco grown in Nicaragua, the same country where the new cigars are rolled.
Though technically these are not the first Nicaraguan-made Fonsecas, the new Fonsecas from My Father are unique because all of the tobaccos used to roll them were grown by the Garcia family, founders of My Father Cigars. The highlight of the new smokes is the dark-but-ruddy, shade-grown Corojo ’99 wrapper that covers each one.
Fonseca by My Father began shipping on August 28 in the following six sizes in boxes of 20: Belicosos, measuring 5 1/2 inches by 54 ring gauge ($10.60); Cosacos, 5 3/8 x 42 ($7.75); Petit Corona, 4 1/4 by 40 ($7.00); Robusto, 5 1/4 by 52 ($9.50); Toro Gordo, 6 by 55 ($11.20); and Cedros, 6 1/4 by 52 ($11.00) REVIEWED TODAY.
The Fonseca cigar brand is more than 100 years old, founded in Cuba in the 1890s by Don Francisco Fonseca. The brand was distinctive for its tissue-wrapped cigars, a tradition the Garcias are continuing by covering the Cosaco size in tissue paper. Additionally, the Cedros-sized Fonsecas will be individually covered in cedar.
My Father will also be producing five-count tins of the Cosacos size, which will retail for $39. Those tins, however, will not be shipping next week with everything else, but sometime later.
Like all cigars from My Father, Fonseca is rolled at the My Father Cigars factory located in Estelí, Nicaragua.
The shade-grown corojo wrapper looks more like a Connecticut that a corojo. The cigar has a light to average feel in the hand.
The test draw after cutting the cap was very good. The initial flavors at light up were a light cedar/citrus, some brown sugar, quite a bit of an orange peel, and earthy nutmeg an black coffee. There was black pepper rated at 7 1/2. The cigar comes across as being rather mild at the outset.
At the first third (25 minutes) the cedar/citrus lead flavor is a little hard to find. It's greatly reduced. There is still brown sugar to help with some sweetness. But the orange peel has become somewhat bitter. The nutmeg and black coffee continue to be earthy. The cigar is medium bodied. The finish has some bitterness also. It has orange peel, which is somewhat bitter, and nutmeg with decent lingering black pepper. I rated the first third 88.
Moving through the second third (53 minutes) the cigar somewhat improved. The bitterness decreased but not entirely. The brown sugar and (now) cedar has increased. The nutmeg is creamy and smooth. There is still an earthy black coffee base. The orange peel is not as bitter. The finish is unchanged. I rated the second third 90.
The cigar lasted 1 hour 17 minutes. Not that long for a toro of this size. The final third reverted back to the way it was in the first third. The enjoyability of the cigar went back to that stage. The bitterness came back to about the same level. I still got the cedar and brown sugar but the the bitterness of the orange peel is still there. Perhaps these cigars will mellow out with some substantial humidor time but I'm not interested in that. I believe a cigar should be ready to smoke when it's released. The cigar is close to being good but it's not quite there. I rated the final third 88.
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