 Las Vegas’s Casa Fuente offers Fuente-made cigars you can’t find anywhere else
Los Angeles, June 13 – The one and only Casa Fuente, newly opened in Las Vegas, is not only a showcase for nearly every brand of cigars produced by the Tabacalera A. Fuente, but cigars you won’t see anywhere else.
Naturally, you can find the classic, hard-to-find Arturo Fuente cigars, including:
• Arturo Fuente Anejos, a rarely-found line utilizing the Fuente Fuente Opus X binder and filler, but using a Connecticut Broadleaf maduro wrapper in six shapes.
• Fuente Fuente Opus X, in all sizes, ranging in price from $20-35 each, including the 30% Nevada state tobacco tax and the 7% state sales tax. That would make the basic sales price of the Opus X line from $12.60 to $22.05, almost reasonable.
Naturally, the giant Opus X “A” – a 9 1/4-inch by 47-ring monster – costs more, about $75 each (base price of about $47.25).
But there are also two other series which are completely unique to the Casa Fuente:
• The Casa Fuente cigar, available only in this store and offered for now in four sizes:
> Belicoso Fino: 5 3/8 inches by 52 ring, $23 all-inclusive;
> Churchill: 7 inches by 48 ring, $25;
> Corona Gorda: 5 1/4 inches by 45 ring, $18;
> Robusto: 5 1/8 inches by 50 ring, $21.
A Torpedo is also planned, but not available yet. We tried the Casa Fuente cigar and it’s exceptional.
It’s a medium-to-full-bodied blend, with a very well aged Cameroon wrapper and Dominican-grown binder and filler leaves. It’s packaged with an orange-color silk foot wrap inside a cellophane wrapper with “Casa Fuente” printed on the outside, just like the Opus X.
Beautifully constructed, the Casa Fuente burns well with a spectacular balance of woody flavors with a citrus-like tartness that actually refreshing to the smoker. The flavor dances on a razor’s edge with toasty, slightly spicy and tart aspects which make the cigar fun to smoke. Don’t smoke this cigar too hard, as the more subtle flavors are most clearly present from a light puff. Crack off the colorful band (above) carefully; it’s one you want to keep to remember this cigar.
• Then there are the special cigars of the loosely-titled “Forbidden X” series. The Casa Fuente offers, for the first time, special cigars from the Tabacalera A. Fuente that until now had been relegated to private areas of the Fuente warehouse in Santiago in the Dominican Republic. A partial listing:
> Opus X BBMF, a 6 1/2-inch by 64-ring perfecto with a bulbous foot and a twisted-flag head, originally made only for the 2002 Forbidden X humidor by Prometheus (of which only 100 were made);
> Opus X Chili Pepper, an odd-shaped 5-inch by 55-ring perfecto with a fat foot and a unique, pointed head that is curved to one side . . . like the stem of a pepper!
> Opus X eXtasy, a 5-inch by 55-ring perfecto which looks very much like the Hemingway Short Story;
> Opus X Lancero, a 7 1/2 inch by 41 ring giant corona previously seen only in the Forbidden X Humidor;
> Opus X LBMF, a little 4-inch by 48-ring perfecto very much like the Hemingway Work of Art shape, with a pointed foot and a stalk-and-flag head.
There is also the Don Arturo 13, a 6 3/8-inch by 40-ring lonsdale which was originally slated to be the 90th Anniversary Fuente cigar, but for which the boxes were never made and because of which the cigar was never issued. A collector’s elite for sure!
These cigars go for $65-125 each; expensive, but unique souvenirs of the Fuente factory for which there are anywhere from a few dozen to a few thousand ever made. Who knows what else the Fuentes will bring to the store . . . maybe the Opus X “football” shapes? Yes, footballs!
These impossible-to-find items are the most unique features of this unique store. But you have to go there. One of the Fuente’s restrictions on the new venture is that the store does not accept orders by telephone, mail-order or Internet. It’s an in-person experience only.
But isn’t that another reason to spend that weekend in Las Vegas?
~ Rich Perelman
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