Like the late, great American novelist it’s named after, the Hemingway line of cigars is one of Arturo Fuente’s most acclaimed and most celebrated. Hemingway smokes have been rated 90 and above by Cigar Aficionado an unheard-of 57 times (the highest rating has been a 94, in 2018), ranking in the publication’s Top 25 Cigars of the Year list no less than three times (most recently placing sixth, also in 2018). Compare this to Hemingway the writer, who won the Nobel Prize for Fiction in 1953 and Literature in 1954.
Both Hemingways are not just critical successes, however; they’re also perennial top performers in their respective marketplaces, and perhaps, bearing that in mind, the name of this vitola — the Best Seller — does it poetic justice.
Like the spare, understated text of Hemingway’s novels, at least one consistent characteristic can be detected by which this cigar is identifiable — in this case, it’s the Perfecto shape that incorporates a prominent nipple at the foot of the stick. The Perfecto form is a cigar art from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s that had been nearly lost to time when Fuente family boss Don “Carlito” Carlos Fuente Junior decided to revive it and keep the tradition alive by teaching it to a new generation of cigar rollers.
The Best Seller is a robust, flavorful, yet balanced Perfecto-shaped smoke that utilizes well-aged Dominican long-filler tobaccos and pairs them with Arturo Fuente’s finest Meerapfel Cameroonian wrapper to produce a medium-strength, finely drawing, perfectly burning, tapered cigar. Earthy, woody and toasty flavors are accented by hints of honey, almonds, spices, candied orange peel and a long, caramel/gingerbread-like finish, yielding a hugely popular smoke that has all the hallmarks of sweet success writ large about it.