Arturo Fuente Between the Lines review

[moki]

The Arturo Fuente Between the Lines is the French Poodle of the cigar world: small, fabulous looking, immaculately groomed, pretentious, and expensive. I decided to humble my Between the Lines by pairing it with a cup-o-joe in a styrofoam cup with powered milk-like creamer. Imagine a street bum walking a well-groomed French Poodle. That's what I was going for here.

I made a bee-line to my local cigar shop while my girlfriend and her sister were working on a feast for the Chinese New Year. Note to men: act utterly helpless in the kitchen, it'll cause your woman to tell you to "just get out of the way". Now that you have been deemed useless and a bother in the kitchen, it is safe to escape to have a cigar, drink a beer, watch the game... whatever.

Anyway, I sparked up my first BTL by lighting the little toe, and then settling back to enjoy the experience. It's a mellow tasting cigar, which lit quite quickly and easily. Did I mention that it is a beautiful-looking cigar? The wrapper for the cigar is a natural wrapper, and then a strip of Maduro wrapper is winded around the stick, giving it a candy cane appearance that's quite distinctive.

The taste of this cigar is good, if not exceptional. Imagine the spice from a 1 star Thai takeout meal, with mellow hints of chocolate, and an even milder overtone of sweet cloves. It's certainly an enjoyable tasting cigar, a premium but mild smoke -- but it isn't anything particularly special in the premium cigar class, in my opinion.

About halfway through the cigar, the maduro wrapper because a little wet near my mouth and started to come loose a bit; I could have unwound it from the whole cigar if I'd wanted to! I also had the cigar canoe on me unfortunately, which caused the ash to be curved downward like a flaccid penis. The bulging tip of this cigar added to that rather unfortunate effect. I looked around quickly to see if anyone noticed my unfortunate predicament, and then furtively torched the unburnt side to bring it back to a respectable shape. ahem.

The ash was quite solid, a nice grey color, and the cigar had an easy draw that gave off volumes of sweet smelling smoke quite easily. I'd suggest that everyone who loves cigars buy two of these Between the Lines: smoke one to satisfy your curiosity, and keep the other in your humidor for eye candy. It's a good tasting smoke, better than most that are out there actually, but there are better cigars available for the money.

 

[lucasbuck]

I just love your reviews Andrew. They are very entertaining to say the least. So is there anyone that thinks these sticks are the bomb?

 

[moki]

I just love your reviews Andrew. They are very entertaining to say the least. So is there anyone that thinks these sticks are the bomb?

I think they are good, and I think they are very pretty -- I'd say they were sort of similar to the Short Story I had (which is to say good!) but with a bit less strength/flavor.

 

[lucasbuck]

I think they are good, and I think they are very pretty -- I'd say they were sort of similar to the Short Story I had (which is to say good!) but with a bit less strength/flavor.

And for only 5X the price!

 

[SamGuss]

"The Arturo Fuente Between the Lines is the French Poodle of the cigar world"

:sign: :sign: :sign:

I love it! TFF!!!

Sam

 

[psyktek]

After moki's review I just HAD to take one of the BTL's I have out and try it out.
First off, this is not a cigar to take outside in below freezing conditions! Within 1/2 inch of lighting it, the wrapper cracked and continued to do so until I nubbed it at about 3/4 inch. I only did this because of what I'd paid for it, not because I was impressed. At $14 each locally, this is not a smoke I'll buy again. I have 2 left and I'll try them when the weather warms up, but I'm not hopeful.

First of all, there was more to the aroma than to the flavor of this stick. I didn't pick up any of the notes that moki did, but then I'm also a cigarette smoker, so I may not have the palate; plus, I really don't like Thai cooking.

Very firm draw, not surprising in such a small cigar. I think it would have burned evenly if it hadn't swelled and cracked so badly. The construction is definitely on the unusual side: a strip of natural and of maduro rolled together (not just a strip of maddie around the outside: the cracking helped me determine this ).

The natural strip is extremely delicate, nearly transparent it's so thin. The ash was incredible: when I finally dumped it, I had 3/4 inch of butt and an ash that was the entire smoked length!

Flavor spicy and peppery dominant, not much else. Aroma of chocolate, burnt sugar, some citrusy notes. Very slow burning, which to me indicates a heavily compressed bundle, so this may have contributed to the swelling.

I would not recommend this as a purchase to anyone, primarily because the price does not justify the experience. Compared to other Fuente products, a real disappointment.

More like the Chihuahua of cigars, IYAM.

 

[Phil]

I love these smokes!!! IMHO they are one of the best in the hemi series.


I usually don't factor in price cause each smoke has it's own unique taste to it. If you want that taste, then you gotta pay the price for it.

I think that although it is overpriced, I will always have a few on hand for when the need arises.

Phil

 

[Scott1966]

Quit rubbing it in Phil :angry: