I sat down on the couch to watch an old episode of Star Trek (The Squire of Gothos, if you must know), drink a little tequila, and smoke a Fonseca Vintage Robusto. This is a fine-looking robusto, with a rather lightly veined wrapper and very few defects in its appearance. It lit beautifully, starting out with a hefty dose of spice that soon faded into a very pleasant, easy, mild smoke. I quickly gave up on the tequila, as it overpowered the cigar and left me grasping madly for some control of my tastebuds. However, even with no tequila masking its flavor, the mildness of the Fonseca left much to be desired.

As the cigar burned, I detected a few hints of some astringent fruit and perhaps a few glimpses of cream, but overall it was quite a mild cigar. It burned quickly and smoked well. I accumulated a good two inches of beautiful light grey ash before needing to visit the ashtray, and neither the aroma nor the smoke detracted from Star Trek. As I continued to smoke and the cigar reached the halfway point, I was delighted to find emerging flavors of oak and cedar, though even then, flavors were rather mild. The burn continued to be even and firm.

When there were slightly more than two inches remaining on the cigar, however, something very odd began to happen. I heard a faint hissing, popping sound from the cigar. Puzzled, I held it close to my ear, and sure enough, there it was again! Hiss, pop, hiss. Very strange. I immediately rushed back here to write about it, and in that short amount of time, the cigar went out. I have a two-inch stub of Fonseca Vintage Robusto sitting in my ashtray now. I must say that while this was a rather pleasant, mild, easy cigar to begin with, that odd hissing and popping was disconcerting. My guess would be that this is not typical of these cigars, but it certainly flavored my smoking experience. Even though robustos are shorter cigars, I expected to at least get a full episode of Star Trek out of it. Instead I'm left wondering what's going to happen to Kirk & Co. as they confront yet another all-powerful lunatic beyond human comprehension.