Tatuaje Monster Series The Drac

Size: 6 3/4” x 52

Vitola: one bloody sharp Torpedo

Wrapper: a spooky Habano Maduro

Origin: Transylvania via Nicaragua

Age: Centuries, but pulled right outta the coffin!

The most sought out cigar for the Halloween season has risen from it’s coffin and come to terrorize the neighborhood!  The Drac, the second in the Tatuaje Monster Series, is a dangerous looking torpedo with an upside down band at the foot – which when flipped over to read the band, the cigar looks like a fang!

As I mentioned this is another limited cigar, with a few more available than last year’s Frank.  There are 1300 coffin’s available of 13 cigars each.  But these are really hard to find.

As I hold this cigar, I get an ominous feeling that this cigar is going to have a lot of bite!

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Tatuaje Monster “Out of Costume” Series Boris

Size: 7” x 49

Vitola: Churchill

Wrapper: Rosado Ecuadorian Sumatra

Origin: Nicaragua

Age: 2 months

This is a pretty popular cigar right now, it’s also pretty hard to find.  This is the first of the Monster “Out-of-Costume” Series from marketing mastermind Pete Johnson of Tatuaje cigars (Havana Cellars).  The “Out-of-Costume”  (OOC) series concept is to take the last year’s Monster Series cigar, put it in new packaging, sans coffin-shaped box, a name it as the actor who famously played the Monster.  So, since last year’s Monster was The Frank (after Frankenstein’s Monster), the first OOC will be called Boris – after Boris Karloff.  The Boris cigar is slightly shorter than The Frank, and has a different wrapper.  The Frank had a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper; the Boris has an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper.  Of course these are super-duper limited; only 1000 boxes of 10 were made.

As an aside, I’d like to point out what my local owner did with the Monster Series this year.  Instead of selling boxes of Boris and Dracs to whom ever showed up first,  he broke them up into little samplers, giving many more people an opportunity to try a cool limited cigar.  Nice job, Hal!

So due to their limited availability, I could have squirreled it away only to peak at it and giggle with glee, but instead I just smoked it.  It is a cigar after all (plus I have a few more).

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Punch CRA Limited Edition Toro

Size: 6” x 52

Vitola: Toro

Wrapper: Nicaraguan

Origin: Honduras

This review is for a special cigar and good cause.  Cigar Rights of America is a great organization that helps give voice to the cigar smoker in Washington.  One of the ways that the CRA has raised money is through a sampler of cigars donated by the industry’s leaders such as General, Ashton, La Flor, Davidoff, Don Pepin, etc.  Sign up, become a member and order your sampler here.  The cigar that General has donated is a special edition Punch that was made in Honduras and features tobacco from the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.  Here’s more about it from CRA:

Punch cigars continue to enjoy critical acclaim and a devoted following among tenured smokers. As an exclusive offering to the CRA, General Cigar developed a unique blend if this celebrated brand. Featuring spicy blend of Nicaraguan and Dominican tobacco, punctuated by a Nicaraguan binder and enveloped in a brawny Nicaraguan wrapper, Punch CRA cigars are handcrafted in Honduras.Debo Mukherjee, Vice President of Marketing for General Cigar commented, “It is with great pleasure that we have donated 5,000 handcrafted Punch cigars to continue our support of CRA. As a Founding Sponsor, we continue to stand behind the organization and its ongoing effort to protect the rights of premium cigar smokers.”

This was the first cigar I choose to smoke and review from the sampler because I thought it would be the least impressive, and I’ve never been a huge fan of General.  Was I wrong?

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Cigar Flavor Components

There are several core cigar flavor components used to describe flavors one can taste while enjoying a cigar.  Most of the flavors are derived from a scale used to describe wines (popularized by Cigar Aficionado, whose owners also publish Wine Spectator), as they share a lot in common.  I have parceled things up into core flavors and within the core flavors, there are certain specific flavors that I will try to describe in detail, including what type of cigar in which these flavors are generally found.

But before I go further, there is often a lot of discussion around describing cigar flavors.  Some feel that such descriptions are pompous and unnecessary.  I do agree that sometimes these descriptors can sound a bit silly (i.e. Pencil lead in a cigar???).   But just like with wine, I think those that write about cigars use some sort of poetic license when trying to describe what they taste.  Does anybody want to read a magazine where the cigars are reviewed as such: Cigar 1 – tasted like smoke, liked it; Cigar 2 – tasted like smoke, hated it…?  Just like in a good book, adjectives and descriptors are used to help paint a mental picture for the reader.

So without further ado, here are the Core Cigar Flavor Components:

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I Want This.

It’s only $47,000.

S. T. Dupont Vandom Pink Gold Lighter

And if you were wondering, yes those are diamonds, 192 of them.  Learn more.

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How to Taste a Cigar

Sounds simple, right?  Well it depends.  Taste is defined as, “form of direct chemoreception and is one of the traditional five senses.  It refers to the ability to detect the flavor of substances such as food, certain minerals, and poisons.”  But when taste partners with the sense of smell… that is how the brain perceives flavors.  So we’re really talking about two senses here: taste and smell.  But from here on out we’ll just lump together into “taste”, ok?

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Camacho CLE

Size: 6″ x 52

Vitola: Perfecto (Diploma shape)

Wrapper: ?? (assuming it’s Corojo)

Origin: Honduras

Age: 1 year

This little puppy, known as Christian’s Blend, is currently unique to the Signature Blends travel bag, which only includes 4 CLEs, is an extremely limited and hard to find cigar.  Thanks to Matt for hooking me up on the BOTL forum.

So being Christian Eiroa’s, Camacho president, personal blend I was expecting a cigar that will drop a man to his knees.  But the first third didn’t do it.

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