Tatuaje RC184
I got this cigar in a trade with Skip Martin (@chiefhava on Twitter) along with some other really great cigars. For me, it was the first time I’ve seen this cigar and, being a huge fan of Tatuaje cigars, I decided to save this for my birthday smoke. My birthday as some of you know was last Wednesday, July 29, and I couldn’t wait to fire this big boy up. This is a monster of a cigar. Its 7 1/4 x 54″ or 184mm long…RC184…..get it? Yea, ok. Anyway, the cigar has a Nicaraguan Corojo wrapper with Nicaraguan binder and filler. Each cigar is wrapped with silver foil covering the top half of the cigar with a red, white and blue band as the seam. Its a very well constructed diadema.
Let’s see how it smokes!
Appearance
This is probably the biggest cigar I’ve smoked yet. The cigar has a near flawless wrapper with no large veins or water spots. The cap was also wrapped very well. The cigar has no soft spots that I can feel, but feels much firmer at the tip than the rest of the cigar.
Pre-Light Aroma
The wrapper smells like….well, smells like cow shit. That’s it. Cow shit. On the draw, I pick up a lot of wood and earth. The foot has aroma of cow shit on an oak log….woody cow shit.
First Third
This cigar started out very mild and I couldn’t detect very many flavors, but as the cigar burned from the small tip to the large bulbous part of the cigar, it developed a woody spicy flavor that was very creamy. Not something I was expecting from a Tatuaje. It’s a very creamy right now. In fact, it’s quite pleasant. The cigar has a great burn with a strong ash. On the retrohale, the cigar is almost pure heavy cream. Since I really enjoy creaminess in cigars, I’m really enjoying this cigar so far.
Second Third
The second third hasn’t changed very much. The wood note is still there, but it’s taken a back seat to a nutty flavor, but the cigar still has a main undertone of creaminess. There is just the slightest hint of pepper on the back of the palette. On the retrohale, the pepper note is MUCH stronger and actually burns now. I have to exhale some of the smoke before I try to retrohale.
Final Third
The final third is exactly like the second third. No real change. I am having to relight the cigar quite often now which is a little annoying. I’m not sure if it’s the cigar or the very high humidity we have on the MS Gulf Coast right now.
Overall
I enjoyed this cigar. It was much strong than I expected though. It had quite a kick to it. The woody, nutty, creamy flavors with hint of pepper was a nice combonation, but getting quite typical nowadays though. It did take me about 3 hours to smoke this cigar, but I enjoyed the flavors so I didn’t mind that. I did have to relight quite often on the last third which was annoying and I had to purge the cigar. Still, for me, that’s to be expected on diadema shaped cigars. I think the cigar is of high quality and something that brothers and sisters of the leaf should definitely try, but I do think the price point is a little high. I think that about most of the new wonder cigars that seem to be coming out lately though. These are quite hard to find so if you see any, grab them up. Try one and tell me what you think.
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Comments
Thanks Charlie! I knew that but I failed to put that in the review. I have a Bolivar Gold Medal on the top shelf of my humidor now.
Very nice! I have yet to try a Gold Medal, but I hear they really come alive after a little rest in the humidor. Enjoy it bro…and thanks again for the review.
These cigars totally seem like the cigar which i used to see in my childhood when i used to watch the old bond movies…
Great review! I’ve always wanted to try one of those bad boys, but have never seemed to be able to get my hands on one.
BTW, you are absolutely correct that the 184 stands for the length of the cigar in mm…and, just in case you didn’t know, the RC part stands for “Retro Cuban” because this cigar is a throwback to the foil-wrapped Cuban perfectos of the past (just like the modern day Cuban Bolivar Gold Medal cigars).