Tatuaje Drac

Happy Halloween! I decided to post a special cigar review this spooky weekend with the Tatuaje Drac. Every year Pete Johnson releases a cigar during Halloween that is part of the monster series with this years edition being the Tatuaje Drac. Packaged in a black box shaped like a coffin the cigar is an excellent presentation in marketing. The cigar this year was not without controversy. A lot of fans have not been able to get their hands on the sticks this year even with added shops getting the cigars. Hopefully next year Pete finds a better way to please his fans with the release of the leatherface cigar, but me personally I enjoyed the hunt to get these cigars. Thanks to Michael Herklots and his staff at Davidoff Columbus Circle for calling me up to let me know my name made the cut for those getting the Drac cigars. The question that remains is The Drac a trick or a treat?

Cigar: The Drac
Size: 6.75 x 52 (Torpedo)
Wrapper: Habano Maduro
Binder: Nicaragua
Filler: Nicaragua
Strength: Full

Appearance and Construction (18/20): The stick features a very oily maduro wrapper with some minimal veins. The roll of the cigar is is nice and clean but the one thing that stands out is how light the stick feels in the hand. A close inspection reveals a loosely packed foot, however there are no soft spots along the length of the stick. The band the cigar is on the foot and is colors of black and red.

Flavor & Notes (26/30): The foot of the cigar reveals notes of minty spices while the prelight draw offers notes of mint as well. As I smoked the first third of the cigar I noticed this stick was noticeably different then the frank. The first thing that hits me with this cigar is the strength. It is definitely a full body stick with notes of spices and faint chocolate note in the background with some wood notes. As we smoked the second third of the stick some notes of chocolate tried to emerge with some mint, but it failed to materialize into anything more then a wisp. The cigar had continued spices and pepper at this point. The final third of the cigar was full of wood notes, pepper and the occasional mint which gave this cigar a nice finish.

Burn/Ash/Draw (24/25): Despite being a little light the cigar burned nice and slow and was pretty even throughout. The medium gray ash was a little weak that fell off around and inch each time it grew. The draw was perfect.

Overall (21/25): This cigar is a little young and you can see where it could become a great stick it just wasn’t there yet. There were some people saying the cigar was a little wet so I let it sit in a untreated humidor for 24 hours prior to sparking it up.  While I personally preferred the Frank over the Drac it does have potential and should become a nice addition to the Monster Series.  On a side note I found the wrapper to be a little brittle so I will be careful as I age these.

Rating: 89
Price: $180 box of 13 MSRP