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KevinI
Lounge Presidente
Lounge Presidente

Staff Review: Tatuaje Creature

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Introduction:

In celebration of Halloween quickly approaching, we have a very special staff review of Tatuaje’s Creature. The medium to full-bodied Creature is Tatuaje’s newest addition to the Monster Series – one of the most highly sought-after series of releases in recent memory.

Be sure to take a deep dive into any section below to see the full details on Creature or skim the quick hits to get a brief overview. Either way, you won’t want to miss this.

The Quick Hits:

  • The newest member of Tatuaje’s Monster Series
  • Reference to “Creature from the Black Lagoon”
  • Tasting notes: earth, cedar, slight hints of pepper
  • Currently only available in the Tatuaje Monster Mash sampler
  • Undisclosed blend
  • Recommended for: fans of rich and balanced blends, or anyone who has had any other Monster Series releases

The Story:

The story starts way back in 2008, which saw the release of The Frank, the very first blend in the Monster Series. The idea of The Frank (and the idea of the Monster Series as a whole), legitimately changed the industry’s mindset on what a high-end cigar could be and what it could look like. Not only was The Frank named after Frankenstein, but it also sported a band with colors associated with Frankenstein, came packaged in “blood” splattered, coffined shaped box, and had production limited to only 666 boxes.

Genius! The cigar industry up until this point was pretty traditional in its ways of thinking, but its boundaries were immediately pushed when The Frank hit the scene.

After a successful initial launch and overwhelmingly positive recognition, the Tatuaje Monster Series quickly turned into just that: a monster of a series. From that point on, each yearly release from the Monster Series became even more anticipated than the last and very quickly gained a devoted and cult-like following.

After The Frank, the Monster Series saw a dozen more blends, rereleases in different sizes (Skinny Monsters, Pudgy Monsters, etc.), and the eventual redux of the original Monster Series blends for release to the market. In 2021, Frank Redux was the first redux project, and launched alongside Tatuaje’s Monster Mash sampler – a boxed sampler that features all 13 of the Monster Series blends along with a brand-new, never before seen cigar, Creature.

The Build:

Unfortunately, there isn’t too much to touch on in terms of Creature’s blend as it hasn’t been completely disclosed by Pete Johnson. With that said, the rich brown wrapper has a distinct toothiness to it and has no apparent flaws (I would guess that this is San Andres, but I am no master blender by any means). What we do know is that Creature utilizes a Nicaraguan double binder and is produced in Esteli, Nicaragua by My Father Cigars S.A.

The Look:

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To me, Tatuaje is one of the more recognizable and iconic brands when it comes to the design of their bands. The minimalistic and overly simple bands, which I am a huge fan of, are unmistakable in an industry that is becoming increasingly more focused on packaging designs and concepts.

Creature follows suit and falls in the line with the rest of the Monster Series – Tatuaje’s unmistakable, thin bands, each with different colors that correlate with the theme of the monster that they are named after. In the case of Creature, the colors are black and…black. I actually really like this band – it stands out from the rest of the Monster Series bands because of the fact that it uses gloss and spot UV treatment which is something none of the other Monster bands use (apologies for getting technical, but I can’t help myself).

The bottom line is the band is sleek, has contrast from the printing treatments, and stands out among the other Monster Series bands.

The wooden box for the sampler adds a nice touch as well. Shaped like a coffin and splattered with “blood”, the box also lists all the names of the Monster Series blends so you don’t have to worry about losing track of which cigar is which.

All in all, the sampler packaging stays true to the theme of the Monster Series which is all you can ask for.

The Experience:

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To be transparent, I am a collector at heart and may sometimes take this too far when it comes to my cigars. A perfect example of this is when Tatuaje released Frank Redux last year – I was lucky enough to get my hands on a box but have yet to smoke any because I can’t bring myself to break the box seal. Unless I can find a few singles somewhere, I don’t think I will be smoking Frank Redux any time soon.

I would’ve been in the same boat with Monster Mash, but I was able to buy two; one for the collection and one for smoking. I normally wouldn’t buy two boxes of the same thing, but I was so excited to smoke the new Creature that I just had to buy two. I admittedly received a begrudging (yet understanding) talking to from the Mrs., but if there is no pain, there is no gain.

Just from an initial glance, I was sure that Creature was going to be uber full-bodied, which isn’t something that would scare me away, but certainly not something that I typically seek out. Upon the first couple of draws, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Creature fit more in the medium to full-bodied range which is right where my preference lies.

Up front, I got a ton of leathery, and earthy notes with a faint but pleasant amount of black pepper on the finish. These notes stayed relatively dominant until I got into the second half of the cigar where things were rounded out with a good amount of dark chocolate sweetness and crisp notes of aged cedar. The smoke is a lot airier than I was expecting but loaded with flavor, nonetheless. After the distinct transition in to the second half of the cigar, the flavors remained persistent, and the profile remained balanced until the final draw.

The construction of Creature was exactly what I would expect from a cigar coming out of the My Father factory – virtually flawless. The draw was solid, the burn was even, and through the hour and a half of smoking Creature, no touch ups were needed.

Final Thoughts

Tatuaje has been able to turn Halloween into a cigar enthusiast’s favorite holiday (at least that’s what happened to me), and I can assure you that there is no trick with Creature, only a treat. To anyone who is a fan of Tatuaje’s Monster Series, or Tatuaje in general I would recommend picking up a Monster Mash sampler before they are all gone for good – it might be over a decade before we see Creature again.

We just so happened to have a very limited amount of these Monster Mash samplers sitting around so grab one while you still can and be sure to let us know what you think of Creature.