Country: USA
Wrapper: Nicaraguan
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Size: Robusto

This is an old Pepin Garcia brand that is made in his Miami Shop. I found it buried in the humidor tonight. I don’t even know if this cigar is made anymore. It is an excellent smoke. Medium bodied with notes of pepper, earth and cedar complimented with a slightly sweet undertone and a smooth creamy texture. Makes me wish I had a few more of them.

Country: Nicaragua
Wrapper: Nicaraguan
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan and Costa Rican
Size: Lancero 7.0″ x 38 ring
Courtesy of CigarsDirect.com

The fact that this line of cigars was re-blended by Don Pepin Garcia should leave it as no surprise that a Lancero was eventually added to the card.  Pepin has a reputation for being partial the old-school Cuban way of doing things and he seems to have a love of the traditional connoisseur vitolas  like the Lancero.  Not only that, but he seems to have a special talent for masterfully blending for the Lancero as his Lanceros tend to be the best on the market in my opinion.  That said I have been looking forward to trying this cigar given how much I have enjoyed the other larger sizes in the line.

Like a lot of Lanceros it isn’t the prettiest cigar.  It is a bit bumpy and lumpy looking but the draw is excellent and the burn is razor sharp.   It starts off a little peppery before falling into a woody/nutty core complimented with leather and occasional subtly sweet caramel notes.  There weren’t any dramatic changes in flavors but rather shifts in intensity between the present flavors and a build up of black pepper near the end of the smoke.  Watchout for the ash on this one.  It is a little flaky and falls off easily.  If you don’t pay attention you’ll be wearing it.  All in all the Nestor Miranda Special Selection Lancero is an excellent cigar that I will smoke again.

Country: Nicaragua
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Habano
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Size: Cremas 6.0″ x 49 ring
Courtesy of CigarsDirect.com

So as the story goes, Pepin’s son Jamie had a secret project he was working on.  He was creating a cigar in tribute to his father and he was doing it behind Pepin’s back.  He managed to keep it a secret up until he was nearly finished with it and when Pepin found out about it he told his son to give him three cigars which he promptly smoked and loved.  That is the Birth Story of My Father Cigars.  The cigar is made up up of tobacco from the Garcia’s own farms for the binder and filler, and the wrapper is a lovely and oily Habano leaf grown in Ecuador by the Oliva Tobacco family.

The My Father line of cigars is available in four sizes:

• No.1 Robusto 5.2″ x 52
• No.2 Belicoso 5.2″ x 54
• No.3 Cremas 6.0″ x 49
• No.4 Lancero 7.5″ x 38

In addition to these cigars there have been a couple of line extensions added to the brand including the My Father Cedros Deluxe and Le Bijou 1922.  The original My Father is an beautiful looking cigar with a large ornate band and a smooth and oily colorado claro wrapper.   The No. 3 Cremas is an interesting vitola to be because of the unique style of the head of the cigar.  It comes to a very short taper, almost like it was going to be a belicoso and then someone just stopped the taper and completed the cap.  The result is reminiscent of the fumas style nipple but in truth this is quite different from that.  I found I really like this style from both a look and feel perspective.  The slight taper was comfortable when smoking and it thought it was unique and pleasant looking.

I found the cigar to be very pleasant and more mild than just about any other DPG smoke I’ve tried.  There was lots of coffee bean and dry wood on the palate and the flavors had a creamy texture to them.  The aroma produced by the smoke was elegant, and floral.  The last third of the cigar was more robust with a mild spice and some leather and occasional flashes of black pepper.  The burn was impeccable and the draw perfect.  The ash was a little loose and flaky so I had to ash often, but otherwise I had no complaints for this excellent cigar.

Country: Nicaragua
Wrapper: Nicaraguan
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Size: Torpedo 6^1/8″ x 52 ring

The Verocu extension of the Tatuaje Havana VI line was first introduced as a two vitola regional release. There was the West Coast version, the No. 1 Lado Occidental, and the East Coast’s No. 2 Zona del Este. Each was sold in cabinets of 50 cigars. They were a huge hit and remain a favorite of many Tatuaje fans. They were a limited release however, and much to the dismay of those fans, they are no longer made and extremely hard to find and generally unavailable. If you don’t already have some you aren’t likely to get any. But despair not, there have been subsequent releases of the Verocu blend like the No.9 which is a Holts exclusive. The most recent addition to the line is the Verocu Tubos, a tubed Torpedo measuring an ample six and one eighth inches in length and sporting a beefy 52 ring gauge. It comes armored in a very nice, bright red aluminum tube and is available in boxes of 10.

This torpedo is not a particularly pretty cigar but nor ugly or rustic either.  The wrapper is dark, mottled, and slightly veiny.  It is well filled with no soft spots and smells of cedar and leather.  The draw is a little on the loose side but not too much so.  The first draw has a predictable peppery bite to it before settling in to a spicy, earthy core with complimentary notes of cedar, leather, and tobacco which seem to come and go as I made my way through the smoke.  The last third brought lots of earth and black pepper that over powered everything else and was a bit over the top even for me but didn’t really detract much from the rest of the experience.  The Verocu Tubos is a fairly well-balanced, robust, and complex smoke with a sneaky bit of power to it.

There has been lots of talk about cracked and split wrappers with this cigar.  I didn’t have any of those problems but I did have several burn issues.  The cigar tunneled a bit at one point, then it started to canoe. It also went out on me three or four times.  These burn issues are very uncommon in my experiences with Tatuaje cigars.  Right now I am just going to chalk it all up to being a result of shipping conditions and I am hoping all that will work itself out with a few more months of rest in my humidor to acclimate and re-hydrate because the cigar did seem a touch dry to me.  Time will tell and I will probably wait another 6 months before I try another one to see where they are at.

Overall I’d say this was an excellent smoke with great body and good flavors.  If the burn issues do manage to work themselves out then I would rate this as an excellent cigar.

Country: Nicaragua
Wrapper: Nicaraguan Corojo Ligero
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Size: Torpedo 6.75″ x 48 ring

The Tatuaje Cojonu 2009 is part of the Cojonu extension of the Tatuje Brown Label line.  Also known as Tatuaje Miami, Tatuaje Classics, Tatuaje Cabinet series, and even more formally (and very rarely) as Tatuaje La Seleccion de Cazador.  The Cojonu extension is a series of very strong cigars that are released in a new shape every three years.  It started with the Cojonu 2003 which was a long toro, and that was followed by the Cojonu 2006; a belicoso.  So 2009 predictably brought us the next installment which happens to be a very long torpedo with a very short and rounded taper at the head.  As I have always understood it, each of these cigars is the same blend with the same binder and wrapper,  the difference with each edition being the vitola.  So it is good to note that the year on these cigars does not refer to what most cigar smokers normally associate a year with.  It doesn’t have to do with the crop, or the year it was made.  It is simply the name of the vitola.  Much like the Lonsdale in the classic Brown label line is called a Havana Cazadore, this torpedo is called 2009.  All three vitolas are regular production cigars and all three are still made and available today.

As I mentioned the Cojonu blend is much stronger in body and power than the already quite robust standard Brown Label blends.  The story goes that the name of the line, Cojonu, is a play on a slang Spanish term meaning “ballsy”.  An obvious reference to the strength of the blend.  The Cojonu wrapper is an aged ligero leaf so it had plenty of time in the sun while it was growing and the result is a very dark and very rustic looking wrapper.  The flash in my photo doesn’t do it justice as it sort of bleeds out the color making it appear a much lighter shade of brown than it appears in living color.  It is well filled, and a pre-light  test draw revealed a good but slightly lighter than expected draw.

It is commonly held that if you take what is essentially the same cigar and change the size, it changes the flavors and experience.  I subscribe to this with the following assumption.  When you change the size you are not merely changing the length but also the thickness, or ring gauge.  I think that goes to explain why, in my opinion,  there is virtually no difference at all between the Cojonu 2003 and the 2006.  Both cigars are a 52 ring but the 2003 has about an inch on the ’06 in length.  In that case there were no discernible differences in the two vitolas in my opinion.  To me, they tasted and smoked identically.  The 2009 stepped down a bit on the ring gauge to a 48 ring.  This time I noticed a difference.  A large one actually.

When a cigar gets smaller the blend has to change in some ways.  While the percentages of the different filler types used in the blend may remain consistent, the simple fact is you cannot cram the same amount of tobacco, in the same configuration into a thinner cigar.  So while you are smoking, the percentage of ligero to seco that is burning may be the same, in the thinner cigar there is simply less total ligero and less total seco burning at the same time than there is in the thicker cigar.  So it just goes to figure that there would be a difference in how the cigar tastes and behaves in general.

So how does all this come into play with the Cojonu 2009.  Well the first thing I noticed was that the 2009 is noticeably milder that it’s brothers.  That is not in any way to suggest it is a mild cigar.  It is still a full bodied smoke, but it doesn’t have the same “kick you in the head” effect that the other two seem to have.  One thing I have always been impressed with when smoking the Cojonu cigars is how smooth they are despite their ample power.  This is still true with the 2009, and the toned down power has another favorable side effect.  I believe it allows some more of the subtitles of the blend to come through.  The flavors are very similar to the previous two versions, they just come to play at different volumes now.  The peppery start is there, just less overwhelming.  The core of earth, hardwoods, and cocoa are there as well and seem to have a creamy texture to them.  The most notable change however is the cherry notes.  In the ’03 and ’06 I’d get fleeting hard to pin down flashes of cherry every once and a while as if it could only muster the strength to push past the other more robust flavors occasionally and only for a brief moment.  With the 2009, the cherry notes are less subtle and easier to detect, balancing out the less sweet core flavors very nicely.  I have smoked a couple of these cigars now and I can safely say the 2009 is my favorite Cojonu.

Country: Nicaragua
Wrapper: Nicaraguan Habano
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan, Honduran, and Dominican
Size: Rothschild 4.5″ x 50 ring
Courtesy of CigarsDirect.com

The Nestor Miranda Special Selection changed quite a bit from its original incarnation when Nestor Miranda of Miami Cigar & Co. asked Don Pepin Garcia to re-blend and make this cigar for him.  I don’t know much about this cigar before Pepin got his hands on it.  The coffee break is supposed to be a smaller more convenient format for the highly touted, and very large Danno which is Nestor’s 20th Anniversary cigar also blended and made by Pepin.  Surprisingly, there is absolutely no mention what so ever of the Special Selection cigars on the Miami Cigar & Co. website.  Why do so many cigar companies fail at the simple task of keeping their websites up to date?  It seems to be an annoying fact of life for cigar lovers who crave information.  Cigar companies seem loathe to part with it.

Dressed in a dark brown leather jacket of a wrapper leaf it looks grainy and has small veins spider-ing across its surface.  The band is simple and elegant, and after clipping the excellently applied cap a quick test of the draw reveals perfection and a rich preview of whats to come.  Although there is none of the infamous “Pepin Black Pepper”, the cigar is very Pepin-esque and leaves no doubt as to who blended this smoke.  The Nicaraguan tobacco seems to dominate at the start with lots of rich earth notes complimented by leather and coffee.  Once you get about half way in it starts to develop some Honduran spice and some nutty undertones of raw almond or maybe walnuts.  The last third is spicy and earthy with a slightly sweet finish.  I found this cigar to have an almost Tatuaje like nature to it which of course only makes me like it even more.  It is an excellent smoke and I enjoyed the size.  It is a convenient afternoon smoke and I plan to keep a handful of these in stock at all times.  I can see me reaching for one of these whenever I can’t make up my mind on what I want to smoke.  It will compete heavily with the Oliva V Belicoso in that role for me.

Country: Nicaraguan
Wrapper: Nicaraguan Habano Oscuro
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Size: Petite Robusto 4.5″ x 50 ring
Courtesy of CigarsDirect.com

The My Father Le Bijou 1922 is an extension of the My Father line which was created by Jose Pepin Garcia’s Son Jamie to honor his father Pepin.  Well Pepin created the Le Bijou himself to honor his father, Jamie’s grand father.  Le Bijou means The Jewel and the 1922 is Pepin’s father’s birth year.  It is a good looking cigar.  The wrapper has a dry matte finish to it and it looks like a carved piece of dark wood.  This is another cigar that sports 2 cigar bands.  They are ornate, and beautiful, and large which is odd looking on this petite robusto as most of its length is covered up by the two bands.  Though dual bands have become a bit of an annoyance for me lately as they have become more commonplace; on a positive note the bands on the Le bijou always come off very easily and I have not had one yet that damaged the wrapper.  Because this vitola is so short and the bands are so large, you really need to remove one if not both of the bands before you smoke it.  Again, annoying but not too much so since they do come off easily.

All of the minor annoyances with the bands are quickly forgotten when you light this little “jewel” up.  It starts off with very full and robust, meaty flavors and a peppery kick. It then mellows out a bit and there are notes of wood and earth balanced nicely with a bit of mocha and subtle fruit notes.  There is a creamy characteristic to the flavors as well.  As the smoke progressed into the nub (flavor country) there is lots of spice and those rich meaty flavors return as well.  I literally burned my fingertips a little smoking this cigar down as far as I could before it just started to hurt a little too much.

The cigar smoked well with a good draw and a nice even burn though I did need to make one small correction. After that the burn was problem free.  The ash held well but was a bit papery on the edges and it produced lots and lots of thick white smoke and a strong room bouquet that I found very pleasant.  This full bodied little cigar has earned a spot on my list of box purchase worthy smokes.

Here are a few more takes on this smoke from the blogsphere…

• Cigar in Hand
• The Stogie Guys
• A Cigar Smoker’s Journal
• Stogie Review

Country: Nicaragua
Wrapper: Dark Natural Connecticut Broadleaf
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Size: Robusto 5.25″ x 50 ring

The Cabaiguan (kah-bei-gWAHN) is probably my absolute favorite Connecticut Shade cigar.  Not really mild, it is more of a medium bodied smoke with light yet assertive flavors.  I have been wanting to try the maduro version for a long while and I have finally got around to it.  Sometimes with the sheer volume of different cigars out there it is hard to get to everything you want to try.  Any way, from what I was able to find with some internet searches, it appears the Cabaiguan Maduro isn’t even really a maduro in the traditional sense.  According to Tatuaje’s site and I saw it again on a retailers site, the wrapper on this cigar is a naturally dark sun grown broadleaf wrapper.  If that sound familiar to you then you are probably familiar with the La Riqueza line of cigars from Tatuaje.  The wrapper for that cigar is described the exact same way.  So is it the same wrapper?  I have no idea, but I wasn’t able to find a wealth of information on the Cabaiguan maduro and what I did find wasn’t necessarily authoritative.  I suppose I could have dropped an email to Havana Cellars and get some details straight from the source but I didn’t.  Looking at the cigar I would guess that this wrapper is related at best but would not guess it is the same as those used on the La Riqueza.  This wrapper is much nicer looking.  The La Riquezas always look rough and lumpy and ugly.  This wrapper has a slight tooth and is generally smoother with an oily sheen.  If it is the same or related, the Cabaiguan got the pick of the litter.  it is still a rustic looking wrapper but it is much prettier than the La Riquezas I have seen.  One other item of note on the dressing if the Cabaiguan Maduro.  It has the same band used on the Cabaiguan Guapos which is a Nicaraguan natural sun grown wrapped cigar of a much lighter shade than these broadleaf maduros.

Right off the bat I could tell this isn’t really a Maduro.  Notes of dark chocolate and coffee bean are complimented by a tart sun grown twang that is one of my favorite things about a natural sun grown broadleaf wrapper.  The Tartness was the dominate flavor for the entire smoke.  I also picked up notes of cedar and a very subtle sweetness.  Overall not a terribly complex cigar but very robust and enjoyable.  If you are a fan of that sun grown twang then you’ll love this cigar because you get a lot of it.  Although I wouldn’t call this smoke a favorite, I definitely like it for an occasional change of pace especially when I am craving a sun grown.

Rating – B

Country: USA
2006 Wrapper: Aged Nicaraguan Corojo Ligero (Cojonu Wrapper)
2009 Wrapper: Nicaraguan Sun Grown Broadleaf
Binder (both): Nicaraguan
Filler (both): Nicaraguan
Size: Corona 5^1/8” x 42 ring

2009 has seen an exciting expansion to the Tatuaje brand with lots of new cigars including some new additions to the Reserva line of the Brown Label Tatuajes.  Pete Johnson’s seemingly ever broadening use of the sun grown broadleaf wrapper found its way onto two new Tatuaje Reserva cigars.  The Reserva Regios and the Reserva Noellas.  The new Reserva Noellas are particularly intriguing to me because this is not the first time there has been a Reserva Noella.  Back in 2006 Tatuaje offered to a number of its best accounts boxes of  Noellas cigars with a Reserva label on the box.  This label was applied just as it has always been on the boxes other Reserva cigars like the J21 and SW.  There were only about 200 boxes made.  The cigar is the same size as the standard Noellas but it has a different wrapper.  Instead of the standard Corojo wrapper that is used on the regular Noellas, these cigars are wrapped in an aged oscuro ligero wrapper just like what is used on the Cojonu line of Tatuajes and the Reserva J21.  Unlike other Reserva cigars this incarnation of the Reserva Noellas did not sport the second black and gold Reserva band.  They only had the normal brown Tatuaje band on them.  The only way to know it was a Reserva is to have seen the box it came from, or if you put it side by side with one of the regular Noellas you would see that the wrapper is much darker in color (note: I have found this to be truer of older Noellas which seem to have gotten darker in more recent vintages).  The 2006 Reserva Noella was tagged with a nick name, often referred to as a Noella Oscuro in online forums and websites.  After that initial run in 2006, Tatuaje never made this cigar again.  That is still true today even though we once again have a cigar bearing the Reserva Noellas name…

Here we are in 2009 and we once again have the Reserva Noellas available at many Tatuaje retailers.  But this 2009 edition is not the same cigar that was made back in 2006.  It is still the same size and same blend, but the wrapper has changed again.  The 2009 edition sports a sun grown broadleaf wrapper just like the Tatuaje Monster Series released last October.  It also wears the black and gold Reserva band unlike its predecessor and this one, while somewhat limited, is not restricted to just a one time run of 200 boxes.    I believe that this cigar is meant to be a mainstay in the Reserva line.  It along with its cousin the Reserva Regios have been nick named by some as “little monsters” because they share a very similar makeup to “The Frank” with their broadleaf wrappers around the original blends for those vitolas.

I thought it would be fun, since I happen to have a few of those old Reserva Noellas from 2006 in my humidor, to go ahead and do a side by side comparison of the two different cigars which bear this name.  I started with the 2006 edition…

The 2006 Reserva Noellas have a very dark brown, leathery looking wrapper.  My specimens all have a puckered vein running down their sides just like I have seen on a many of the Cuban cigars I have sampled.  The triple cap is flawless, applied by a master of their craft.  A quick snip with my Palio and my first test draw reveals perfection.  The draw is spot on with just the right amount of resistance.  This cigar is nearing its third birthday and it shows its age.  Right from the start the flavors are smooth yet robust.  Amazingly rich flavors of toasted tobacco complemented by cocoa and spice rest heavy on the palate.  The finish is full and meaty, and though it lingers I find I wish it would hang around even longer.  Smoking this cigar was like sitting down to a three course dinner of steak and potatoes.  The flavors were so rich and so big it seemed almost impossible that they were coming from a cigar of such diminutive size.  The aroma produced by the cigar was decadent and could be described as rich and full on its own.  The cigar was dynamic and it was hard to keep track of all the different flavors I was experiencing.  It never really settled into any one thing for long as the tobacco, cocoa, coffee, cedar, and a myriad of spices kept swirling in only to fade out and come back again later.  This was the best Tatuaje I have ever smoked.  I have smoked a couple before and remember them to be amazing cigars, but this cigar on this day was just spectacular.  It was so smooth, so rich, and very heady.  I was in bliss the whole time I was smoking it. I only have a couple left in my humidor.  I hope they can at least come close to living up to this.

I waited a bit before smoking the new 2009 edition of the Reserva Noellas.  I did not want to have its experience influenced by being too close to the amazing event that was the Noellas Oscuro.  I waited until the memory of that smoke wasn’t so fresh in my mind, and then I fired up the new sun grown edition…

The sun grown wrapper is veiny, dark, oily, and toothy giving the cigar a very rustic look.  It too is crowned by an expertly applied triple cap and dual bands collar the neck of this corona.  Construction is predictably superb and the draw is almost perfect.  After a short peppery blast, the wrapper exhibits it’s influence over this smaller ring size.  The 2009 version of the Reserva Noellas is very much like the Reserva Regios.  Only the slightly sweet, sun-grown “twang” is much more prevalent here pushing the other flavors of cedar, earth, and spices further into the background.  It is a complex smoke with a nice little punch, but lacks some of the depth of flavor that the Reserva Regio had.  I know this is supposed to be a comparison to the other Noella, but this cigar is so very much like it’s bigger brother that I have to keep coming back to that.  I talked about how the Reserva Regio seemed to escalate as you smoked it in my review of that cigar.  You can read it by clicking here.   The Noellas didn’t do the same.  For that reason, I would rank the Reserva Regio ahead of this Noella.  As for how it compares to the original 2006 Reserva Noellas.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but it simply doesn’t.

Both versions of the Reserva Noellas are excellent cigars.  It may not sound like it here, but I really do like the 2009 edition very much, it just happens that it doesn’t stand up well to its name sake or its bigger brother the Reserva Regios.  That said, it is still an excellent smoke that would, in my opinion, stand up easily to most any other smoke you’d like to compare it to.  However, the final verdict of this showdown is that the 2006 edition of the Reserva Noellas is probably the best Tatuaje I have ever smoked and the 2009 version ranks among the top 6 or 7 Tatuajes.  I will say to be fair, that the 2006 Noella does have a considerable advantage in the age department being 3 years old, but I think the difference the wrapper makes on this size and blend would make the Oscuro version the winner even if they were closer in age.  I wish that when Pete brought back the Reserva Noellas he did so with that Oscuro wrapper.  Alas he did not, but what he did bring us is quite good in its own right.

Two excellent cigars and a win-win for me.

Rating ed. 2006 – A+
Rating ed. 2009 – A

I couldn’t find anything out there on the 2006, but here are some other takes on the 2009 Reserva Noellas:

• Stogie Review
• Smoking Hot Cigar Chick
• Cigar Inspector

Country: USA
Wrapper: Sun Grown Broadleaf
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Size: Robusto 5.5″ x 50 ring

This year hasn’t been as prolific with the new cigars like last year was, but 2009 has brought a few new things from my favorite brand of cigars, Tatuaje.  This year there are two new additions to the Tatuaje Reserva line of cigars.  Two of my favorite Tatuaje Brown Label vitolas now have a Reserva version, the Noellas and the Regios.  The Regios will always hold a special place in my heart as it was the first Tatuaje I had ever smoked, and it was the first vitola in the brand that I purchased an entire box of.  So when I heard that the Regios was being used for a new Reserva I was predictably excited.  The Reserva Noellas and the Reserva Regios use a different wrapper than the standard version.  The regulars have a Corojo wrapper, but the Reservas use a sun grown broadleaf wrapper.  If that sounds familiar it is because that is the wrapper used on the ultra-limited  Monster Series Tatuaje, “The Frank”.  In fact, these two new Reservas have been dubbed “mini monsters”.  You may also feel a tickle of deja vu hearing about the Reserva Noellas.  That is because there was a Reserva Noellas once before.  Back in 2006 a very few select retailers received without warning a one time run of Noellas that has a Reserva  label on the box.  There wasn’t a Reserva band on the cigars though.  These were the first incarnation of the Reserva Noellas and they were a one time run of 200 boxes or so (couldn’t find the exact number).  This original version was also referred to as a Noellas Oscuro, but I will talk more on that in the near future……

So a quick recap of the current Tatuaje Reserva line.  We have the:

• Reserva SW – Churchill with a Corojo Wrapper
• Reserva “A” Uno – “A” size with a Corojo Wrapper
• Reserva J21 – Robusto with a Ligero Corojo Wrapper
• Reserva Noellas – Corona with a Sun Grown Broadleaf Wrapper
• Reserva Regios – Robusto with a Sun Grown Broadleaf Wrapper

The moniker “little monster” seems appropriate if you hold the Reserva Regios side by side with a Frank.  The wrappers are identical and it really does look like a smaller version of the Frank in appearance.  It’s a dark, oily, and toothy wrapper  with just a couple prominent veins running it’s length.  It is topped with an expertly applied triple cap like all the Tatuaje cigars.  Construction is very rarely an issue with a Tatuaje and this cigar is superbly put together with a perfect draw and a nice heft.  It is dressed in the standard brown Tatujae label accompanied by a second black and gold Reserva band.

The Reserva Regios starts off a little different than the Frank or most any other Tatuaje.  it lacks that blast of black pepper I’ve come to expect every time I light up a Tatuaje.  Instead it  begins with a mellow spice and a slight sweetness that is common with a sun grown broadleaf wrapper.  It is very, very reminiscent of the Frank.  It starts to pick up quickly, its strong sun grown “twang” is accompanied by notes of leather and wood.  It has an amazingly slow cool burn that allows the flavors to have amazing depth and balance.  It gets more and more robust as I make my way through the length of the cigar.  The “twang” remains the core of the flavors ad it is complimented by strong notes of leather, wood, earth, and spices.   Each draw delivers a something a little different than the last.  This was an amazing smoke.  Delicious, complex, and an absolute joy to smoke.  It starts off medium bodied and a little mellow and it just escalates in body and power as you smoke it, finishing off as a robust, full bodied treat.  This cigar is an absolute “must try”.

Rating – A+

For another take on this cigar check out “A Cigar Smokers Journal”
Also, Ben has a Reserva Regio In Hand

Update: For the sake of completeness there are a few Tatuaje Reservas that i left out on the list above. The reason for doing so was because two of them were one-time special runs and the third I admit I didn’t know about at the time I wrote this review and I am not sure if it is a one-time run or not, but it is limited to one specific retailer. So the three missing Reservas are…

• Reserva Noellas 2006 (Oscuro)
• Reserva SW Maduro
• Reserva Petite Tatuaje

The Noellas I mentioned above and will talk more on in a future review.  The SW Maduro was a special release sold by one shop out west.  Pete made the cigar as a kind of memorial for a fallen friend.  The proceeds or some portion of them went to benefit that friends family.  The Petite Reserva appears at the moment to be made for one specific online retailer.  I have no additional information on that one at this point.