Initial Thoughts
This cigar is part of the October Pairing series. It’s the second cigar in the Tatujae Little Monster set as well. After talking to some of you fine folks online, and discussing the first cigar out of the group. You all were unanimous, that this was your favorite cigar out of the collection. Needless to say, I was eager to try the Tatuaje Lil Drac for myself and see what it was all about.
Looks
As many of you know, I’m a huge fan of great packaging. Now, great doesn’t have to be flashy, but it still has to be great. The overall packaging on this entire set of cigars is great. The individual packaging is solid as well. There is great beauty in simplicity (I heard that once somewhere). That statement is the epitome of the Tatuaje Lil Drac.
The band is very simple, matte black with a red border on the top and bottom. Red writing all around the band. They always present Tatuaje’s name in their classic font. On the backside of the band, is Pete Johnson’s (founder of Tatuaje) logo. Very simple, to-the-point band. I love it.
The Tatuaje Lil Drac is a very rustic-looking cigar. It’s a torpedo vitola and has a beautifully tapered head. I’ve only been smoking parejo’s lately, and I’ve forgotten how much I love torpedo vitolas. Those were the first cigars that I ever smoked. I loved the shape because they looked different. They looked cool. Since those early days, I’ve obviously expanded my experiences, but torpedos always have a place in my heart.
The wrapper on this cigar is an Ecuadorian Habano Maduro. So yeah, it’s a pretty dark wrapper, and very rustic-looking. The veins are barely visible. This wrapper has a bit of a toothy look to it. Overall, it’s dark, oily, and ready to be set on fire. I’m a huge fan of this wrapper leaf. To me, it’s the quintessential cigar look.
Function
This little guy has been sitting in my humidor for quite a while. When I took it out, I wanted to make sure it was ready to go. I rolled it through my fingers, performing the pinch test. No soft spots from what I can find, it looks good to go.
I inspected the foot, the filler looks firmly packed. However, after feeling the barrel, it doesn’t feel over-packed. I checked out the head of the cigar, it was wrapped perfectly. I know, I say this every time, but it blows me away at how they wrap the heads of these tapered cigars. I’ve seen videos of it being done. It still just blows me away each time. I tried to get a close-up of the head on the Tatuaje Lil Drac so that you could see the detail. It looks flawless.
I was a little bummed, that I couldn’t use my V Cutter on this cigar. I had to opt for the ole double guillotine to nip the cap off on this guy… Oh, exciting derailment here… So if you follow my twitter account, you’ll see that I recently won an awesome prize pack from Podman Cigars that was given away on my buddy RobbyRasReviews’s Cigar Chat. I won a brand new Drew Estate double guillotine capped cutter, along with some cigars and a t-shirt. I can’t begin to tell you how pumped I was! That cigar cutter would have been perfect for the Tatuaje Lil Drac. However, I nipped the cap with my old cutter and the draw was perfect. It pulled the air right down the barrel effortlessly, and I knew it was going to take to the flame without a hitch.
Smoking
Sometimes when I’m smoking, I’ll go off into wonderland, and totally forget that I’m smoking a cigar. This tends to happen when I’m reading while I’m smoking. Often times I get so into a book on my Kindle, that I just forget about the cigar. That may or may not have happened during this cigar. Ok ok, it kind of happened.
After I tested the dry draw on the Tatuaje Lil Drac, I knew this cigar was going to take to the flame effortlessly. I used my trusty Xikar Stratosphere and made sure to toast the foot. I wanted this stick to burn evenly. After a few puffs and a slight amount of choking, it was lit and ready for takeoff.
The first third of this Tatuaje Lil Drac was pretty decent. An effortless draw made this cigar smoke faster than I wanted it to. There was a nice thick cloudy white smoke that just hovered over my head. In fact I walked around with a smoke halo for at least 5 minutes… Ok, that’s a lie, but it was good for imagery right?
Towards the end of the first third and beginning of the second. I started having an issue with the burn. At first, it got pretty uneven on me, so I touched it up and hoped that’s all the correcting it would need. The next thing I knew, the cigar went out on me. Now, here is where I’m trying to figure out if it was my reading or just the cigar. Typically, I take a few puffs and get the cigar burning to where I can see the edge of the wrapper glow. Then, I set it down in the ashtray, and let it rest while I read. Now, I don’t read an entire chapter, I’m talking about 2 pages max before I pick it up again. Usually, this takes me at most 1 minute. I’ve talked to some, and they said they had to let the Tatuaje Lil Drac rest while smoking. I always let my cigars rest because I don’t want that tar and bitter build-up in taste. I think that I let it rest too long and it just went out on me.
This happened a couple of times throughout the smoke, and it was incredibly frustrating. The filler would begin to tunnel, then the wrapper would burn unevenly. It was just discouraging, but I pushed through all the way to the nub.
This Tatuaje Lil Drac had a great draw, which made the cigar more pleasurable to smoke. But man, the fact that I had other issues with the burn caused me to lower the score on it. I’m hoping the next one I smoke won’t have similar issues.
Flavor
Flavor, the whole chimichanga. Ok, another slight derailment. Would it be possible for someone to make a cigar that tasted like a chimichanga? Maybe an infused cigar? I’m not a fan of the berry-infused ones, but if you hand me a chimichanga-infused cigar I would dump my 401k to buy boxes of those. I could eat a chimichanga every day of the week, that’s how much I love em’.
Yeah, that’s probably more than you want to know about my eating habits… The Tatuaje Lil Drac starts off with a very sweet cocoa aroma on the foot. I get a lot of cocoa and a hint of molasses. This tends to be the case for me and maduro wrappers. I feel like I always pick out those two notes. I’m sure it’s because of the maduro-curing process.
When I put the cigar up to my lips, and take the dry draw, I get a bit of pepper on the inside of my lips. This was really odd to me, I actually tasted it on the backside of my lips between my teeth, and up on my gums. Very odd flavor tingles up there. Has this happened to anyone else?
The first third of the Tatuaje Lil Drac was fairly uneventful. I got some doses of spice on the back end that tingled my tongue. I was really surprised there wasn’t more pepper from this cigar honestly. I picked up a healthy dose of cocoa and hints of cinnamon.
The second and final third were more of the same. When the flame on the Tatuaje Lil Drac went out on me, I got some tastes of bitter and that rubbery taste that no one wants. Other than that, it was a fairly straightforward blend. Nothing really stood out and punched me. It was a solid mild-medium cigar that had some sweet notes to it. I’m looking forward to pairing this cigar to see what other flavors I can pull out of it. Overall, not a huge fan of this cigar out of the collection thus far. I enjoyed the Frank Jr much more than this one.
Would I Buy It Again?
I might buy the entire collection again, but seeing as how I wasn’t a big fan of this particular one. I don’t see myself buying it by itself.
Is It an Every Day Smoke?
It could be, but not for me.
Would I Buy a Box?
Because it’s part of a collection, I may buy another box, but I wouldn’t buy a box solely of Lil Dracs.
Conclusion
Overall, not that impressed with the Tatuaje Lil Drac. Others that I have talked to said this was their favorite one out of the series. My review would probably change if I didn’t have such a difficult time with the burn and having to relight. The flavor profile wasn’t anything too special for me. It was solid and sweet, but nothing that really wowed me. Obviously, the burn issues had an effect on the flavor. So I’m looking forward to pairing this cigar with something from Prichard’s and seeing what sort of flavors I can pull out. All in all, this was a decent/average mild-medium cigar that has a sweet flavor profile.
