The Good Stuff: The Mummy is the 5^th installment in Pete Johnson’s Monster Series. For those of you who live on another planet, Pete Johnson of Tatuaje has been releasing super-limited runs of Monster themed cigars each year on Halloween since 2008. I’ve been lucky enough to get my hands on each one to date and have thoroughly enjoyed them. The first was the Frank, followed by the dual released Boris and the Drac, Then the Face, the Wolfman, the mini-monsters, and now the Mummy. The blend starts out with a Nicaraguan Sun Frown Criollo stuffed with Nicaraguan Filler and Binder. Pete Johnson made mention that the blend is basically a cleaner version of the Black Label, but that the size will alter the flavor slightly. The Cigar runs $13 a stick and comes in painted dress boxes of 13, or plain boxes of 10. While I was in Phoenix a few weekends ago I picked a few of these up at Fox Cigar Bar. (Don’t worry, I’ll have a post up from the event soon.).

Size: 7.75 x 47
Wrapper: Nicaraguan Sun Grown Criollo
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Body: Full
Strength: Medium/Full
Price: $13
Pairing: Unibroue  Grande Reserve 17 (Belgian style strong dark ale, 10% abv)

Prelight: The wrapper on the Mummy is a rough looking one. Again, I am a fan of rustic looking cigars as you can tell there hasn’t been much treatment done to them. The wrapper is very oily and toothy carrying lots of smaller veins and a messy, folded over foot. Once again, everything about this wrapper screams monster series. As you follow the thin, medium brown body up to the round triple cap you can see lots of areas around the veins where the wrapper is a much lighter shade of brown. The Tatuaje Mummy is polished off with the standard Tatuaje band, this time in white and gray keeping up with the mummy theme.

The wrapper on the Mummy gives off a very sweet tobacco and cashew aroma while the foot of the cigar lets loose a crazy strong spice and tobacco smell. The cold draw on the Mummy produces a really organic tobacco, soft spice, and subtle pepper flavor.

First Smoke: Once lit up the Mummy greeted me with a whole ton of up front spice. Not pepper, spice as in cinnamon and maybe nutmeg. There was a bit of pepper on the first few puffs, but not a whole ton. Just enough to tingle my lips a bit before fading off and leaving me with a nice sweet tobacco, cedar, spice and a neat black cherry after taste.  The draw on the Mummy is slightly tough, but not anything that one or two hard puffs doesn’t take care of. The burnline is razor sharp and dead solid leaving behind a flaky, white and dark grey ash. The ash only held on for about ¾ of an inch before giving way into my lap. I anticipated it this time as you can tell, I took the first picture early enough to catch it just before the first ash fell.

Halfway There: An interesting spearmint flavor snuck into the cigar in the second third. I’m not sure if I was really picking it up or if I smelled something in the air cause just as soon as I noticed it, it was gone. The cashew I picked up in the prelight has started to show in the experience while the black cherry, spice and cedar as still rocking hard over the sweet tobacco. The retrohale produces a really smooth, sweet, and mellow cedar priming. The burnline is still spot on and I am feeling only a slight nicotine kick after the second third.

Finish: As if I wasn’t already enjoying this Tatuaje Mummy, the final third of the experience really made the cigar shine. It started with similar flavors, black cherry, cedar, spice but then morphed into this really bold, pleasant, cashew and leather with this musky taste. I loved it. The cigar finished bold and smooth with no harshness at all. I smoked this cigar until I could no longer hold it in my hand. It took about an hour and a half and required no touch ups or relights. Despite feeling a bit of nicotine in the second third I felt absolutely nothing after I finished the cigar.

Overview: As much as I enjoyed the mini mum, I have to say this format suits the cigar so much more. It’s the final third experience in which I didn’t see from the mummy in the smaller format. This is probably one of my favorite monster series to date. If I had to rank it I would put it in second place just slightly below the boris. The price point is a bit steep as is for all the full size monster series, but you get a lot of bang for you buck. I would highly recommend any one interested to pick these up while you still have a chance. There aren’t man left!

Pairing: I picked a winner with this pairing. Unibroue’s Grande Reserve 17 is a 10% abv Belgian Strong Dark Ale brewed by the Unibroue brewery in Quebec, Canada. Unibroue, in my opinion, is one of the few non-Belgian brewery who have successfully nailed down the Belgian style of brewing. This limited edition brew is only brewed once, then oak aged and bottle fermented producing a bold, yet smooth experience. This beer carries lots of spice, clove, ginger, cinnamon over a malty and sweet palate. That being said it’s obvious that the beer and it’s flavors were a match made in heaven (or hell?) for this year’s Monster Series, the Mummy.

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The Good Stuff: Kinda funny, when I sit down to finally do this review, and start looking up some of the background on the cigar, I realized just how mixed up the information is. From what I have deduced, this cigar was blended by Nestor Plasencia, or Manuel Quesada. It carries a Nicaraguan Corojo wrapper, Nicaraguan binder, and Nicaraguan Filler along with Peruvian tobacco, or Panamanian tobacco. Really, that’s how mixed up this stuff is. What I can tell you for sure is, it’s a good looking cigar that you can get for about $2.50 a stick. That being said, lets get to the real review.

Prelight: The Cu-Avana Intenso is a pretty little cigar. The wrapper is this very rich, very dark oily and shiny brown. The color is pretty consistent for the most part, but goes crazy light in a few areas. I’ve said it before, but I much rather experience ugly looking color in wrapper than a dyed cigar, so the light patches really don’t bother me at all. The cigar is crazy firm to the touch, it almost feels like a toothy, solid block of wood. The cigars slender body leads of to a seamless, huge, round double cap.  This is one of those few cigars out there that spring for a single foot band versus the standard body band. The band is a simple black with gold decorations, the words “Cu-Avana Intenso” in white and gold as well as a red “Cu-Avana” Medallion on the back.

The wrapper gives off a very sweet and inviting chocolate aroma. Seriously, it smells like a Hershey’s bar. The foot tells a much different tale of spice, tobacco, and other earthy aromas. The cap cut clean using my V-Cutter. The draw was a bit light so I opened it up easily using my double bladed Palio cutter. No problems after the switch and cut while the cigar let lose a very strong pepper, and tobacco flavor on the cold draw.

First Smoke: Despite me thinking that the first few puffs from this Cu-Avana Intenso were going to be filled with massive pepper bombs (probably still traumatized from the Punisher) the Intenso started out with only a slight pepper tingle, a ton of spice, some black cherry flavors and a ton of dark chocolate. It’s already starting to be a completely different cigar. Ever since the change in cut the draw has been great from this cigar. This beast kicks out a butt load of thick, white smoke with each puff so be prepared for it. The burnline is a bit wavy, but not really concerning while it leaves behind a nice zebra striped, semi-compacted light and dark grey ash. The ash held on for about an inch before falling into my ashtray. That’s right. My ashtray, not my lap.

Halfway There: The more I smoke this Cu-Avana Intenso, the more the chocolate ramps up. It’s the main flavor now, while there is still a bit of the berry and tobacco in there the chocolate and a bit of coffee have really taken control of the cigar. The retrohale is awesome, and a lot smoother than I thought it was going to be priming my nasal passage with some nice oaky chocolate goodness. I’m feeling a very slight nicotine kick from this cigar, but nothing much at all at this point.

Finish: The pepper has made a huge comeback in the final third of this Cu-Avana Intenso. Let me rephrase that, there isn’t a lot of pepper at all but seeing how there was barely any at the beginning at all I am very surprised to experience a bunch of it towards the end of the smoke. The chocolate is still there, but not very strong as more natural tobacco flavors have really started to take over. The cigar is still really smooth despite ramping in body. I am getting a mean little nicotine kick off of it, but absolutely no harshness into the final inch. All in all it took me about an hour and a half to take this cigar down and it required only one touch up in the final third as the cigar created a crazy wave.

Overview: Needless to say this is a completely different experience than the Punisher. I’m glad too. While I applaud Cu-Avana for trying something different, the Punisher just wasn’t my cup of Habanero flavored tea. The Cu-Avana Intenso started out bold, with lots of flavor and finished with a ramped up body while remaining smooth and true to it’s flavors. I would totally smoke this cigar again, especially at the price point, but I think it may be a tad bit more power then most non-experience cigar smokers can handle. Either way you look at it, it’s worth a try. Now if only they’d release the Punisher blend minus the burning sensation… hmm..

Pairing: Surprised to see that a Canada company makes a style of beer that is not a pilsner? Yeah me too. Unibroue has always made decently priced, great brews that you can find just about anywhere. The Trois Pistoles in particular is a favorite of mine. I actually haven’t had it for quite some time and I am glad that it didn’t disappoint. The beer qualifies as a “strong Dark Ale” coming in at 9% ABV. The beer however, tastes nothing like one. The unique brew is created to resemble “ripe fruit” but it tastes more like celery and tomato. This may sound gross, but it’s a common mashup in Belgian style ales, and a very tasty one at that. It actually compares to Delirium Nocturne, another favorite of mine. And you know what? It paired perfectly with this cigar. The flavors never ceased and the smoothness of the brew really help bring the cigar to another level. Pairing success!

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