Adventures in Cigars: The Tatuaje Mummy

File under: Cigar Dossier Deep Dives

By Renick Blosser

First, let me explain the concept of Dossier Deep Dives.

I smoked my first cigar back in 1995, my Senior year of high school. When I was in college the next year at Ohio University (Go Bobcats!), the coffee shop on campus had a nice little humidor. So I started grabbing a cigar when I would pick up a coffee. I’d sit outside, enjoying the weather, appreciating a hand-rolled cigar with my coffee, and chatting with friends who’d walk by on their way to class.

By 1997, I was a full-blown cigar collector – albeit on a college kid’s budget. That Christmas, my mom bought me my very first Cigar Dossier to put the labels of my cigars in, and take notes about the cigar – where I was and what I was doing. Oh, Jean, you did not know just how deep down the rabbit hole you were about to send me! Many thanks for being a cool mom who embraced her son’s many interests.

One of my favorite things to do is flip through the cigar dossiers and look at my labels. It reminds me of the cigar I was smoking, what I was doing in that period of my life – a major event, etc. It also helps me remember if I liked a cigar a lot and want to revisit it, or if it was one that I wouldn’t want to go down that path again. What’s even more enjoyable is revisiting a certain cigar and smoking it to determine if I still like it. Today I am going to focus on a cigar brand I had heard about for years, but never took the plunge on. After this cigar, I started buying and collecting the brand regularly as one of my go to Non Cuban brands: the original full-sized Mummy by Tatuaje.

For those who have not tried many Tatuaje yet, I encourage you to check out the different Monster options. In 2008, Tatuaje released The Frank – their first in a series of yearly releases affectionately referred to as The Monsters. Every October they release their new Monster (The Mummy was in 2012). I have been fortunate enough to have smoked almost the entire set (Wolf and Face still need to go up in flames for me), and I have a full set resting in my custom Vigilant humidor to continue revisiting them when the desire hits. The Monster cigar set is worth quite a bit of money and is one of the reasons I wanted such a good humidor. Never cheap out when it comes to protecting high value items!

I wanted to revisit this cigar for a few reasons, one being they always remind me of my Mamaw. She was an incredible grandmother to me and a great-grandmother to my daughters. The first one I had was on March 20, 2016 after celebrating her 95^th birthday with my family, and it always seems to take me back there.

The Dossier Entry

This cigar is from 2012 and is Nicaraguan, through and through. Wrapper, binder, filler…all of it is beautiful Nicaraguan tobacco, aged to perfection. Coming in at 7 and ¾ inches and a 47 ring gauge, the Mummy is not for the faint of heart. The cold draw was still strong enough to taste earthy and the 8 plus years of aging in humidors has really taken this cigar to the next level. Zero draw issues the entire way, and I only had to touch it up 2 times.

As I smoked this cigar, I noticed the Mummy did not have a ton of flavor-profile shifts that really set themselves apart from the previous ones. They are subtle instead of pronounced. Normally, I like the journey of several significant shifts, but honestly didn’t mind that this one was consistent, with some slight nuances.

The predominant flavor for me was cedar – not the fresh cedar from opening a new box, but one that’s aged, wrapped in the scents and attributes of cigars and boxes that it has been exposed to for two decades. It was absolutely lovely, and I didn’t mind that it stayed there with some slight sways for the two hours that I smoked it. The ash was solid and held on for dear life several times. I’m really happy I revisited this one! I hope you all have the opportunity to smoke one in the near future and see what you think.

Tatuaje is a brand I really enjoy and respect for their great products and contributions to the industry. If you get the chance to meet them at a cigar event, definitely take the chance to strike up a conversation with Pete and the crew. I guarantee you will walk away with a better appreciation for what is going on in the cigar industry.

I’m looking forward to revisiting more of my favorite cigars from my Dossier Deep Dives with you in future blogs…and of course, adding a new label to the dossiers.

Who knows, maybe my daughters will be flipping through these one day with their children and grandchildren, and tell them about how their dad used to really love cigars, and this one time he published a blog with this little grey cigar label in it that reminded him of their great, great, great grandma.

*Disclaimer: I have been collecting cigars for about 25 years and in this blog I’ll share the knowledge I’ve gained during that time. Do I consider myself an expert? Nope. There are very few people I would consider an expert in the cigar world, myself included. I do, however, have plenty of knowledge I’m happy to pass down from my own journey with cigars and I LOVE to continue learning. One of the things I’ve learned is that there are always people with more knowledge and history than you. Connect with them and keep learning!

Comment here or pass along your own knowledge or ideas for future blogs to me at [email protected]