In 2018, Tatuaje Cigars released the 13th blend under its Monsters series, The Bride. Tatuaje Monsters was created by Tatuaje founder Pete Johnson as a tribute to monster and horror movies. Each October (around Halloween) since 2008, a new character was unveiled. The Bride is a character that pays homage to The Bride of Frankenstein. There has been speculation that The Bride will bring closure to the series as the final blend of the series. Since the first Monster to be released was The Frank (a tribute to Frankenstein), it makes sense to come full circle and close the series with The Bride. Today we take a closer look at Tatuaje The Bride in more detail.

Since the first installment of the October Monsters Series, The Frank; the Monsters series has grown to be so much more. Other sizes have since been added – and there have even been two blends that have not been October full-size Monsters releases (Chuck and Tiff). With the 2018 release of The Bride, the Tatuaje Monsters Series will have 13 blends spread across six different size formats for a total of 54 facings.

The grid below maps each monster/horror film character blend to the cigar that was released in each of the Monster Series collections. A blank indicates the blend was not released in that collection. The Little Monsters, Pudgy Monsters, Skinny Monsters, Skinny Monsters Cazadores, and Skinny Monsters Lancero were released in samplers.  The Skinny Monsters releases were also made available in individual 25-count boxes.

Character/Collection	Full Monsters (The +) -Annual	Little Monsters	Pudgy Monsters	Skinny Monsters	Skinny Monsters Cazadores	Skinny Monsters Lancero
Frankenstein (2008)	Frank	Frank Jr.	Frank	Frank	Frank	Frank
Dracula (2009)	Drac	Lil’ Drac	Drac	Drac	Drac	Drac
Leather Face (2010)	Face	Baby Face	Face	Face	Face	Face
The Wolfman (2011)	Wolfman	Wolfie	Wolf	Wolf	Wolf	Wolf
The Mummy (2012)	Mummy	Mini Mum	Mummy	Mummy	Mummy	Mummy
Jason Voorhees (2013)	JV13		Jason	Jason	Jason	Jason
Dr. Jekyll (2014)	Jekyll			Jekyll	Jekyll	Jekyll
Mr. Hyde (2015)	Hyde			Hyde	Hyde	Hyde
Chuck (Child’s Play)			Chuck	Chuck	Chuck	Chuck
Tiff (Child’s Play)			Tiff	Tiff	Tiff	Tiff
Freddy Krueger (2016)	Krueger
Michael Myers (2017)	Michael
“The Bride” (2018)	Bride

 

SPECIFICATIONS

Blend and Origin

The Bride is also the third Monsters Blend to use Connecticut Broadleaf for the wrapper. The other two releases that use this wrapper are The Frank and the JV13/Jason release.  The Frank was the first release and it used a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper. With The Bride, the wrapper is a lighter Connecticut Broadleaf Rosado wrapper. It covers a blend of all-Nicaraguan tobaccos. As with all of the Monsters Series releases, The Bride is produced at the My Father Cigars factory in Estelí, Nicaragua.

Wrapper: Connecticut Broadleaf
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Country Of Origin: Nicaragua
Factory: My Father Cigars SA

Vitolas Offered

The Bride is a 7 1/8 x 49 vitola. Like The Krueger and The Michael, The Bride has only been released in the “full size” October release and has not been made available in any sampler.

As in previous years, production is limited and offered in a combination of dress boxes and non-dress (cedar) boxes. The boxes are adorned with the image of Elsa Lanchester, the actress who played the Bride of Frankenstein.

Appearance

As mentioned the Connecticut Broadleaf Rosado wrapper of The Bride is lighter than the other Connecticut Broadleaf wrappers used in the Monsters Series. It is a medium to dark brown with a Colorado tint to it. The band had a light coat of oil on it. The band had some thin visible veins and thin visible wrapper seams.

The band of The Bride is similar in design to the other bands in the Tatuaje Monsters Series. The band has a white background with moss-green font features the text “Tatuaje” in cursive font. The left side of the band features the text “HALLOWEEN” while the right side features “MONSTER” . There is one green pinstripe above the text and one below the text.  There is a green Tatuaje “tattoo” logo on the far of the band.

PERFORMANCE

Pre-Light Draw

A straight cut was used the commence the cigar experience of The Bride. Once the cap was detached, it was time to move on to the pre-light draw. The dry draw produced notes of coffee and cream as well as subtle floral and cedar notes. Overall I found this to be an excellent pre-light draw experience. At this point, it was time to light up Tatuaje – The Bride and move on to the smoking phase.

Tasting Notes

Tatuaje The Bride started out with notes of coffee, cedar, fruit sweetness and some notes of red pepper. Early on the fruit sweetness and red pepper settled in the background. The coffee and cedar notes moved into the forefront. During the first third both the coffee and cedar notes alternated in intensity. Meanwhile, there was an additional layer of red pepper that was present on the retro-hale.

The second third saw the coffee notes take over as the primary flavor. The cedar receded into the background joining the coffee and pepper notes. By the time The Bride reached the midway point, a gradual increase in the pepper notes commenced.

The final third of The Bride continued to see the coffee notes in control. The process of the pepper notes increasing in intensity continued and shortly crossing the final third, these notes joined the coffee in the forefront. There were still some cedar notes and a slight amount of fruit sweetness present. This is the way Tatuaje The Bride came to a close. The resulting nub was cool in temperature and the nub was firm to the touch.

Burn

Overall Tatuaje The Bride was a well-constructed cigar and this reflected nicely on the score of the burn. This is a cigar that maintained a straight burn path and straight burn line from start to finish. The ash had a light gray color. This was an ash that was tight and firm. The burn temperature was ideal. The burn rate was a little fast as the average smoke time clocked in 76 minutes for this Churchill sized cigar. This had no adverse effects on the combustion – it just smoked a little fast.

Draw

The draw to The Bride had a little resistance on it – which is something that I like.  Because there was some resistance on the draw,  I was a little perplexed that The Bride had even a slightly quicker burn rate.

Strength and Body

In terms of strength and body, I found the Bride was probably one of the more dialed back full-size Monsters cigars that I have smoked. This was a cigar that was a dead-center medium strength, medium-bodied smoke from start to finish. Along the way, I didn’t find much in the way of variance of the intensity levels of the strength and body, In addition, I found the strength and body balanced each other nicely with neither attribute overshadowing the other.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT