Agile Cigar Reviews are cigar assessments where we use a lightweight, shorter format. These will never take the place of our comprehensive reviews. They are only used on blends we have previously assessed. This might be a blend we are re-scoring or giving a score for the first time. It might be a blend we are looking at in a different size. Today we look at the Tatuaje Monster Mash Hyde. This is a cigar blend previously assessed in several sizes most recently back in September 2016 in the Skinny Monsters format.
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Sumatra
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Country of Origin: Nicaragua
Factory: My Father Cigars SA
Monster Mash Jason: 5 1/2 x 49
Today we continue our look at the Tatuaje Monster Mash Collection with the Tatuaje Monsters Mash Hyde. If you aren’t familiar with Tatuaje’s Monster Series, it is an annual series that pays homage to horror film characters with unique blends. Typically Tatuaje released each installment just before Halloween. Over the years, Tatuaje has also released many offshoot samplers of the series. For the past few months, we have been going through one of the samples, the Monster Mash. The Monster Mash contains one of each of the 13 blends in the Tatuaje Monsters Series (plus an additional unreleased blend known as The Creature). The Monster Mash cigars are the same ring gauge as the Halloween-released “monster” counterpart, but each Monster Mash cigar is 1 1/2 inches shorter than the Halloween release. The Hyde was the 8th installment of the Series as it first made its debut in 2015. The Hyde was announced at the same time as its alter-ego, Jekyll back in 2013, but it would be the Jekyll that was released first in 2014 and Tatuaje fans had to wait until a year before Hyde’s release in 2015.
The chart below shows the complete history of the Tatuaje Monsters series and what is offered in one sampler. Note the Tatuaje Monster Mash includes a new “monster” known as “The Creature.” It does not have a corresponding Halloween character and at press time is exclusive to the Monster Mash series.
| Character/Collection | Full Monsters (The +) -Annual |
Little Monsters |
Pudgy Monsters | Skinny Monsters | Skinny Monsters Cazadores |
Skinny Monsters Lancero |
MBS | Monster Mash |
| Frankenstein (2008) | Frank (*) | Frank Jr. | Frank | Frank | Frank | Frank | Frank | |
| Dracula (2009) | Drac (*) | Lil’ Drac | Drac | Drac | Drac | Drac | Drac | |
| Leather Face (2010) | Face | Baby Face | Face | Face | Face | Face | Face | |
| The Wolfman (2011) | Wolfman | Wolfie | Wolf | Wolf | Wolf | Wolf | Wolf | |
| The Mummy (2012) | Mummy | Mini Mum | Mummy | Mummy | Mummy | Mummy | Mummy | |
| Jason Voorhees (2013) | JV13 | Jason | Jason | Jason | Jason | Jason | ||
| Dr. Jekyll (2014) | Jekyll | Jekyll | Jekyll | Jekyll | Jekyll | |||
| Mr. Hyde (2015) | Hyde | Hyde | Hyde | Hyde | Hyde | |||
| Freddy Krueger (2016) | Krueger | FK | Krueger | |||||
| Chuck (2019) | Chuck | Chuck | Chuck | Chuck | Chuck | Chuck | ||
| Tiff (2019) | Tiff | Tiff | Tiff | Tiff | Tiff | Tiff | ||
| Michael Myers (2017) | Michael | Michael | ||||||
| “The Bride” (2018) | Bride | Bride | ||||||
| “The Creature (from the Black Lagoon)” (2021) | Creature |
* Re-released as Redux in 2021
The Monster Mash Hyde uses the same tobacco components as the original Tatuaje Hyde blend. It features an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper over a Nicaraguan binder and filler. For those keeping score at home, the Hyde was the second Monster to use the Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper (Wolfman was the first). With the Monster Mash cigars being 1 1/2 inches shorter than the original Monsters releases, the Monster Mash Hyde measures 5 1/2 x 49. Jekyll and Hyde are the only two Monsters to have featured a 109 cap. This is a tapered cap and instead of converging to a tip, it has a flat “bullet” cap. The Monster Mash versions of Jekyll and Hyde include this cap.
The Tatuaje Monster Mash Hyde opened up with notes of natural tobacco, damp earth, wood, and white pepper. Early on the natural tobacco notes had some sweetness to them. As the cigar moved through the first third, the sweetness diminished. On the retro-hale, there was an additional layer of wood along with some cedar. Throughout the first third, the natural tobacco, earth, and wood notes alternated in intensity as to which was the dominant note. The second third saw the damp earth notes take over as the primary note. The pepper notes increased on the tongue during the second half, but the cigar profile never became overwhelmingly peppery.
The flavors delivered were medium strength and medium-bodied from start to finish. There wasn’t much variance in the intensity and both the strength and body balanced each other nicely. The burn required frequent touch-ups to maintain a straight burn path and straight burn line. As for the draw, it was tight on each of the two samples smoked for this assessment. In fact, this resulted in two relights for each sample.
OVERALL ASSESSMENT
Final Thoughts
In its various incarnations, I have typically not been high on the Hyde blend in the Monster Series. In terms of the Tatuaje Monster Mash Hyde, while it still wasn’t my favorite Monster blend, it was the best vitola I smoked in the blend. The problem was a very tight draw, that ultimately lead to two re-lights. It was a struggle to smoke each of the samples here. In the end, there just wasn’t enough here for me to revisit or recommend this cigar.
Summary
Key Flavors: Natural Tobacco, Damp Earth, Wood, Pepper, Cedar
Burn: Very Good
Draw: Fair
Complexity: Medium Minus
Strength: Medium
Body: Medium
Finish: Very Good
Rating
Value: Not Recommended
Score: 85
References
Previous Review: Tatuaje Skinny Hyde
News: Tatuaje Monster Mash Introduced at 2021 PCA
Price: $150.00 for a sampler that includes 14 different Monster Mash cigars (which includes one Monster Mash Jekyll)
Source: Purchased
Brand Reference: Tatuaje
Photo Credits: Cigar Coop
