Tatuaje Anarchy (Original Release) Smoke Inn Microblend Series

By Tony Casas | June 22, 2015

Hopefully everyone had a great, safe, and loving Father’s day! After a long day of running around with the family I grabbed an original Tatuaje Anarchy and headed out back to dwindle down what was left of my evening.

The Good Stuff:

The Tatuaje Anarchy is the first installment in the Smoke Inn Microblend Series. Smoke Inn’s microblend series is a slew of releases created exclusively for Abe Dababneh, owner of Smoke Inn, by a handful of the world’s leading cigar manufacturers. With the exception of the Anarchy we’ve reviewed each of the Microblend Series releases to date:

• Padron 1964 Anniversary SI 15
• My Father El Hijo
• Aturo Fuente Solaris
• Tatuaje Apocalypse
• Room 101 Big Delicious
• Quesada Oktoberfest Dunkel
• 601 La Bomba Bunker Buster
• Illusione Pactum
• Drew Estate The Pope of Greenwich Village

The Tatuaje Anarchy was blended by Pete Johnson of Tatuaje exclusively for Smoke Inn. The Tatuaje Anarchy carries a dark Ecuadorian Habano wrapper with a Nicaraguan binder and fillers. While the Tatuaje Anarchy was originally released in 2010 and quickly sold out, last week Abe announced that the cigar is being re-released with a limited run of only 666 boxes of 15. The blend and size will remain the same, but the box and band design will be changed to differentiate between the two releases.

As I stated, the Tatuaje Anarchy came out in late 2010 and sold out quickly after their release. I was able to smoke quite a few back then, and my co-writer at the time had these on in his review queue but was never able to get a review written up for it. Due to this, they have been the only remaining Microblend Series cigar that we had not reviewed. I recently reached out to Abe just in case of the off chance that he might still have any of these lying around. A few days later a package showed up at my doorstep with a note letting me know that this was one of the very few original Anarchy cigars remaining from the very last box from his own personal humidor. HUGE shoutout to Abe for hooking it up. I swear that dude loves the cigar community like his own children.

Size: 6.125 x 48-52
Wrapper: Ecuadorian Habano
Binder: Nicaraguan
Filler: Nicaraguan
Body: Full
Strength: Medium/Full
Price: $9.99
Pairing: Deschutes Black Butte XXVI (Imperial Porter 10.8% ABV)

Prelight:

The first obviously awesome characteristic of the Tatuaje Anarchy is the crazy pig tail cap. It’s much longer than you’d expect and forms a crazy spiral around the cap of the cigar. Leading from the cap through the body the cigar tapers out from a 48 ring gauge to a 52 before coming back down to 48 at the foot of the cigar. The wrapper is a deep, dark brown and looks closer to what you’d expect in a maduro in terms of color. The brown is pretty consistent with only a few darker areas around the foot and the cap while there are a few lighter areas around some of the smaller veins which run their course through the cigar’s body. The wrapper feels very thin and delicate yet due to hot much tobacco is packed in her the cigar is very heavy, dense, and hard to the touch. The cigar is polished off with a black band with “Tatuaje” embossed around the sides and a vibrant, red, Anarchy symbol printed on the front.

The wrapper on the Tatuaje Anarchy gives off a pungent molasses and oak aroma while the foot of the cigar has some slight spice over naturally tobacco scents. The cap took a bit of force to cut using my Palio double bladed cutter, but cut perfectly even once it gave way. The cold draw is very peppery with some slight sweetness, spice, and oak.

First Third:

The Tatuaje Anarchy starts out with a bang, punching you in the face with cayenne pepper which leaves it’s mark on your tongue and lips. Once the pepper began to fade back some great oak, molasses, brown sugar, sweetness, and cocoa flavors began to arise. The draw on this bad boy is flawless. Each tiny, little puff kicks out a massive cloud of thick, white smoke while the cigar gives off very little stationary smoke as it rests in my ashtray. The burn line is dead even and razor thin leaving behind a trail of compacted medium and dark gray ash which held on for a little over an inch before giving way.

Second Third:

The pepper finally made it’s exit from the flavor profile into the second third of the Tatuaje Anarchy leaving behind lots of deep oak, black cherry, spice, molasses and sweetness. This cigar isn’t overly complex at this point but the flavors are very bold. The retrohale coats my nasal passage with a ton of sharp pepper, spice, and oak. The draw is still incredible and the burn line remains dead even, and razor thin. I close out the second third feeling almost nothing in the nicotine department.

Finish:

It seems some clove has snuck it’s way into the flavor mashup in the final third of the Tatuaje Anarchy. The rest of the flavors still hold true leading with deep oak, black cherry, spice, molasses and sweetness with just a bit of the pepper making a subtle resurgence. The Tatuaje Anarchy has fired on all cylinders since I’ve lit it up and continues to pump out massive amount of flavor with every puff. It took me an hour and forty five minutes to take this cigar down to the nub and I experienced absolutely no harshness, or unnecessary heat while the burn was flawless and I never once had to reach for my torch. The Tatuaje Anarchy left me with a slight nicotine kick, but nothing too significant.

Overview:

This was, and still is probably my favorite Microblend Series that Smoke Inn has released to date. The Tatuaje Anarchy leads with bold, semi-complex flavors packaged in a great, easy smoking format. Its a great cigar, at a great price, with a long burn time delivering on all marks. This is perfect for Tatuaje fan boys, seasoned cigar smokers looking for a great, bold stick with a great flavor profile, or novice smokers looking for a great premium cigar. My only complaint is that they are no longer around… oh wait, they are being re-released! Rejoice and buy many!

Pairing:

Deschutes Black Butte XXVI is an Imperial Porter brewed in Bend, Oregon to celebrate the brewery’s 26th birthday. This ale is brewed with pomegranate molasses with 50% aged in bourbon barrels blended with ale with cocoa nibs and cranberry added. This is listed as an Imperial Porter, but it really doesn’t taste like one. The Black Butte XXVI leads in with a bit of sourness, fruit, citrus zest, oak, roasted malt with a very light mouthfeel before finishing with some powerful sourness, brown sugar, cocoa, citrus, and some nice caramel on the aftertaste. It’s an interesting mixture. What made me want to tie this into the pairing was the fruit, sourness, and oak which meshed up brilliantly with the Tatuaje Anarchy. I honestly think this cigar would pair perfectly with a deep, heavy, tawny port. No more recommendations, just that. Do it.