Tatuaje LLE Capa Especial

By Tony Casas | June 21, 2021

While I’ve ben braving the 105+ degree heat on the weekends, today was a bit of a different beast as a huge dust storm rolled in halfway through my cigar experience. I’m lucky I have a very heavily covered patio or this Tatuaje LLE Capa Especial paired with a bottle of Bottle Logic’s Beer Geek Observation would have been ruined.

The Good Stuff:

Tatuaje has been on a rolling lately bringing back rare, and highly coveted blends back from the dead. This particular spring on a re-release is the LLE Capa Especial which is based on the NHC Selección Limitada Capa Especial which was originally released in 2011. LLE stands for “Limited Lonsdale Extra” which is 6 3/4 x 42 soft-box-pressed Lonsdale. While the name is slightly different, and the cigar is no longer a store exclusive to New Havana Cigars, the blend remains the exact same. The LLE Capa Especial starts out with an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper over Nicaraguan binder and fillers. The cigar is only offered in the single 6 3/4 x 42 format which comes packaged in boxes of 20 running $11 per stick, with only 1,000 boxes produced. This cigar was extremely difficult to track down but I was able to score a few from my good buddy Jason. Thanks a ton man!

• Size: 6 3/4 x 42
• Wrapper: Ecuadorian Sumatra
• Binder: Nicaraguan
• Filler: Nicaraguan
• Body: Full
• Strength: Medium/Full
• Price: $11
• Pairing: Bottle Logic / Mikkeller Beer Geek Observation (Imperial Stout 13% ABV)

Prelight:

The Tatuaje LLE Capa Especial starts out with a very rustic, spotty, gorgeous wrapper that showcases scattered ares of reddish brown and dark brown spots. The wrapper’s texture is extremely toothy and gritty with a ton of thick oils coating it. The wrapper is laid over itself seamlessly while the cigar presents lots of medium sized veins and webbing in the tobacco leaf leading up to the the cigar’s double wrapped cap. I absolutely love the soft-boxpress on this cigar. The cigar is then polished off with a blue, green, red and white band which showcases Pete Johnson’s Tatuaje crest on the front in black ink. There is also an added secondary gold and white band with the words “Capa Especial” embossed on the front.

The wrapper on the Tatuaje LLE Capa Especial gives off tons of rich, oaky aromas while the foot of the cigar is much more musky and earthy. The cap cut like butter using my Xikar XO double bladed cutter. The cold draw produces lots of cherry, musk, and oak.

First Third:

The Tatuaje LLE Capa Especial starts off with a very sharp, very quick blast of cayenne pepper which only lasted the first draw or two allowing the cigar to release a massive amount of black cherry, oak, dark chocolate, musk, vanilla and light leather. The draw was phenomenal as each tiny puff kicks out a massive cloud of thick, white smoke which really sticks around. The cigar itself releases only a light amount of stationary smoke as it rests in my ashtray. The burnline is very thin with only one larger wave forming on the underside of the cigar. The ash left behind was medium gray and very tightly compacted as it held on for 3/4 of a inch before giving way.

Second Third:

The vanilla and chocolate really took over in the second third of the Tatuaje LLE Capa Especial flanked by black cherry, musk and oak over a light floral, almost cologne flavor that keeps popping in and out. The retrohale brings out some of the spice that I don’t get during the normal experience. The cigar is still burning just slightly wavy and I close out the second third with only a minor nicotine kick.

Finish:

Into the final third of the Tatuaje LLE Capa Especial and the cherry has replaced the vanilla to lead the charge alongside it’s friend dark chocolate. Backing them up is a ton of oak and musk, light vanilla, and a great little nutmeg flavor that I only picked up in the end of the cigar. It took me an hour and a half to take this cigar down to the nub. I experienced no harshness, nor extended heat. I closed out the cigar with a decent little nicotine kick that I wasn’t expecting.

Overview:

The Tatuaje LLE Capa Especial sold out extremely fast, for good reason. The cigar delivers in every aspect, especially in terms of flavor profile, not to mention I love the size and the soft box press. At a price of $11 per cigar it’s easy to see why these didn’t last very long, which is honestly my only complain. I really wish these were easier to find, and something that I would have been able to stock up on. Thanks again Jason!

Pairing:

Beer Geek Observation is created in collaboration with Bottle Logic and Mikkeller and is essentially a mixture of their Beers Geek Breakfast and Fundamental Observation. The grain bills of these two legendary beers were blended, brewed, barrelled for an average of 18 months, and steeped on Madagascar vanilla beans before being finished with Coldbot Coffee’s Panama Geisha beans. The result is an excellent 13% ABV imperial stout. The beer leads with loads of vanilla, sweet brown sugar, creamed coffee, dark chocolate, light malt and a bit of pecan with an extremely heavy mouthfeel before finishing with even more vanilla, dark chocolate, and light coffee along with a rich, oaky barrel on the aftertaste. Each of these flavors screen Tatuaje LLE Capa Especial and the pairing they created together was absolutely phenomenal.