MSRP $150- Purchased from Burns Tobacconist
Background
So for the first week of my Monster Mash series, I went with two “classic” movie monsters, Frank(enstein) and Drac(ula). The second week ended up with a split pair of modern and classic: (Leather)Face and Mummy. This week I’m tackling two of the modern icons of horror movies, the two characters around which all slasher movies in the last 40 years owe a huge debt of gratitude: Michael (Myers, from the Halloween series) and Jason (Voorhees, from the Friday the 13th franchise).
I’m doing them out of order for a couple reasons. First, Michael Myers came first…1978, to be exact. Jason made his first real appearance in Friday the 13th, Part 2, circa 1981. Second, I just like the Jason blend better so I want to end my day with it.
I have been a big horror fan since the late ‘80s and have seen all the Halloween movies (except Part 3 and the latest installment…I even saw those atrocious Rob Zombie reboots a while back) and most of the Friday the 13th movies. And I’ve seen a ton of imitators like Sleepaway Camp and Slumber Party Massacre and God-only-knows-what-else.
Michael
(5” x 52 ring gauge)
Michael Myers got his start by slashing his older sister to death on Halloween night 1963. He spent 15 years in an asylum before escaping to wreak new havoc on his home town of Haddonfield, Illinois. He keys on Laurie Strode (played by the future “Queen of Scream,” Jamie Lee Curtis, kills her friends one by one, and almost does her in before the sequel is set up. In the second installment, it’s revealed that Laurie is another sister and that’s why he is pursuing her to the ends of the earth. A few years ago that thread was dropped for the new sequel(s) where Jamie Lee Curtis returns…she’s not his sister anymore and apparently he’s just a mindless killing machine. Call me nostalgic…I like the old way better.
The Michael cigar is a Nicaraguan blend (filler and binder) with an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper leaf. Just looking at that makeup, it’s probably the closest in the Monster cigar series to the original Tatuaje brown label line, although there’s no telling if the blend is actually all that close.
The wrapper leaf was a peanut butter brown color, smooth with a fair amount of oil. It had a hay and cedar aroma, while the foot had more potent cedar and earth. After clipping, the draw was very good, featuring flavors of hay, bell pepper, and a touch of cinnamon. Once fired up, the cigar was very woody, with lesser notes of earth, hay, and black pepper.
Jason
(6” x 52 ring gauge)
The uninitiated think Jason started off in the very first Friday the 13th film. Horror fans know otherwise. He rose from the depths of Crystal Lake at the end of the first movie (or maybe it was a nightmare!), but started his killing spree in Part 2. It wasn’t until Part 3, though, that we were introduced to the infamous hockey mask that has become his signature. While Jason is often shown carrying a machete, he was a pioneer in killing promiscuous teenagers in inventive and original ways.
The Jason cigar first appeared in 2013 as the “JV13” (Jason Voorhees 13). It was described at the time as using the same blend as the Avion 13 Reserva. The Avion line was the same blend as the Fausto line, but in perfecto sizes instead of parejos. The 13 Reserva used a Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper over Nicaraguan filler and binder leaves.
I love the way a Broadleaf Maduro wrapper looks, like toothy, veiny dark chocolate. It had earthy and slightly chocolatey aromas, while the foot was rich earth, coffee beans, and cocoa powder.The prelight draw was slightly sweet with overtones of earth and espresso. Once I lit up the Jason I got notes of earth, unsweetened cocoa powder, dark fruit, and red pepper, with the last coming through especially on the retrohale.
I found out a long time ago that it was easy to pair practically any Tatuaje Broadleaf with a Stout beer. This time around I poured a Weyerbacher Tiny, a Belgian-Style Imperial Stout weighing in at 11.8% ABV. I received this beer as a birthday present from someone who knows how much I love dark beers. It poured black and thick with a thin, but creamy, caramel-colored head. For a beer that doesn’t advertise itself as being “barrel-aged” there was a bit of a boozy character to the flavor. Although I do like a chocolate or coffee-conditioned stout with one of these cigars, this one seemed to fit the bill quite nicely. It had a hint of espresso in the profile, probably from the dark-roasted barley.
