Four Kicks Capa Especial Corona Gorda

If you are a long-time fan of Tatuaje, you know that there are certain words that can be attached to the name of a cigar—or even placed as on a secondary band of a cigar—that correspond to specific types of wrappers. Reserva in Tatuaje parlance oftentimes, but not always, means that the cigar is using a Connecticut broadleaf wrapper. Recently, the company released three cigars with Tuxtla on the secondary band, indicating that they use Mexican San Andrés wrappers. And Capa Especial has long been the code words for “this cigar’s original wrapper has been replaced by an Ecuadorian Sumatra leaf.”

Crowned Heads also uses the Capa Especial designation in a similar, but not identical way. In 2020, Crowned Heads released the Four Kicks Capa Especial, which is a version of Four Kicks with an Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper, but it’s not as simple that. Four Kicks was the first line from Crowned Heads, released in 2011. When that blend was being created, Mike Conder and Jon Huber of Crowned Heads and Ernesto Perez-Carrillo Jr. of Tabacalera La Alianza S.A./E.P. Carrillo managed to get down to three final contenders to be selected as the “winning” blend.

Two of those cigars used an Ecuadorian habano wrapper and one used the Ecuadorian Sumatra wrapper. The winning blend ended up being one of the habano blends, but Perez-Carrillo Jr. liked the version with the Sumatra seed wrapper better. As you can probably expect, the Four Kicks Capa Especial is that winning blend.

It debuted in three sizes, though a fourth size, the limited edition Aguilas, was added in 2021.

• Four Kicks Capa Especial Robusto (5 x 50) — August 2020 — Regular Production
• Four Kicks Capa Especial Corona Gorda (5 5/8 x 46) — August 2020 — Regular Production
• Four Kicks Capa Especial Sublime (6 x 54) — August 2020 — Regular Production
• Four Kicks Capa Especial Àguilas (5 1/2 x 50) — June 2021 — 3,000 Boxes of 12 Cigars (36,000 Total Cigars)

I reviewed the Corona Gorda about a month and a half after the line debuted. Here’s what I said at the time:

This reminds me of one of the less pleasant realities of eating a fine dining restaurant’s tasting menu. It’s not negative commentary, rather, it’s quite positive. But I had to make that sentence sound more negative, just so it wouldn’t be taken out of context for marketing material. While I’m not a tasting menu expert, in my experience most of the time the taste of the food from course to course generally ranges from above-average to excellent. Making a dozen, or dozens of, courses all taste excellent while also looking beautiful and not being repetitive is a challenging task for even the best restaurants. Most courses are creative, use great ingredients and look beautiful, but the flavor oftentimes isn’t world-class dish after world-class dish. Sometimes, it’s just kind of above average. Other times, it truly is special. That’s the story here, there are some puffs that were as good as just about any cigar I’ve had all year, and there were some that were slightly less than that, and others that were slightly less than that, and so on and so forth. At its worst, the Four Kicks Capa Especial Corona Gorda is above average. At its best, it’s as good as anything in the humidor. In general, it’s more the latter than the former, though not the widest of margins.

Turns out, I wasn’t alone in my thoughts. The cigar ended up finishing #11 on our Top 25 for 2020.

• Cigar Reviewed: Four Kicks Capa Especial Corona Gorda
• Country of Origin: Dominican Republic
• Factory: Tabacalera La Alianza S.A.
• Wrapper: Ecuador (Sumatra)
• Binder: Nicaragua
• Filler: Nicaragua
• Length: 5 5/8 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 46
• Vitola: Corona Gorda
• MSRP: $8.65 (Box of 24, $207.60)
• Release Date: Aug. 31, 2020
• Number of Cigars Released: Regular Production
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Redux: 3

Despite what you might have just read, I try to avoid reading the initial review until after I’ve finished smoking the cigar, but I went back and looked at the paragraph that would include visual descriptions to see what I said back in 2020 because this cigar is not very pretty. While the wrapper has a consistent dark color, I’m distracted by a large number of veins—but that’s not really the issue. The cylinder itself is very bumpy, which doesn’t seem like it should be enough to warrant as much of a negative reaction as I have, but again, the cigar is very bumpy. The cap does not look like what I’d expect a cigar to look like, as it has unraveled in at least three different parts. While I’m not overly concerned with how the cigar smells, it’s probably more important than how it looks. The wrapper has a medium-plus aroma of barnyard, Thousand Island dressing and acidity. The foot smells like a chocolate milkshake with scents of copy paper and mayonnaise. Cold draws are alarmingly tight with flavors of earth, raisin, herbs, a vodka-like bitterness, leather, pistachios and white pepper.

Sometimes a tight draw gets a lot better when the cigar is lit, this is not one of those times. The first puff is extremely tight with a medium-full mixture of mushy earthiness, sourness, leather and redwoods coming through. A quick inspection of the cigar reveals a very hard spot right where it is most likely to be: an inch from the top of the cigar. I’ve been told that cigars are most likely to have tight areas in that specific spot because of how a buncher—the name for the person who puts the internal parts of a cigar together—will hold the bunch as it’s being formed. The draw does not get any better as I progress through the cigar, but the other parts of the cigar are pretty good. Flavor-wise, there’s nuttiness over earthiness, but I can tell the flavor profile is a shell of itself due to the restricted airflow. Furthermore, I can taste this sharp sour flavor that I oftentimes find on cigars with very tight draws. The finish is sharper than the main flavor with lots of oatmeal over earthiness, white pepper and creaminess. Flavor is medium-full, body is medium and strength is medium.

About halfway through the Four Kicks Capa Especial Corona Gorda I can feel the draw show signs of openings. It’s progress, but not a solution as it makes things better but it neither fixes the problem on some puffs nor even helps on all puffs. When it does work, there’s a noticeable amount of increased airflow, though it’s through a specific channel or channels and not because the entire draw has been fixed. Flavor-wise, it’s toastier and drier than before with nuttiness, hay and that aforementioned sharp sourness, though only on one side of my tongue. The finish has flavors of french fries, leather, a really dry nuttiness, cognac-like whisky and a honey sweetness. Retrohales have floral flavors, a weird bitter sensation and some coffee. The finish of those retrohales has flavors of dry saltine crackers and damp earth. Flavor is medium-full, body is medium and strength is medium-plus. Prior to the final third, the flavor was decent enough, though not without its flaws. That changes quite a bit and I’m no longer enthralled with much of what I’m tasting with less than two inches left. While there’s nuttiness, hay, leather, earthiness and white pepper, it’s also a lot harsher, particularly on the finish where that sharp sourness picks up a lot. Retrohales are a bright spot; when I’m able to get enough smoke to push it through my nose I taste floral flavors, yellow mustard and some earthiness. I somehow managed to make it through the first four inches of the cigar without needing to relight the cigar—the burn was even, though the smoke production was anemic at times—but eventually, I’m forced to start using the lighter to keep the cigar lit.