Tatiana 25th Anniversary Limited Edition Toro

This year marked the 25th anniversary of Miami Cigar & Co.’s flavored cigar brand, Tatiana.

As so many cigar companies do for anniversaries, Miami opted to create a special cigar to celebrate the anniversary. The Tatiana 25th Anniversary Limited Edition Toro is a 6 x 54 toro extra. The company has not released any blend info, though we know the cigar is made at the La Aurora Cigar Factory in the Dominican Republic, the same factory that produces the other Tatiana lines. One note, a press release from the company says the cigar “is a unique blend that will separate itself from past Tatiana brands” and “was created using a new technique which will add a new layer to the already popular brand.”

“I remember sitting down with my family and designing the original Tatiana packaging, it is amazing that 25 years have passed,” said Nestor Miranda, director of Miami Cigar & Co., in a press release. “Thank you to all our loyal Tatiana smokers, this would not have been possible without your continued support!”

The Tatiana line is named after Tatiana Miranda-Wood, the daughter of Nestor and Mariana Miranda, the company’s founders.

• Cigar Reviewed: Tatiana 25th Anniversary Limited Edition Toro
• Country of Origin: Dominican Republic
• Factory: La Aurora Cigar Factory
• Wrapper: Undisclosed
• Binder: Undisclosed
• Filler: Undisclosed
• Length: 6 Inches
• Ring Gauge: 54
• Vitola: Toro Extra
• MSRP: $12 (Box of 10, $120)
• Release Date: October 2023
• Number of Cigars Released: 2,500 Boxes of 10 Cigars (25,000 Total Cigars)
• Number of Cigars Smoked For Review: 3

Most flavored cigars don’t have a very sinister appearance, but the dark wrappers and gold-on-black bands make this flavored cigar’s appearance an outlier. Just by looks, if I didn’t know what Tatiana was, I wouldn’t think this was a flavored cigar. The darkness of the wrapper does pretty well to hide the wrapper stretching and some mottling, though they don’t seem to have that much oil. Even as I write this, I’m not sure what the aforementioned different technique was. I bring that up here because I wasn’t sure what to expect from the flavoring. My initial guess would have been that the flavoring would be different, perhaps milder than normal. Once the cigars are out of the cellophane, it becomes clear that’s not the case. It’s a medium-full aroma with many different artificial sensations: cocoa and grape—the latter like a grape soda—over some vanilla, oranges and maybe a bit of baked bread. There is also absolutely zero sign of any normal cigar smells. The foot has the cocoa flavoring beat out everything else, some cigars have a grape juice flavor, while the other one has more of a waffle cone. I don’t feel terribly confident picking out the different flavorings as there seems to be a lot of them and I’m not as experienced with identifying these types of smells. Sweet chocolate leads the cold draws of each cigar—varying between chocolate cake or chocolate ice cream—with vanilla bean, sweet coffee, cream soda and faint hints of barnyard.

Even after spending extra time lighting the second and third cigars, I still don’t get as much smoke as I’d like on the first puff. If I don’t lick my lips, there’s a classic woodiness with some earthiness but none of the flavoring. Licking my lips adds sugar, artificial chocolate and some fruitiness. Together, the combination ends up reminding me of a sugary latte. That tends to be the story going forward. There’s some deep woodiness, earthiness and generic tobacco with some harshness on the tongue. Without licking my lips, it’s an extremely pedestrian flavor. If I take a puff, blow out some smoke and then lick my lips and taste the remaining smoke in my mouth, it definitely adds unique flavors like chocolate, peppermint and latte-like milk coffee. It also seems to only increase the harshness while still retaining the core flavors. I’m not sure if I’ve trained myself to taste smoke in a way that isn’t going to allow me to appreciate this fully, but the flavoring only really works if I lick my lips in between puffs. Retrohales have nuttiness over some bitter peanut butter, leather and earthiness. They finish with nuttiness and bread, but both are relatively minor players. Flavor is medium-full, body is medium and strength is mild-medium. Construction-wise, the second and third cigars are okay. They both require lengthy lighting times and lots of double puffs to get the smoke production, but I can at least manage them. The first cigar is a mess, as it needs multiple touch-ups and still never really burns. It also has some of the flakiest ash I’ve experienced in quite some time, more on that in the Final Notes.

While the second Tatiana 25th Anniversary Limited Edition Toro I smoke adds lots of creaminess to the woody mixture, the other two cigars are more or less carbon copies of the first third. Well, carbon copies until the halfway mark. Each cigar is starting to get harsher after the halfway mark, with the existing flavors becoming sharper and also some underlying isolated harshness added underneath. That second cigar has a cereal note that combines with everything else during the finish to create a bit of a cappuccino-like flavor. Retrohales are much more pleasant than other flavors thanks to some soft cedar and a minor bit of unsweet floral flavors. Unfortunately, they finish harsh as well. Again, I can only taste the artificial flavors if I lick my lips, but they no longer balance out the other flavors like they were able to before. If this wasn’t a flavored cigar, I doubt anyone in the blending session would still be smoking the cigar due to how monotonous it is. That flavoring can add fruitiness and chocolate, reminding me of some sort of Starbucks order gone wrong, but it’s only able to last for a few seconds, which then means the bitter flavors come to play. All three cigars need at least one touch-up in the second third, and two cigars need a full relight.

Predictably, the harshness is continuing to pick up. Lots of straw flavors have entered the profile, but that flavor mixed with the overall dryness of the earthiness and woodiness and the harshness creates an unpleasant experience. The finish is even drier, which is saying something. Retrohales are much better as they seem to remove the harshness from the equation, allowing for a mild creaminess and faint hints of wood, chocolate and fruit flavors. The latter two flavors are definitely those artificial flavors, the first time I consistently taste them without having to deliberately lick the cap. Unfortunately, it’s all way too late in the equation. Combustion issues continue to the point where I really struggle to get much smoke in the mouth.

Final Notes

• We only have one score sheet, meaning I scored this cigar the same way I’d score any other cigar.
• For my personal preference, the better flavored cigars are ones that perform like a cocktail. The artificial flavors are integrated into the overall profile and into one cohesive flavoring. Sure, there might still be a more intense sensation if I lick the cap or my lips, but everything is working together. This worked more like a shot and a chaser as opposed to a cocktail.
• That said, I rarely smoke flavored cigars other than for work, whether for reviews like this or to try a new product. I’m not opposed to the concept, but if I wanted to flavor my cigars, I would do it by pairing them with food and/or beverages.
• After I lit the first cigar, it looked like the foot was fully lit—both the parts of the foot that were lit and the amount of smoke coming off the foot—but I couldn’t get all that much smoke through the cigar. Another round of lighting remedied that problem temporarily.
• During the first cigar, it feels like the burning part of the cigar isn’t all that connected to the part I’m puffing on. There’s plenty of smoke coming off the foot, but draws do little to get it into my mouth. This is a problem for cigars that have open draws, but that’s not an issue here.
• There is a category of our scoresheet that asks whether the smoke production was adequate. It’s a category that I rarely find myself ever answering “no,” but this was the rare cigar where the answer to the question was “no” for every part of the first cigar.

• The first cigar produced some of the flakiest ash I’ve seen in a while. It made a complete mess of my ashtray. It also burned in a really weird way. If I looked straight into the barrel of the cigar, I could see the different folds of the accordion-style bunching. The other two cigars avoided both of these traits.
• While I’ve done dozens of “blending sessions” as part of visits to cigar factories, I have no experience actually blending a cigar for commercial purposes. I certainly have no experience blending a flavored cigar. That said, my experience smoking flavored cigars is that the impact of the flavoring tends to be gone after about 45 minutes or after the first half of the cigar. Unless I lick my lips, I rarely find that I can taste the impact of the flavoring. As such, if I was going to blend a flavored cigar, I’d think I’d start making sure that the blend tastes good without the flavoring.
• Beyond the flavor issues, these cigars just didn’t want to burn properly. I’m not sure if the flavoring added excess moisture or something else, but I know how a cigar should burn and by the second half of each cigar, that wasn’t happening properly.
• Miami Cigar & Co. advertises on halfwheel.
• Cigars for this review were purchased by halfwheel.
• Final smoking time was right around two hours and 15 minutes. I’m not sure how much the combustion issues played a role here.
• Site sponsors Famous Smoke Shop and JR Cigar carry the Tatiana 25th Anniversary Limited Edition Toro.