Cigar Capitol Weekly — Launch Edition — August 23, 2026
Cigar Capitol launches with 321 dictionary entries, 17 city histories, and 90 cataloged cigars, plus a look at the Partagas Culebras and a review of Creature From Tatuaje.
Vitola
Vitola refers to a cigar's size and shape, the length and ring gauge combination that determines everything from smoking time to how a blend's flavors develop. The same tobacco rolled into a robusto and a torpedo will smoke differently, which is why serious cigar reference work catalogs vitola as carefully as it catalogs the tobacco itself.
Partagas Culebras
Released before 1960 as a roller's daily ration, and reintroduced as a totalmente a mano edition in 2007, the Culebra is three panetelas, each 39 ring gauge and 5¾ inches, braided together and banded as one. The name means snake in Spanish. Sold exclusively through La Casa del Habano and Habanos Specialist retailers in boxes of nine, all-Cuban wrapper, binder and filler. Meant to be untwisted and shared among three smokers, one of the more distinctive presentations in the Habanos catalog.
This is the official launch of Cigar Capitol. The archive opens with 321 dictionary entries, 17 city histories, 26 tobacco-growing regions, 92 encyclopedia records covering brands, factories and people, and 90 cataloged cigars, every one cited and confidence-rated. Growing from here.
Tatuaje's Monster Series has a new full-size release for the first time since 2019's Chuck and Tiff: Creature From Tatuaje, a 6 7/8 x 52 all-Nicaraguan perfecto built at My Father Cigars S.A. in Esteli. Shipped to retailers in mid-June, it's the character's first appearance at full size after debuting in the 2021 Monster Mash sampler at a smaller 48 ring gauge. By halfwheel's count it's the 101st release in the Monster Series lineage going back to 2008.
Creature From Tatuaje
Early reviews describe the shape and oiliness as immediately appealing, with a draw close to perfect throughout. The profile reads as a tug of war between light and full body rather than a settled blend, with a bitterness that surfaces in the first third, fades through the second, and returns at the start of the final third, and one filler leaf carries a touch of harshness into the aftertaste. At $19.54 a stick, some early reviewers have called it a lesser entry in the Monster Series line. No independently verified numeric score is available for this release yet.
Every cigar has a capitol. Read more at cigarcapitol.com.