The Spooky Seven: 7 Halloween Cigars to Darken Your October Nights
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Halloween provides a perfect excuse to smoke some cigars. The weather is still nice enough to enjoy the outdoors, there’s plenty of work to be done in the yard, and if anyone complains about the smoke you can just say that it’s part of the “special effects atmosphere” you’re trying to cultivate.
While you hang bodies dressed like your dead enemies from the limbs of your strongest trees, we’ve got seven Halloween cigars for you to puff as you go along. The thing that ties them all together is that they’re all oscuros of varying shades of dark brown and black. This tobacco has been fermented to Hell and back, and definitely looks like it. You’ll get mature earthy flavors, strong tobacco, and blends that will take you deep into the night.
Howl at the moon and transform into the smoke monster you truly are inside. These are some of our favorite Halloween cigars!
Victor Sinclair Bohemian Black Oscuro
We’re puffing up huge clouds with this one, folks. This is aged Dominican tobacco that is downright offensive with the amount of smoke it produces. And we mean that in the best way. Sometimes it’s the most useful method for getting other people to leave you the hell alone.
The Victor Sinclair Bohemian line is full of flavor, and the black oscuro is a complex treat fit for any late night session in the fall. Inside, the company chose quality Dominican long-fillers wrapped in a fully-developed 5-year aged olor binder. Then, around that, you’ll find a dark, oily wrapper leaf that also came out of the soil in the DR.
The blend is mild-medium strength, and has a luscious nutty and toasty character. It’s earthy and displays many of the leathery notes that Dominican tobacco is so well known for. And so while you mediate on the soil of the grave on a gloomy night, this is the mature Halloween cigar you want by your side.
Pop the pig-tail cap off, fire up the shaggy foot, and pull away - we’re only just getting started! Let’s swing over to Alec Bradley’s tribute to ancient household trickster spirits – the Puck blend.
Puck by Alec Bradley
Puck is a fitting Halloween cigar. Not only does it have the picture-perfect dark and oily Honduran habano oscuro wrapper, but it’s named after a mischievous character from myth and fiction. Now, you may not have read your Shakespeare since high school, and even then only skimmed the nonsense language that your teacher was so in love with. So we’ll forgive you if you’re not familiar with Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Suffice to say that, back in the old country, folks sometimes described fairy creatures called “pucks” that would play jokes on the inhabitants of a house, and that could also be befriended if you knew how to make the connection. Cigars can be much the same way – smoke them the wrong way and it could be an unpleasant experience – but if you know what you’re doing, you could be in for sublime delights.
The Alec Bradley Puck blend is a medium strength smoke that’s carried on the flavor of its Honduran habano oscuro cover leaf. There’s also a lively core of Cuban sandwich style fillers, which means short filler bound with long-filler tobacco. Due to this construction, the Alec Bradley Puck cigar can be had for a really good price. It’s a nice value if your budget is getting strained by over the top Halloween decoration spending (did you really have to buy the life-sized motorized chest burster from Alien for the side yard? People might not even make it over there if they get hit with the ectoplasm launcher in the front…).
This Halloween cigar creates a smoke that brings the flavor of potent dark coffee with hints of chocolate and red pepper spice. In essence it’s a haunted house of tobacco, shot through with jets of red flame in the window.
Or was that blood?
Let’s move on to the Devil, from Punch.
Punch Diablo
This one is a full strength dark brute with tons of bold flavor. What else would you expect from a Halloween cigar named “Diablo?” The blend description alone is enough to make us feel a little dizzy, in fact.
It starts with a blend of Nicaraguan and Honduran long-filler tobaccos. Honduran leaf is Punch’s specialty, and so they found some rich habano ligero that had been aged for 4 years to supply the core of this stick. For the next layer of darkness, they grabbed a 6-year Connecticut broadleaf to serve as the binder. Then they went all out for the pièce de résistance, a toothy black 4-year aged Ecuadoran Sumatra oscuro wrapper.
As the mastermind behind the Diesel Man O’ War and the original Unholy Cocktail, AJ Fernandez is a well-known lover of dark leaf. Time and time again he uses rich, fermented tobacco to produce complex and potent blends that knock smokers on their asses and keep them coming back for more.
When Cigar Aficionado named the Punch Diablo the #16 cigar of 2019 and awarded it a 93-point rating, they said smoking it was like “biting into a dense piece of chocolate fudge studded with espresso beans and walnuts.” If that sounds like your kind of Halloween candy, then this is the cigar for you.
Be warned, though, this one pulls no punches. Smoke it at a measured pace or it’ll drag you off to Hell, leaving you whiter than an ash head at the end of a cigar.
Sancho Panza Double Maduro
It seems like there’s an unusual amount of Honduran tobacco on this list, but blenders who are going for rich, mature flavor have been turning to it more and more. For this Halloween cigar, we’re turning to a brand that’s been around for ages, and that has produced quite a few 90+ rated cigars that many have forgotten about.
The company never died, but the Sancho Panza Double Maduro cigar has us thinking that the company is enjoying new life these days. To us, it’s a fitting resurrection smoke for All Saints’ Day.
The tobaccos used in this blend come from a variety of countries. Honestly, we’re impressed at the logistics that allow a company to combine this many different kinds of leaf. The long-fillers include Honduran, Nicaraguan, and Dominican piloto cubano leaves. These are then bundled up in a carefully-tended Connecticut binder. The whole shebang is then tucked into a dark, oily Connecticut broadleaf oscuro wrapper.
We can smell the intoxicating aroma already, and it’s not just because we’ve got them ready to go on a tray nearby.
The smoke itself comes out medium-full, with perfumed wood notes, nuttiness, and a spicy vanilla that rounds out the flavor profile. We love a Halloween cigar like this that’s dark, flavorful, and that really puts us in the mood to scare the bejeezus out of some little neighborhood punks.
Next, let’s grab another dark AJ Fernandez blend. The man is a master of black, earthy leaf and you can never have too much of that in the fall.
Diesel d. 10th
This Halloween cigar is choc-full of dark flavors. If the monster that hides under your bed could get away with smoking cigars, this is probably the one he or she would choose. It’s full strength and brings an incredible array of aromas, including earthiness (of the graaaaaave), roasted coffee (eyes… burned black), and a spicy sweet finish (candied pig hearts, which actually doesn’t sound too bad).
The Diesel d. 10th blend is built on a foundation of Nicaraguan tobacco, but is finished with a horrifying shiny black Ecuadorian habano oscuro wrapper. It was made to commemorate AJ’s ten years of success with the Diesel brand. We find it hard to think that it’s been that long already, given that we remember clearly the first release of the Unholy Cocktail cigar that helped AJ make his bones. And now, here we are. AJ is a household name that seemingly everyone in the industry wants to collaborate with, quickly moving away from being considered a boutique blender and more into an industry mainstay.
Halloween is a time for meditating on our fears and the things that make the hairs stand up on the back of our necks. For us, one of those things is that AJ Fernandez would stop making his bold and delicious cigars. Just imagine… no Diesel Heart of Darkness, Rage, or Delerium blends with their captivating bunches of premium tobacco. No Hair of the Dog. No Whiskey Row! The mere thought of it makes us clutch our oscuros close to our hearts.
Let’s leave that nightmare behind and move on to another tasty Halloween cigar treat.
La Gloria Cubana Serie N
The box for the LGC Serie N looks like something Vlad Dracul would be happy to sleep in during the harsh daytimes when the sun is too bright for vampire kind. It’s oddly shaped and candy apple red, and full of gorgeous oscuro-wrapped cigars. If you want to become a legend in your neighborhood, hand them out treats to the grownups forced to trudge along with the infinite Elsas from Frozen and Minecraft creeper boys. You’ll probably go broke and piss off the majority of the moms (by no means all of them – we know there’s a growing contingent of lady smokers out there), but you’ll be forever remembered as that guy who handed out maduros and turned the whole block into his personal Halloween herf.
Where were we? Ah yes, the Serie N.
This one is a medium-full strength cigar, so you’ll still be able to just barely walk around and reset your haunted house scares while you smoke it. It’s powered by an E.P Carillo special Nicaraguan blend, and then finished of course with a maduro leaf fermented for so long that it forgot it was supposed to be brown and just went straight into black.
The flavors are bold and complex, swirling around like Mexican chocolate coffee candies that don’t exist yet but definitely should. In fact, make a tray of those if you really want to score some friends this year. No, we don’t have a recipe. We’re just shooting out an idea in the hopes that someone talented in the kitchen can execute on it (and send us some!)
La Gloria Cubana Serie N – a gorgeous Halloween cigar guaranteed to make your night better on the 31st.
Have time for one final blend?
Hoyo la Amistad Black
No, not AJ Fernandez again. Now THIS is something truly creepy. How does this guy get around to every company to spin up a blend? Was he teleporting? Flying nonstop? Are there multiple AJs that act like some kind of collective?
AH – there he is BEHIND US?
AJ, what are you doing here!
Goddamn man, you nearly gave us a heart attack!
Okay, we kid. AJ didn’t just appear in our offices. But he IS hiding all over the world in many locations. Each time we open our humidor, there he is in the form of his tasty, tasty cigars.
Hoyo de Monterrey met with AJ for a blending session and you won’t be at all surprised to find out that he created a full strength cigar powered by an oily, thick Ecuadorian Sumatra oscuro wrapper. This one’s not as dark-colored as the others, but the potency speaks of high-level soil wizardry and advanced demonic palate pleasing. The other tobaccos include Nicaraguan long-filler and a Mexican binder than undoubtedly is responsible for the spice kick we get from this one. There’s at least two kinds of pepper coming out of this smoke, as well as a robust core leather note.
Which reminds us – we need to make sure our genuine leather masks fit properly for this year’s costumes! The heads are made to look like they’re on fire.
Want to guess what we’re using for smoke? We’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.
Happy Halloween, y’all!
While you hang bodies dressed like your dead enemies from the limbs of your strongest trees, we’ve got seven Halloween cigars for you to puff as you go along. The thing that ties them all together is that they’re all oscuros of varying shades of dark brown and black. This tobacco has been fermented to Hell and back, and definitely looks like it. You’ll get mature earthy flavors, strong tobacco, and blends that will take you deep into the night.
Howl at the moon and transform into the smoke monster you truly are inside. These are some of our favorite Halloween cigars!
Victor Sinclair Bohemian Black Oscuro
We’re puffing up huge clouds with this one, folks. This is aged Dominican tobacco that is downright offensive with the amount of smoke it produces. And we mean that in the best way. Sometimes it’s the most useful method for getting other people to leave you the hell alone.
The Victor Sinclair Bohemian line is full of flavor, and the black oscuro is a complex treat fit for any late night session in the fall. Inside, the company chose quality Dominican long-fillers wrapped in a fully-developed 5-year aged olor binder. Then, around that, you’ll find a dark, oily wrapper leaf that also came out of the soil in the DR.
The blend is mild-medium strength, and has a luscious nutty and toasty character. It’s earthy and displays many of the leathery notes that Dominican tobacco is so well known for. And so while you mediate on the soil of the grave on a gloomy night, this is the mature Halloween cigar you want by your side.
Pop the pig-tail cap off, fire up the shaggy foot, and pull away - we’re only just getting started! Let’s swing over to Alec Bradley’s tribute to ancient household trickster spirits – the Puck blend.
Puck by Alec Bradley
Puck is a fitting Halloween cigar. Not only does it have the picture-perfect dark and oily Honduran habano oscuro wrapper, but it’s named after a mischievous character from myth and fiction. Now, you may not have read your Shakespeare since high school, and even then only skimmed the nonsense language that your teacher was so in love with. So we’ll forgive you if you’re not familiar with Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Suffice to say that, back in the old country, folks sometimes described fairy creatures called “pucks” that would play jokes on the inhabitants of a house, and that could also be befriended if you knew how to make the connection. Cigars can be much the same way – smoke them the wrong way and it could be an unpleasant experience – but if you know what you’re doing, you could be in for sublime delights.
The Alec Bradley Puck blend is a medium strength smoke that’s carried on the flavor of its Honduran habano oscuro cover leaf. There’s also a lively core of Cuban sandwich style fillers, which means short filler bound with long-filler tobacco. Due to this construction, the Alec Bradley Puck cigar can be had for a really good price. It’s a nice value if your budget is getting strained by over the top Halloween decoration spending (did you really have to buy the life-sized motorized chest burster from Alien for the side yard? People might not even make it over there if they get hit with the ectoplasm launcher in the front…).
This Halloween cigar creates a smoke that brings the flavor of potent dark coffee with hints of chocolate and red pepper spice. In essence it’s a haunted house of tobacco, shot through with jets of red flame in the window.
Or was that blood?
Let’s move on to the Devil, from Punch.
Punch Diablo
This one is a full strength dark brute with tons of bold flavor. What else would you expect from a Halloween cigar named “Diablo?” The blend description alone is enough to make us feel a little dizzy, in fact.
It starts with a blend of Nicaraguan and Honduran long-filler tobaccos. Honduran leaf is Punch’s specialty, and so they found some rich habano ligero that had been aged for 4 years to supply the core of this stick. For the next layer of darkness, they grabbed a 6-year Connecticut broadleaf to serve as the binder. Then they went all out for the pièce de résistance, a toothy black 4-year aged Ecuadoran Sumatra oscuro wrapper.
As the mastermind behind the Diesel Man O’ War and the original Unholy Cocktail, AJ Fernandez is a well-known lover of dark leaf. Time and time again he uses rich, fermented tobacco to produce complex and potent blends that knock smokers on their asses and keep them coming back for more.
When Cigar Aficionado named the Punch Diablo the #16 cigar of 2019 and awarded it a 93-point rating, they said smoking it was like “biting into a dense piece of chocolate fudge studded with espresso beans and walnuts.” If that sounds like your kind of Halloween candy, then this is the cigar for you.
Be warned, though, this one pulls no punches. Smoke it at a measured pace or it’ll drag you off to Hell, leaving you whiter than an ash head at the end of a cigar.
Sancho Panza Double Maduro
It seems like there’s an unusual amount of Honduran tobacco on this list, but blenders who are going for rich, mature flavor have been turning to it more and more. For this Halloween cigar, we’re turning to a brand that’s been around for ages, and that has produced quite a few 90+ rated cigars that many have forgotten about.
The company never died, but the Sancho Panza Double Maduro cigar has us thinking that the company is enjoying new life these days. To us, it’s a fitting resurrection smoke for All Saints’ Day.
The tobaccos used in this blend come from a variety of countries. Honestly, we’re impressed at the logistics that allow a company to combine this many different kinds of leaf. The long-fillers include Honduran, Nicaraguan, and Dominican piloto cubano leaves. These are then bundled up in a carefully-tended Connecticut binder. The whole shebang is then tucked into a dark, oily Connecticut broadleaf oscuro wrapper.
We can smell the intoxicating aroma already, and it’s not just because we’ve got them ready to go on a tray nearby.
The smoke itself comes out medium-full, with perfumed wood notes, nuttiness, and a spicy vanilla that rounds out the flavor profile. We love a Halloween cigar like this that’s dark, flavorful, and that really puts us in the mood to scare the bejeezus out of some little neighborhood punks.
Next, let’s grab another dark AJ Fernandez blend. The man is a master of black, earthy leaf and you can never have too much of that in the fall.
Diesel d. 10th
This Halloween cigar is choc-full of dark flavors. If the monster that hides under your bed could get away with smoking cigars, this is probably the one he or she would choose. It’s full strength and brings an incredible array of aromas, including earthiness (of the graaaaaave), roasted coffee (eyes… burned black), and a spicy sweet finish (candied pig hearts, which actually doesn’t sound too bad).
The Diesel d. 10th blend is built on a foundation of Nicaraguan tobacco, but is finished with a horrifying shiny black Ecuadorian habano oscuro wrapper. It was made to commemorate AJ’s ten years of success with the Diesel brand. We find it hard to think that it’s been that long already, given that we remember clearly the first release of the Unholy Cocktail cigar that helped AJ make his bones. And now, here we are. AJ is a household name that seemingly everyone in the industry wants to collaborate with, quickly moving away from being considered a boutique blender and more into an industry mainstay.
Halloween is a time for meditating on our fears and the things that make the hairs stand up on the back of our necks. For us, one of those things is that AJ Fernandez would stop making his bold and delicious cigars. Just imagine… no Diesel Heart of Darkness, Rage, or Delerium blends with their captivating bunches of premium tobacco. No Hair of the Dog. No Whiskey Row! The mere thought of it makes us clutch our oscuros close to our hearts.
Let’s leave that nightmare behind and move on to another tasty Halloween cigar treat.
La Gloria Cubana Serie N
The box for the LGC Serie N looks like something Vlad Dracul would be happy to sleep in during the harsh daytimes when the sun is too bright for vampire kind. It’s oddly shaped and candy apple red, and full of gorgeous oscuro-wrapped cigars. If you want to become a legend in your neighborhood, hand them out treats to the grownups forced to trudge along with the infinite Elsas from Frozen and Minecraft creeper boys. You’ll probably go broke and piss off the majority of the moms (by no means all of them – we know there’s a growing contingent of lady smokers out there), but you’ll be forever remembered as that guy who handed out maduros and turned the whole block into his personal Halloween herf.
Where were we? Ah yes, the Serie N.
This one is a medium-full strength cigar, so you’ll still be able to just barely walk around and reset your haunted house scares while you smoke it. It’s powered by an E.P Carillo special Nicaraguan blend, and then finished of course with a maduro leaf fermented for so long that it forgot it was supposed to be brown and just went straight into black.
The flavors are bold and complex, swirling around like Mexican chocolate coffee candies that don’t exist yet but definitely should. In fact, make a tray of those if you really want to score some friends this year. No, we don’t have a recipe. We’re just shooting out an idea in the hopes that someone talented in the kitchen can execute on it (and send us some!)
La Gloria Cubana Serie N – a gorgeous Halloween cigar guaranteed to make your night better on the 31st.
Have time for one final blend?
Hoyo la Amistad Black
No, not AJ Fernandez again. Now THIS is something truly creepy. How does this guy get around to every company to spin up a blend? Was he teleporting? Flying nonstop? Are there multiple AJs that act like some kind of collective?
AH – there he is BEHIND US?
AJ, what are you doing here!
Goddamn man, you nearly gave us a heart attack!
Okay, we kid. AJ didn’t just appear in our offices. But he IS hiding all over the world in many locations. Each time we open our humidor, there he is in the form of his tasty, tasty cigars.
Hoyo de Monterrey met with AJ for a blending session and you won’t be at all surprised to find out that he created a full strength cigar powered by an oily, thick Ecuadorian Sumatra oscuro wrapper. This one’s not as dark-colored as the others, but the potency speaks of high-level soil wizardry and advanced demonic palate pleasing. The other tobaccos include Nicaraguan long-filler and a Mexican binder than undoubtedly is responsible for the spice kick we get from this one. There’s at least two kinds of pepper coming out of this smoke, as well as a robust core leather note.
Which reminds us – we need to make sure our genuine leather masks fit properly for this year’s costumes! The heads are made to look like they’re on fire.
Want to guess what we’re using for smoke? We’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.
Happy Halloween, y’all!