Skull 77 El Diablo: How much does size matter?

When I first stumbled across Boutique Smokes I didn’t know which of their carefully picked cigars to buy. As a result I bought one of each. When they arrived it was the Skull 77 cigars that immediately caught my attention. It wasn’t just the metallic bands with their Terminator-style skull on them, but also the size of the cigars. The El Diablo is one of the largest cigars I had ever seen. Knowing that I am a fairly slow smoker, I decided to leave this one until I had a full afternoon and evening to sit and enjoy it.

Having smoked, and enjoyed the El Unico, El Nino and El Volcano, I finally plucked up the courage to take on “The Beast”. Jokes had been made at various point regarding how long it would take me to smoke my way through this double gordo cigar so I made sure that I made a careful note of the time I lit up.

Sliding the El Diablo from its cellophane, I was treated to the familiar aromas of warm hay and bay leaf that I recognised from other the Skull 77 cigars I have smoked. Choosing a punch cut, as I tend to do with a large ring gauge cigar, the cold draw was easy and tantalised me with notes of liquorice and aniseed. Reaching for my lighter I braced myself for a long night.

My first draws on the El Diablo took me right back to the other Skull 77 cigars I had smoked. Coffee and earthy spices were the first flavours to hit my taste buds and the rich, oily wrapper left a light sweetness on my lips. I had a feeling that I was going to enjoy the flavours this cigar had to impart, the only question was how long I would enjoy them for.

By the time I was one inch into the cigar I had already been going for 35 minutes, but each one of them had been delicious. A hint of salt started to creep in as I continued to smoke my way through this gordo cigar. If I forgot about the size of the cigar, I could honestly have been smoking any one of the Skull 77 vitolas.

As I reached the halfway point of the cigar, I noticed that the burn had sped up. This might have been because my El Diablo did develop a slightly uneven burn from time to time, but after an initial touch-up this was nothing that a good blow and draw couldn’t fix. A lovely pepperiness had joined the flavour party, and combined with the creamy smoke and richness on my lips, this brought to mind a deliciously juicy steak with lashings of creamy peppercorn sauce.

I was rather astonished with my final smoking time for this cigar when I finally got to the nub. Having expected to spend four or more hours with the Skull 77 El Diablo, my final smoking time clocked in at just over 2 hours 30 minutes. This was the longest of my smoking times for this brand, but not by as much as I had expected. I am very much looking forward to smoking this cigar again, and seeing if this really is my accurate smoking time for this 6 by 66 beast.

Of all the Skull 77 vitolas, the most pleasurable smoking experiences for me have been the El Unico and El Volcano. One thing I can say about each of these cigars is that they are exactly what Laurent Taha and Marc Niehaus intend them to be. The flavour profile of their cigars is nigh-on identical, so if you like the sound of the blend, choose your favourite vitola, sit back and enjoy it.

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Skull 77 El Diablo Cigar Details