Welcome back to the Blend of the Week. 🔥

Every Monday we put one cigar under the microscope: what's in it, how it smokes, how it's been received, and whether it's worth your money. This week, The Tabernacle by Foundation Cigar Co.: the Connecticut Broadleaf the industry's "Chief of the Broadleafs" built his company on.

One honest note on strength: Foundation's own site calls it "full," while a couple of big retailers list it medium-full. Trust the company — this is a full cigar, just one with good manners.

Nick Melillo was born in New Haven, Connecticut — a city that, at the turn of the last century, was packed with cigar factories running the state's famous broadleaf. He spent over a decade at Drew Estate, rising to executive VP of international operations and earning the "Chief of the Broadleafs" nickname for his work on blends like Liga Privada No. 9. In 2015 he went out on his own and founded Foundation Cigar Company.

His first release honored Nicaragua. His second act came home: The Tabernacle is Melillo's tribute to the leaf that made his name. The name reaches back to the portable sanctuary that housed the Ark of the Covenant before Solomon's Temple — Melillo has said "my humidor became my tabernacle" — and the box art carries Haile Selassie, the Ethiopian emperor whose royal line traces by tradition to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Deep lore for a cigar box, and it fits: this is a blend built with reverence.

It's rolled at Tabacalera A.J. Fernandez in Estelí — with filler grown on La Soledad, the very farm where Melillo lived when he first moved to Nicaragua in 2003.

Flavor's personal, and we don't fake a chair we didn't sit in — so here's what this blend's makeup, and the reviewers who've burned through plenty of them, keep pointing to.

What's in it. Connecticut Broadleaf is the un-pretty leaf: sun-grown, harvested whole-stalk, thick and rustic, fermented until it's nearly black. What it gives up in looks it pays back in natural sweetness — dark chocolate, espresso, molasses — which is why it's the backbone of legends like Liga Privada No. 9. Under it, a Mexican San Andrés binder adds earth and keeps the burn honest (broadleaf on its own can be a stubborn burner), while fillers from Estelí and Jalapa bring Nicaraguan power and Honduran leaf from the Jamastran Valley rounds out the body. It's a who's-who of dark-tobacco country.

How it smokes. Synthesized from published reviews, not a smoke we're claiming we took.

Pre-light: dark chocolate and barnyard off the wrapper; cocoa and a touch of spice on the cold draw.

First third: creamy mocha up front, with red pepper and cedar trading places behind it.

Second third: black coffee takes the lead, and that classic maduro sweetness settles in underneath.

Final third: the pepper and cedar climb back up while the sweetness lingers on the finish — and the strength, full from the jump, is unmistakable by now.

Construction: this is where reviewers gush — an open-but-not-loose draw, a straight burn line needing few touch-ups, firm gray ash, and smoke output for days. A.J.'s factory earns its reputation here.

How it's been received. Cigar Coop scored the Toro 91 and called it "box worthy"; Cigar Aficionado gave it 90 at its debut. Customers at Cigars International have it at a perfect 5 stars across 50 ratings, and the strongest signal might be the stock pages: Holt's and Famous are both showing sold-out vitolas as we write this. The one fit note worth knowing — this is a legitimately full cigar. It's not trying to be your breakfast smoke, and it doesn't apologize for it.

Pair it with. The cocoa-and-coffee core makes this a natural with espresso — Ethiopian, if you want to stay on theme — or an aged dark rum like Flor de Caña 12, which matches its Nicaraguan soul. A bourbon with heavy barrel char stands up to the pepper, and a ruby port pulls the chocolate forward. This is an after-dinner cigar; give it a full stomach and a free hour.

Who it's for. Liga Privada loyalists who want to see what the Chief did next. Maduro-first smokers. Anyone who orders the 85% dark chocolate bar and means it. If your lane is mellow, creamy Connecticut shade, start with Foundation's Charter Oak and work your way here — The Tabernacle will be waiting.

Where to buy. Distribution is wide, but it moves — Mardo Cigars has Toro boxes in stock now at about $374 for 24 (roughly $15.60 a stick), and Cigars International carries the full range. If you see your size in stock, that's your window.

The Tabernacle is what happens when the industry's broadleaf whisperer builds his dream blend with A.J. Fernandez's tobacco and factory behind him — a full-strength, chocolate-and-pepper maduro that's earned nine years of sellouts on merit. If you smoke dark and you haven't smoked this, you've got homework.

🔥 Smoked The Tabernacle yet? Hit reply and tell us where it landed — and if there's a blend you want us to break down next week, send it our way.