And So To Bed

Strong latakia and the nicotine will knock you on your ass man!!! I think it's the strongest of the esotericas.

I smoke Pirate Kake at least three to four times a week.

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Really?
You are a strong blend fan. You'll dig it

My take on ASTB is quite a bit different than Adam's. I actually find it quite light on the Latakia. While I like ASTB, I do crave a higher latakia content in the colder months. Recently, to finish an open tin of ASTB I actually added a bit of Old Ironsides to it just to up the lat component.
I will also say that it took me several bowls to warm to the blend. It has a mild fruity topping of some type that did not appeal to me at first. However, I learned that leaving the blend to dry a fair bit works to dissipate the topping and make the blend more pleasurable to my palate.
So let's just say that I like it, but it's no Margate.

Personally it's ok, I was looking for a little more umph. I thought it was a little on the light side in the flavor department. I was more a fan of Margate. Just my 2 cents.

I find it a light fruity English . I saved the rest for a light summer smoke .

Never had ASTB, but I might have to. I seem to like the Esoterica blends, even the not hard to come by blends. I like Blackpool as an aro type of blend, has some licorice/molasses flavor, but you can taste the tobacco through it all. I choose Pembroke rather than Margate, as I liked the idea of a Cognac topping added to the Margate. If you like the Frog Morton blends you will probably like Pembroke. Very odd cut of tobacco though, long 4-5 inch strands of thin tobacco strips. Packs easy though, and is a nice blend with a medium flavor of latakia, and you can actually taste the cognac.
Gotta try Margate and ASTB though.

I didn't think it was that strong either. It's a good blend though.
For the lat lovers like myself, Old Ironsides, Larry's Blend, da Vinci, Ten Russians, Pirate Kake and Lane BS-005 are the top picks in my opinion.

This thread reminds me. I need to work on building my cellar back up. I'm out of margate, no va. flake, no VaPer blends, I did find a jar of great outdoors that somehow went moldy. So that's trash. I JUST REALIZED I ONLY HAVE HALF A TIN of St. George left for smoking. Oh, and about 30 sticks in my humidor. Need to get back to concentrating on my pipe tobacco. I know where this months commission is going to go. He he heh.

I would highly suggest 10 Russians. Hiplainsdrifter included a sample of that as well as a few others including Lancers slices in a recent trade of some esoterica and it was great. I appreciate and crave a good nic hit and 10 Russians did not disappoint. It was not lacking in the flavor department either. Very underrated blend.

ASTB was about the best of the three I've tried so far from Esoterica. I did not care for the Pembroke or Margate.

I like Hearth and Home's, "Black House," and Lane's, "Crown Achievement."

I was going to start a new post about this tobacco, but I figured I’d do a search first so I settled here as it’s a good as place as any. Seeing that most, if not all of the Esoterica blends are difficult to come by I glommed onto two bags of ASTB without having even tried it when it was available and now I wish I had only kicked in for one. First, this is not a review as I don’t often judge a tobacco by smoking only one bowl so please keep that in mind and I’ll most certainly give it a few more chances, but as of now it doesn’t seem too promising.
I’ll admit that I probably have the taste buds of 40 grit sandpaper, but upon opening the bag I thought that perhaps I had also lost my sense of smell, as in… nothing! Well, as close to nothing I can get when trying to smell the aroma/tin note of a tobacco. If there is any Latakia in this blend it certainly takes a back door and is akin to putting Vermouth in a very dry martini, i.e., simply wave the bottle of Vermouth over the Vodka or Gin and move on. I then loaded up a bowl in my favorite large bowl Neerup pipe which I love for smoking Latakia blends. It’s a fine ribbon cut tobacco which was at the perfect moisture albeit I let it dry out some before packing with a three step method, set a char light to it, tamped it down a tad and preceded with the true light. It only took another light with an occasional tamp to keep it going and burned quite well, but then again I often find ribbon cut tobaccos to burn a tad more easily. So there I sat on my front porch with a slight gentle breeze waiting to discern the taste… any taste! I figured there had to be more taste than what it smelled like, or more aptly did not, butnothing whatsoever. As for strength, and if I was doing a review on TobaccoReviews, which I more often than not find to be asinine, I’d have to give it a - - - MILD if there were such a rating, and as for nicotine I think that my granddaughter would get more of a kick from sucking on a lollipop than smoking a bowl of this. Then again, after smoking cigarettes for 50+ years I imagine that I’m somewhat more immune to nicotine than others. Either way, I’ve gotten more satisfaction and taste when I smoked many of those vapid candy/fruit cased aromatics, which I no longer smoke. I’ll certainly not give up on it seeing the quantity I have, and who knows as I might eventually find it satisfactory. But, if I were to be so presumptuous as to judge this tobacco with having only smoked one bowl I found it as boring as trying to watch a Curling game during the Olympics and it seems to be aptly named: ‘and so to Bed’. Yawn... :wink: