By Bob Tate

The tin aroma of this blend is a nice sweet and tangy smell that tickled the nose some. For this review I decided to mix the cut of the tobacco up. I shaved some of the tobacco off of the plug into a very fine ribbon cut and then I cut off a flake and cube cut it. After rubbing out the ribbon cut portion, the tanginess became a little more pronounced, but overall it smelled pretty much the same as it did before cutting the plug. The moisture level was a tad on the moist side, so I let it dry for a bit. I then mixed the ribbon and the cube cut tobaccos and loaded up my pipe and proceeded to the charring light.

On the charring light:
Flavor: There is a nice, sweet, slightly tangy, straight forward tobacco flavor.
Aroma: Aroma is a nice sweet tobacco smell.

I finished lighting the pipe and settled in for a nice relaxing smoke.

At the beginning of the smoke, there is a very good naturally sweet tobacco flavor with a very light hint of tang in the background. The flavor is deep, rich, and full. The smoke fills and, for lack of a better term, coats your mouth. There is smokiness to this blend that comes from the Dark-Fired Kentucky. It’s not the Latakia type of smoky flavor, but more of a smoky, well rounded feel in your mouth and in the aroma.

Around the mid-bowl point I started noticing a little bit of spiciness. It is part flavor and part mouth feel. It is not like Perique spiciness and actually reminds me of spiciness that I sometimes taste in a cigar. Now that I mention that, the room note also reminds me of the smoking aroma of a good cigar. At this time I have also noticed that the strength has picked up quite a bit as well.

As the bowl progressed through the end, the sweetness stayed in the forefront while the smoky, spicy, full round flavor stepped up and kept building a little bit at a time as the bowl went on. This blend became more complex as the bowl progressed. Keep in mind the way that I prepared the tobacco to be smoked. The flavor profile could be totally different if is prepared another way.

JackKnife Plug is a great blend! It smokes slow, cool, dry, and doesn’t bite. It has a really good flavor profile and produces good volumes of smoke. But be warned that this blend does pack some strength in it. As Kevin stated in his review of JackKnife Plug, I don’t think that this would be a good blend for most beginners or those that are easily affected by blend with higher nicotine contents. This is a strong, full flavored blend.

I love this blend and enjoy it at all times of the day, but it is extremely satisfying after a hearty meal and it also goes great with a good libation. I can’t wait to see how well this blend ages.

I Highly Recommend it!

Brand: G.L. Pease
Blend: JackKnife Plug
Description: Dark-Fired Kentucky leaf and ripe red Virginia tobaccos, with their deep, earthy flavors, are layered on a central core of golden flue-cured for a hint of bright sweetness, then pressed and matured in cakes, and finally cut into 2oz blocks. Slice it thick and rub it out for a ribbon cut, thin for a shag, or chop it into cubes. The choice is yours.
Country: US
Cut: Plug
Tobaccos: Kentucky, Virginia
Strength: Full
Taste: Sweetness, Smoky, Spicy, Tobacco
Room Note: Tolerable to Pleasant

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By Bob Tate

The pouch aroma of this blend is very smoky with quite a bit of a woody aroma as well. The Latakia in this blend is heavy. This blend is predominately black with a few specks of brown here and there. The moisture level feels like it is one the moist side, but it lights up and stays lit very well. I loaded up my pipe and proceeded to the charring light.

On the charring light:
Flavor: There is some sweetness and a light black coffee type of bitterness.
Aroma: Sweet and smoky Latakia aroma that some, like me, may love; but others will probably hate it.

I finished lighting the bowl and settled in for the smoke.

At the beginning of the smoke, there is a nice tobacco flavor with some sweetness to it. As most frequent Latakia smokers know, there are different types of flavor that Latakia blends have. Some are really smoky, some have a BBQ type of flavor, some are woody, etc. So far this blend doesn’t fall into any of those categories. This blend falls into the sweet tasting Latakia tobacco flavor category. A little way into the smoke, I taste dark chocolate and black coffee flavors. The chocolate flavor didn’t last very long, but the black coffee flavor stayed during the whole smoke. Every once in awhile the light hints of chocolate would come back and then fade away again. This flavor profile stayed the same from start to finish.

English Stout is a solid blend. It smokes slow, cool, dry, and didn’t bite. Although this blend seems to have a lot of Latakia in it, I don’t think that this is one of those ‘in-your-face’ type heavy Latakia blends. Don’t get me wrong, there is Latakia and it is easily, and very, noticeable. It just doesn’t seem to me to be as heavy and in your face as some other heavy Latakia blends. If you are looking for a Latakia blend that is not very smoky tasting, then this blend might fit the bill for you.
I Recommend it.

Brand: Scotty’s Bulk Blends (pipesandcigars.com)
Blend: English Stout
Description: Latakia, Latakia, Latakia…This blend reeks of a campfire on a very cold night. This is a very heavy blend.
Country: US
Cut: Ribbon
Tobaccos: Latakia, Cavendish, Virginia, Orientals
Strength: Mild-Medium
Taste: Tobacco, Sweetness, Black Coffee, Dark Chocolate, Light Bitterness
Room Note: Tolerable to Strong

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By Bob Tate

The tobacco that I smoked for this review is from a 500g bulk box. I have also smoked this blend in the tinned version and it tastes and smells exactly the same. The only difference is that the flakes are much longer in the bulk version than it is in the tinned version. I didn’t measure the flakes, but I would say that the flakes are about 6 inches long in bulk version and about 3 inches long in the tinned version.

The tin aroma smells of Latakia, chocolate, and cocoa with a hint of the Lakeland essence. The Latakia aroma is light and subdued. The chocolate and cocoa aromas are also light, but they do stand out. The Lakeland essence is about as strong as the chocolate and cocoa aromas. There is a difference in the chocolate and cocoa aromas. The chocolate reminds me of chocolate while the cocoa reminds me of a richer, darker type of chocolate aroma like the kind that you would get from cocoa powder that you use for baking. I don’t detect any vanilla in the tin aroma. The tin aroma is simply amazing and I love it!

I took a few of the flakes and fully rubbed them out into nice, fluffy ribbons. After rubbing the flakes out, the aroma is pretty much the same, but it is more intense. There is also a very noticeable Virginia tobacco aroma now that makes it smell even more amazing. The moisture level is perfect for smoking right away with no drying time needed. After I spent some time drooling over the aroma of the unburned tobacco, I loaded up my pipe and proceeded to the charring light.

On the charring light:
Flavor: There is a nice tobacco flavor with hints of chocolate and a very light Lakeland flavor. I do not taste any smoky flavor from the Latakia, but there is a deep, rich body to the smoke.
Aroma: I smell tobacco, chocolate, and hint of the Lakeland aroma. I do not smell any of the typical Latakia aromas in the smoke. It smells very pleasant.

I finished lighting the pipe and settled in for a nice relaxing smoke that I knew I was going to enjoy immensely.

At the start of the smoke, I taste the chocolate flavor and also a light Lakeland flavor. The Lakeland flavor is not very strong and it compliments the chocolate very nicely. I can also taste the tobacco under the chocolate and Lakeland flavors. It is a nice, sweet, tobacco flavor that is the backbone to this blend. There is a very, very light smokiness that sits very far in the background, but there is quite a bit of body to the smoke. There are nice volumes of smoke and the smoke seems to fill and coat my mouth with the flavors. There is also a bit of sweetness to this blend. The sweetness is not overpowering and is at just the right level.

Around the 3/4 point, I detected a very light BBQ flavor. It only lasted a second and was gone before I really knew what it was. I actually sat there for a minute wondering if I had imagined it. Other than that, the flavor profile is still the same.

At the mid-bowl point, the cocoa flavor has become more pronounced than the chocolate flavor. What I mean by this is that the flavor has changed from a sweeter type of chocolate flavor to the deep, rich, and darker cocoa flavor.

As the bowl progressed after the mid-bowl point, the flavors of the chocolate, cocoa, and Lakeland began to fade out more and more as it got closer to the end. As those flavors faded, the tobacco flavor was becoming more pronounced. This continued until the end of the bowl.

Bob’s Chocolate Flake is a great blend and I love it! It smokes slow, cool, and dry. I have a feeling that this blend could bite if it is smoked too aggressively. This blend is really nice and actually taste pretty much the way that it smells in the tin. If you do not normally like the Lakeland blends, I would still suggest giving this blend a try because the Lakeland essence is applied pretty lightly in my opinion. I never tasted any of the vanilla flavor that is in the description, but that is fine with me. It still tasted great from start to finish.

The room note is pleasant and doesn’t have the typical Latakia room note, so that is a plus if you are smoking around people who find the aroma of Latakia unpleasant. If you are looking for a good chocolate blend I strongly suggest giving this blend a try.
I Highly Recommend it!

Brand: Gawith, Hoggarth, & Co.
Blend: Bob’s Chocolate Flake
Description: Virginias, Latakia, and Burley tobaccos with hints of Chocolate, Cocoa, and Vanilla.
Country: UK
Cut: Flake
Tobaccos: Virginia, Latakia, Burley
Strength: Medium
Taste: Tobacco, Sweetness, Chocolate, Cocoa, Lakeland Essence
Room Note: Pleasant

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By Bob Tate

The pouch aroma of this blend is a rich and tangy straight tobacco aroma. There are no other aromas present that I am detecting. It actually smells a lot like cigarette tobacco. The moisture content is a tad bit on the dry side and is perfect for smoking right away. This blend is pretty much cubed cut and packs fairly easily. I loaded up my pipe and proceeded to the charring light.

On the charring light:
Flavor: A pretty bland tobacco flavor with not much going on. It does not taste like any type of pipe tobacco that I have ever tasted.
Aroma: The aroma is OK. My wife says that it reminds her of the old time pipe tobacco aroma.

I finished lighting the pipe and settled in for the smoke.

At the start of the smoke there is not a whole lot there. There is a light tobacco flavor with a very, very slight hint of sweetness far in the background. It is really bland tasting to me. The flavor of this blend (the little bit that shows up), is not good at all. It is very bland. The sweetness does step forward as the bowl progresses, but I do not find it as a sweet flavor. I find it more along the lines of a sweet feeling in the mouth that I find unpleasant. This is a very one dimensional smoke and that one dimension does not taste good to me at all. This flavor lasted from start to finish. I have tasted cigarette tobacco that tastes much better.

I did not like this blend at all. It does smoke cool, dry, and doesn’t bite. But the flavor of this blend, or lack thereof, really does not appeal to me in the slightest. I will not buy this blend or smoke it ever again. I found it that bad. This confuses me some because a lot of people like this blend quite a lot and I hear mostly good things about it. Maybe I just got a bad pouch. Tastes are subjective and maybe this blend just clashes with my personal flavor preferences. I don’t know what it is.

This is one of the very few blends that I have considered giving a ‘Do Not Recommend’ rating, but because so many other people enjoy this blend, I am thinking that maybe this blend is just not for me and maybe I just don’t get it. Based off of that, I am going to Somewhat Recommend it.

Brand: Brown & Williamson
Blend: Sir Walter Raleigh Regular
Description: A classic Burley smoking tobacco savored by pipe tobacco smokers for 75 years.
Country: US
Cut: Cube Cut
Tobaccos: Burley
Strength: Medium
Taste: Bland Tobacco, Very Slight Hints of Sweetness
Room Note: Tolerable to Pleasant

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By Bob Tate

Pipes and Tobacco. Tobacco and Pipes. You can’t really have one without the other to enjoy all of the pleasures that pipe smoking has to offer. There are some exceptions when it comes to pipes though, as I know of people who don’t really smoke their pipes and just buy them for the art that they are and the collect-ability factor. There is nothing wrong with this, but I don’t consider these people as pipe smokers, I consider them pure collectors.

Pipes are wonderful and I enjoy them immensely. I love looking at them and, like most of you I presume, some of them just call out to me. Some of them are pure works of art that demand attention and respect for the carvers’ abilities. But for as much as I enjoy pipes, I can’t say that they are my passion.

Although I enjoy looking at them, buying them, and smoking them, I never get really passionate or obsessed with them. I don’t pour myself over the pipe inspecting the grain, the stem, the symmetry, and other things that the people who are really passionate about the actual pipes do. I more or less look at the pipe as a whole and the overall look and feel of the pipe. If I like it, I like it. If I don’t, I don’t.

Now don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all of the aspects of a fine pipe; from the grain pattern, all the way down to the bit of the stem. I just don’t get really passionate about them the way that some others do. I appreciate the works of art that some of the artisan pipes are, the classic shapes, and all aspects of a well made pipe; especially the internal engineering that makes a pipe smoke well. I really appreciate all of the work that goes into making a pipe and the skills that are required by a carver to do so.

I do love pipes, but I REALLY love tobacco. My true passion in this hobby is the tobacco. I can spend hours and hours reading about different blends, different tobacco varietals, and basically all things tobacco. I love the massive variety of blends that are available. I love to read the tin descriptions, look at the tin art, and imagine what the blend is going to taste like. I get really excited about tobacco. When I get a new blend that I have never smoked before, I feel like a kid at Christmas time being full of anticipation waiting for the chance to smoke it.

I love how all tobacco varietals taste different. I also love the way that even the same kind of tobacco, or blend, can taste different depending on how it is prepared. Take for example a Virginia flake. There are changes in the flavor depending on how you prepare it for smoking. Rubbed out, cubed cut, and fold and stuff all offer different flavor profiles even though it is the same blend. Sometimes the change in flavor is very subtle and sometimes it really hits you in the face with the difference.

I love how one difference in the type of tobacco can change the entire flavor profile of a blend. There are many genres of tobacco blends out there, and there are endless ways to create great tasting tobacco blends. There are tons of different flavor combinations that can be made. In my opinion, tobacco blenders are like chefs. They take a lot of different individual flavors and combine them to make unique, extraordinary, and endless varieties of flavors. There are good ones and there are great ones, and to be honest there are some not-so-good ones.

I am so passionate about tobacco that I even enjoy smoking blends that the majority of smokers have written off as absolutely horrible. I am curious to see if the blend is really that bad, and if it is, to find out why the blend may have turned out that way. I am a true believer that there are really no horrible tobacco blends, just different tastes for different people.

Take Mixture 79 for example. A lot of people absolutely hate it, but there are also a lot of people that enjoy it. I have smoked it myself, and while I wouldn’t call it a great blend, I certainly wouldn’t call it the worst blend that I have ever smoked. They have been selling it for decades, so there must be a lot of people smoking it. If people weren’t buying it, they would have stopped making it.

Are there bad blends out there? Well, that is a tough question to answer. I would have to say that it depends on who you ask. Everyone is going to have an opinion about what blends that they think are bad. But those same blends may be the favorites of others. I have smoked blends that I absolutely can not stand and did not like at all, but some of them are very popular blends amongst the general pipe smoking populace. This is just one more thing that I love about tobacco; the fact that tastes are subjective.

One of the main differences between pipes and tobacco for me, and the main reason why I really love, and am much more passionate about, tobacco is this; No matter how great a pipe carver is, they are always going to be limited by the piece of briar or wood that they are working on. Don’t get me wrong, some carvers can do amazing things with a piece of briar, but they are always going to be limited by it in some way, shape, or form.

Tobacco blenders are only limited by their own imagination. There are so many different flavor combinations out there, that if a blender has a good imagination and can grasp the concept of the different flavors that can be made, there are no limits for them. They can add more of a certain leaf, remove some of a leaf, tweak this, tweak that, etc. Everything can and will change the way that a blend tastes.

Earlier I said that tobacco blenders are like chefs, but I think that a better analogy would be that tobacco blenders are actually more like winemakers. Tobacco resembles grapes in so many ways that I find it simply amazing. Just like grapes, there are numerous varietals of tobacco. The growing region, soil, and environmental factors (among other things) from year to year all have an affect on how that crop will turn out in both grapes (wine) and tobacco in a particular year. And all of the different factors will also have an affect on the flavor of the tobacco from year to year.

Vineyard Grapes and Tobacco Field

If you stop and really think about, with all of the different factors that have different affects on each years crop, it is amazing that blenders can put out perennial blends that have a consistent flavor year after year. Heck, you even store tobacco the same way that you store bottles of wine. I could go on forever about tobacco, but I think that you get my point.

As you can see, I really love tobacco and am really passionate about it. It is my passion in this hobby. I am very interested to hear what all of you have to say.

So I ask you,

Pipes or Tobacco - What’s Your Passion?

By Bob Tate

This is a recent and current Orlik produced tin.

The tin aroma is sweet tobacco with a fruity type essence. It smells familiar, but I can not place it. It kind of reminds me of a tropical fruitiness. The moisture level is a bit on the moist side. I recommend some drying time before smoking. I loaded up the pipe and proceeded to the charring light.

On the charring light:
Flavor: Tobacco flavor with quite a bit of sweetness to it. There is also an indistinguishable, fruity like flavor that I can not place. I also picked up on a little bit of sharpness on my palate from the Virginia tobaccos.
Aroma: A sweet tobacco aroma with some hints of the fruity like flavoring.

At the beginning of the smoke, I taste the sweet tobacco flavor accompanied by a light hint of the fruity flavoring. I still can not really describe what the flavoring is. The closest that I can come would say a tropical type of fruitiness. The flavoring is not over powering at all and is actually pretty subtle, but it is noticeable. There is also a rich earthiness to the flavor that reminds me of the body of black coffee. Don’t misunderstand me; it does not taste at all like black coffee, it just has a rich, earthy backbone to it that reminds me of the body of black coffee. This flavor profile lasted from beginning through to the end.

Erinmore Mixture is a decent blend that smoked relatively cool. It also smoked dry and didn’t leave a goopy mess in the pipe. While it didn’t bite me, I could tell that if it was pushed too hard that it might have the potential to do so. This is a light aromatic blend that relies on quality Virginia tobaccos as its base where you can actually taste the tobacco during the smoke with the flavoring used to enhance the flavor.

This is a blend that never really jumped out at me and while I would maybe smoke it on occasion, it will not make it into any sort of regular rotation for me. If you are a regular smoker of aromatics, you may really enjoy this blend. I Recommend it.

Brand: Erinmore
Blend: Erinmore Mixture
Description: The recipe for Erinmore Mixture is a closely guarded secret which is revealed to only two people in each generation. It is known, however, that the tobaccos are selected from the premier tobacco growing regions of the world, naturally sweetened bright Virginia is hand blended with cool- smoking black Cavendish to produce the unique flavour and distinctive aroma of Erinmore. More than that we cannot reveal. A mellow aromatic tobacco with a cool taste and a slow-burning easy-smoking style.
Country: DK
Cut: Ribbon
Tobaccos: Virginia, Black Cavendish
Strength: Medium
Taste: Sweet, Tobacco, Fruity (tropical?)
Room Note: Tolerable to Pleasant

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By Bob Tate

In this article I am going to show how to prepare cake pipe tobacco in the included video. But first I am going to explain a little bit about what cake tobacco is.

Cake is another form that tobacco blends sometimes come in. They are sometimes spelled with a ‘K’ such as Kake or Krumble Kake. Cakes are made similarly to plugs as they are both pressed to form the cake or plug. But unlike plug tobaccos that use large pieces of tobacco leaf which are layered and pressed together, cakes and crumble cakes use tobaccos that have already been cut and blended into a mixture. The mixture is then pressed into a cake.

A lot of people consider cakes and crumble cakes as one and the same. But in my opinion they are two different forms of cake tobacco. Here is how I define between the two.

Cake – Is pressed together to form a dense type of cake that closely resembles a plug. It is difficult to break apart and rub out by hand. I find that using a knife works much better.

Crumble Cake – Is pressed together to form a loose type of cake that crumbles apart very easily by hand with little or no effort.

On to the video!

Now go get some cake tobacco blends and give them a try!

By Bob Tate

As some of you may already know, HH Highland Blend is based off of an old blend that Mac Baren used to produce called Highland Mixture. They tweaked and re-worked the recipe and re-named it HH Highland Blend. You can read more about it in Kevin’s article and review – New Mac Baren HH Highland Blend Exclusive Sneak Peek

——————–

The pouch aroma is smoky and sweet with a hint of tang. The sweetness stands out above the smokiness from the Latakia and there is a heavy smell of BBQ/BBQ sauce in the aroma. I sometimes notice this BBQ type of aroma and flavor in some blends with Latakia. It smells really nice. The moisture level is perfect for smoking without any drying time needed. I loaded up my pipe and proceeded to the charring light.

On the charring light:
Flavor: Mainly sweet with hints of smokiness and BBQ sauce type flavor.
Aroma: Sweet and smoky aroma.

I finished lighting the pipe and settled in for the smoke.

Right at the start I had a shock to my senses because the flavor of the smoke was totally different from what I was expecting. Based off of the tin aroma of sweet, smoky, BBQ sauce type aroma; I was expecting a heavier, in your face, smoky Latakia flavor. But what I got was a sweeter, lighter flavor. It is like if you take a drink of water from a cup that you think has iced tea in it. You were expecting the flavor of iced tea, but water is what you got and it kinds of shocks your senses.

The main flavor that I get from this blend reminds me a lot of the flavoring in Mac Baren Plumcake, but lighter. I have never been able to describe the Plumcake flavor and I still can not describe it. It is like the Lakeland flavor as far as you have to taste it to know what someone is talking about. I like it a lot. Although I am picking up on that same flavor and it reminds me of Plumcake, it is also very different from it.

The Plumcake flavoring that I detect in Highland Blend is lighter and more subdued. There is more smokiness with hints of BBQ sauce flavor as well. It also has a fair amount of sweetness. So far I am really digging Highland Blend, it tastes great! The finish is really nice as well. I am picking up on BBQ sauciness and sweetness on the finish.

Around the mid-bowl point I still taste the Plumcake flavor, but it is a little more subdued. I am starting to taste more of the flavor from the Scotch Whisky at this point. The finish has changed a bit as well. There is still the sweetness, but the BBQ flavor has faded out quite a bit and I taste more of the Scotch on the finish. This change in flavor lasted through to the end.

While I have made some comparisons between Highland Blend and Plumcake, I do not want anyone to think that this is the same thing because it is not. I really like both blends and while there are some similarities, they both stand on their own as individual blends and deserve to be recognized as such. Highland Blend has more body and smokiness than Plumcake and it also has the added flavor of the Scotch and the complex BBQ/BBQ sauce type of flavor that I detected from the Latakia that they used.

Highland Blend is a great blend and I really like it a lot! It smokes cool, dry, and doesn’t bite me at all. Technically I would say that this is an aromatic blend, but it is a light aromatic blend and is done perfectly. I suggest that everyone try this blend. I think that it would satisfy smokers of all genres; Aromatic, Virginia, and Latakia smokers. This is a great blend and I will definitely be getting quite a few tins of it when it becomes available. I Highly Recommend it!

Brand: Mac Baren
Blend: HH Highland Blend
Description: Fully matured Virginias, Ready Rubbed Burleys, Latakia and a touch of Fire-cured Cavendish is the recipe. We added one of the world’s finest 30-year old Scotch whiskies, Glenfarclas. The natural flavours from the tobacco and the delightful taste of the Scotch marry perfectly, so when smoked you experience the mellow taste and subtle smoky note of the tobaccos combined with the overtone of a fine scotch.
Country: DK
Cut: Ready Rubbed
Tobaccos: Virginia, Burley, Latakia, Cavendish
Strength: Medium
Taste: Sweet, Smoky, BBQ, BBQ Sauce, Mac Baren Plumcake Flavor, Scotch Whisky
Room Note: Pleasant

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By Bob Tate

Plug pipe tobacco is another form of tobacco that needs to be prepared and cut before it is able to be smoked. It is another form of tobacco that can seem intimidating to prepare, but once you know how to do it, it is really quite simple. Plug tobacco is basically large pieces of tobacco leafs that are layered on top of each other and pressed into a block, or plug, of tobacco. To prepare it, all you will need is a sharp knife. You want to either shave off some of the tobacco or cut off tobacco into flakes and then prepare the flakes.
[To see how to prepare flake tobacco, see my article: Flake Pipe Tobacco Preparation]

Explaining how to properly cut plug tobacco is quite difficult to do in the written word, but I am attempting to do so. It is always easier to actually see how to do something than to read how to do it. That is why, like always, I have included a video that will show you how to properly cut plug tobaccos.

When cutting plugs you always want to cut the plug downwards and against the grain of the tobacco leafs. This way you will get some of all of the different tobaccos used in the blend and get the flavor that the blender intended.

You never want to cut into the plug going sideways and with the grain of the leaf. Doing this will separate the layers and you will only get some of the different tobaccos used instead of all of the tobaccos used. This will not give you the flavor profile that the blender was going for.

I know that the written directions may be a little difficult to understand, so without further ado, on to the video:

Now that you know how to cut and prepare plug tobaccos, you have no excuse for not trying them. Go out and get some plug tobaccos and give them a try!

By Bob Tate

The tin aroma is rich, sweet, and slightly earthy with hints of plum to it. There is also a kind of fruitiness to it that reminds me of wine. I cut off some of the tobacco and rubbed it out. After it was rubbed out, the aroma changed a bit. The sweet and plum aromas are more pronounced and now there is quite a bit of tang to it that tickles the nose. This blend smells great! The moisture content is perfect for smoking right away with no drying time needed. I loaded up the pipe and proceeded to the charring light.

On the charring light:
Flavor: Straight forward tobacco flavor with some very light hints of wood and some sweetness in the background.
Aroma: Sweet tobacco aroma.

I finished lighting up the pipe and settled in for the smoke.

At the start this blend had a straight forward tobacco flavor that was accompanied by hints of wood and spice with a backbone of natural sweetness. A few minutes into the smoke, the sweetness has become very pronounced as well as the spiciness. It is balanced out perfectly and tastes great. The hints of wood are almost non-existent now. There are some other flavors that are starting to show up. Immediately, my first thought of them was coffee and chocolate. But the more that I try to focus on them, the more that I realize that they are not quite coffee and chocolate, but they are similar. I can’t really put my finger on it. Actually, I think that I am picking up on those flavors more on the finish than in the smoke. Whatever the flavors are, they taste good.

Around the 3/4 point, the flavors are predominately peppery/spicy and sweet like a typical VA/Per blend. At this same time I am also starting to pick up a little bit of sharpness on my palate that I sometimes get from Virginia and VA/Per blends. Do not confuse this for tongue bite, it is not. Actually, I have not had any tongue bite at all so far.

Around the mid-bowl point the Perique pepper/spiciness has moved to the front to dominate while the sweetness has moved to the background. Right now the flavor profile is of a pure VA/Per blend. This flavor remained through to the end.

This is a really good blend. It smokes cool, dry, and didn’t even come close to biting. This blend builds in strength as the bowl progresses and there is some complexity as well. I like this blend a lot and if you like VA/Per blends, I think that you will like it as well.
I Highly Recommend it!

Brand: Hermit Tobacco Co.
Blend: Capt. Earle’s Honor Blend
Description: Capt. Earle’s Honor Blend is an all natural stoved blend of Red Va’s, Mild Cavendish, Turkish and Perique tobaccos pressed in an old-fashioned Crumble
Cake. Specially formulated for the discriminating lovers of fine Virginia based tobaccos. Named in memory of Captain Earle’s wife Honor Matthews, a native of New Zealand whom he wed during one of his ports of call to Diamond Head in Hawaii.
Country: US
Cut: Cake
Tobaccos: Virginia, Cavendish, Turkish, Perique
Strength: Medium-Full
Taste: Wood, Tobacco, Spice, Pepper, Sweetness
Room Note: Tolerable

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