Anti mold, a preservative, like the ketchup aroma in McCllends.
Jim's Updated and Revised SWR Review.
- Thread starter JimInks
- Start date
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Granger may have gotten better with the transition. Prince Albert did not but is still tolerable. SWRA seems a bit more chocolate forward with less hazelnut which I like. SWR got wrecked. Haven't tried Carter Hall since the change.
Me neither. The last time I tried Carter Hall it was still sold in pouches at my local grocer. I would pick up a pouch a couple times a month.
For the past several weeks I've been enjoying one of my 14 oz tins of SWRA, made in the US of A. Great stuff!
If you check the Pipe Tobacco Review section, and do a little scrolling, you'll see my updates for Carter Hall and Prnce Albert, both of which were changed.
Wish I’d have seen this just a few hours earlier. I stopped at a local B&M today that I hadn’t visited yet. They had the normal RYO stuff and a small cigar room. Being that almost all the smoke shops in a 15 mile radius have gone the way of selling only vape stuff I was pleasantly surprised by a slightly bigger than normal pipe tobacco section. They had just about every codger blend in pouch and can form. I’m still new and have been looking for anything I can find that I haven’t tried yet. Well other than Captain black and any of the other heavy aromatic stuff. I still haven’t tried Carter hall and mixture 79 yet because I can’t find it in a small pouch. I’ll eventually try it, I found some velvet the other day and think it’s actually pretty tasty. I’ll enjoy it often along with the Half and Half I got a while back. This place actually had pouches of SWR so I happily made the purchase and was excited to try it. But when I got home and opened the pouch I was immediately disappointed. It was bone dry. I have a few RAW brand hydration stones so I was able to bring it back to proper moisture levels but just like JimInks said it had a very heavy vinegar smell. In fact I could barely smell anything else. I was very confused. Once I got it into. Pipe and lit it didn’t taste too bad but definitely not as good as half and half or Velvet in my opinion. Oh well. I’m thinking of maybe making a plug out of it. Maybe mix the SWR with a few of the small amounts of different English blends I have in jars. Maybe a little bit of HH bold Kentucky too. If I do I’ll make sure to post pics and the final recipe along with a moderately worded new guy review of how it smells and tastes.
Those sorts of drastic changes are such a shame because it means the brands are living on in name only.
Jim is very careful about his reviews, and very detailed.
To give a comparison with a 2021 batch, based on my perceptions as a beginner: Late last summer I had a bowl from a 2021 tin. The smoke was chocolate, sweet, nutty, earthy, good, light, grey. The first few puffs had a vinegar flavor. The blend overall was better than I had expected, due to its light sweetness. I don't know if the vinegar flavor simply came from it aging for several years. The vinegar taste was the main downside to what I had.
To give a comparison with a 2021 batch, based on my perceptions as a beginner: Late last summer I had a bowl from a 2021 tin. The smoke was chocolate, sweet, nutty, earthy, good, light, grey. The first few puffs had a vinegar flavor. The blend overall was better than I had expected, due to its light sweetness. I don't know if the vinegar flavor simply came from it aging for several years. The vinegar taste was the main downside to what I had.
Burley in general especially codger ones like SWR are known for being extremely stable flavorwise and not changing significantly with age, so it probably had that vinegar flavor when it was canned.
I knew that people had been complaining about that vinegar flavor in Sir Walter Raleigh, so that's what I chalked it up to. But some one else suggested to me that it was from build up from fermentation over time in the jar, so I wasn't sure. I didn't really notice that same vinegar flavor with other old blends, so your explanation makes more sense. At the time I talked it up to a vinegar defect in the blend.
It's not just the vinegar, the cut is not the same. Not cubes anymore, it's more like little ribbons.
Seeing this thread reminded me of the pouch of SWR that I jarred 5 or 6 months ago, so I went ahead and filled half a bowl, out of caution.
First time I smoked SWR when I just got it, I couldn't even finish the bowl because of the extreme sourness. After its time in the jar, the sourness is still there in every puff, but it's much more subdued now, and what's behind it is pretty pleasant. I can taste some sweetness of the burley.
It looks like time helps get rid of the vinegary taste. I will have to leave it in the jar and try again in another 6 months, maybe.
First time I smoked SWR when I just got it, I couldn't even finish the bowl because of the extreme sourness. After its time in the jar, the sourness is still there in every puff, but it's much more subdued now, and what's behind it is pretty pleasant. I can taste some sweetness of the burley.
It looks like time helps get rid of the vinegary taste. I will have to leave it in the jar and try again in another 6 months, maybe.
Blends can change over time.
But in this case it's ironic because one piper's seemingly plausible guess was that the vinegar was produced because of aging in the first place.
To be clear, the vinegar was only in the opening part of my bowl from the 2021 batch, so it wasn't a big deal for me, it just made the product come across as a bit low quality.
I am guessing from what I hear that newer batches are worse.