H&H Anniversary Kake and Stokkebye Luxury Navy Flake are both very affordable and tasty VA/Per blends. I like them both. Anniversary Kake is delicious, easy to smoke, and fun to work with. It has a very comforting and subtle graham cracker/banana bread/dried fruits flavor.
Representative VaPer Blend
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I finally cracked a tin of my escudo as I'd never tried it before. I wouldn't call it the VaPer all others are judged by. The tin has a year of age on it, but upon cracking it, it smelled pretty much exactly like Luxury Bullseye flake. I'd suggest getting some of that as it's much cheaper and if you popped out the cavendish center I'm not sure alot of people could even tell the difference. I've only had 2 bowls now but it definitely didn't blow me away after everything I've heard about it, so if you aren't loving it don't write off Vapers, as I love VaPers. I'm going to let the escudo age for a long time, I'll see if it improves over the next week as when you crack a tin the flavors come out after a few days. Me personally I'd say the VaPers all others should be judged by is McClellend's St. James woods. This was the scandinavia produce escudo though.
These are the vapors that I stock.
Escudo
Samuel Gawith St James Flake
Solani 633( when aged a long time, turns into a spicy pepper bomb)
Dunhill Deluxe Navy Rolls.
Here is a vapor no one talks about but is a real good one.
Two Friends Redwood. It is a collaboration of GL Pease and Craig Tarlor from C&D. If I could smoke red virginia's I would stock this.
" Redwood is a mixture for Virginia lovers! Two Friends starts with naturally sweet red and stoved Red Virginia tobaccos, add enough perique to provide some body and spice things up a bit, and finish the blend with a pinch of unflavored Black Cavendish. The color is reminiscent of the hues of a redwood forest; the aroma is as pleasing as a walk in the woods after a gentle spring rain."
Escudo
Samuel Gawith St James Flake
Solani 633( when aged a long time, turns into a spicy pepper bomb)
Dunhill Deluxe Navy Rolls.
Here is a vapor no one talks about but is a real good one.
Two Friends Redwood. It is a collaboration of GL Pease and Craig Tarlor from C&D. If I could smoke red virginia's I would stock this.
" Redwood is a mixture for Virginia lovers! Two Friends starts with naturally sweet red and stoved Red Virginia tobaccos, add enough perique to provide some body and spice things up a bit, and finish the blend with a pinch of unflavored Black Cavendish. The color is reminiscent of the hues of a redwood forest; the aroma is as pleasing as a walk in the woods after a gentle spring rain."
Well now upon the escudo sitting in a jar it's started to transform in flavor, and having smoked it in 3 different VaPer pipes I have it's definitely different than LBF. For the price point though I'd go with LBF over escudo from a price standpoint. I've never smoked LBF without the cavendish center but I know the sweetness from the cavendish will forever be apart of the flavor even if poked out as sitting in rope form before it's cut, plus after the flavors have married indefinitely. From a perspective view, it's hard to tell between LBF and Escudo except the cavendish center, or if even different tobacco is used, the escudo tends to have as many stems woven into the coin as LBF. The coins of both are also exactly the same and you can tell the same machinery is used to produce them. So on a quality plus deal plus the feel of the smoke, I would go with LBF if I had to choose between the two. For something I'll buy because it's unique and only tinned, I'll go with St. James Woods by McClellend's as the representative VaPer. It's the first VaPer I smoked and I didn't even know that it had perique in it or what a VaPer was. It just had this dry woody note with the figs and plum plus the dark stoved Va has alot more going on for me then escudo. Still not a bad smoke or not worthy of praise, I'd give it an 8/10 on a year old tin only popped 2 days ago, so it may change once oxygen has done it's thing even better. Just for the dollar I'd go with LBF if cost was an issue.
Harris!! A red Virginia?! Did you find a cure? :
:
I'm not sure what the deal is with comparing things to Escudo. Maybe, if you were trying to explain to someone on another planet what a Chevy is, and they have no concept of cars but have heard of a Ford, you'd say, "Yeh, Chevy is just like a Ford."
I like Escudo, and I have a ton of it aging, but I haven't smoked any for a little over a year. There are many, many flavors out there to try, and Escudo isn't missed much.
"Hey Cosmic, what you smoking?"
"Bayou Slices."
"What's that?"
"It's a VaPer."
"What's that?"
"It's like Escudo." ::
:I'm not sure what the deal is with comparing things to Escudo. Maybe, if you were trying to explain to someone on another planet what a Chevy is, and they have no concept of cars but have heard of a Ford, you'd say, "Yeh, Chevy is just like a Ford."
I like Escudo, and I have a ton of it aging, but I haven't smoked any for a little over a year. There are many, many flavors out there to try, and Escudo isn't missed much.
"Hey Cosmic, what you smoking?"
"Bayou Slices."
"What's that?"
"It's a VaPer."
"What's that?"
"It's like Escudo." :
:
cosmic, no cure I don't smoke Redwood but I used to and although the flavors were great, it burned the shit out of me. That was before I realized it was red virginia that was biting my tongue off. I smoked a ton of different blends that had red virginia in them. Years ago although it burned some, it was no where near as bad when I came back to my pipes after a few years off. I had to sell tins of 2002 Haddo's Delight and a few bags of 2002 Redwood. I also sold a pound of 2000 5100 red cake which sucked after aging that long.
Robert McConnell Original Scottish Cake. Delicious with a Dunhill root briar. Must be good with other neutral tasting pipes.
I agree with what jefff just posted. I love Haddo's. Have a pound of it in the cellar. To me it is technically a Va/Per. Yet it is so different from anything else, in my mind it would be a horrible choice to determine if you would like VaPers in general.
For a nice selection of VaPers to try I'd suggest Anniversary Kake, Escudo, St James Flake, SixPence and Beacon Extra.
For a nice selection of VaPers to try I'd suggest Anniversary Kake, Escudo, St James Flake, SixPence and Beacon Extra.
1) McConnell Scottish Cake
2) Samuel Gawith’s St. James Flake
3) Escudo
4) GL Pease Filmore
5) Former’s Straight Grain Flake
6) H & H AJ’s VaPer
7) Low Country’s Waccamaw
8) Peretti’s Park Square
9) John Patton’s Cool Hand Fluke
10) H & H Rolando’s Own
11) H & H Anniversary Kake
12) G & H Louisiana Flake
13) Dunhill Elizabethan Mixture
14) C & D Night Train
15) H & H Louisiana Red
16) C & D Bayou Morning Flack
17) Reiner’s Long Golden Flake
18) Treasures of Ireland - Limerick
19) Dorchester
20) Solani #633
21) Luxury Bullseye Flake
22) McClelland Bulk 2015
23) GL Pease Telegraph Hill
24) Kajun Kake
25) Luxury Navy Flake
26) Dan Tobacco's Tordenskjold Virginia Slices
These are from another forums showdown on vapers. Not saying I agree with the ratings but it is a good starting point for somebody to start with.
2) Samuel Gawith’s St. James Flake
3) Escudo
4) GL Pease Filmore
5) Former’s Straight Grain Flake
6) H & H AJ’s VaPer
7) Low Country’s Waccamaw
8) Peretti’s Park Square
9) John Patton’s Cool Hand Fluke
10) H & H Rolando’s Own
11) H & H Anniversary Kake
12) G & H Louisiana Flake
13) Dunhill Elizabethan Mixture
14) C & D Night Train
15) H & H Louisiana Red
16) C & D Bayou Morning Flack
17) Reiner’s Long Golden Flake
18) Treasures of Ireland - Limerick
19) Dorchester
20) Solani #633
21) Luxury Bullseye Flake
22) McClelland Bulk 2015
23) GL Pease Telegraph Hill
24) Kajun Kake
25) Luxury Navy Flake
26) Dan Tobacco's Tordenskjold Virginia Slices
These are from another forums showdown on vapers. Not saying I agree with the ratings but it is a good starting point for somebody to start with.
Just an update to my VaPer quest, I went to my local B&M and the owner there made me a custom blend 75% Virginia, and 25% Perique, he also gave me some of the straight Virginia base so I could really tell what the Perique was doing...I definitely got an idea of what Perique tastes like, unfortunately I'm not really a fan, and now my pipe tastes like Perique no matter what I smoke, I'm going to try salt and alcohol to remove the ghost...Then back to Latakia blends...
One that hasn't been mentioned is McClelland's Blakeney's Best Bayou Slice. The Virginia and Perique are toasted and very, very good.
That's a pretty big dose of perique for someone just trying a VaPer, however did you like the Va base? If you didn't like the base then you aren't going to like it with perique. Most perique blends are around the 10% mark I think. I would start with something like Peter Stokkebye Luxury Navy Flake, or Luxury Bullseye flake, I think you got perique bombed which isn't a good thing for your first taste usually.
The VA blend by itself i thought was pretty bland...It was pretty sweet, but I didn't get much in the way of interesting flavors. I will experiment some more with it I think I'll try mixing it with some Frog Morton, but even the slight ghost of it in my pipe was not really what I'm looking for. When I say I don't like it I don't mean that I hated it, I did smoke 4 bowls of the stuff...It just isn't my favorite...Thus far my two favorites have been Frog Morton, and Irish flake. I want to find a latakia flake next. I like the smokiness that seems to come with latakia. Frog Morton reminds me of barbecue sauce, I want to find something that gives me even more of that sweet, and smoky flavor.
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