Three New Dunhill Blends

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jpmcwjr

Lifer
May 12, 2015
26,264
30,352
Carmel Valley, CA
Loved the Orwell quote. Here's another bit he wrote:
Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

Never use a long word where a short one will do.

If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

Never use the passive where you can use the active.

Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.[122]
I never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice- quel ennui!

 
Dec 24, 2012
7,195
463
Yea Peck I posted that they were coming out during the IPCPR show and everybody said I was full of shit and that

we would never see it. Thanks for the back up.
I never saw that thread but, yep, they are coming.
Honestly though, what's the point? As soon as the FDA regs kick in the only way we'll be able to get those blends is smuggle them across the border, or get someone else to. And who's going to run that risk for a lousy tin of pipe tobacco? Plus I shudder to think what they'll cost in those other countries.
Well, I understand they made the August 8, 2016 cutoff, which means you should be able to buy them for another almost 2 years even if a decision is made not to jump through the FDA clearance hoops.
So if you love any of these blends, then just cellar a 100 or so tins within the next two years and you are done. At least that's the way I am looking at this.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,211
60,639
With an all-Virginias blend, I suppose wonderful things could happen with aging, but there's no way to tell.

 
Dec 24, 2012
7,195
463
Dark Flake will be last because . . . it smells so damn delcious that I think that one may well be the star. Always save the star erformance for the closing number.

 
Dec 24, 2012
7,195
463
I am moving on to 221b Baker Street very shortly.
This one may be better than I expected. The smell of this tobacco is very inviting.
Some blends smell good and others don't.
Sitting at the apex of foul smelling tobacco for me is semois – a tobacco that has precisely the same aroma as that of a changing room after a particularly hard fought game of hockey.
221b Baker Street is earthy and pungent, but in a good way, unlike semois.

 

newbroom

Lifer
Jul 11, 2014
6,379
10,019
North Central Florida
When we categorize a blend as a Va or a Burly or whatever other primary genus of tobacco plant is its base, we are still only generalizing the expectation.

Not only is there a variety of Virginia tobacco with unique flavor depending upon where it was grown but each plant itself offers up the possibility of nuance and differential depending upon the part of the plant the leaf was taken.

I extrapolated this from looking at a PDF cobguy put up yesterday or so, showing a diagram of the tobacco plant and a description of their differences.

It is likely that year to year changes in growth and production will result in variety, but the plant's origin and the leaf's location on the plant must be considered.

 

jerwynn

Lifer
Dec 7, 2011
1,033
14
I will need to get 2 221B Baker Street just to bookend all our Sherlock Holmes books and CD series(the Jeremy Brett version, our favorite!)

 

carver

Part of the Furniture Now
Mar 29, 2015
625
4
Belgium
Can't wait to try Baker Street and Ye Old Signe, the reviews for the latter are mind blowing.

 
Dec 24, 2012
7,195
463
Can't wait to try Baker Street and Ye Old Signe, the reviews for the latter are mind blowing.
Well, as you can tell from my review, Ye Olde Sign is solid, but it did not blow me away. I have no doubt it will age well, though, which should come as no surprise. I also suspect that my review was influenced by the fact that pretty much all the Va blends I smoke have at least three or four years of age on them, so Ye Olde Signe perhaps suffers in comparison. I plan to cellar 10 or 12 tins, but I won't be going crazy. I am curious to know what others (with a more refined palate than my own) think of this blend.

 

cortezattic

Lifer
Nov 19, 2009
15,147
7,642
Chicago, IL
Peck's satire on verbose reviews, and Jim's notion that the adjectives one can apply is fairly limited, remind me that some time ago I thought Jim used the word "earth / earthy" too much. So I did a quick search on TR and found that he only used that word in 62% of his reviews -- and that might include phrases like "not earthy". So that's a pretty good track record. I have tried to write informative reviews myself, and I found it to be easy: you just sit at the keyboard and open a vein!

 

mawnansmiff

Lifer
Oct 14, 2015
7,826
8,646
Sunny Cornwall, UK.
Looking forward to trying these blends myself assuming they will be available in the UK. I see TR.com already has two recent reviews of Ye Olde Signe...things are looking up.
Regards,
Jay.

 

sajgre

Starting to Get Obsessed
Aug 13, 2010
137
1
My guess is that those blends would be better in months time. They are totally fresh at the moment and should get better fast.

 

carver

Part of the Furniture Now
Mar 29, 2015
625
4
Belgium
It is a recurrent thing that new blends aren't good from the start, a little like a new software or phone that sucks when it gets out and gets better after some time when everybody complained about it and the manufacturer fixed stuff ?

 

jpmcwjr

Lifer
May 12, 2015
26,264
30,352
Carmel Valley, CA
Not like software, which may or may not improve with bug fixes... But it's gospel here that most tobaccos improve with some age. But at some point, months to decades, they start to decline. I believe Greg Pease and others have written about it.

 

beastinview

Part of the Furniture Now
Jan 5, 2016
503
4
I'm simply in love with the Dark Flake and Ye Olde Signe tin art. (The other is nice too, but nothing new.) I really love the Dunhill tins in general.
They also look quite tasty, as both contain "Dark Virginia," which is I believe a sort of leaf I like a lot.

 
Dec 24, 2012
7,195
463
Next up is 221b Baker Street, a blend named after the London address of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.
This blend consists of Virginia and dark-fired Kentucky leaf and comes in a shag cut. I detected no casing or topping, but I certainly did notice an abundance of the wonderful natural earth and dark chocolate aromas and flavors that I normally associate with dark fired burley.
I have to say, I really enjoyed the bowl I had of 221b. I would emphasize, however, that the Kentucky in this blend is very prominent, so those that don’t like a high-proportion dark-fired Kentucky blend should fish elsewhere. I have no doubt that there is Virginia in this blend, but the taste of that leaf was certainly far less pronounced than the burley. This is not in any way a complex blend, as the dark-fired leaf certainly does overpower any other more subtle notes, but complexity isn’t always what it is cracked up to be. Sometimes you just want a simple, yet delicious, smoke, and 221b is the tobacco-equivalent of very hearty diner comfort food.
I was also pleasantly surprised with the strength of this blend in the nicotine department. This was no Jackknife plug, but I would still give it a solid medium on the Lady N scale, and I suspect others who are more sensitive to this component would likely rate it between medium and strong.

 
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