Cigar Bum Drugstore Pipe Tobacco Reviews

[izkeh]

Tobacco: Middleton's Cherry Blend from 2013 (pouch)

Pipe Used: MM Legend Cob

Tin Note: Not a real in-your-face cherry blast. It's much more subdued. However, you do smell cherry. I can imagine the cherry smell would be more intense in a fresh pouch.

I smoked three bowls of this in this order:
1. Fresh out of the pouch with about 2 minutes of drying time
2. About an hour of drying time
3. About 8 hours of drying time

I will refer to each by their number.

Sample 1: The tobacco was a little moist out of the pouch. I filled my cob and charred it. It charred alright and I got some cherry notes from the smoke off the char. As I smoked this down I kept waiting for a more pronounced cherry flavor. it never arrived. What did arrive however (from the get-go) was an acrid, bitey tobacco taste. I could taste burley in it but it was more of the cigarettey burley. Not the nice, nutty burley you'd want. I got hints of cherry on the retrohale from time to time but it was very, very faint. I got a PG film from the smoke. This is something that I can be fairly certain would be much more pronounced in a fresh pouch/tin/tub. I had about 6 or 7 relights on this one

The room note was more cherry than the taste but even that was subdued. I finished the bowl and it did burn down fairly cleanly without a lot of goop (probably because it was 2 years old - I can't imagine what it would leave if it were fresh).

Overall Impression of Sample #1: A 1.5 out of 5. The acrid nature of the smoke was just so very off-putting I couldn't wait to finish the bowl. The best thing I can equate it to is a very, very young cigar.

Sample 2: This one smoked almost the same as Sample #1. The only difference was I didn't need as many re-lights (maybe 3 or 4). Again, a very acrid-tasting, almost no cherry taste. Same as #1, I couldn't wait to finish this bowl to be done with it.

Sample 3: This one was a little different. After that long of drying the tobacco had almost no cherry aroma. What is did have was a more maple aroma. Weird, I know. I filled the pipe and went about smoking. It charred and lit just fine (it ought to). The taste was less acrid and more....you know what it reminded me of was Captain Black White. It was a very mild smoke with hints of sugar or maple with a very light tobacco taste. It wasn't nearly as offensive as samples 1 or 2. I caught some burley notes that were more nutty this time.

The room note wasn't cherry anymore. It was more like a straight tobacco smell. It wasn't unpleasant, it just wasn't cherry. I only had 1 or 2 relights (the tobacco was almost crunchy when I loaded my pipe).

Overall Impression of #3:I'd give this a 2 out of 5. The acrid nature of the smoke was lessened but there just wasn't much flavor to hold my interest (note: I'm not a Cap'n Black White fan)

Overall Thoughts: I wouldn't buy this, personally. Fresh, the room note and possibly the smoke would be more cherryish. However, it would likely be a goopy mess with the PG that's present in it (at least I believe it's PG). The 2 year old samples I tried mitigated the likely stickiness and probably helped the smokability of the tobacco. It didn't, however, help the flavor any. It was still a bitter, borderline harsh, smoke that didn't really provide any cherry flavor and only with substantial drying time did it change the characteristics enough to make it tolerable through an entire bowl. Overall I would rate this a 1.5 out of 5.

Much thanks to Tobias for supplying this tobacco for the review. I enjoyed doing this.