CATEGORY: Balkan Blend
BLEND: Black Cavendish, Latakia, Oriental/Turkish, Perique, Virginia
FLAVORING: none
BLENDER: Joe Lankford
MANUFACTURER: Sutliff Tobacco Company
CUT: Plug
PIPE: Broken stem clay pipe [unknown]
INTENSITY: Medium
NOTES:
Figs/raisins | Honey-spiced oranges | Fatburger hauntings
Of course, anything's 'Special Reserve' will be held up against its original. This is handy because I wrote a review of that original a bit back, which you can read at: Seattle Pipe Club Plum Pudding Pipe Tobacco in Review. Here the blend displays more easily and is sorta linear in a not-bad manner. On a line, but a thick and heavy line. Wide 'nuff for many a corralled slowly-meandering nuance.
A little story comes to mind.
TWO GRANDFATHERS
(A Kaplowitz Media. Original Work of Fiction)
Two grandfathers. One thick, one thin. The thick one older and the thin one younger, but by no means young. It's early Fall and they find themselves on a short hike back to camp. They had walked off far enough to enjoy a smoke away from the grandkids and the mothers both regular and grand.
The thick one became very tired and the thin one chided him by loping ahead and loping is most likely a gross overstatement but here we weave in comparrisons. The smell of campfires and grills swirls in the crisp air. "Hold your horses," huffs older Clyde to which younger Earl comments back behind him, "Keep up, Clyde."
And they reach the little clearing with the fifth-wheel parked and the grandkids and the mothers both grand and otherwise. A 17-year-old member of the clan in Airpods looks at a smart device on a tree stump under a beanie. A tuft of reddish-auburn hair shows from out-under. Clyde tiredly rocks back his own cap and caresses his own bald head. "He could barely keep up," Earl tells Clyde's wife and there is nowhere to sit but that stump, and Clyde needs a sit.
An old green cooler, a metal-looking thing with a sturdy top is alongside the cooling-down grill. Clyde has a sit. "Hey!" yells Earl, "Not on my damned cooler, Clyde." A crack sounds like the breaking of a tree limb but is not. "Dammit," sounds Earl. "I needed a sit," puffs Clyde. He's pale and sweaty. His wife comes over, kisses his forehead. "Clammy," she mutters and hands him a can of cold cola. "He okay?" asks Earl. "Oh, he's fine," says Clyde's wife. "He's fine," says Earl's wife (in a less enthused echo). "I'm fine," says Clyde.
"You scared me." Says Earl to Clyde.
"I'm not getting younger." Says Clyde to Earl.
"Neither of us is." Says Earl to Clyde.
"Ain't that the truth."
Clyde smacks Earl's thigh and slowly stands.
"My damned cooler is busted. My favorite old Coleman."
"I needed a sit real quick."
"You old fool!"
"At least I ain't an old prancing fool!"
And they bicker back and forth until Clyde needs a sit again and by then the stump is vacant.
TASTE: A-
AROMA: A-
BURN: A-
FINAL GRADE: A-
A 90-100 B 80-89 C 70-79
::: very :::