HPCS Adirondack Series -- Trout Stream

Brand: HPCS Adirondack Series
Blend: Trout Stream
Style: Aromatic
Pipe Used: Peterson Aran 150
Price: $9.99/4oz.

Appearance: 7
Taste: 7
Room Note: 8
Value: 8
Overall: 7

Trout Stream is an exclusive offering from the Habana Premium Cigar Shoppe -- better known as pipesandcigars.com. I'm a huge fan of their Butternut Burley and had heard many good things about this blend as well so I ordered a few ounces to give it a try.

The tobacco is a mixture of Golden and Black Cavendish and comes in a black and tan ribbon cut form. The aroma was great and smelled of butterscotch. The moisture content was about on par for an aromatic so I set some tobacco aside for a few hours to dry out.

I loaded up my Peterson Aran 150 Bulldog, gave the tobacco a charring light, and away I went. The flavor started out mellow and pretty much stayed that way to the end. Being composed solely of Cavendish tobacco, this blend is fairly straightforward and offers no surprises. The butterscotch came across as a slightly sweet aftertaste but wasn't nearly as front and center as I expected given the initial smell of the tobacco.

Trout Stream is a very well behaved blend and burned nice and dry with no goopy residue left behind in the pipe. It also burned evenly and only required a few relights along the way. The blend was also bite free and provided a nice, cool smoke.

As is the case with many aromatics, the room aroma was much richer than the taste of the actual tobacco. That's not a knock against the blend, just a statement of fact.

Trout Stream is a nice enough aromatic and I really have nothing bad to say about it but I much prefer the added flavor depth found with Butternut Burley and since it runs $10 cheaper per pound I can't really see myself ordering more of this blend in the future.