Snuff -- Dr. J Robertson Justice

Brand: Fribourg & Treyer
Blend: Dr. J Robertson Justice
Style: Dry Nasal Snuff
Price: $3.45/40g

Appearance: 8
Aroma/Taste: 7
Value: 9
Overall: 8

I've been dabbling in nasal snuff longer than I've been smoking cigars or pipes but it's still such a rare activity for me that this is my first snuff review.

Fribourg & Treyer's Dr. J Robertson Justice is a 50/50 blend of their Morlaix and Bordeaux snuffs. Given my Bavarian heritage I'm more of a Schmalzler guy myself but I heard good things about this blend and couldn't pass it up when I found it available for such a great price.

The snuff is medium brown in color and consists of fairly dry medium ground granular tobacco. It's fairly easy stuff to pinch and sniff right out of the decidedly vintage looking tin.

The initial aroma I got from this blend reminded me of my grandma -- all lilac, lavender, and potpourri. That's not necessarily an unpleasant smell but not really what I look for in a snuff. Fortunately the snuff eventually grew in complexity and began to give off hints of more exotic stuff -- jasmine, musk, sandalwood and citrus.

The aroma was very long lasting but not overpowering and was light enough that my sinuses didn't get irritated.

All in all Dr. J Robertson Justice was a fine snuff that I'll likely enjoy on those occasions when my nose prefers a lighter pinch.

Hearth & Home -- Classic Burley Kake

Brand: Hearth & Home
Blend: Classic Burley Kake
Style: Burley/Virginia
Pipe Used: Savinelli Natural #313
Price: $19.99/8oz.

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

Classic Burley Kake is a house blend created by Russ Oullette for the Habana Premium Cigar Shoppe (better known as pipesandcigars.com). This blend of various burley and Virginia tobaccos with rum, cocoa, and anise flavorings is a krumble kake and depending on how it was treated in the mail it may well be primarily ribbon-cut by the time it arrives on your doorstep. The order I received was about 25% kake and the rest had already fallen apart.

The tobacco was light to medium brown and just moist enough to hold the kake pieces together. The aroma of the unlit tobacco reminded me of classic New Orleans style bread pudding and smelled of rum-soaked raisins, vanilla, and a hint of rich chocolate.

I loaded my Savinelli Natural #313 with pieces of pre-broken tobacco, gave it a charring light and a gentle tamp, and started smoking.

From the first puff the blend reminded me of another pipesandcigars.com house blend, Butternut Burley. The tobacco had that same nutty burley base with hints of dark rum, vanilla, and maple syrup. Even the burnt caramel room aroma was the same.

Where the two tobaccos differed was in the ratios of the various flavors. Whereas Butternut Burley brings its aromatic features to the fore the Classic Burley Kake allows the tobacco to take center stage and the other flavorings serve as mere condiments. The addition of cocoa and anise flavors to the krumble kake also added some extra sweetness and a lingering tingle on the tongue that reminded me of lemongrass.

The Classic Burley Kake burned easily and never turned bitey even after some hard puffing. All that was left in the pipe was some dark ash and a bit of dottle.

This Hearth & Home blend offered up a delightful and flavorful smoke but given the fact that its little brother Butternut Burley can be had for half the cost I think I'll stick with that all too similar blend and leave the Classic Burley Kake for those times when I feel like fussing with a krumble kake.

Hearth & Home -- Anniversary Kake

Brand: Hearth & Home
Blend: Anniversary Kake
Style: Virginia/Perique
Pipe Used: Cob
Price: $19.99/8oz.

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

Anniversary Kake is a well regarded house blend created by Russ Oullette and crew at the Habana Premium Cigar Shoppe (better known in the online world as pipesandcigars.com) This Virginia/Perique (Va/Per) blend arrives as a krumble kake (don't ask me why the pipe world insists on this odd spelling) and depending on how it was treated in the post it may well be primarily ribbon-cut by the time it arrives on your doorstep. The order I received was about 25% kake and the rest had already crumbled (or is that krumbled?) apart.

The tobacco itself was medium brown in color and while not exactly damp it was very, very sticky. The aroma was top-notch and smelled of dried dates and fruit leather.

Because the blend was so goopy I decided to smoke it in a cob. The crumbled tobacco loaded easily and lit right up.

While I have a fair number of Va/Pers in my cellar I still haven't found one that really does the trick for me so I had high hopes given the almost universal praise for Anniversary Kake. Sadly, this blend failed to fully live up to my admittedly high expectations.

The flavor was nice but fairly mild and the advertised St. James Perique never really made its presence known on the palate. I'm a big Perique fan and just can't abide a VA/Per that's so lacking in the Per department. The presence of the various Virginia tobaccos was also somewhat muted and the rich sweetness I've come to expect from this leaf just wasn't there in enough force.

The room note was pretty nice and had that classic grandpa's old pipe smell that most folks seem to appreciate.

The tobacco burned well and only required a few relights along the way. It also remained bite-free and the Perique stayed fairly mellow on the tongue. Although the tobacco was sticky when I loaded the pipe it didn't leave any messy residue behind leading me to believe that no nasty artificial flavorings or preservatives were used in this blend.

Towards the end of the bowl an odd taste and smell emerged and that's when I finally realized why this blend seemed so familiar. To my palate Anniversary Kake tasted like the big brother to the classic drugstore blend Half & Half. Everything from the pouch aroma to the taste to the room note reminded me of this OTC blend. That's not a knock as I actually enjoy Half & Half but it certainly isn't at all what I expected from a Va/Per.

Anniversary Kake is a good, solid tobacco but it just didn't click for me as a VA/Per and as such my hunt for that perfect combination of sweet and spicy will continue. In the interests of fairness I gave the blend a try in both a meerschaum and a briar and while the meer seemed to make the tobacco shine the best it still just didn't impress me all that much.

Samuel Gawith -- Best Brown Flake

Brand: Samuel Gawith
Blend: Best Brown Flake
Style: Virginia
Pipe Used: Savinelli Oscar #313
Price: $26.76/16oz.

Appearance: 9
Taste: 9
Room Note: 8
Value: 10
Overall: 9

As a big fan of straight Virginias I've been purchasing tins of various blends to sample for the past few years. I figured I would have plenty of time to find my favorites and stock up but the perfect storm of further taxes looming on the horizon and the increasing scarcity of popular blends led me to do something drastic -- I purchased one pound of Samuel Gawith's Best Brown Flake even though I had never even tried the tobacco before. At just over $25 bucks it was cheaper than any of the so-called drugstore blends that come in 14oz. tins and since I've yet to be disappointed by a Sam Gawith offering I figured I would take my chances and get it while the getting was good.

The medium brown flakes arrived in a cellophane wrapped box and were quite moist. I left one flake out to dry for a few hours and cellared the rest in half pint Mason jars. The flakes looked great with various swirling birdseye patterns made up of contrasting light and dark tobaccos. The aroma was that of sweet dried fruit and fresh-cut hay with just a hint of sandalwood incense.

Normally I rub out flakes before smoking but since this one was still pliable I cut it in half, folded it up, stuffed it into my Savinelli Oscar, and sprinkled a few bits of loose tobacco on top to get things burning. My normal pipe lighter wasn't up to the task of igniting this damp flake so I turned to my trusty Zippo with pipe insert and it had no trouble with the task.

The initial flavor was that classic Virginia sweetness reminiscent of slightly burnt caramel. While lighter Virginias often taste of sweet hay the Best Brown Flake was a little more robust and had undertones of freshly roasted corn on the cob.

As the tobacco continued to smolder a bit of tingling spice began to emerge and the flavor reminded me of sesame oil and a hint of pine resin. But at no time did the prevailing sweetness abate. Rather, these other flavors served to enhance that primary Virginia attribute.

I have to admit that I was enjoying myself and smoked the pipe hard and fast but at no point did the tobacco bite or take on any off-putting flavors. It was just sheer tobacco bliss from beginning to end.

The fact that the tobacco was fairly damp did necessitate a few extra relights but the flake did burn nice and slow until the dottle got too wet to smoke any further. In the future I'll try to let it dry out a bit more before smoking.

The room note was nice and smelled of musty, leather-bound books. The smoke did have a sharp edge to it but was in no way disagreeable.

Samuel Gawith makes some of the most popular tobacco blends currently on the market and as a result it can often be difficult to locate your favorites on a consistent basis. With that thought in mind I just couldn't resist the chance to grab some Best Brown Flake at an insanely low price and boy am I glad I did.

I have a few tins of Full Virginia Flake in my cellar and while many consider that to be the penultimate Virginia flake I have to say that for a day in, day out type of smoke I actually prefer the Best Brown Flake. It provides a milder smoke without sacrificing any flavor and I can easily see myself merrily puffing it all day long which would put me under the table if tried with FVF.

Samuel Gawith's Best Brown Flake has taken its place in my list of favorite tobaccos and I still can't get over the fact that it costs less than blends like Captain Black. This is a premium, classic Virginia flake and the only question in my mind now is whether I need to buy a few more pounds post haste.

HR 4439

We knew this day was coming. The fact that pipe tobacco is being taxed at such a drastically lower rate than RYO tobacco has led many RYO producers to relabel their goods as pipe tobacco. Well the taxman isn't stupid so now they're coming after pipe tobacco in an attempt to close this loophole.

So what will this mean for you the pipe smoker? Well for starters federal taxes on a pound of pipe tobacco will jump an astonishing 775% from $2.83 to $24.78. But beyond the drastic price increase looms an even more disturbing eventuality -- the disappearance of many small tobacco producers and the loss of countless beloved blends. Very few folks are getting rich in the pipe tobacco game and the increased up-front costs associated with a new tax will put a good number of small companies out of business.

The folks over at Pipes Magazine have put together a great page full of information on how to fight this impending legislation. I encourage everyone to make use of this link and act now to protect the pipe smoking way of life in this country.