Peter Stokkebye -- Luxury Navy Flake

Brand: Peter Stokkebye
Blend: Luxury Navy Flake
Style: Virginia/Perique
Pipe Used: Savinelli Oscar #313
Price: $15.99/8oz.

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

Since I'm such a fan of Peter Stokkebye's Balkan Supreme I decided to try out some of their other well-regarded bulk blends. First up is Luxury Navy Flake -- a Virginia and Perique blend.

This tobacco arrived fairly moist so I left a flake out to dry for a few hours. The tobacco was a nice golden color and had that great sweet hay aroma shared by most quality light to medium Virginia flakes.

After letting it dry for a bit I rubbed the flake out and loaded up my Savinelli #313. The tobacco lit easily and after a quick tamp I was off and running.

The first flavor to register on my palate was the traditional molasses-like Virginia sweetness. On the scale of VAs I've tried I would place Luxury Navy Flake smack dab in the middle in terms of sweetness.

The Perique component soon made itself known when I began sneezing which is something that almost always happens when I first light up a blend containing that Louisiana weed. While Perique frequently comes across as peppery, in the case of the Luxury Navy Flake the sweet VAs tempered it so that the flavor was more reminiscent of cinnamon Red Hots. Very tasty indeed!

That wonderful combination of sweet tobacco mingled with sweet spices remained fairly consistent throughout the smoke. It reminded me a lot of Orlik Golden Sliced but instead of a citrus tang this blend had more of a mulled cider element to it.

The tobacco burned evenly and only required a few relights -- mostly due to my negligence while reading. At the end there was very little dottle and almost no moisture left in the bottom of the bowl.

I'm one of those fortunate souls who almost never has trouble with the dreaded Virginia bite so I can't really provide an authoritative decision on the tongue-burning properties of Luxury Navy Flake but it seemed to me to be a fairly subdued blend.

The room aroma was for the most part inoffensive although the Perique did add a bit of harshness at times.

While billed as a Virginia and Perique blend I thought this flake was much less stout than most VA/Pers. It was also devoid of the rum essence that is typical in traditional Navy flakes. So here we have Luxury Navy Flake -- a VA/Per and Navy flake that isn't either. What it is is a delightful medium Virginia flake with just a dusting of Perique as a tasty condiment.

I've always been frugal by nature and Peter Stokkebye's bulk tobacco blends tend to hit that perfect price to flavor ratio so when I find one I like I tend to stash a good amount of it away in the old cellar. After my first sampling of Luxury Navy Flake it's a safe bet that there will soon be some more Mason jars filled with it in my near future.