Visceraman1 - Joshua Lopez

It's really not fair for me to write a review of this blend, I'm not going to be even remotely objective. Early in my piping days, I had read numerous positive statements about this blend, and was curious to try it. It was actually the first Cherry Blend I encountered. I was looking forward to getting a bit, and even though the TInderbox managed to exhibit their less than appealing customer service, i secured some. A brief description reads:

"Freshly fragrant and cool smoking with a natural fruity and nutty flavoring, for a delightfully sweet, yet light taste"

Upon smelling the pouch, I picked immediately picked up both the cherry and the almond flavorings. The almond was more of an almond extract aroma, not a handful of nuts aroma. I reached into the moist (quite moist) bag, and loaded away.

Yes, yes there was cherry, and there was almond in the smoke, and yes it creamed around the palette nicely, but then it hit my teeth like a gob of candy. I have one of the smallest sweet tooths out there, and this blend quickly overpowerd that tooth. Determined to work through this and give it a fair shake, I tried a few more bowls throughout the next weeks, and just couldn't keep the pipe going. Way too sweet for this guy. For others, perhaps a pleasant public blend.

(Later I did add some Captain Black White to the bag to tame the sweetness (if possible). It helped take the edge off, but still wasn't something I wanted to smoke.)

Posted by Joshua at 11:43 AM | Permalink

As is their custom here in town, the TInderbox staff went out of their way to ensure I had a negative experience the day I bought this. Even though it wasn't quite what I was after that day, it wasn't a bad blend, and I set it aside so that the experience of the store didn't weigh in too heavily in my opinion of the blend.

Carried under their "Traditional English" blends, Connoisseur is described as

"A medium to full flavored English style mixture. Burley based with an ample amount of Latakia. Slow burning, flavorful and uniquely satisfying. Blended for the true connoisseur"

It's chock full of, and comprised of probably 50% Cyprian Latakia, so the campfire is definitely the star of the blend here. I think the blend is a bit on the moist side. It takes a bit for it to light evenly for me, but once it is, it does burn nice and slow. The mouth and notes of the blend lend themselves to late Fall/early Winter. I let the pouch get hot, which increases the moisture, and doesn't dry it out. Propylene Glycol? It wouldn't surprise me given the origination of the blend, I'll have to really force it to dry out in the future.

Posted by Joshua at 11:32 AM | Permalink

Amaretto? But where? Oh such a disappointment to be sure! I'm a sucker for just about anything Amaretto, so when I stumbled across the bulk container of it at the Tinderbox, I was sure I had scored one hell of a deal. I did, but only in the sense that it was cheap. Barely a glimmer of Amaretto did I detect in this Cavendish blend. Truly a disappointment. I was so angry with the Amaretto that I dumped the rest of it into the batch of Cherry Almond that I couldn't stand just to see what would happen. Finally, the Amaretto did something, it cut the too sweet feeling of the Cherry Almond by about half (still not a comfortable, daily smoke). Now, I didn't feel like I wasted my money.

Posted by Joshua at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)