Puff Daddy
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2007
- Messages
- 6,910
- Reaction score
- 98
I had my schnozz buried deep in the jar, breathing in the rich, smokey sweet aroma. Silky, toasted and slightly sugared, the aroma carried me into an olfactory out of body voyage to open oak casks of barley brew on an Islay seashore. Only I'd never been to Islay and I wasn't smelling scotch, I was in California and I had my face buried in a mason jar filled with Stokkebye English Oriental Supreme tobacco. But, I made that connection, I recognized the archetypal smellification, I'd known it before. Looking over at my bookshelf I spotted the familiar vessel that had recently provided me that same experience, A bottle of Finlaggin single malt Scotch, a peaty smoke bomb reputed to be 6 year old Lagavulin. I poped the cork from the bottle and breathed deeply, there it was. Barley sugar, peat smoke, dusty but clean, smokey but sweet. Same sensations coming from both glass vessels. I kept moving my sniffer back and forth between the two, they were brothers, they bore the same resemblance.
So off I go to the patio with the pair, a Glencairn glass with three fingers of the peaty elixir and a small Irish rhodesian stuffed with the smokey leaf. On the palate the whiskey presents instant smoke and ample barley sugar, it's presence is clean and it lingers in a friendly manner. The tobacco is said to contain a Mexican burley along side a less dominant Virginia base and a portion of latakia that is a bit subdued, all rounded out by a smoothing dose of black cavendish. As with the liquid, the smoke from the pipe is dusty and sweet, smooth, smokey but not intrusive. Brothers indeed.
I almost didn't try either of these because I feared they would be cheap knock offs of the real thing. Cheap they are, in price, but not in quality. Bargains is what they are. The bottle set me back only $18, a true deal for a single malt, a steal for something this damned good! The tobacco, under $30 dollars a pound. Unheard of, a smoke this good at that price. It's cousin, Balkan Supreme, gets all the attention. I'd say this English Oriental is the finer of the two. Yes, a little more tame, less in your face, a bit sweeter, but so much more enjoyable.
Does the tobacco taste like scotch? No. Don't run out and buy it thinking it tastes like whiskey. But, it shares certain qualities with a dusty sweet smokey single malt. It's absolutely worth your attention if such things please you.
So off I go to the patio with the pair, a Glencairn glass with three fingers of the peaty elixir and a small Irish rhodesian stuffed with the smokey leaf. On the palate the whiskey presents instant smoke and ample barley sugar, it's presence is clean and it lingers in a friendly manner. The tobacco is said to contain a Mexican burley along side a less dominant Virginia base and a portion of latakia that is a bit subdued, all rounded out by a smoothing dose of black cavendish. As with the liquid, the smoke from the pipe is dusty and sweet, smooth, smokey but not intrusive. Brothers indeed.
I almost didn't try either of these because I feared they would be cheap knock offs of the real thing. Cheap they are, in price, but not in quality. Bargains is what they are. The bottle set me back only $18, a true deal for a single malt, a steal for something this damned good! The tobacco, under $30 dollars a pound. Unheard of, a smoke this good at that price. It's cousin, Balkan Supreme, gets all the attention. I'd say this English Oriental is the finer of the two. Yes, a little more tame, less in your face, a bit sweeter, but so much more enjoyable.
Does the tobacco taste like scotch? No. Don't run out and buy it thinking it tastes like whiskey. But, it shares certain qualities with a dusty sweet smokey single malt. It's absolutely worth your attention if such things please you.
