A new tobacco from Peterson,anyone tried it yet?

Winslow

I've smoked a single bowl, but I think this one's a winner.

It's a true plug, so be ready to cut and then rub.

It smells strongly like a virginia, but the smoke isn't quite as sweet. I think the burley in it absorbs and mellows the sweetness and bite that can accompany virginia tobaccos. Overall a very balanced, pleasant smoke that burned down to the bottom.

Cheers!

First impressions:

It is a true plug. Opening the tin, I find inside a small dark cube much smaller than the tin, which is sealed inside clear plastic wrapping, like a piece of candy. The plug is approx. 1-1/2"x1-3/4"x3/4", very dense and hard, and looks like a piece of particle board that has been soaked in a dark wood stain.

It smells great: raisins, figs, and hay.

I can easily shave off some very thin slices with my pocket knife. The texture is similar to GH Dark Plug - somewhat gummy. It is easily rubbed out into smaller pieces, and I place it under a lowered desk lamp for only a couple of minutes, to give it a slight drying.

Loaded into a medium half-bent Sasieni I usually use for CH, I fire it up. The initial flavor from the charring light is a promising VA tang.

Tamping and relighting, though, results in a modest burleyish-with-something-in-the-background flavor. There is some sense of body to it, but it is neither full-flavored nor light and toasty; instead, it just seems to be a consistently in-between monochromatic smoke. I can tell there is burley there, any VA completely eludes me, but there is also a somewhat unpleasant component haunting the flavor.

There is some scratchiness in the back of my throat, somewhat like GH Dark Flake does to me, and the room note strikes me as a funky combination of the room note of burley and black rope.

It burns amazingly well, and is easily sipped. I stop a couple of times, and relight and it continues on as before, with - alas - that same kind of unimpressive monochromatic in-between flavor. I get no more VA tang, no nuances. As a regular smoker of high-nico blends, I can notice that this one definitely has some strength.

In the end, I'm left somewhat disappointed. It is so easily prepared, and burns so well, I want to like it. But for me it lacks any kind of desirable flavor. It may be that it doesn't agree with my chemistry - that's the sense I get. I suspect this may be steamed some, like black rope, and that is what is off-putting to me, as is the case with black rope. Or, perhaps it it the casing they use. (The tin says: "The tobaccos are lightly cased before drying and pressing and are then heated and stored for 2 weeks before cutting.")

I've still got the rest of the tin, and I'll give it a try another day; but, at this point, I'm sadly not a fan.

I think it's pretty good stuff. Like a slightly stronger version of Best Brown flake. In the tin it has a faint scent like Irish Flake, but that doesn't really come though in the smoke for me. Makes my mouth water a lot and generates clouds of smoke. I find plenty of sweetness in the blend. Kind of one dimensional, sure, but in a good way. It does shave off the block nicely with a good knife. A little rub and I lightly packed the bowl. Didn't bother with any drying. There is a flavor, probably from the burley, that reminds me of some of the Gawith blends. I like it a lot.