Orlik – Dark Kentucky

October 2010 Nottingham Pipe Club Meeting. (2nd Tobacco)

Blended in : Denmark
Contains : Kentucky & Mature Virginia
Cased/Top : None
Pipe : Parker – Shell Briar (Dunhill Reject)

This tobacco looks a little like a sandwich, and a mighty fine sandwich at that. The Kentucky acts like the crusty bread while the mature Virginia is the Cheese, Ham and Crisps!(yes that’s right a REAL SANDWICH!) The flakes are a little stuck together, but have a wonderful non cased tobacco aroma. Rubbing out was easy, so I ended up with a fine easy to fill tobacco.

As soon as lit this tobacco I was like being hit by a bull…BAM! (or as Elliott put it, a Nuclear bomb in your mouth) Such a rich Kentucky flavour, this did subdue after the first few draws. The remainder of the first half of the bowl was a very Smokey almost char grilled smoke, with a lemony/grassy aftertaste. The tobacco burnt very slowly! But easily not too many relight even for a tobacco this dark!

The second half was a little of a let down, the initial blast of strong and rich Kentucky subdued a lot!. It became difficult to really detect anything in the smoke. I could taste a little sweet lemony Virginia, but that’s about. Calling it just smoke doesn’t really sound right, buts its very close. The smoke still packed a punch with the nicotine which made me keep going.  I thought the bowl was gone, it went out a little easily. A few pokes about and a relight, but still couldn’t get it going again. After tamping the ash out, there was still a packed third of a bowl left. Didn’t want to relight, so I just assumed it was done.

Dark Kentucky like any budget firework, is all shout to start with then fizzles out to nothing. That initial blast of Kentucky really took me by surprise, Elliott commented on it being a little like a nuclear bomb going off. It seemed to become bland and almost flavourless. Packed a decent hit of nicotine too. I am not letting it go at that, im going to go back to this later. Maybe tactical packing could help, im going to separate the Kentucky and Virginia and layer (Virginia at the top, mixed Virginia and Kentucky in the middle and just the dark stuff in the bottom).