Esoterica Penzance

[Alyks]

Originally Posted by Alyks

This stuff is awesome! It's my favorite. I can't smoke it everyday, though. It overpowers my palate. I smoke it on special ocassions.

Interesting how tastes change in just a few short months. I cannot smoke any blend which has more than a hint of latakia now.

[Samsonite]

I just had my very first bowl of Penzance. I rubbed it out loosely because it was too crumbly to try the stuff method. I gravity fed the crumbles and then pressed down a bit.

I must say, I really enjoyed it. It stayed lit fairly well, had almost no tongue bite, and tasted great. Although I can't discern the nuances of tobaccos, as long as I enjoy what I'm smoking, I'm happy.

I do recommend it for anyone that is a fan of Englishes, despite my slim experience.

[Mister Moo]

Originally Posted by Alyks

Interesting how tastes change in just a few short months. I cannot smoke any blend which has more than a hint of latakia now.

Poor fellow. Send me your leftovers?

[paperairplane]

Agreed Moo, I jumped on the Vaper wagon hard... have since moved to english/oriental.

I have been thinking some 965 with my LNF might be the ticket.

[Mister Moo]

Originally Posted by paperairplane

Agreed Moo, I jumped on the Vaper wagon hard... have since moved to english/oriental.

I have been thinking some 965 with my LNF might be the ticket.

Penzance is one of the benchmark blends for me. Sweet, smokey, easy, a bulk bargain.

[Senator]

Originally Posted by Mister Moo

Penzance is one of the benchmark blends for me. Sweet, smokey, easy, a bulk bargain.

+1

I would add "creamy" and "smooth" to your description. Like a strong coffee with lots of cream. Yummy!

[pro2625]

I bought a tin of penzance and love it! Very complex....In my top 3

[GregoryD]

My favorite pipe tobacco. Smoking it is like sipping a well aged Ashton Aged Maduro.

Also, it becomes much easier to detect cooked cigar wrappers after having smoked enough pipe tobacco with latakia in it. The flavors just SCREAM cooked sometimes. Rocky Patel Double Maduro cigars, I'm looking squarely at you.

[petewho]

reading this again, and now I can't wait to crack into my tin of Penzance! might be a while because I have two open tins of English going right now, and I seem to be on a VA/Per kick at the moment

[Zeabed]

I liked it so much when first introduced to it last month that I bought 12 tins (no bulk orders) so I can smoke it in the way I like it. It's like no other tobacco I've tried, and I've smoked a lot of English blends.

[laney1566]

My favorite tobacco to smoke, but the wife's least favorite to smell. Amazing how they create such a deep full flavor that smokes sooooo cooool!!

[Zodduska]

I'm still on the fence about Penzance.. I did get some interesting reactions from letting people smell the mason jar in which it lives, my girlfriend ran out of the room and a co-worker reeled back with a "woah" then commented that it smelled like an electrical fire.

[Mister Moo]

Originally Posted by Zodduska

...it smelled like an electrical fire.

I always think creosote. It never tastes or produces a room note like creosote but it sure smells like it in the tin.

[SmokinJohnny]

A tin is en route via 4 noggins. From the Balkan like descriptions here, can hardly wait. A tin of Old Ironsides lasted 4 days.

[blackcalx]

After my first tin of Penzance I was ready to crown it my life-long favorite blend. The aroma in the tin, the greasy paper liner, the crumbling flakes and the way I could still taste it days later - it was heaven packed in briar. But something happened between that first tin and large package that replaced it. We had a falling-out, I guess, and it felt like something was missing. Perhaps it was because I was so used to Dunhill's Nightcap as my go-to English tobacco, or perhaps it was the pipe I chose to dedicate to Penzance, but to make a long story short I gave three quarters of my 8oz package of Penzance away and went back to Nightcap.

Having tried Penzance some months later, along with a number of similar blends (Seattle Pipe Club's Plum Pudding, for example) I have been unable to recapture the thrill that the first tin gave me. I understand why people love it, I just wish I still could.