A few days ago I walked into one of my favorite cigar shops that had very recently moved into a new location. While I usually go there to sit and enjoy a good cigar in their lounge, this time I was specifically looking to see what tinned pipe tobacco they had available.
I wasn’t surprised by the variety of pipe tobacco they had on display. I was surprised by the fact that the tins looked like they had gotten lost in a storeroom and only found when the shop relocated. The price tags were yellowed from smoke and most of the tins had noticeable rust spots on them. While not all of the tins had date stamps, some of them did. And since the conditions of the tins were all about the same, I feel I can safely infer that they had all been there about the same length of time.
Some of the Ashton tins had date stamps for 2010 & 2011 on them. The rest didn’t have visible date stamps at all. They had some Peterson blends that were even older – with some dates stamps going as far back as 2005. (That would have been the pre-Katarina part of 2005). That made their pipe tobacco “store-aged” and not old.
I checked carefully, looking for signs that the tins had been previously opened and decided on two Ashton’s and two Petersons. The Ashton Rainy Day didn’t have a date stamp and the tin looked relatively new compared to the others. The Ashton Winding Road tin looked older; had a smoked stained price tag and a lot of tiny rust spots on the outside. The one I picked up didn’t have a date stamp but ones that did were dated in 2010. Both of the Petersons I bought had date stamps that were located under the “Warning: This product contains…”tobacco warning labels. By carefully peeling the warning label off, I found the Old Dublin stamped with 0406 and the Sweet Killarney stamped with 0605.
For the past couple of days, I have – like a kid in a candy store – been looking at the tins and trying to decide which one to open first. It wasn’t an easy choice to make.
I rolled the dice, flipped a coin, shut my eyes and reached into the desk drawer and grabbed a tin…. I picked the Ashton Winding Road.
I first tried just twisting the lid open but it wouldn’t budge. Then I put a quarter under the lip and twisted it. I was rewarded with that wonderful sound of the vacuum releasing that told me the seal had been intact. Everything also looked like you would expect it when opening a new tin, so I felt it had indeed just been sitting somewhere for three or four years.
The tobacco felt a little drier than I expected, but this is the first tin of Ashton’s I’ve ever opened so I really have nothing to base that on. It has a nice, sweet fruity aroma but it’s not cloying. The description on the lid reads, “A mellow mixture designed to bridge the gap between aromatic and English style blends. Comprised of golden and dark brown Virginia with a sprinkling of Black Cavendish, this excellent blend bears a natural fragrance accompanied by subtle notes of caramel and apricot.”
I pulled out enough for a bowl full and let it air dry some more while I went to the tobaccoreviews.com and read some of the reviews. There were only 21 reviews and it had an average of 2.3 out of four stars. Seven reviewers gave it one star, four gave it four stars and the remainders were split between 2 and 3 stars. This left me wondering if I should have just passed on this blend.
To be fair to the blend, I loaded it into a new MM Legend. Did the light, tamp, light routine and it stayed lit. Smoked the entire bowl without having to reach for a match again. I like that in a tobacco. It packed easily, lit easily and it burned fairly slow. It was a cool smoke and I had no tongue bite. It was mostly a mild flavor with just some sweetness, a little pepper. The nicotine did start to build towards the bottom of the bowl. I can’t really comment on room note because I was sitting outside with a cup of black coffee when I smoked it this morning. It does go good with a medium roast coffee.
I know that one-third of the reviews I read had a low opinion of Winding Road when they tried it. Everyone has different tastes in what they are looking for in a good pipe tobacco. I am also beginning to learn that when it comes to tinned tobacco, aging the tobacco for any length of time has the potential to improve it. Since I am fairly certain that the tin is at least three years old, then my experience with it may be a result of the age of the tobacco. I will buy another tin down the road and see how it compares.
