Orlik Dark Strong Kentucky Pipe Tobacco Reviews

The name might be intimidating, but it's nothing to be afraid of unless you only smoke very mild tobaccos. This is a designer tobacco if there ever was one: it comes in blackish-brown slices, each of which bears a wide medium-brown stripe running down the middle.

A strong caramelized-sugar aroma exudes from the tin and you wonder which pipe to smoke this in, thinking that perhaps this is a highly flavored tobacco. Any confusion is resolved when you light up and are greeted with a pure, semi-sweet tobacco taste.

That burnt caramel scent does translate into flavour and it never completely disappears, but it lingers discreetly in the background. The smoke is spicy and creamy, with a quiet richness that recalls a gutsy cavendish, or perhaps a light Virginia.

It's not a really complex smoke, but interesting nuances of dark chocolate and roasted nuts do develop while smoking. Of course, the flavour becomes more concentrated deeper in the bowl, but it also takes on a fullness - and sometimes a mellowness - that was absent at light-up.

This blend contains no latakia, but its satisfying depth of flavour reminds me more of a light-to-medium English mixture than anything else. It tastes rather dark and a little spicy overall, and it can pick up a stout, bitter quality if I smoke it in a large pipe. Best of all, there's not much bite in this medium-strength blend, just a pleasant tanginess.

If you find your favorite cavendish blend a little bland or unsatisfying at times, this is worth a try. I also suspect that many Virginia and English-blend smokers might enjoy this. It leaves a light-grey ash in the pipe, an irresistible, sweet taste on the moustache, and a pleasantly musty, classic-pipe-aroma scent in the room.