John Middleton, Inc Kentucky Club

(2.86)
Original Kentucky Club pipe mixture. The label on the tin reads as follows: "White Burley - recognized as a better tobacco since 1867 - makes Kentucky Club the smooth, mild, satisfying pipe smoking brand with the grand aroma. An aromatic that you, and the family too, will enjoy. "Kentucky Club's White Burley blend never tires your taste. Its delightful flavor, enjoyable taste, satisfying mildness, and grand aroma give you the greatest enjoyment in pipe smoking."
Notes: Kentucky Club was introduced in 1934 by Penn Tobacco Company of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. In 1943 The Bloch Bros. Tobacco Co. of Wheeling, West Virginia bought the company. In 1969 it was purchased by general cigar. In the late 80’s it was purchased by John Middleton Inc. of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where it was last blended.

Details

Brand John Middleton, Inc
Blended By John Middleton, Inc.
Manufactured By John Middleton, Inc.
Blend Type Burley Based
Contents Burley
Flavoring Coffee
Cut Ribbon
Packaging 2 ounce pouch, 2 ounce tin.
Country United States
Production No longer in production

Profile

Strength
Mild
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Extremely Mild -> Overwhelming
Flavoring
Very Mild
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
None Detected -> Extra Strong
Room Note
Pleasant
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Unnoticeable -> Overwhelming
Taste
Mild
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Extremely Mild (Flat) -> Overwhelming

Average Rating

2.86 / 4
9

23

5

5

Reviews

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Displaying 1 - 10 of 42 Reviews
Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Nov 03, 2008 Mild Mild Mild Pleasant
Well it?s leaf raking and winterizing season here in NE Ohio. Break out the corncob and buy some burley at the drugstore. I have Prince Albert and Sir Walter Raleigh still at the house loafing, and definitely wearing out their welcome. So, I bought some Kentucky Club to keep me company for the chores at hand. The tobaccos mentioned above have several qualities I?m looking for those being reliable taste, and easy lighting and burning. KC and SWR seem dry from the pouch as intended, whereas, PA (tub) appears moister from a higher application of humectant. The humectant on PA annoys me on the palate and by residue in the bowl. SWR is an ok smoke, but I get a vegetable (green) note to the smoke that leaves me mildly annoyed. The burley smoke of KC is simple and satisfying. I think it has a light sweet casing that tames the tobacco. It tastes pleasantly and monochromatically of burley from stem to stern, never getting bitter. It doesn?t bite. It smokes effortlessly. I sense the burley nuttiness better from KC than PA or SWR, but that is my observation. Kentucky Club doesn?t try to pretend to be any greater then what it is, a simple easy smoking straight burley.
6 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jun 10, 2002 Mild Very Mild Mild to Medium Pleasant
Kentucky Club is a nice burley for what is termed a drug store type blend. It is somewhat difficult to find however. I found a pouch in a small "smoke shop" in my home town, but it is not regularly shipped here. The cut is somewhat crimp, and the packing is easy. It was at just the right moisture level.

The burn is cool, and the quality of the leaf is surprisingly good. It tastes like just plain old tobacco--which is right up my ally. I smoked the whole pouch is just a few days and will grab another sometime on down the road.

Burley lovers, this'll please ya!
6 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Feb 26, 2018 Mild Very Mild Mild to Medium Very Pleasant
Since this is out of production, my only aim here is to encourage those of you finding a tin if this in your hoard to give it a try. I had purchased a tin each of Country Doctor, Field and Stream, Barking Dog, Granger, and Walnut back in 2005 as fall-back blends should I run out of the high end stuff for some reason, such as their being discontinued. I recently took an early retirement and not being yet eligible for full SS retirement benefits, $ is tight. I therefore find myself resorting to my emergency stash. Honestly, Kentucky Club is not a bad Burley. I had tried bulk samples of CH, SWR, PA, and KC back in 2005, slightly preferring the KC, so I bought the large can. Is this as good as a premium Burley? No, it isn't. But it's not crap, either. It's a low-key lightly cased Burley that you can fire up and enjoy with a coffee in the morning, or at any other time of day. Minimal nicotine present, which to me is its primary drawback. This is easily remedied by just a reload and repeat. It doesn't get bitter, doesn't bite (as did Granger), and is consistent in a variety of pipes. It's no longer around although there are many inexpensive bulk burleys of a similar type available from Sutliff and others.
Pipe Used: Cobs, Buescher cherrywood and applewood.
Age When Smoked: 12 years
4 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Feb 06, 2015 Mild Very Mild Mild Pleasant
This is a very pleasnt OTC, and I am sorry to see it discontinued. It is a mild and somewhat effortless smoke. It is on the burley end of the VaBur spectrum. It is not the sort of thing that requires much attention, and it smoked cool and dry for me. It is perhaps a little like a combination of Carter Hall and SWR. I get a little sweet and sour in the flavor profile, and the burley has a nutty quality. The flavors are mild and don't produce "tongue fatigue" after multiple bowls.

I suspect this blend is a relic of the past when people smoked a pipe all day and wanted basic smoking satisfaction w/o many challenges. I find this an appealing combination for smoking while I concentrate on something else and am sorry to see old stock disappear off shelves and not be restocked.
4 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Sep 04, 2009 Medium Very Mild Mild to Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
I smoke this stuff once in a while and for some reason always have some around. Nothing to go nuts about, mostly burly with what I assume passes for Virgina. The flavor is mild and you more or less have to find it. Anise maybe in the back ground? Coffee? I can't detect it. You can get a nicotine buzz from this stuff if you smoke it too fast and it will make your tongue feel like feel like a hot plate if smoked too fast. I kind of like it once in a while when I am hanging out on the deck .... it seems to repel insects.
4 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jan 15, 2009 Medium Mild Mild to Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
I love the simple American burley "drugstore blends", and this is one of my favorites. A bit monochromatic at times, but predictable and just plain "nice". I buy this by the pouch, so I'm not too sure if the tinned stuff is different (as sometimes happens). This is burley through and through. No grassy cheap virginia or candied black cavendish to mess up your palate, just nutty, creamy burley with the slightest bit of fruity topdressing (hints of berry and...melon?) that is perfectly appropriate. The flavoring doen't burn hot or goop anything up and is most noticable towards the middle of the bowl. If this brand has PG on it it is very sparingly applied as the tobacco that I buy is usually pretty dry (but not "crunchy) right out of the pouch. I find that burley's like this are somewhat neutral as I can smoke them all day long and not have my taste for other, more sophisticated tobaccos, affected later in the day.I've never noticed the room-note, but I'm sure it's sufficiently neutral not to have elicited any comments from my perpetual critic and it certainly doesn't make my car smell too "pipey" like some other blends. I smoke this and other drugstore burleys like PA, Velvet,Hickory, Rum and Maple, Granger and Carter Hall as well as Half and Half as everyday all day smokes usually in no-name briars or an armamentarium of cobs which dwell in all of my vehicles and in most of my coats as well. Not nearly as much nicotine as Granger, but certainly enough for after lunch use. I would reccomend this, and Carter Hall for anyone who is looking to experience a so-called "drugstore blend" for the first time as these two are in my opinion the smoothest and most predicatble of the bunch.

I think that the big problem with these tobaccos is that people expect big things from them and they tend to be disappointed when they don't produce an explosion of flavor or a creamy liquid cloud of smoke. These are basic american tobaccos with a long history, and they demand a slightly different philosophy that the more sophisticated blends. These are burleys, coveted for mildness and palate, always the everyday smoke of the working man rifing a trailer or taking a break from his job in the factory or drinking a pilsner...these are not the tobaccos of the aristocrat with a palate for fine wines and fancy cheese. One must smoke these slowly, preferably out of a bowl which is taller than it is wide (read-corncob), and one must always be willing to admit that the end of the bowl is at a point when there is still about 1/4 of the tobacco still unburnt in the bowl. Push it further and you get the characteristic bitter/ashy "brash" which turns many people away from these tobaccos.

Highly recommended by this reviewer.

UPDATE: 1/15/09- A bit hard to find in the pouch in my neck of the woods. Maybe I'm crazy but I like the pouch better than the tin now. Still smoke it, but have been won over by Carter Hall recently--I suspect I'll move back to Kentucky Club as the days start to warm up. Strangely, I sort of get the "coffee" flavoring thing with this blend now...used to percieve it as fruity, but now when I smell it I can't think of anything but coffee...wierd how your buds change over time...
4 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Mar 24, 2018 Mild to Medium Very Mild Mild to Medium Pleasant
Based on a little over an ounce that was gifted to me from a rather old stash, estimated to be about 15 years. Really nice deep rich tobacco aroma in the bag with the barest hint of some flavoring. Crimp cut.

This and the Mild KC makes me think that Kentucky Clubs are the finest OTC's that John Middleton or pretty much anyone in the U.S ever produced (barring the Edgeworths). This gave off a rich, nutty flavor, full of oats and grains in just the right combination. Very cereal-like and reminded me of the Fortified Oat Flakes I used to eat as a kid, with just that hint of sweetness. Coffee flavoring? Well...ok. I didn't really recognize it as coffee but now that I read it here as the flavoring, I suppose I can see it. For me, it was just a slight sweetener and smoother-outer, not that I could see the blend needed it. The leaf quality appeared excellent and this was just a very simple smoke that punched the right buttons on flavor. This blend flirts heavily with 4 stars, missing by the barest of margins. Measured against the American OTC's that remain...SWR, PA, CH, Granger, H&H, etc... this one is head and shoulders above the mundane. If it were still available, I'd be all over this one. I wonder if Russ Ouelette can make a clone of this one....
3 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Mar 01, 2014 Mild to Medium Extremely Mild Mild to Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
A nice if basic and straightforward blend; old fashioned? perhaps, but sometimes basic is best. I don't detect any 'coffee' topping, but it lights easily, keeps going, and smokes without a trace of bite. It's one of the basic blends I recommend for those new to the pipe. As the ads from the 1940s proclaim, 'Good ol' Kentucky Club'!
Pipe Used: various briars and a cob
PurchasedFrom: Milan Tobacco
Age When Smoked: new
3 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Dec 14, 2012 Extremely Mild Very Mild Mild Pleasant
I am a diehard C&D English blend smoker who rarely smokes any aromatic and more rarely reviews them; it seems a waste to offer a negative opinion about a blend style one does not like to start with.

However, someone gave me a pouch of this and I have tried it a few times over the past two weeks in a MM cob and find it to be pleasant as far as an OTC goes - smokeable.

If the flavoring is coffee I must take that as a given because I could not otherwise discern what the flavor is. It is so light that I must over-stoke the bowl to get a tobacco taste at all and then I come away with a slight celery(?) aftertaste and an overheated pipe. But if I was caught in a motel in a town with no real tobacconist I might as easily pick up a pouch of this as I would Carter Hall to get through the night.

Personal rating of two stars, but I am guessing three for those who like this style.
3 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jun 19, 2010 Very Mild Mild to Medium Mild to Medium Pleasant
There's something very honest to this fair-priced tobacco: it is a tobacco blend that holds very few surprises which, in the daily life of a pipe smoker, can be quite comforting. For better or worse, you can smoke a full tin of it for the period of weeks and never get anything else but what the tobacco initially offers: a fine taste of burley that isn't exaggeratively sweet; a mild but noticeable taste of coffee grain; and a room-note that is very discrete.

No nuances, no unpleasant surprises, no relighting hardship; only a tobacco that can be smoked pleasurably both indoors and outdoors and in any small to medium sized bowl regardless of the shape. Pipe smoking needn't always be complex or exotic; in that sense, Kentucky Club has somewhat of a homely feel to it.

(http://thedailypuffer.tumblr.com/)
3 people found this review helpful.
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