John Patton Oriental Dusk

The smoky, woody, lightly sweet cigar leaf ably aids the earthy, toasted nutty burley flavor without overwhelming it. There's a light bitterness and a slight sour twang, but it works with the dry, woody, spicy Oriental, and hay, grassy, very mild citrusy Virginia, the latter forming a base for the other tobaccos to shine. The nic-hit is more toward medium than mild. This fairly complex mixture burns evenly at a reasonable pace with a cool, clean, very consistent flavor, though you may want to hydrate it just a mite. Requires few relights. Won't bite or get harsh, but I recommend a slower puffing rate. Leaves little moisture in the bowl. The after taste lingers a little. Not really an all day smoke, but it is repeatable.

-JimInks

I love this blend. It's tailor-made for a cob and I'm a cob man at heart. In a cob this is very close to being perfectly balanced with equal influence from each component. The Virginias lag just a little behind the others and that's ok; it's great as is. Nutty, earthy, woody, spicy, sour and just enough sweetness to make it work. A lovely smoke.

Mild to medium in body. Nic is medium. No added flavors. Taste is medium. Burns very well. If I cared about room note I might have to make a deduction, but I don't. 4 stars.

Based on a 1 oz sample. Chestnut brown of mostly ribbon with some bigger chunks. Tin nose of cigar up front and some oriental well to the rear. Loads and lights easily.

Hard one to rate. Quite a bit too much cigar leaf for my personal taste. It overwhelms the rest of the components, although the Turkish comes out a bit. The room note was pure cigar and the smoke from the pipe bowl was pure cigar. It was not an overly strong flavor or scent, but it was dominant. Quite a bit of nicotine in this one as well. Didn't really taste the burley, as the cigar flavor ruled the roost. I guess cigar leaf is one condiment that takes away my sense of taste for other components. I did enjoy a very old tin of Sobranie #10, so perhaps with some aging, this one might calm down a bit. Once again, YMMV may play a huge role here, as I'm talking about a single ounce of this blend. Who knows - perhaps it didn't get mixed very well in my batch. For my personal taste, 2 stars. But if you enjoy a pretty prominent cigar flavor in your blends, do not pass this one by. It's at least a 3 star blend, speaking objectively. Worth a shot if you like this sort of thing.

The description on this says that the flavors are doninated by the Turkish Izmir and cigar leaf. I don't find this to be the case. For me the various flavors come and go, first one to the front, then another. It might be that when one component leaf is burning you get that one's flavors, but whatever the reason the results are absolutley stellar. I'm a fan of Patton's blends (so long as they have very little or no Latakia, as I can't tolerate it any longer). I've been looking for the ideal combination of VA's, Perique, Turkish and cigar leaf (to me the ideal components) and even though this one lacks the Perique...it's darn near perfect. It arrives dry (thank you) and is easily packed and lit. Then as you smoke down the bowl it's very nicely managed and ends up as a clean grey powdery ash. I'm a sipper, and that smoking style works perfectly here. The flavors are bold and pronounced, making it anything but a light smoking experience...just what I look for. And the flavors are true to their component tobaccos as I can't detect any kind of flavoring. I will say, however, that just like with another favorite, Storm Front, I get a kind of apricot aroma from the wide mouthed jar when I open it...very slight, but there for sure. Well, since ALL tobaccos are cased at one point or another in their journey from field to pouch, I'm thinking that what I'm getting is the casing used on either the VA or Burley. Whatever it is, it's very nice...and I certainly can't argue with the end product. As I've gotten used to it, this has steadily risen to being in my top five blends. It appears that 4-N's is now carrying it as a regular item, which should be very good news to anyone wanting to try something solid, and a true undiscovered gem. My highest possible recommendation.

Now this is a cigar blend. Often the cigar leaf added to a blend is a nice component adding to a taste, that in the end, is really nothing like a cigar. This, to me, was very much like a cigar. Granted, I am no cigar aficionado, but I do have about 100 in the humidor and do smoke one on occasion with the friends whom I have been unable to switch to pipes.

It goes without saying that you can taste the cigar leaf. Also, there is a strong oriental presence as the name would suggest. It probably combines with the burley to give it a nice earthy background. As I said earlier, I am not a cigar aficionado, so I would put this one at 2 stars for my tastes, but this may very well hit four stars for cigar lovers. I tend to prefer the Cigar leaf as a condiment and therefore, prefer blends like storm front, Billy Budd and Habana Daydream to this one.

I am basing this review on 4 oz I have smoked. I have since bought a pound of it, so clearly I liked it more than an "oh that was interesting" way.

For me the flavor is oriental forward. The spicy, savory flavor is backed up by a robust burley/cigar leaf combo that provides a slightly dark bitter/sour foundation. The Virginia gave it a sweet note every now and then. The combination is complex and very tasty.

If you like orientals and don't mind cigar leaf, give this one a try. This is a solid 3.5 on the scale. In this camp, I think Dark Horse is more friendly in general and I rated it higher because of that. They are both rocking blends, but the volume has been turned up with Oriental Dusk,

Edit: 8/6/15 This was briefly off the market and is back. I should probably buy another pound now.

I recently purchased 4 ounces of JP's Oriental Dusk from 4noggins. Boy this stuff really blew me away.

I don't know if there is another blend out there quite like this in flavor. It has a sweet/sour/semi-bitter taste that is so close together that it's almost one flavor, but not quite. It's more like these primary flavors are on the verge of eclipsing one another. The overall result is both harmonious and a more opulent overall flavor and depth. Once truly lit and stoked up a bit, what comes forth is a lush spiciness that's subtle yet rich and somewhat potent both in aroma and on the palate.

Like with Storm Front, the cigar leaf is wonderfully represented. It plays host, laying a foundation for an array of exotic woodsy cedar & mesquite like flavors. Perhaps the most interesting flavor is this barnyard-like aroma that's intertwined with a rich melted dark chocolate tone. This aroma also permeates the unsmoked pouch aroma. I have made a lot of desserts from scratch in my time and it reminds me of melted Valrhona 66% cacao chocolate, or a high quality semi sweet Guittard. This flavor provides a base for other accent flavors that taste like a myriad of slightly different dark black pepper-like spice tones all crammed tightly together. I really couldn't dissect these spice flavors very easily, but I was more than satisfied accepting the experience for what it was and leaving it at that. Sometimes aspects of really great smokes don't need words to describe them, they're just that, Really Great. Moreover, this stuff is just plain fantastic. It's complex, powerful, densely-layered, mouthwatering, & yeah, difficult to put in words, but it's really something to behold.

How is it that this blend was unavailable (except for special order) up until recent?

Anyway, Rich at 4 noggins did a superb job blending this John Patton mixture. I only wish I could taste this blended by John himself. I only say that because this stuff really knocked my socks off. However since the latter is not possible, I'll gladly settle for another artist's (Rich's) rendition.

This is my favorite of the John Patton blends, though I’d say they are all well worth exploring. They have a distinctive style that you won’t find elsewhere, in part because of his knack for using cigar leaf in some unexpected combinations. One reason why most other blenders using cigar leaf fail (to my taste buds) is that they will use any cigar leaf indiscriminately. In my own blending cupboard I have four different types of cigar leaf, because they certainly do not all taste the same. But even if you are working with just one type, it takes a deft hand to integrate properly into a blend.

The particular variety of Turkish leaf used here really sings with the Connecticut cigar leaf, and all the ingredients as a whole seem in perfect balance to me. The first half minute always seems light and bright and a bit underwhelming to me, but after the charring light and a good tamping, the delicious flavors emerge, mostly toasted sunflower seed amplified by nuttiness from the Burleys. As I look back at my notes, the one negative I’ve found when the tobacco was still relatively fresh, was that the finish is bone dry, leaving a slight irritation at the back of my throat, and leaving me parched for a drink. This is probably just my own tasting chemistry, or the fact that I enjoy this mostly as a summer blend, so I might have been slightly dehydrated. Using a cob helped a little bit, or having a side drink at hand, but to really remedy the throat irritation issue I tried this in a 9mm pipe and the problem was taken care of as easily as that.

The 9mm filter slightly reduces some of the delicious toasted sunflower seed flavor from the top-grade Turkish, but otherwise all the flavors remain intact, with no trace of irritation. Speaking of Turkish varietals, the taste I get here reminds me of the very finest vintage Izmir and Samsun that I’ve worked with, which have a natural earthy sweetness that I don’t find in any of the stock blending Turkish tobaccos offered by Sutliff, Stokkebye, Lane, or Cornell & Diehl. Makes me wonder if John Patton had this leaf made to spec just for his use.

The Burley used here is not of the rugged variety, and the Virginias more of the sweet and gentle type, rather than savory and rich. What that means is that this may be a little light for some tastes during the colder months, but it does make for a perfect summertime blend, or even better, for those unseasonably warm Autumn days . . . the sun baking the fallen leaves, and the scent of Oriental Dusk permeating the air! For me, this has a distinctiveness and enjoyment level that propel it to four stars without question.

Finally, I will say that this blend ages wonderfully. I’ve set aside a good amount, and having just tried some that I’ve had in jar for 18 months the Virginias and top quality Turkish leaf has mellowed and melded superbly. No more dryness on the finish. I’m going to buy some more while I’m thinking about it!

From the jar, a dark and full aroma of dark dried fruits like raisins, and dark brown leather. Been told it smells like qurut or kashk.

It envelops the tongue with a medium to thick smoke, and a medium to full bodied taste of leather, dried dark fruits, and other earthy and woody notes. Not at all overwhelmingly prevalent with the cigar leaves. A really good every day smoke, that could also substitute a cigar for special occasions.

John Patton - Oriental Dusk.

The mixture isn't overly coarse, there's a few bigger leaves of tobacco, but the majority's just ribbons. It's a medium brown and slightly dry. As I've only had it cellared for one week I take no responsibility! It's not un-smokeable, though, nowhere near.

Although there's plenty of Cigar Leaf, I don't find it takes over; it seems a little more caustic for the beginning of a bowl, but calms down in good time. It goes from being astringent to having more of a strong woody taste. The Oriental doesn't seem to have been added with too light a-hand, either: this is second to the Cigar Leaf. I get a lot more Burley in comparison to the Virginia; the Va is easily the lightest addition. The burn from Oriental Dusk is a little fast, as I expected from it being a bit dry, but at least it doesn't keep going out!

The nicotine's stronger than medium, and the room-note's a little heavy.

Oriental dusk? I'm torn between two and three stars, it's not really my thing. I think I'll go with my gut feeling:

Somewhat recommended.