Park-Lane Tobacconist Old Church

If this tobacco were a person, it would be Winston Churchill: round, heavy, serious, and profoundly present. The excellent quality Latakia is featured, but the other ingredients contribute, nicely. The blend burned with no heat and no bite--great stuff, indeed.

A couple of puffs of OC put this Park Lane up there with some of my English Favorites.

Rich, sophisticated, complex and completely delicious. The addition of Smyrna really does it for me - while the additional tobaccos are perfectly balanced.

The interesting thing about this blend is that it is an English that teeters on the English/Balkan fence at different times. Sometimes it tastes like a Balkan but without the rough taste - while at others it tastes like an elegant English.

Some blends are just lip smackin' good and this is one of them.

I have had pretty good results with many of the Park Lane house blends, both English and aromatic. Old Church is another solid English offering from Paul Bonacquisti. What makes OC stand out a bit more for me verses some of the others is the addition of the Smyrna along with some standout Virginias. While OC is on the fuller side, the Latakia is more balanced than some of the other Park Lane English blends. The Latakia is still a dominate flavor, but restrained enough to allow the other tobaccos to play in the sandbox. The Perique adds a bit of a pepper note, but it isn’t overly spicy . The Virginias offer a bit of sweet to Old Church too. I tend to like tobaccos on the dry side, and for me, the drier the better with OC, but your results may vary. What keeps OC from being a four star blend for me is the bottom forth of the bowl, where I find it to become a bit acrid. But this wouldn’t keep me from buying more.

I found this to be a very enjoyable English blend.Packs well and burns great with no bite. As with blends that have orientals this requires some drying.Half-way into the bowl the spice of the perique started up and kept me from that final star.

I was introduced to this fine blend at a New York/Newark Pipe Show, where PaulB was displaying his magnificent pipes and showing off his wonderful blends. I had some familiarity with Park Lane's Latakias and was much taken with their blending style.

I'm in the process of a 3 yr mission to define my Top100 blends to cellar. Most of the cellar consists of Englishes and Balkans and although I have stashed lifetime supplies of my favorite Dunhills and some Balkan Sobranie, a major focus has been to seek out replacements for them.

Well, with the first puffs, Old Church instantly leaped into my Top5, potentially sidelining H&H Larry's Blend and Timm's London Blend No. 1000. The smyrna makes this more of a Balkan than an English, and the full, very accessible tastes and creamy mouth feel drew my complete attention. The tastes develop entrancingly as the bowl progresses, and yet OC is very balanced, never developing sharp edges. I ordered a pound to age in several jars to see what ageing contributes to the equation, but unlike some other favorites, at this point my OC does not taste juvenile or young.

Before I update this with a more granular review, I need to try OC in other substrates, especially meerschaum, olivewood and morta. I'll also run it through different shaped and sized bowls to see what I can discover. I'm trying to learn how to differentiate OC from some of the other Park Lane Luxury series and blends like Excalibur and An Aperitif. Hard work, but someone has to do it.

In summary, OC is a great medium to strong blend for the Latakiaphile, and might become an all dayer for me.

hp les