Castello Sea Rock

I smoked the entire lineup of Castello blends years ago when they started coming out. I'm told that Castello wanted a range of tobaccos that would appeal to smokers of all types of tobaccos. I do not recall the original blender but Sea Rock was released a few years ago by C&D. Nice bargain price for this tobacco which had the typical Vanilla casing in the black Cavendish. And, as is always the case with C&D, the added element was done nicely. But, the hand was firm with the mister and just proved to be too much for me. I do enjoy Vanilla in some of the blends I smoke, and this one also had other enhancements that I could not identify, but they were too much for me. I do suspect that lovers of stronger aromatics (talking enhancements and not nicotine), will appreciate this one.

Mild aromatic with a topping that reminds me of opening a box of chocolate covered cherries. I didn’t taste any cherry flavor, rather I tasted that aroma of having opened the box of choc. covered cherries, go figure. The base tobacco was present but not enough for my taste. The overall presentation reminded me of Cult Abacus, but without such a pleasant cocoa note.

Summary: a better than average quality aromatic that still obscures tobacco flavor under waves of butterscotch.

Combined from Burleys, Virginias and some Cavendish, this tobacco emerges moist but not damp from the tin. A strong tin note of butterscotch or some other sweet vanilla-infused concoction emerges. The tobacco lights easily and the butterscotch flavor dominates for the first half of the bowl, along with the oleaginous taste common to most aromatics. At that point, this blend burns down into a sweetened Virginia flavor with mild Burley nuttiness. It is well-executed, but the choices behind its execution -- aromatics that exclude the natural flavor especially -- doom this one to ruin.