Wessex Curly Block

The Virginias are very earthy, bready and woody with a fair amount and variety of sweet fermented flavors: brown sugar, tangy dried and ripe dark fruits, light tart and tangy citrus, some floralness and stewed dark fruit as well as a little grass.They are the lead components. The perique is spicy, raisiny, figgy, and plumy with date overtones as a secondary player. The fermentation process enhances the inherent properties of the tobaccos and creates a harmonious mostly smooth, well balanced, deeply rich sweet, floral, spicy flavor from the first puff to the last. The strength and nic-hit are medium. The taste level is a step past the medium mark. No chance of bite or harshness, though it does have a few light rough edges. No dull or weak spots. Curly Block reminds me very much of the Murray’s version of Dunhill Deluxe Navy Rolls, except that this is sweeter and just a little smoother, with a shade less perique, and slightly higher floral note. Both have a touch of licorice, prune and plum toppings, too. The block (not plug) of tobacco will take some time to slice and prepare to your personal specifications. It’s moist and some may want to dry it first, though I find it works fine as it is, providing it’s packed a little loosely in the bowl. Burns cool, clean and very slow, requires some relights, and leaves very little moisture in the bowl if packed with care, so I suggest a little patience for the full experience of what it has to offer. Though you may have to stir the bottom ten percent just a little if you don’t use a wide bowl, you can smoke it all up. The after taste will pleasantly linger as will the lightly stronger room note. Not an all day smoke, but it is repeatable.

Update 10-5-2020: As STG has changed the formula, I am posting a review of this version. The fermented Virginias provide a fair amount of tangy ripe dark fruit, a lot of earth, bread, and wood, mild sugar, some stewed dark fruit, mild tart and tangy citrus with some grass, a little floralness, spice, and very light acidity. They are the lead components. The very nutty, earthy, woody, lightly spicy and floral, moderately rugged, bold burley plays a strong support role, though its effect varies at times and virtually equals the Virginias at its peak. The perique is spicy, raisiny, figgy, and plumy with date overtones is a secondary player with a lesser effect than it had in the original production. Has a touch of licorice, prune and plum toppings, though they don’t sublimate the tobaccos. The strength and nic-hit are medium. The taste level is a step stronger. No chance of bite or harshness, and has few rough edges. The block will take some time to slice and prepare to your personal specifications. It’s moist and needs some dry time. Well balanced, it burns cool, clean and slow with a fairly consistent, deeply rich sweet, nutty, floral, spicy flavor that extends to the long lingering, pleasant after taste. The room note is a notch stronger. Requires some relights, and leaves very little moisture in the bowl if packed with care, and dried a mite. Unlike the previous manufacture, this can be an all day smoke. Three and a half stars.

-JimInks

In a way, this is how Escudo or Dunhill's DeLuxe Navy Rolls must look before cutting the tobacco into coins.

Made by Mac Baren, you'll get a beautiful 250 g solid block of pipe tobacco rope, deliciously effusing a sweetish scent of freshly cut grass or hay, brown bread and fruity notes of dried figs, raisins, dates or prunes with a certain acidity in the background. Moisture level is perfect and will bear up for quite a while. This tobacco also ages extremely well.

Preparing this one for smoking is a challenge! You'll either need a very sharp knife in order to cut two or three thin slices, depending on the size of your bowl, which you can rub out or fold and stuff or cross cut, each method giving you a slightly different smoking experience. Or you use a plug cutter, which nowadays is very hard to come by, or an electric bread cutter, which might infuriate your wife. However, both will make handling the curly block much easier, enabling you to create nice DIY curly flakes. (If you can get your hands on a vintage Danish RAADVAD bread slicer, it'll do the job just perfectly.)

It takes a thorough charrling light, tamping down and leveling out the ashes, and an equally thorough true light to get the tobacco burning evenly when using the fold and stuff method, which I personally prefer. After that it burns down evenly without much hassle.

Like any Va/Per, this tobacco needs to be enjoyed with leisure and care, because smoking it too hot might burn your tongue and it'll render the smoke indifferent. A re-light is better than that. However, smoked slowly and coolly it'll reward you with a complex taste offering a natural, grassy, tangy sweetness from the Virginias as well as distinct fruity notes and a spicy acidity from the Perique. Nicotine level is fairly high. It burns down leaving only a little moisture and some dark gray ash with a few little charred tobacco crumbles.

The room note is dominated by the rich and sweet natural tobacco scent of the Virginias.

I just love this tobacco. Any fan of Escudo or DLNR should try it.

I just recently finished my supply of this blend, that was a pretty healthy sample sent to me by a friend in Germany. This is a really good VaPer that compares quite favorably to Escudo, IMO. The Virginias are very sweet and the perique is light, but is detectable. I would be just as happy smoking this as I would either DDNR or Escudo, but it is so similar that It really isn't worth the effort to obtain IMO, as the others can be so easily obtained here.

In any case, it gets four stars, without a doubt, as would any VaPer that compares favorably to Escudo or DDNR.

This is a bit of a novelty for me as I've never seen a rope this big in diameter. It's like an oversized chub of sausage. The outer "skin" makes it look like a king sized slim jim. Pretty cool.

I used a ceramic knife to carve off a few narrow discs and let it dry a good while. It takes a few lights to get going, but burns very well after that. Wonderful flavors here. An array of dark fruit flavors with a fair amount of sweetness and spice. To my taste, I get roughly equal amounts of flavor from the Virginias and Perique. This is not my favorite VaPer, but it's close to the top. It's a first class smoke.

Mild to medium in body. Medium in taste. No added flavorings.

Got a generous sample of this on my last visit at Peter Heinrichs shop in Bergheim. The rope is very thick (~4cm in diameter) and in dark-red and brown colors, with black leafs interlaced.

It has a wonderful, natural unburnt aroma of dried- and stoved-fruits, some spice and sweetness. After an hour of dryin it lit up very well and immediatly I got greeted by a classical, classy and stout Va/Per aroma. Lots of fine Virginia flavor, varying from stoved, dark fruits to grassy and hay-ish qualities are underscored by a decent Perique-Pepper and tangy spiciness, as well as the Periques signature fig, plum and raisin aroma. It reminds me quite a bit of Motzeks Hallo Twist and - to me - Curly Block is as close as you can get to the old "Motzek Strang", it's quite similar imho!

Curly Block is not overly sweet and rather boldly spicy with an opulent taste profile. A very full tasting experience that has some pleasant fermented qualities to it as well. Not too complex, but solid as rock in its qualities. The Perique is easily noticeable, but never in an overwhelming way, yet it can tickle your nostrils in retrohale by times. I like it a lot!

**Edit:** The new description mentions burley in the mix, which I don't taste as such (like, I don't get a nutty quality out of it), but which explains the rich, full-bodied taste and smoke this tobacco offers! Also they say there's only very little Perique, yet the rope itself has quite a bit of black tobacco leaves in it, which leads me to belive there might be some black cavendish (albeit if so, certainly unsugared I'd guess) involved as well. Anyhow, I revisited this tobacco today... it's wonderful! Spicy, sweet, natural, bold and yet so smooth.

...Quite a good VAPER...manufactured by MacBaren for Peter Heinrichs and as stated in a prior review, " Curly Block reminds me very much of the Murray’s version of Dunhill Deluxe Navy Rolls, except that this is sweeter and just a little smoother, with a shade less Perique..." One of the real positives is that I can control the cut and packing...which for me, allows a much more enjoyable experience.

A solid performer and an all-day smoke for many...I've tried a variety of packing methods and prefer the "fold & stuff"...although almost any method works well. Taste varies with the size of the cut...thinner slices produce a more full flavor and taste and reduce the number of re-lights...

Highly recommended and is already one of my favorites!

Curly Block is a hidden treasure I’m happy to have stumbled upon. This tobacco is the reason I say Virginia’s are my favorite blend type. The preparation of this tobacco is no easy task requiring a lot of extra work before smoking, but don’t let that scare you away because the reward far outweighs the cost. A good smoke to have at the end of a day or a lazy Sunday afternoon. However it should be noted that this is a stronger tobacco, if you’re an occasional smoker you most definitely will catch a nicotine buzz which can lead to nicotine sickness if not smoked with care.

Well isn't this a fun tobacco! Disclaimer: I am a sucker for plug and flake tobacco. I like to picture myself in the rigging of an old Navy vessel with a plug of my favorite tobacco that has to last me to the next port. Part of the experience. That said, I am still getting acquainted with this one and probably need more looks in different pipes to get to really unlock what is going on here, but I think I am ready for a review. Pouch note is very reminiscent of Parliment cigarettes to me for some reason. this is odd for several reasons: I never smoked cigarettes, Most of the people I know that do smoke Marlboro red or lights and finally it has been more than 30 years since I last took a whiff from my friends unsmoked pack of Parliments. Nice pouch note but nothing remarkable for me. Taste is interesting. I will probably sound like a loon, given the other reviews I have read on here but I don't find this to be anything at all like Escudo or Dunhill Navy Rolls. I would also say that the Burley is undeniably present in the taste from first lite to last puff. The first time I smoked this I immediately thought of Germain Brown Flake, a first class VaBur. This blend is earthy, dark, musty (in a good way), mildly peppery with very subtle hints of what might be described of stewed dark fruits. I find myself in an odd position, I cannot really tell which leaf is the premier flavor, the Burley or Virginia. I assume the flavors are coming from the dominant VA leaf, but it is tough for my pallet to discern. The Perique is almost unnoticeable, only the tingle on the retrohale insists on its presence. The peppery flavor is most likely coming from the LA leaf, but it is very lightly applied. I know this is marketed as a VaPer, but I respectfully disagree. At best it is a VaBurPer, at worst this is a really nice VaBur. This does require some significant dry time to get it to burn well. Another surprise to me was that unlike most VA and VaPer blends, this does not perform best in a Meerschaum (my preferred pipe for VA blends). I found it best in a briar or cob...briar is inching out the cob for me at the moment. Very pure, honest no BS tobacco.

This tobacco comes is one beautiful long solid 250 grams block. When I talk to German pipe fellows, we always refer to this tobacco as “Die Wurst” which means the sausage, because this describes the look of the tobacco the best. Speaking of sausage, it needs self-control not to bite in this tobacco when you smell on it. It smells malty, a bit like fresh bread, spicy, sweet and like dark dried fruits.

Let’s get serious about this tobacco. This tobacco is easy to handle if you have a sharp knife. The ends of my sausage were very crooked, so I tried to cut the first coins uneven with the result that I had a flat end on my sausage. So, this coin got on one side very thick. I wasn’t even sure, whether this could be smoked without endless relighting. But once it was lit, it burned very well end evenly down. This was possible though I didn’t dry the tobacco.

The taste of this tobacco is wonderful. Tangy dark fruits, raisins and pepper are always present as well as a malty and earthy taste. Sometimes it reminds me of freshly baked bread. Often I can tastes grass and hay. Less often I found the tobacco sweet and citrusy.

The following pipes filled with this tobacco, I varied the thickness of the coins. I found that thinner coins taste less fruity, but more spicy. Since I really enjoyed the distinct taste of the dark fruits, I cut one thick curly flake for a big bowl from now on.

Recently, I was given a large sample of this that was already cut up into coins. This comes in a 275 gram “sausage” that equals to 9.70 ounces. A rather large rope indeed. Apparently from previous reviewers the recipe only contained Virginia and Perique, now it also contains Burley. This has a medium to full taste and honestly for me is hard to describe the profile other than if I did not know any better, I would think that I was smoking a well-made, smooth Burley Flake. It may be in my own mind but to me this blend tasted better in a Cob. Like I said I picked up more Burley than VA/PER. I sure would have liked to have seen what this giant rope looked like before it was dissected. I thought about buying some but after finding it online for $105.60. Wow! Of course, it is almost 10 oz of tobacco and must take some time and skill to process. I will just appreciate the gift I got even more. Highly recommended.