First of all, this tobacco merits just one star for my personal taste. It looks like black and brown confetti and smells in the tin like a fruit basket. Unfortunately, this fruitiness - predominantly cherry with some peach in the background - translates to the taste with the utmost fidelity. The very cool tin states only "virginia, burley, sweet-perique", none of which I can taste over the produce. A little honesty on the tin wouldn't hurt, as "cavendish" or "aromatic" or "cherry" do not appear. This reminded me of my very early forays into pipe tobacco where I wanted sweet tasting blends, and this one reminds me of one in particular that my first tobacco shop named Sweet Ebony. It was even more horrid than this one, though, as it smoked extremely wet. This one smokes fairly dry and if someone is looking for a cherry/fruit blend, they could do worse. Two stars as an aromatic, one star for me because I find its taste absolutely foul.

I feel that some drying would be nice but I hesitate to do that as I don't want to lose any of the very rich flavor of the tobacco itself. It is very full and bold and spicey and to lesson the strength would mske it just a run of the mill aromatic, which in this case it is not. Obviously you must like aromatics to appreciate it and also love perique as well. it smokes very nice and each puff is a burst of flavor. I have read though some are surprised by this bend, the tin art does say cavendish as well as burley and va which shoulld be an indication to some but they really should put on th tin, the labels says nothing about using a dark cavendish nor the fact that that it is v ery aromatic.

Uout of the pich it does smoke a little wet with numerous relights, but that is OK as it lights easily. It smokes down to the bottom of the pipe well but does leave a touch of residue on the bottom of the pipe which is why I am not giving it a four star rating. But this is a blend worth trying and I will hve no problem smoking what I have.

369 was a total mistake. I ask the clerk at the shop for nice burley. He said try this. So when I lit up you could recognize my surprise. My wife looked at me and said,"What are you smoking? I replied saying I don't know, but I think I like it.

Wow! This was a blast. Vanilla. Cherry. Coconut. Yep. All of them.

This is a sweet social tobacco that is fun to smoke. Everybody should try it. I would definitely put this in rotation if I had one.

A big sweet ever lovin 4.

x sweet mystery is better given the choice. so try that if your looking at solani

Cheers.

--original review--

Well well.... I bought this without first checking this website. That was a mistake. I needed a replacement for Aston Gold Rush (couldn't find it anywhere) and was in a hurry. I read the tin and saw "virginia tobacco, perique and NO FLAVORING". So much for believing in "Tin talk"....It is the complete opposite of what the tin says. It is flavored....really flavored.....saturated actually. I was pissed of to be exact because I had flavored tobacco all over the house but no pure tobacco anymore! I didn't like it at all and it went in the cupboard. I took it out when I was in a "sweet" mood and smoked it : Really nice tobacco actually! Sometimes a bit of perique seems to creep trough the casing and disappears again, nice easy good smoke.

It's just a shame that they lie on the tin, I first thought they put the wrong tobacco in the tin at the factory but on tobaccoreviews I see it's normal....whatever.

Just 1 complaint....it's WAY to wet in the tin to smoke. Let it dry out a bit.

Not a favorite.

I'm sure my wife loves the room note as it saves on our air freshener bill but I don't care, I gave the rest of the tin to my novice pipe smoker son. His review is simple, it's almost as good as Capt. Black but nowhere as cheap to buy!

In all honesty this is probably a really high quality aromatic but I outgrew those years ago, or at least ones as strongly flavored as this one.

I bought it based on the label description but I taste no tobacco at all. Had I discovered TobaccoReviews.com sooner I wouldn't have wasted my $$ on this tobacco.

I give it a "somewhat recommended" rating because many people are very fond of this type of smoke, I'm not...

I do see how people might feel misled. The can description is far from the smoking experience. It's a cherry-based casing of some sort, not unlike a lot of the Christmas odors that pop up around holiday season. One of my tobacconists has a cherry-plus-Latakia thing she calls "Flambeau," which is her name for a standard Lane's creation that I'm sure plenty of y'all have smoked. Orientals like Latakia would not be your first instinct to combine with a sickly-sweet casing like cherry flavoring, but when you think about it, they kind of "cancel" each other while also "complementing," just as does that pink gooey sweet-and-sour sauce that they put on Peking Duck at cheap Chinese restaurants. Know what I mean? I like it. Then again, I like eating at cheap Chinese restaurants, and I always found potpourri in my girlfriend's lingerie drawer quite pleasant, too. Guess I'll go put on my pink shirt now, and wear it to lift some weights and open some doors with my skull.

So, this is a light, somewhat floral summertime smoke (which is to say, I'm going to put the tin away for about 5 months and try it again then) which does not resemble pipe tobacco any too closely, and which I wouldn't recommend to anyone unless they want a totally aromatic blend with a lot of fruity notes.

EDIT: Worse with time, my wife hates the smell, I hate the taste. It burns.

The horror... the... horror...

I'd really like it if Solani would fess up to what they put in this stuff!! If you miss the aroma of the local candy shop from your childhood, you MAY like this tobacco.

10/27/06

Decided to actually light the bowl and try a few more puffs on the way home from work to see if I'd been too harsh. I hadn't. I finally figured out that yes, it is a cherry flavor but with a top note of coconut! As well, there is no tobacco flavor that I could discern at all. And the car continued to smell of this blend even with the window down!

I wish I could describe the the taste (of the casing) better, but I can safely say I have never smelled or tasted anything quite like it. And strangely, this tobacco tastes very much like it smells. The Virginia I can detect through the casing, but not the Perique.

I don't expect many will find this blend to be an "all day" smoke, primarily due to the price, but it's a fine blend if you're looking for something a little different for special occasions.

F. Prefect