John Middleton, Inc - Hickory pipe tobacco reviews

Review

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Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
Showing reviews 1 through 8 of 8 reviews of this tobacco
Dr.sadik	08/19/2012	Mild	Very Mild	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
i tried a pouch of this tobacco a while back..i cannot say i am impressed. it reminds me of prince albert yet it have a stronger casing similar to cherry blend i guess however it lacks the good room note and the nutty burly taste that it should have. its an easy to pack and burn well blend with low maintenance. comes a bit on the dry side and have to be smoked slowly or it can be harsh. an uncomplicated smoke to fill your pipe on the go thats all i can say in its favor!
Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
Henry Mars	01/04/2009	Mild to Medium	Medium	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
I am sad that this mulch is gone. For the life of me I don't know why I continued to buy it for so many years. I would still buy it if it was still being made. This stuff is heavily flavored and cased with a plethora of chemical additives but it doesn't taste too bad .. I assume that the flavoring is some kind of Hickory extract which seems to cover the taste of some real low grade tobacco. There is supposed to be some Virginia tobacco in the mixture ... possibly floor sweepings from a cigarette manufacturer not enough to get past the chemicals though. Despite all that I still enjoy this on a summer night ... it keeps the mosquitoes and gnats away. When you open the pouch it is too wet to smoke so you have to dry it out for a few days. It packs easy and burns well. Be careful, it could make your tongue feel like the space shuttle's re-entry shield if smoked vigorously. Not a bad offering for what it is but I wouldn't recommend this for beginners, it might turn them off to pipe smoking.
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pop-pop's pipe	08/13/2008	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Medium	Pleasant
I don't know why this was put out of production? I used to call it Walnut on a budget! I liked the Hickory smell. I liked the two guns on the package, it reminded me of a tobacco that was possibly smoked during the old west era. It was sweet but not vanilla or cherry. It produced a nice sensation on the throat like many English blends do. If you compared Hickory's aroma with Walnut's aroma, you would find the similarities. Walnut had more types of tobacco in it, where Hickory was Burley based with a hint of VA. It was cheap, $10.00 for a 12oz tub! Now that it's out of production, everyone who smoked it will buy whatever they could find! Much like when they stopped importing Amphora to the U.S. Another " Good Old Blend " down the drain. Who knows, maybe House of Windsor will buy the rights to it, put it in 10oz cans, and sell it for $32.00!
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Loboatomy	05/22/2006	Mild	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable
* UPDATE* Just picked up a dusty sealed can of this from a tobacco shop for $10...nice to have tucked away now that it's out of production... Basic American burley with a Hickory top-dressing. Unbelievably appetizing scent out of the pouch, makes you consider eating it. Typically crunchy dry out of the pouch, moister in the can. Pouch tobacco does well with some judicious dH2O re-hydrating. A pleasant smoke, suitable for an all-day smoke. Can be a little hot burning at times, but not a flamethrower if smoked correctly. Good nicotine content. Smokes well out of a cob, will not impart off flavors into briar like some other cased blends. The rule of smoking bargain burleys holds here: Slow and steady, dump the bowl at about the 1/4 mark to avoid an "unhappy ending". Cheap too ($1.89 per pouch in my neck of the woods). Recommended if you're into the drugstore burleys.
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CantTest	05/28/2005	Mild to Medium	Medium to Strong	Medium	Pleasant
This is not a tobacco for those who can't stand aromatics. It has a "perfume" smell that puts me off. It smokes well after the intial harshness of the first third of the bowl, and the last third is as good a smoke as anything out there. But it's work, getting by the perfume during loading and the harshness, for that last fifteen minutes of great smoking. I've mixed this with Burley London Blend and it has made a fine smoke of Hickory. And I've experimented with "parfait" loading of this with other burley blends and it works well. So this blend isn't something I'd recommend rushing out to buy, but I'm glad I have that can of Hickory sitting on my shelf and in a year or so will have to replace it--that last fifteen minutes of a load of Hickory shouldn't be missed.
Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
DUPE.1512	04/16/2005	Mild	Mild	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
Like other Middleton blends I've tried, Hickory is a simple no frills burley that burns cool, dry and creates no goop. A simple lightly cased burley, with very subtle fruity notes with a pleasant taste. A dependable smoke.
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Pipestud	09/26/2004	Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
A few years ago at my pipe club's first anniversary meeting, we revisited many old blends just for fun. Hickory was one of those blends (we purchased a large tin from Iwan Ries & Co.) and it was not fun at all. It was hilarious watching my fellow pipesters unload this stuff much faster than they loaded. The moisture content and fine cut of the leaf made it easy to pack and light but the flavoring was extremely off-putting. It left an almost "dry-sweet" taste on my tongue that was quite nasty. It did taste mostly like tobacco, but was very mild in that regard and the nicotine content just didn't get the job done either. It is one of the most inexpensive tobaccos I've ever purchased. You know the old saying, "You get what you pay for."
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prison chaplain	03/03/2004	Mild	Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
This tobacco does not have those things which many so called "drug store" tobaccos have. It does not have an overwhelming odor of vanilla. It does not have the heavy, scent of cherry. It does not have an excess of moisture. It does not have any detectable artificial moisturizers. On a whim I bought a 12 oz. plastic "can" of this tobacco at a local discount store for about $11.00. The tin literature says that it is a blend of Virginia in a base of Burley. It states that this blend has been in existence since the 1940s and that it strives to be the best tobacco in its price range. It boasts of a fruity scent and a long, cool smoke. Looking at it I see a lot of Burley and some very light Virginia. I don't know what the "fruity" aroma is, but it is a little off putting to my nose. But, the short, narrow, slightly crimped ribbon packs well and lights and smokes easily. It is mild, it smokes quite cool. More than anything, it tastes like a rather good tobacco, not great, but good for the price. John Middleton accomplished what he set out to do. I would not go looking for this tobacco again, but if I was out of tobacco and had to fall back on "drug store" brands, I would pick this over the cherry and vanilla glop that fills store shelves. ADDENDUM: 03/03/2004 I need to start dating my reviews. However, I think that 8 to 10 months has passed since I first reviewed Hickory. And I now have a real tobacco cellar. As real as I am ever going to get. It is a 50+ year old Philco fridge that my sons rescued from a trip to the dump. It still seals up tight and I keep it in my basement shop. I keep all of my stash there now. My hickory has been aging well. The fruity taste, which a fellow reviewer ID'd as actual hickory,is now quite subdued. I find myself enjoing it more and turning to it more often. Still a lingering sweet room note. Nice tobacco flavor. No bitterness. It really is a nice tobacco for the $. I am upgrading my rating from "might try again" to "I smoke on occasion."
Showing reviews 1 through 8 of 8 reviews of this tobacco