I’m a flake lover, so I love plugs further more! What a fun preparing this baccy: I slice the plug in thin flakes and then rub them out, let them dry for a little while and then load my bowl. It’s like a sort of ancient ritual…I’d like all my favorites were plugs!

Opening the tin (the packaging is very well refined) you can see a reddish, brown and dark plug, then you can smell a good, strong, earthy aroma of natural tobacco, only tobacco, no flavors or topping added. Some sweet nut and hay notes are present in the background, but just detectable. Moisture is almost perfect, need a very little drying before loading and lighting.

It gets lit very easily and need very few relights, burns slowly, quite cool, with no tongue bite. It packs a good N load, so it is a very rich and satisfying smoke, but never tiring or overwhelming. It is very well balanced, VAs and KE and mixed in very harmonic proportion, PE is just detectable. It’s quite an an unusual blend. Its room note is pleasant, taste is very earthy, with a hint of sweetness brought by VAs.

It’s a bit monodimensional, compared to other VAPE blends (ie St James Flake) but I think it works good and it’s just what is expected to be: a blend for the smoker who is looking for straight full tobacco taste, no more!

Between 3 and 4 stars!

From Pease’s website: “Triple Play — Ripe red and bright flue-cured tobaccos are joined by piquant Acadian perique, and a balanced measure of smoky, dark-fired Kentucky. The leaf is pressed and matured in cakes before being cut into 2oz bars, resulting in a bold blend for Virginia and periqe fans.”

The plug is quite dark in the tin. Mine held together nicely, not hard like many other plugs, but easy to pull apart in layers. Even if it falls apart in the tin, that normally doesn’t bother me since I’m just going to chop it up anyway. It actually helps in the prep, since you can peel off layers and cut them up with a scissors if you want a nice cube cut. I’ve tried it thoroughly rubbed out, and cubed. The jury is still out on which I prefer.

From the tin Triple Play is very moist, almost sticky. I believe that C&D (and therefore Pease) uses only distilled water to moisten their tobacco, so this is au naturale. I didn’t wait to dry it, preferring to combat moisture with packing technique, and it works wonderfully. My usual method of packing any tobacco is simply to cram several pinches of tobacco into the pipe, testing the draw after every single pinch. That way I can keep the pack on target for a “just right” draw. If the draw happens to get too firm during packing, I’ll often dig it out and start over. It’s worth the effort, as this enables me to comfortably smoke even quite moist blends.

The thing that immediately comes to mind as I smoke Triple Play is the meeting of two worlds – the old school, earthy UK-manufactured natural plugs meets the New World sensibilities of all-American tobacco strains. I taste old-world richness but sprinkled with flavors that are more varied, more nuanced and more complex than most. The balance between the various tobbacos is impeccable, and I can’t imagine varying the percentages one bit.

The first sensation for me is the richness of the piquant Perique and Kentucky, with the Virginias lingering subtly in the background. There is a mild sweetness, but this is by no means a “sweet” smoke in according to my taster. The sweetness is there in just the right quantity to keep this from being and ashy astringent smoke, my main complaint with other similar blends.

The tin aroma is of hay, dried fruit and dried prune-plums. Very nice. For me it does best in my wide-open pot, with a depth about equal to its width, the same type of pipe that I usually use for straight Virginias.

About half way down this stuff turns from good into amazing, the richness and complexity of all three ingredients melding wonderfully. If you concentrate you can pick out the individual flavors, but the overall taste when they all meld is really unique and delicious. For this reason, I think it should become fantastic with some age, as the flavors further meld and the richness of the condimental tobaccos spread to infuse the whole plug. How long this might take is anyone’s guess.

While I don’t get the barbeque senstation like many others do (I live in barbeque heaven, BTW) I do get the essence of rich meats and earthy smoke. I am coming to believe the Perique is the star of the show here, and it would be a fascinating experiment to try this stuff with and without the Perique just to see what it’s doing in there. From what I have read about this blend, the Virginias are apparently present in some quantity but everything is so well balanced that it just blends in – which is what a good “blend” is supposed to do, right?

You can puff on this tobacco or sip it, but sipping brings out the subtleties and richer flavors. Also it tends to heat up the briar quite a bit when really puffing, so slow down and enjoy it. Fans of plugs and dark ropes will really enjoy this one. Imagine a dark flake like FVF, with a little Tambolaka and sweet hay-like Virginia thrown in.

Four stars!

This may be my favorite blend yet. I've got your VA's, your VaPers, your Burleys, your Lats, your Aro's, your Orientals and all combos in between. Currently I have 46 jars I'm smoking from...at my leisure. This is one tasty blend, period...with plenty of VA sweetness pulling it together.

Anyone who says it's too much trouble to prepare seems a little lazy to me..slices easily, rubs fine, and leave it to sit a minute and she's ready to go. Yes, it's very moist, but that is a controllable variable.

As for flavor...beefy, sweet, sourish, just damn yummy to my palate. I have JKP, which I like..this I love. I'm one of the fortunate ones that is unaffected by nicotine unless it's on an empty stomach. I can smoke this stuff all day..plummy and sweet, nutty and full..man I likes me some TP!

This will be added in quantity to my "cellar". We're all different, we're all human, but if you read my reviews and find yourself to have similar tastes, by all means give it a go! My favorite Pease blend to date. If Lat's are his forte, dark-fire seems to be his bread & butter. Thanks GLP, you have a winner.

This is an excellent tobacco.

But wait! There's one more thing. Let this sit in the tin for 6 months...or longer...and it friggin' blooms into the best damn Virginia experience this side of heaven. It doesn't just get more and more mellow, it makes men fear you...women want you...you know the drill. Better cellar some soon. Just sayin'.

I am not a patient man when it comes to smoking my pipes. When I'm ready for a bowl I don't want to fiddle forever with the tobacco first. Please make a ready rubbed version of this wonderful weed.

Update. Well blow me down. Now i like it as much as Jack Knife. Which one to smoke? Decisions, decisions!

This is a robust blend, with the virginia clear to the back and the perique and Kentucky fighting for the lead. High in nicotine, this is an after dinner smoke for me. There was just a touch of sweetness, and that briny note I experienced in Telegraph Hill was present, courtesy of the perique. But where TH offset it with some nice Virginia sweetness and spice, TP uses more Kentucky, giving this a heavy-bodied sort of porterhouse steak flavor (well-done Porterhouse!). But smoking it sliced made the taste harsh for me, similar to Fillmore. I played with it awhile but the harshness didn't go away until I rubbed it out. It took a lot of rubbing! Even then, the problem persisted. I had the most success when I let this simply smolder instead of burn. Smoke volume was very low, taste was very high. Bowl lasted almost 3 hours! But then it showed me its strengths.

This is really a 4-star blend but I'm giving it 3 because GLP has already provided me with his state of the art Vaper, Telegraph Hill, and I find it preferable to this. If you find that one lacking, this may just be your manna. It's an interesting take on the classic Vaper. With the added Kentucky, it's almost a genre of its own. This is destined to become an important blend, I believe, and I recommend that everyone that loves perique give this a try.

The aroma in the tin is sweet and earthy with notes of dried fruit. The flavor is consistent from first light to the end of the bowl. The room note is pleasant although my wife said it reminded her of a cigarette (I lay that at the feet of the Burley content and my wife's hyper-sensitive nose). Nevertheless this has found its way into my top five blends.

I can't wait for more plug blends from G.L. Pease.

The red Virginia sweetness is just barely in the background with a lot of darker flavor (someone likened it to barbacue sauce; to me maybe hickory), and needs more time to age for the reds to come through I trust. In time it may approach something like old Escudo (maybe wishful thinking too).

I still find it hard to work the plug. It cuts, sure, but I can't seem to get neat cubes or flakes out of it. Just thick ribbons that I rub to smaller chunks. Again, the plug is not as tight as some others I've tried (PPP), so cutting is more hit or miss. However, this plug is mixed, not as layered as JKP, so my uneveness should not affect the flavor curve here.

But no problem in lighting and burning steadily. Cool, full, with some dark flavors. Good body.

I suppose the comparison to Germain Brown Flake is apt, which I find milder (not a plug but the flakes seem melded in the tin).

I will smoke more of this to see if it growns on me or ages well.

Update: After a couple of months, the mixture is smoother, a little sweeter, and still rich and full (short of Jack knife). More enjoyable in select moments when I want something this full. Almost delirious in body. I find a serrated knife cuts it better into thick or coarse ribbons, which I rub more. A reviewer in another tobacco newsletter says he's glad the plug is not as tight as some others. So maybe that's a plus after all. Upgrade a star.