House of Windsor - Union Leader pipe tobacco reviews

Review

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Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
< PREVIOUS Showing reviews 21 through 36 of 36 reviews of this tobacco
Jakob Kiilerich	11/10/2004	Medium	Mild to Medium	Medium	Pleasant
Ooomph! I like this one. Since all of you American people have had access to the Danish blends for decades, I figured I had to try some US-weed for a change. Here in Denmark - and the rest of Europe for that matter, US tobaccos are not available. Well ok Edgeworth and Half & Half is, but that is about it. I'm normally not very much into Burley blends, but this one is damn good! Dark cross-cut Burleys of high quality with a touch of VA. A very delicate and natural honey flavor is added for the sweetnes. The true tobacco taste though, is very much in the foreground. It burns a little hot on the palate but nothing worth talking about. A very rustic blend which I smoke on daily basis. I will definitely stash some more of this stuff, explore some more from Winsor and soon try some of the McClellands. Way to go USA and way to go Internet for globalizing the tobacco market! Jakob Kiilerich, Denmark
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Pkloop	11/10/2004	Mild to Medium	Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Tolerable
Heres a great burley blend for you to try. I found Union Leader not to have that usual burley bitter taste at the bottom. A definate step up from the other "drug store" blends. As others have stated its hard to see why this blend was discontinued while others have lasted. This tobacco is a great "working" tobacco. I work outside for a living and this one fits the bill during those hot S. Florida days, as it doesn't require alot of relights or attention. Seems to smoke best in a cob as well. Be warned however: While reading another review of a HoW product the reviewer had mentioned differing quality from pouch to pouch. I too have had this happen with Union Leader. My first can was excellent. Prompting me to buy another. It was not so good. It was bitey and bitter. Wishing to get another can like the first, I purchased again. This 3rd 2oz can was good again. So I promptly returned to the store and bought the large can which now resides unopened in my "cellar". I do hope they are from the same batch. 11/10/04
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Spike	09/16/2004	Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium	Tolerable
As close to a very good "all day smoke" as you will find. Not complicated but tasty and satisfying. Smells pretty good for a mostly real tobacco blend. I have to agree that this blend would be most at home in my long since gone '55 Ford Pickup glove box.
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augiegus	09/09/2004	Medium	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
I recently went up to Springfield IL to take care of some personal business and stopped into the tobacco store located downtown. I used to go in there to buy cigars before the prices went nuts years ago. Anyway I was pleasently surprise that they had several tobacco blends Rattrays, Galwaith, and upon walking out the door spied a House of Windsor display. I grabbed one of Barking Dog, Mapleton, and lastly Union Leader tins and only mention the shop for those stuck in Springfield and or central Illinois who need a tobacco fix this was a nice shop. I lit up Union Leader first being rather wary after smoking Briggs which was just super bland to me. This tobacco was much better. Little sweet and lil nutty from the burley. I found myself smoking this in these last few hot days of summer and finding it went well with the conditions. It has a nice room note, though not too strong, and seemed to leave fairly soon. The tobacco seemed like a good place to start for those interested in burley blends for it seemed a step up from others of this ilk that one would find in a drug store.
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The Keeper	07/29/2004	Mild	Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
As Pop-Pop put it, this is one great no bull$%#@ tobacco! I would not have normally gone for something so "straight up" from a blender I had never tried, but was graced with a sample recently. Very mellow, easy to burn, sweet but not cloying smoke. Americana tobacco at it's best, rivaling C+D's mastery of this genre. I probably won't smoke it all the time, just due to personal taste, but if you want a straight forward quality smoke, try this!
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Bobbior5907	05/06/2004	Mild	Very Mild	Very Mild	Very Pleasant
I'm smoking "Union Leader" even as I'm writing this review. I've been smoking HOW blends steadily since Wm. Serad reviewed them in Spring of 2003. "Union Leader" is predominently burley with some nice Virginia, lightly cased with some type of honey-like flavor and thus I would characterize this as a lightly aromatic, mostly natural tobacco blend. It smells good in the pouch, lights easily and stays lit because, as with the other HOW blends, is fairly dry. The aroma is wonderful and has that old-fashioned pipe smell that induced me to try a pipe in the first place. I give this a grade of "B".
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chaplikc	04/20/2004	Medium	Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
This was my introduction into the HOW line of blends. I realy wanted to like this but was somewhat disappointed. The tin aroma was wonderful, the cut was realy good and in my opinion the moisture was just right (a little on the dry side) straight out of the tin. The flavor was pretty good as well. My biggest and only complaint about this tobacco is that it burns on the hot side for me. If it burned cooler I would enjoy this much more. I tried this in several differant pipes with very slow puffing rate and had the same effect. There could be a possibility that there is something in this blend that just disagrees with my tongue. It almost gives me the impression that this tin is young and raw and needs more age. Most virginia/burley blends do not give me this problem. I will probably age this one for a while and see if my opinion on this blend changes.
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PipeSmokerForLife	03/26/2004	Mild to Medium	Medium	Medium to Full	Pleasant
I've smoked just about all the House of Winsdor blends since they became available at my local tobbaconist. I can't add much about the smoking qualities of this blend since it has pretty much been covered by the other reviewers. However, I smoke a meershaum pretty much on a daily basis and the taste with this blend is unsurpassed by similar blends from other brands. For an inexpensive tobacco blend, this blend I think will probably become a regular for me and I will probably choose this as an all day blend along with another one of House of Winsdor blends, which is Country Doctor. I'm absoloutley amazed at how mild and pleasant this tobacco smokes, and it is not a goopy blend which leaves a residue. For a burley based blend, it is full of surprises. My meershaum, seems to be coloring a lot faster since I picked up Uinion Leader. My only dissapointment is that Union Leader is not available in most of the shops where I live which is something to say for all the other House of Winsdor blends. Hopefully this will change as more and more pipe smokers in my area discover or rediscover these long lost American tradiion blends.
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Mr. Dottle	03/24/2004	Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Mild to Medium	Tolerable
This is a simple, plain, good old-fashioned, all-American smoke. Nothing fancy in this blend and it does make one wax nostalgic. I found it smoked best for me in bent, stubby, thick-shank pipes. I would not smoke it on a daily basis but I will certainly return to it from time-to-time.
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Eulenburg	03/14/2004	Mild	Mild	Mild	Pleasant
I own an ancient [empty] tin of this, and was quite happy to taste this supposed revival of an old American standard, a pleasant, uneventful, typical non-Cavendish burley/Virginia blend. It is too bland for me, but it is not bad.
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pop-pop's pipe	02/10/2004	Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium to Full	Very Pleasant
My kind of smoke! I can do this all day. A straight up american burley and virginia blend of excellent quality with a sweet old fashioned pipe room note. Reminds me of my great-grandfathers pipe aroma. An excellent old time no bulls##t blend. Five stars in my book.
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Pounder 5000	01/27/2004	Mild	Extremely Mild	Mild	Tolerable
This and Model both really stand out in the Burley crowd. I don't understand why they were discontinued, while dreck such as half-n-half, and other assorted burley nightmares continue to sell like hot cakes. It has a light honey taste that really accentuates the burley nuttiness. This will be a perfect summertime, corn cob smoke. Don't let the cigarette reference scare you. You might detect a small amount of it in the room note, but other than that it doesn't make its presence known.
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generalpatton	12/04/2003	Mild	Mild	Mild to Medium	Tolerable
The tin says "pipe or cigarette"......and I was a bit nervous in opening the lid. I half expected to see a mess of diced cigarette tobacco but instead found a nice medium brown crimp cut tobacco blend. It is lightly cased......and I agree with previous speculations that it's honey. The light casing adds a nice aroma to the tin but really doesn't come through in flavor or aroma from the smoke. I did pick up a definite acrid taste that began to come through about halfway through the bowl which really ruined what I thought was a pretty nice, middle of the road natural tobacco blend. I'll probably give this one a whirl a time or two more, but if the acrid flavor wasn't a coincidence, this one will be banished from the cabinet forever.
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Sykes Wilford	11/05/2003	Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
Generally, I'm neither a fan of burley blends, nor am I a big fan of light aromatics. For all the excitement over the re-released blends of years past by House of Windsor, I hadn't really anticipated finding one I would like. That's not to say that I don't think these are great blends. I'm primarily a straight virginias smoker and I find that I'm often dissappointed when I sojourn outside of that realm. Given that, I started my journey through these blends with Union Leader, it being among the least cased/topped of the batch. And I'm glad I did! The topping is mild and pleasant-- just slightly sweet. It ties the virginias and burleys together nicely. The nuttiness of the burleys is certainly present and in good measure. It doesn't have that flat flavorlessness that I often associate with burley blends. Without question, this is burley put to good use-- and the virginias seem to enliven the significant burley component. All in all, it's a very well balanced, pleasant blend. It won't become an all day smoke for me, but would serve as a nice change of pace.
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omegapd	11/04/2003	Medium	None detected	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable
Like others have noted here, I picked this up because of the P&T article and the description being a Burley and Virginia without casings. This has to be one of the best new (to me) blends I've tried in a long time. I've been smoking this in a bunch of corncobs and it works well in every size, from the cheap drugstore ones to the Mac Arthur big ones. My bucket seems to have quite a bit of Virginia leaf mixed in and sometimes during the smoke it actually steps up over the Burleys. It's a crimp cut, very dry and without much of a tin aroma. The burn is excellent, there's no bite and the pipe doesn't get hot even though it's so dry. This one is definately a keeper and might turn into my new everyday smoke since it has almost everything I'm looking for and is reasonably priced too. If it was a cube cut Burley, it would be my Holy Grail...Wonderful stuff.
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Pipestud	06/05/2003	Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Mild to Medium	Very Pleasant
For those of you who subscribe to Pipes & Tobaccos magazine, the Summer 2003 issue contained William Serad's visitation of many ancient blends being re-released by the House of Windsor. Being the tobacco freak that I am, I quickly spent $200 on all the available brands; Briggs, Barking Dog, Revelation, Bourbon Street, Field & Stream, Mapleton, Union Leader and Country Doctor. (I could not locate Model or Argosy). I chose Union Leader to smoke first. A mostly Burley with a little Virginia combination which is lightly topped by what I believe to be honey. Upon opening the 12 oz can, I noticed a honey essence along with a lovely smell of pure unmolested tobacco. The leaf was very dry, packed very well, and burned cool and easily from top to bottom with just one or two relights. I smoked the stuff almost non-stop all day. The room note is superb. The experience was "all tobacco" with just a hint of sweetness from the honey topping. While certainly not bland to begin with, the flavor and power increased the more I smoked, and by the time I hit rock bottom, the flavor and nicotine punch was delightful and dizzying. I am glad this old favorite is back. If you enjoy top-shelf Burley mixed with some fine Virginia and processed in a unique and satisfying way, grab a tin of Union Leader and go to work on it, pardner!
< PREVIOUS Showing reviews 21 through 36 of 36 reviews of this tobacco