Murray Sons & Co, Ltd Murray's 1921 Cunningham

The presentation is all right. The flakes were just kind of stuck together and piled on top of each other. They are moist and I recommend some air time before filling the pipe, whether you choose to rub out or fold and stuff.

The tin note is tangy and sour. It’s kind of grassy and kind of like sour candy. Some dried fruit notes in there, some honey. I tried smoking this rubbed out as well as folded. They are both good. Again, I recommend air time, and taking it easy. I don’t find the rum to be big and detectable in the tin note or in the smoke. Maybe it adds some sweetness to the smoke, but I don’t notice it really. It starts off citrusy and grassy, some honey notes develop, and even some cereal notes, and molasses notes. There are some cane sugar pops of flavor, and even a hint of sourness and pungency of dunder funk (if you like Jamaican rum, you will know what I am referring to). There is some tartness and pig spice hits from the perique, some raisin notes. You can get some pastry and bready notes from this as well. It reminded me of Danish shortbread cookies. The dried fruit notes reminded me of lemons and sometimes oranges. There is a nice aftertaste to this that reminded me of an apple Jolly-Rancher candy. After finishing, the pipe smelled like cake batter.

I would say the taste is medium, and the tobacco strength is mild to medium. The nicotine might be noticeable, but certainly not overwhelming. For the price, this is a great value for money Virginia Perique flake. It would probably age very well, and any undesirable sharpness would calm down with some age.

I found this tasted best in pipes with narrow bowls with chambers of straight sides (billiards, Canadians, etc).

The only thing I can say I don’t like about it is there isn’t any red Virginia, to my taste, that could provide more depth to the blend. I would still buy this again, and I have purchased it multiple times. I rate this as highly recommended because it’s a good, sweet flake, and there aren’t many blends out there like this one easily available to me.