Hearth & Home Anniversary Flake

Hearth & Home - Anniversary Flake (Signature Series).

Because one of my morning VaPers came to an end, McClelland St. James Woods, I popped the lid off this to fill that vacancy. A flake version of Anniversary Kake? Well, I rated the kake with four stars and this gets the same!

The tin-note's typically VaPer, being plummy and rich. Something which isn't a million miles from its sibling, Kake, is the presentation. The flakes have become stuck together, looking a little like a block of kake! I always fully rub a flake and with A.F. folding/stuffing would be moot. It's impossible to separate the flakes without them crumbling apart. Once a bowls worth had been sequestered from the rest, rubbed/crumbled, it needed no extra airing to ready it for ignition.

Anniversary lights with ease and then burns independently, needing little maintenance, delivering a medium temperature smoke. I find this offers more Virginia nuances than its sibling, Kake. I remember struggling to identify much in that but Flake gives a definite Virginia flavour: rural, with sharp fruit. The Perique gives less flavour than it does in the kake. There's a prune/dark fruit quality but it doesn't take control of the flavour. There's an extra sweetness, like brown sugar/molasses, with a very minor touch of alcohol appearing after a half. Because it's sibling contains rum I deduce the same here.

Nicotine: medium. Room-note: not great.

A four star smoke:

Highly recommended.