John Cotton John Cotton's Number 3

"Well then there now", as James Dean once said. By resurrecting this blend from the dim past, Standard of PA has finally filled in the last remaining blank in the triumvirate of heavy-hitting English blends from the golden era of pipe smoking. My exposure to this blend in the early days was inhibited by growing up in a town full of Rexall drug stores with pipe tobacco displays that had nothing like this, if you don't count Brush Creek with its hint of Englishness. When I arrived in Columbus to attend Ohio State I discovered the dazzling world of heavy English Euro blends and, among them, was John Cotton #3 in vertical razor-cut tins. As a poor student living on a shoestring, the cost of most of these early imports was equal to eating for a week. So, I only got to smoke this blend in fits and starts here and there. When I did it was a soporific type of experience-like being transported to another time and place. Well, anyway, on to the current blend. It looks like a heavy English, it has the tin aroma of a heavy English and it smokes like a heavy English-full, stout and strong. It has a smoking aroma that is heavily laced with both latakia and perique, so, be aware. The room aroma is heavenly and this blend smokes rather consistently down to the bottom third of the bowl, where it mellows-out some. Not for the feint of heart but very welcome to some of us for it's memory-provoking abilities - a very solid four stars.