Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) Drexel VIII

First of all, lest me say that I am more of a Burley fan and smoke a lot of aromatics. Typically, I usually give these Virginia based blends rather lack-luster reviews. This, I am afraid, is no exception. The aroma from the pouch is of natural tobacco and it arrived a little dry for my taste. After hydration, the flake was easy to rub out and pack. It takes a light well and does provide a fair amount of smoke. The taste is very mild and I did find myself puffing with greater vigor to get more flavor. Even with that, there was no tongue bite. I got almost no plum taste from the Perique. I am used to lighting my pipe only twice, but this required several. I am willing to admit user-error, however. towards the end of the bowl, I did get a little more spice. The flavor stayed consistent throughout the bowl. The ash was fine. The bowl was left moist, but that was probably due to the excessive puffing on my part to get flavor. The nicotine level seemed a little low to me. There was no after taste and the room note will not win any friends. The room note is not bad, but unless your friends enjoy the smell of natural tobacco, they will not be won over. Maybe this genre is not my thing, but if I were out of tobacco and needed to pick up a pouch, I would probably choose something else; this is a little bland when there are many options.

I too received this from pipesandcigars.com some time ago, maybe even last year. This pouch is dated 10/2/17. A good two years of age. It felt hard in the package until I realized this is flakes in a 1.5 oz pouch. At first it had an odd sweet smell to it but then airing out somewhat was not as strong. I take a nice square flake and fold, double fold and crumble and stuff it into my meerschaum. Upon smoking this I kept getting a sense of déjà vu. This reminded me of a blend I have tried but I could not place it. I like reading other reviews when I am smoking to get a feel of what others experience. It does not change my opinion but sometimes helps in trying to describe what I am smoking since I am not great at the usage of words to describe what I smell or taste, i.e. figgy, grassy, plum, hay, etc. To me I smell, say sweetness but sweetness compared like to what? DeathMetal.org to me hit the nail on the head. This reminds me of Peter Stokkebye’s Luxury Navy Flake. Though this says there is no flavor I sensed a topping that I really do not care for. There may be none, but there is something that for me detracts from this blend. This one is all over the map, either you love it or it tastes like crap. A lot of 4 and 2 stars. Whereas this does not taste really bad I would only somewhat recommend this one as it just does not ring any bells. Nice to get a free sample, which makes me wonder why are they giving it away? Ha.

I got a pouch of Drexel 7 in my National Pipe Day goodie bag from P&C (great promo btw), so I had zero expectation of the product. A few months after Pipe Day (whenever it actually was), I decided to properly celebrate with my Pipe Day swag bag (the corn cob pipe, mini tamper, book, and included tobacco).

I sat down with the book on pipes (a good read, though slanted towards Stanwell products) and cracked the seal on the pouch. I was very surprised to find flakes inside as I don't associate them with pouch tobaccos. The contents had a fine sweet Virginia hay aroma with perhaps some added topping to sweeten it up.

The cut was so precise you could use these flakes for a ruler (machine made and exacting), they were also wafer thin and quite dry. Rubbing them out sucked as they had no body and immediately broke down. The lack of much moisture sparked a cherry quickly, yet it didn't burn excessivly hot, it did however give off a dry "chokey" smoke. The flavor was almost tart and without any country-time barnyard taste I would want from a Virginia.

Ultimately it was not a good smoke (1.5 stars), though for what I assume was a bargain product, I was impressed with it being a flake and not a lazy ribbon cut (so it gets a .5 star nod).

Even though sealed in an outer cellophane wrapper, this one was dry from the pouch. Nicely prepared, uniform flakes. Burns evenly; no bite or condensation; few relights. Not much influence by the Perique and comparatively bland overall.

A very uneventful Virginia/Perique. Both the flavor and room note bring the idea of rolling tobacco, with not much else to add.

Be careful when smoking this: if you smoke it a bit fast, it will burn very hot. If smoked slowly, there are very subtle hints of flavor (black pepper and golden plums).

When you get to the last third of the bowl, the flavor becomes a bit more pronounced, and it is actually pretty enjoyable. It's a shame that the first two thirds are just mediocre.

The tobacco needs quite a few relights (a problem I have with many flakes) but does burn completely to a nice fine powdery ash, all the way to the bottom of the bowl.

One very good use of this I have discovered is combining it with an aromatic tobacco that is heavily cased or topped, losing its flavor soon (which I have found with several of the poorer aromatics), the type that leaves a soggy mess at the bottom of your bowl. Taking a pinch of such tobacco, folding it in a flake of Drexel and stuffing it in your pipe takes the strengths of both and alleviates the weaknesses. The Drexel adds structure to the flavor and makes the tobacco burn better.

Like a few other people in here, I received a free pouch of Drexel VIII with one of my online orders. As far as I understand this is what we call a VaPe (Virgnia/Perique). It was my first of its kind. Since it was free I somewhat resented smoking it, assuming it wasn't going to be that great. And indeed, it wasn't the most pleasant smokes at first. I even mixed in some Nat Sherman 580 in a few smokes to have a more pleasurable smoke. I transferred the content of the pouch in a jar and re-opened it after a few months to give it another try. I actually acquired a taste for it and almost regretted running out of it. I would probably not buy it again and would probably investigate other VaPes instead.

I didn't like the smell it left behind.

To my taste this is Orlik Golden Sliced. Has the same bergamot/lavender flavor and citrusy dry finish. Did not notice any perique flavor.

Quality of my pouch was good.

Well, I was travelling, and it was cheap. I found a ‘tobacco’ shop with a nightmarish selection of just three choices: Borkum Riff Honey Orange, Velvet, and this. What would you do: an Edvard Munch scream and quick exit?

Since I already knew the others and didn’t care for them, I went with this. It wasn’t that old, packaged in February 2017, and I bought in March 2018. But already the flakes were brittle dry, turning to hard splinter-like shards when rubbed out. I tried it anyway and found it to be decent, all things considered. Being so dry it did get the bowl of my briar quite warm, yet never once did I get a hint of tongue bite.

After careful rehydration and some time in a jar I tried it again without much excitement and put it to the back of the storage cupboard. Fast forward to this weekend, five years later. Has it become any better with age? Perhaps, a smidge. It’s still not going to vanquish memories of Hal O’Wynd. Jar note and ambient aroma are more promising than the actual smoke, sort of like blonde Graham cracker with a dash stewed fruit juice. In terms of taste I now get stale pepper, grassy chlorophyll, faint amount of the Perique’s stewed fruit (more prune juice than raisin), and an odd woody bark taste (but, despite Euell Gibbons’ exhortations, I never sampled any, so I’m just guessing!).

But here’s a surprise ending to the story that almost made me give this three stars: Normally I would never reach for a Va-Per after dinner, but this being stoved, and since I was writing this review, and since it was a mild evening out on the deck, why not? I also had a clean, traditional IPA on the side to help cleanse the palate (provided by my son, as I’m more of a dark ale guy). Anyway, the drink and pipe played off of each other, and with long, slow retrohale, so light that you can barely see any smoke, I enjoyed this much more. Hints of rye and pumpernickel, and definite malty sweetness to savor and enjoy. So, if the stars are all aligned, I guess three stars!