John Middleton, Inc Cherry Blend

I tried this in 1998 and it was the first blend I tried because it was the cheapest. Back then, it was a mild moderately flavored Cherry blend and the best of the cherry flavored blends. I tried it again in 2012. I do not know if its because my taste-buds had changed, the blend had been tweaked, my pipe needed some heavy cleaning (I used a pipe over 70 years old), the fact that it did not seem fresh, or any combination of the previous factors, but it wasn't how I remembered it. The woman I was dating at the time said it was the worst-smelling tobacco I had ever smoked. Smokers can rarely smell their own pipe, but I managed to catch a strong rotten-egg smell. Maybe it'll change in a few years to its former glory because it was once the tobacco to measure all cherry blends.

This is amongst the more pleasant aromatics I have tried. That can likely be attributed to the fact that it is also one of the most mild and simple aromatics I have tried. Out of the pouch it smells like cherry Kool-Aid. taste is of slightly nutty burley and sweet cavendish, with just enough cherry topping to taste and make the room and your clothes smell really very nice. Will bite if you freight train it, so go slow and enjoy.

Middleton's Cherry is one I smoked a lot of when I was a noob. The first tub I ever bought was Middleton Cherry. Why do so many of us go for cherry tobacco in the beginning? Anyway, this one is more of a Burley blend with a very faint sweetness to it. To be honest, I don't think it tastes like cherry. Not a goopy aromatic and has a good moisture level. Only one relight after char and burns down to white ash. Not a bad blend if you like something mildly sweet and enjoy Burley. I've moved on from this stuff, but still pick up a pouch now and then if the mood strikes me.

Just couldn't find the cherry, coffee or whiskey flavors that Middletons claims. Just tasted burley. A bargain smoke here in Connecticut at around $5 a pouch when the other name brands go for about $7.75. IMO, this is a 2 star smoke, Middletons Apple is a 3. I smoke it in a hardwood Missouri Meerschaum using a Dr Grabow filter cut in half. I change the filter about every two bowls. The pouch was fresh when I opened it. This was to be expected as it's a sealed foil pouch inside a cellophane wrapped box. No tongue bite for me. I recall that this was better 35 years ago.

I'm under orders from my wife not buy any tobacco on-line till my birthday (April 15th!) So I took her literally and tried to find something decent in the Brick and Mortar smoke shops in the area. Not that I couldn't last on the stack of tins in the basement. I ended up bringing this home, as my mother in law was recently recalling fond memories she has of a cherry blend her grandfather used to smoke. I was prepared for a disappointment seeing it sit there on the shelf in a card board box. I was surprised when I opened the pouch to find such balanced moisture and color in the tobacco. It's aroma was distinctly cherry and burley. I was nervous to pack my Peterson as the last time I tried a new tobacco in that pipe it was very disappointing altogether, as it was bad enough for me not to finish the bowl! So I cautiously packed my small clay pipe with a thimbleful of the the blend, noting how the flakes seemed moist but not greasy like most cheap tobaccos I've tried. A few quick puffs and I taste gray... after a couple good tamps a light cherry tone manages to rise above the burley. Good enough for me! So I pack a full bowl and give it a couple false lights before I kick off the big show. As I expected the larger diameter bowl brings out the cherry very nicely and balances out well with the burley. Once again the blend surprises me by the lack of the chemical taste I associate with cheap flavored tobaccos. It burns very evenly and the first 3 quarters of the bowl are light, billowy clouds of cherry and burley. Towards the bottom of the bowl the moisture makes for a slightly dense smoke with strong almost plum cake taste. I set the pipe down, happy with the victory over my brother in a game of cribbage, and a bowl of surprisingly enjoyable cheap and readily available pipe tobacco! About 5 minutes later that chemical taste sneaks up on my tongue, but nothing that a pint of Founder's Red Rye IPA can't wash away. A well rounded tobacco with a very good flavor to price ratio!

This stuff is middle of the road - not the greatest blend available but certainly not the worst. It is the best of the cherry blends. It doesn't have much bite and it doesn't smoke goopy. My wife has a low tolerance for aroma of pipe smoke but she doesn't seem to object to this blend. The leaf used in the blend is decent quality and the casing doesn't completely overwhelm the natural taste of the tobacco as is the case with most other blends. If no other tobacco is available and I have to settle for an OTC blend, Carter Hall would be my first choice, SWR Aro second, Middleton Cherry third.

Like many who noticed the nice aroma of this tobacco while around others who were smoking it in the 1960s and 1970s - and who imagined that young women might be favorably impressed with them if they smoked it - I started out with Middleton's Cherry Blend in a pipe I bought with it in a drugstore while in college in 1972. I don't remember if it was a Dr. Grabow or Medico pipe, but I'm sure it was one of those two brands. I immediately became aware that pipe tobaccos don't taste when you are smoking them the way they smell when someone else is smoking them - and got a serious lesson in tongue bite. After a package or two of Cherry Blend I moved on to other brands that came in pouches in convenience stores with names that suggested fruit flavors and, if they didn't bite like Cherry Blend, left me feeling like I had been eating a bar of perfumed soap instead. Then, I discovered shop-blended tobaccos and pipes that did not have filters or gimmicky metal plumbing inside at a shopping mall pipe store, picked up some hints on how to pack and puff for mildness and flavor, and left the drugstore stuff behind.

A while back, I saw some Cherry Blend for sale at a drugstore and decided to buy it just for the nostalgia. It felt fresh in the pouch and I decided to give it a try. I sprinkled it into one of my large-bowl old GBD pipes, packed it fairly loosely, gave it a good light across the top, puffed gently once it was lit and got an awakening. I actually enjoyed it. In the same way that I can enjoy a bowl of Carter Hall or Prince Albert these days, anyway. It still didn't taste the way it smelled, but my nose enjoyed the cherry aroma that it could pick up as I puffed. It wasn't bad as a no-nonsense tobacco flavor.

I realize that my poor memories of Middleton's Cherry Blend have more to do with the way I packed it for too hard a draw and then puffed like crazy to keep it lit when I tried it almost 40 years ago, before I knew better. I am going to keep some around to enjoy from time to time now that I know how to enjoy it.

Now, just hold on a hot damn minute... I smoke and thoroughly enjoy fine tobacco blends as much as the next man. But, I don't know why this tobacco is getting such a bad rap. Cherry Blend yields good honest burley taste with very subtle cherry flavor. Certainly worthy of 3 stars (IMO).

UPDATE 10/18/2013: For the past few months I've been smoking a lot of burley lately and I've been really enjoying Cherry Blend, especially with my morning coffee... This blend and Granger as well.. I been enjoying it so often that I feel it's my duty to raise it to four stars. "Just a good old tobacco from way back when"

Cherry Blend is "King of the Tongue Biters"--always has been, always will be. It's hard to believe anyone could smoke this stuff and report of no tongue bite. If you get no t/b from this, your tongue must be like shoe leather.

"Like shoe leatha', Chah-lee. Shoe leatha already."

The room note is what really attracts one to this blend in the first place, but I can think of a hundred other cherry-flavored blends that also have attractive room notes and won't have you sprinting for the nearest water fountain to put out the 3- alarm in your mouth.

Use it for mulch?