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Frog Morton, eat your heart out! A decidedly English-style tobacco that is incredibly kind to the mouth and packed with flavor! A generous helping of latakia is accompanied by noticeable Turkish Izmir, ribbon cut Virginias, unflavored black cavendish, and a dash of soft burley. A complex blend and a non-aromatic treat!
Favorite Of 1 Users
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| BlackAdderLXX (5) |  |
Mild | Extremely Mild | Mild to Medium | Tolerable |
When McClelland closed up, I was caught off guard. My favorite blend of theirs, Frog Morton's Cellar was no more and by the time I had heard about the closing, my opportunity to hoard was lost. I had heard that Northwoods and Shepherd's Pie were close. I tried Northwoods first and while it is a good blend, I hesitate to compare it to FMC. I finally tried Shepherd's Pie a couple of months ago. It definitely is closer to FMC than Northwoods, but in my opinion, it's got it's own thing going and I like it better. I had a chance to try all three side by side and I confirmed my thoughts: Shepherd's Pie > FMC > Northwoods.
Shepherd's Pie is a nice mild English with a touch of sweetness from the Cavendish. In spite of the mild taste, it has a decent complexity. Definitely an English crossover reminiscent of the beloved FMC.
Pipe Used: Various Briars, Cobs
Age When Smoked: Fresh
Purchased From: The Country Squire
Similar Blends: Frog Morton Cellar, Northwoods.
17 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| JimInks (3046) |  |
Mild to Medium | None Detected | Mild to Medium | Pleasant to Tolerable |
The smoky, woody, earthy, musty sweet Cyprian latakia may be the star component, but this blend is not a lat-bomb.The dry, woody, earthy, floral, mildly spicy, sour Izmir is a supporting player. The Virginia provides some dark fruit, earth, wood, grass and a little citrus in a secondary role. The nutty, woody earthy burley acts mostly as a condiment. The same can be said for the unsweetened sugary, toasty black cavendish that tames some rough edges. The strength is just past the center of mild to medium. The nic-hit is in that center. The taste is a step past the strength level. Won’t bite or get harsh. Burns cool and clean at a moderate pace with a sweet and mildly savory, consistent flavor that translates to the lightly lingering after taste. Leaves little moisture in the bowl, and requires an average number of relights. Can be an all day smoke.
-JimInks
16 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| Noctivagant (11) | |
Mild to Medium | None Detected | Medium | Pleasant to Tolerable |
This a wonderful mild to medium English. There is a defined sweetness from the Cavendish and the Virginias that continues through the entire bowl. This is balanced by the sec dryness of the Turkish and Latakia. They also convey a slight spiciness and a very pleasant body and creaminess to the smoke. I don't detect any of the burley, but it may be contributing to the body as well.
As BlackAdderLXX said, even though it's no lat-bomb, it is complex and very well balanced.
I've been lamenting the loss of Dunhill Aperitif much more so than Frog Morton. This definitely has a similar flavor profile of a medium English with some Cavendish and Virginia sweetness as Aperitif does. This is a very worthy replacement for me, and I find it much more satisfying in every way than any of the Frogs.
Nicotine is mild side of medium, and this is a very easy smoke with perfect moisture in my package of it. Very similar to Dunhill English blends for ease of packing a bowl and just sipping. Well behaved with a tolerable room note for an English.
Pipe Used: Cobs, meerschaums
Age When Smoked: Fresh
Purchased From: Country Squire
Similar Blends: Dunhill Aperitif, Frog Morton OG.
11 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| TCody (15) | |
Mild | None Detected | Mild to Medium | Pleasant to Tolerable |
I liked Frog Morton, but this is better; and it fills the same niche. If you like a flavorful, easy to smoke English that is not boring, try this one. You won't be disappointed.
Pipe Used: Dunhill Shell Prince and similar
Age When Smoked: New
Purchased From: The Country Squire, Jackson MS
Similar Blends: Frog Morton, Presby, John Cotton's #1.
7 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| Jarvey (4) | |
Medium | Mild to Medium | Mild | Pleasant |
When I think of sitting back and having a relaxing mild smoke, this is my go to. It tastes exactly how it smells, not to complex on the palate and as smooth as butter.
Smokes pretty cool, I tend to get a lot of smoke out of this one. Leaves a beautiful smell around.
I will update after I smoke it with some age.
Pipe Used: Sav 111
Age When Smoked: New
Purchased From: Country Squire
6 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| Piper Piper Piper (3) | |
Medium to Strong | Medium | Medium | Tolerable |
This is a great English tobacco with good proportions of Latakia and other goodness! The flavor is most reminiscent of a FM blend weirdly enough FMOTT but more smooth on the palette!
Pipe Used: Rattrays Goblin
Age When Smoked: 7 Months
Purchased From: Country Squire
Similar Blends: FM Blends.
5 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| Bushido (27) | |
Medium | Mild to Medium | Medium | Tolerable |
A fantastic mild English. Buttery and a little sweet, with some smokiness. Some compare this to FMC, and while it’s in the ballpark, I actually like SP better, as the flavors are a bit more ‘blended’ together and it does not have the sharp whiskey undertone of the Frog. Not as bold or flavor forward as Northwoods, this is one that I reach for when I can’t decide on what to pack.
Purchased From: Country Squire
Similar Blends: Boswell’s Countryside, FMC, Northwoods.
4 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| Artteacherpiper (2) | |
Very Mild | None Detected | Mild | Pleasant |
Wow! I get a HUGE burst of jasmine or incense. Simply refuses to bite or get hot. There is very little Latakia to my taste, the orientals dominate. Delicious and utterly unique; there is nothing like it in my rotation.
Pipe Used: MM Cob
Age When Smoked: Fresh
Purchased From: TCS
2 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| JJ Sir Emmitt (40) | |
Mild | Mild | Mild | Pleasant |
So sweet creamy mild English blends may be my least favorite type of blend outside of aromatic blends. And this blends completely embodies this. However this statement is a statement of my personal preference and not a judgement of the blend itself. Infact this blend seems to be of very high quality, balance and depth while being a very easy going smooth smoke.
This blend brings smokey sweet flavors of toast, cream, honey, wood, and some coco.
Burns easy and cool, no complaints. I just personally do not enjoy mild English blends but this should be a slam dunk win for those that do.
2 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| Bumble (65) | |
Mild | None Detected | Mild to Medium | Tolerable |
To give you a hint from where my below impressions are coming from; I favor aromatic blends, although I am finding I enjoy English/Scottish blends more frequently, which I could not stand when I first started smoking a pipe. I have been trying more of the English/Aromatic combo blends, which I have found being more and more of that I am reaching for for my everyday smoke
Opening the bag what I smelled was a lite note of Latakia and the background was, with none of them overwhelming the other...
The flavor I tasted was mostly the Latakia, with some of the Orientals and the Virginia (maybe sweetness from the Cavendish, but that may be my imagination). Although the Latakia was dominant in both smell and taste it was not overwhelming, I would call this a mild English blend. To describe this as creamy would be proper... I may have found another blend to add to my daily rotation!
It arrived semi-dry, so absolutely no drying time was needed. Was able to light this without issue and few relights. I did not have any tounge-bite with this blend.
Pipe Used: Rattray Goblin 99
Age When Smoked: new
Purchased From: thecountrysquireonline.com
1 person found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| JPWalshIV (1) | |
Mild to Medium | None Detected | Medium | Pleasant to Tolerable |
More than just a Frog Morton substitute, I enjoyed this blend very much. I have had the opportunity to smoke several of the Squire's blends and have found them all to be top notch.
Age When Smoked: Fresh
Purchased From: The Country Squire
1 person found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| BrewCityBriar (4) | |
Medium | Mild | Medium to Full | Pleasant to Tolerable |
Four stars, but I'm extremely biased - this is one of my everyday, desert island blends.
It's buttery sweet and smooth while still having the exotic flavor of the Orientals. Having never had any Frog Morton, I can't pass any judgement on similarity, but if you at all like a good medium strength English with a full, rich taste, this is a bar none have to have stocked tobacco. I could smoke Shepherds Pie only for the rest of my life an be extremely happy.
Age When Smoked: Fresh-6mo
Purchased From: TCS
Nobody has rated this review yet.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| jedibastard (37) | |
Medium | Medium | Medium | Very Pleasant |
This stuff is incredible!!! What more can i say that hasnt already been said. Spicy wood with some sweet grass on the tounge. Stayed consistent till halfway through, then got just ever so slightly more of a spicy kick to it. Im in love!!! Moisture out of the bag/jar is "fine" for most, but i like mine on the dryer side. Had some relights just due to me not puffing often or paying attention. But 20-30min of drying would be excellent for me. The only frog morton ive tried was cellar. I was too busy admiring their art work instead of their tobacco, then.....it was too late. So i cant compare. If this is the only thing i smoke for the rest of my days, id be very happy with that choice.
Pipe Used: Prohibition pipe co
Purchased From: The country squire
Nobody has rated this review yet.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| Bubbamorris (16) | |
Mild to Medium | Extremely Mild | Medium | Pleasant to Tolerable |
Ordered this two times, a year apart from each other, and got two different tasting blends. The second one was definitely my favorite of the two. I’ll provide a review for both.
The first time I bought some, I was surprised at just how aromatic it smelled. The description states “a non-aromatic treat”, so smelling a heavy cocoa aroma and seeing a large percentage of black cavendish was bit strange. The bag note was mostly the sweet cocoa topping and some smokiness. It actually reminded me a lot of The Country Squire’s other blend, Northwest Trek, which is an English aromatic. This was a bit disappointing as I didn’t care for Northwest Trek (not that it was a bad blend by any means, just too aromatic for my tastes). Upon lighting, I got mostly black cavendish, burley, and Virginia with the Latakia in the background. The cocoa note was also quite present. There were a few spots in the bowl where the Latakia and orientals stood out, but it only lasted a few puffs when they did show up. Overall, this batch that I ordered wasn’t great. It was way too sweet with way too heavy of a topping to be considered “non-aromatic” in my opinion. However, if you’re a fan of English crossovers, you probably would’ve loved it. I would give this batch 2 stars.
The second time I ordered it, I did so because a lot of the reviews described something different than what I had the first time. Whenever I see that the reviews don’t exactly line up with my experience, I like ordering a blend again to see if it was just a bad batch I received. When I received the second order, the aroma was completely different. It smelled smoky, spicy, and sweet, but naturally sweet, not a topping sweetness. There may have been a slight topping, but nowhere near the levels found in the first batch. It smelled quite similar to other English/Balkan blends that have black cavendish, such as Arango Balkan Supreme and Rattray’s Black Mallory. This was promising. Upon lighting, I got a much more typical English/Balkan flavor than the first batch. The latakia and orientals were definitely there, with the Virginias and burleys providing some body, and the Cavendish smoothing everything out. Every once in awhile there were bursts of a very fragrant herbal sweetness from the orientals that I loved. It was a great combo of smokiness, natural sweetness, herbal notes, woody notes, and fruit and grass notes from the Virginias and nuttiness from the burley on the finish. It really reminded me of Arango Balkan Supreme, but with just a tad more sweetness and the slight nuttiness from the burley. I really enjoyed this batch. A lot more than the first. I would rate this batch 4 stars.
Overall, I think this blend deserves three stars as it stands, considering I don’t which one of the batches was a fluke and which one was how it’s actually supposed to taste. If I order it a couple more times and it’s like the second batch, I’ll definitely be giving it a 4 star rating. If you like sweeter Englishes, give it a try.
Similar Blends: Rattray - Black Mallory (British Collection), Arango - Balkan Supreme.
Nobody has rated this review yet.
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Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
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| Brunello (166) | |
Mild | Mild to Medium | Mild to Medium | Pleasant to Tolerable |
Several smokers I know have had a fairly positive (as in three stars) response to this, but I find it a disjointed concoction. I’ve tried in cobs, wide and narrow briars, and a meer, and although the balances changed slightly the overall impression was of disharmony of ingredients. Yes, there’s an almost addictive goodness to the blend, but this is negated by some underlying off-putting funkiness. Here’s a typical bowl for me . . .
Jar note is faintly earthy (Burley) with a whiff of Latakia. First flame has a mild soapy hit then subsides. The Latakia is more on the woody side than on the creosote side, so that’s good. Flavors settle into a mild Va-Bur profile, with some chocolate undertones, and I get some of the same Nutty Buddy flavors I found in Old Toby. Don’t get me started on the “Flavoring: none” problem on this site. Some of you have probably tried unprocessed leaf, if not, as an introduction to this topic, I suggest you take three minutes to watch Jeremy Reeves describe the difference between casing and flavoring (or topping). I also use the term pH tempering for the most basic remediation with just sugar water (but even that is not so straightforward as we ask whether the sugar has been inverted or not). Well, boutique blenders who are not manufacturers, like Boswell, Country Squire, Wilke, etc., are buying pre-processed tobaccos that have already been tempered and cased from the likes of Sutliff or Lane, and then doing their own blending. It is only if the end blender adds any flavoring (topping) that we see this listed as flavoring on TR. For example: C&D Burley Flake #5 is described on TR as “Flavoring: None” yet it is cased with rum, anise, and maple.
But back to the saga: By mid-bowl the Yin or Yang battle begins as to whether this will be a mild comforting blend or something more savory, because once the sweetness recedes the Burley starts imparting more bitterness and the Latakia is tasting more like cooking grease. The net result to me tastes like having chocolate sauce on a nice savory steak. Something also tastes like the initial processing of the leaf (the pH tempering) wasn’t complete. I’ve actually experimented with using tiny amounts (less than 5%) of uncased leaf just for ‘complexity’ and that works if the other flavors are strong enough to counterbalance. Anyway, Shepherd’s Pie just doesn’t seem a good synergy of ingredients. It also left a bit of funky stink in my briars, so if you are determined to try this start out with a meer (which should be wiped clean after each use anyway), or stick with cheap cobs.
As an afterthought: if you like Boswell’s Northwoods more than I do, you are probably more receptive to this idea of combining sweet casing (with chocolate notes) and savory flavors. If so you may love Shepherd’s Pie!
Nobody has rated this review yet.
600 Perdue Ave
Richmond, VA 23224