G. L. Pease Windjammer

I hate to be the party pooper, but this disappointed me. I love almost everything Master Pease produces, but this is just too saccharine. Pease normally has a steady hand with toppings, tries to add only enough flavoring to engage the natural tobacco flavors in interesting ways - and most often succeeds wonderfully - but this blend is over topped for my taste. The topping is too obvious, like an obtrusive film score. It is frustrating because you can tell there are some fine tobacco flavors underneath - if only you can push the darn topping aside. Even drying it out doesn't mute that flavoring enough. Very disappointing. That said, the room note is nice and it smells really great in the tin: like a pile of drunk Fig Newtons. A nice alternative, by the way, is Savinelli's 145. Basically the same kind of animal, but the topping is more judiciously applied. The cut is different though (a crumble cake), and the quality of the tobacco is not as high, but I think it succeeds better. Very sorry, I really tried to like this.