House of Windsor Union Leader

As close to a very good "all day smoke" as you will find. Not complicated but tasty and satisfying. Smells pretty good for a mostly real tobacco blend. I have to agree that this blend would be most at home in my long since gone '55 Ford Pickup glove box.

I recently went up to Springfield IL to take care of some personal business and stopped into the tobacco store located downtown. I used to go in there to buy cigars before the prices went nuts years ago. Anyway I was pleasently surprise that they had several tobacco blends Rattrays, Galwaith, and upon walking out the door spied a House of Windsor display. I grabbed one of Barking Dog, Mapleton, and lastly Union Leader tins and only mention the shop for those stuck in Springfield and or central Illinois who need a tobacco fix this was a nice shop.

I lit up Union Leader first being rather wary after smoking Briggs which was just super bland to me. This tobacco was much better. Little sweet and lil nutty from the burley. I found myself smoking this in these last few hot days of summer and finding it went well with the conditions. It has a nice room note, though not too strong, and seemed to leave fairly soon. The tobacco seemed like a good place to start for those interested in burley blends for it seemed a step up from others of this ilk that one would find in a drug store.

As Pop-Pop put it, this is one great no bull$%#@ tobacco! I would not have normally gone for something so "straight up" from a blender I had never tried, but was graced with a sample recently. Very mellow, easy to burn, sweet but not cloying smoke. Americana tobacco at it's best, rivaling C+D's mastery of this genre. I probably won't smoke it all the time, just due to personal taste, but if you want a straight forward quality smoke, try this!

This was my introduction into the HOW line of blends. I realy wanted to like this but was somewhat disappointed. The tin aroma was wonderful, the cut was realy good and in my opinion the moisture was just right (a little on the dry side) straight out of the tin. The flavor was pretty good as well. My biggest and only complaint about this tobacco is that it burns on the hot side for me. If it burned cooler I would enjoy this much more. I tried this in several differant pipes with very slow puffing rate and had the same effect. There could be a possibility that there is something in this blend that just disagrees with my tongue. It almost gives me the impression that this tin is young and raw and needs more age. Most virginia/burley blends do not give me this problem. I will probably age this one for a while and see if my opinion on this blend changes.

I've smoked just about all the House of Winsdor blends since they became available at my local tobbaconist. I can't add much about the smoking qualities of this blend since it has pretty much been covered by the other reviewers. However, I smoke a meershaum pretty much on a daily basis and the taste with this blend is unsurpassed by similar blends from other brands. For an inexpensive tobacco blend, this blend I think will probably become a regular for me and I will probably choose this as an all day blend along with another one of House of Winsdor blends, which is Country Doctor. I'm absoloutley amazed at how mild and pleasant this tobacco smokes, and it is not a goopy blend which leaves a residue. For a burley based blend, it is full of surprises. My meershaum, seems to be coloring a lot faster since I picked up Uinion Leader. My only dissapointment is that Union Leader is not available in most of the shops where I live which is something to say for all the other House of Winsdor blends. Hopefully this will change as more and more pipe smokers in my area discover or rediscover these long lost American tradiion blends.

This is a simple, plain, good old-fashioned, all-American smoke. Nothing fancy in this blend and it does make one wax nostalgic. I found it smoked best for me in bent, stubby, thick-shank pipes. I would not smoke it on a daily basis but I will certainly return to it from time-to-time.

My kind of smoke! I can do this all day. A straight up american burley and virginia blend of excellent quality with a sweet old fashioned pipe room note. Reminds me of my great-grandfathers pipe aroma. An excellent old time no bulls##t blend. Five stars in my book.

This and Model both really stand out in the Burley crowd. I don't understand why they were discontinued, while dreck such as half-n-half, and other assorted burley nightmares continue to sell like hot cakes. It has a light honey taste that really accentuates the burley nuttiness. This will be a perfect summertime, corn cob smoke. Don't let the cigarette reference scare you. You might detect a small amount of it in the room note, but other than that it doesn't make its presence known.

The tin says "pipe or cigarette"......and I was a bit nervous in opening the lid. I half expected to see a mess of diced cigarette tobacco but instead found a nice medium brown crimp cut tobacco blend. It is lightly cased......and I agree with previous speculations that it's honey. The light casing adds a nice aroma to the tin but really doesn't come through in flavor or aroma from the smoke. I did pick up a definite acrid taste that began to come through about halfway through the bowl which really ruined what I thought was a pretty nice, middle of the road natural tobacco blend. I'll probably give this one a whirl a time or two more, but if the acrid flavor wasn't a coincidence, this one will be banished from the cabinet forever.