Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) Velvet

I had a couple of pouches of this from a local b&m and found it to be a light, unassuming, pleasant blend--certainly not an outstanding smoke, but a serviceable tobacco.

A few weeks later I was in the same b&m when their delivery came in. They had received a couple of tubs of Velvet (along with other blends) at a cut-rate price. I bought a tub based on my experience with the pouches.

Now, I want my money back.

Whereas the pouches were sufficiently dry to smoke straight away, the material in the tub would clump when pinched. The aroma from the pouches was very lightly fruity. The aroma from the tub reminded me of something I've had before: Granger.

As mentioned in my review of Granger, there is something in that blend that prevents me from smoking it. I was very wary of this tub of Velvet based on the aroma, but I laid a bit of it out to dry overnight and tried it the next day. It was almost as moist as before drying, and I had the same reaction to this tub of Velvet I had had to Granger--I couldn't smoke it. If I'm not mistaken, Lane is now responsible for both Granger and Velvet (along with Half & Half, which I can't smoke either).

My rating of Velvet is based on the tub. Had I not bought it and just reviewed the pouches I would have added a star. My question now is: Was this tub on sale because of a mislabeling, or is this tub the current state of Velvet? I'll never know.

My Grandpa on my mother's side was a pipe smoker. His brand was Velvet. More than likely, I was 7-9 years old in the early 1980s when I tried smoking for the first time. I probably puffed one my Grandpa's Dr. Grabow pipes after asking him to try it. I am sure he thought I would hate it, but I liked it. Later, I grabbed an old pipe and some Velvet tobacco from his cabinet and lit up. I must have liked it enough to sneak a pipe smoke in whenever I visited his house. He died when I was 13. I became a cigarette smoker in my early teens and rarely revisited pipes until recently. I have not had a cigarette in over 6 years having vaped in that time with some occasional pipe and cigar use.

My childhood taste buds must have been different as I cannot stand Velvet now. Maybe the recipe has changed since the early 1980s. It has too much of a cheap liquor taste to it. It almost gives you tongue bite when taking it easy, and it will definitely give you tongue bite if you smoke faster than that.

Mostly Flavor Lacking And Boring, But There Are A Few Nuances To Be Appreciated - If this is the "good ol' days," then they sucked.

[Tin/bag - Wow, overpowering whiskey/bourbon. After several whiffs, I can start to catch a little dark sugar and some sweetness. Soft to the touch, cube cut that does give a sense of Velvet with its fluffiness.]

Mild burley with slight fruit note here and there and a little sweetness in the aftertaste, almost a vanilla. Very slight tingle on the tongue and once or twice in nose (nothing like a Perique nip). Mostly flavor lacking and boring. A little bit of cigarette in there faintly at the end of retro. Also a little bitterness at the end of exhale, and maybe a little nuttiness from the burley, but it also seems to have chemicalized twist to it, again very faint. It did get a little better towards end of bowl, but maybe that is me tuning in better to the very slight flavors. Reminiscent of picking up some dried leaves and smoking them, though I have never done that, and there is a little sweetness in there.

I do not like Lane Limited Ready Rubbed much (think cigarette on that), and I rank this one behind it. This sure didn't start the day off with great pleasure. It will be my last pouch I am pretty sure, and it will sit in the mason jar until I die most likely, since I do not throw out tobacco at this point. I will try to appreciate it more in a year or so, I don't expect aging helps any, but I will try it one more time.

Burns fairly cool, even with heavy puffing. Not a moisture builder either, but I didn't finish down to the bottom of the bowl. I pitched it at the last 8th of bowl.

With an aroma that I can only describe as sour, this blend had me weary from the get go. So odd was the aroma of the first pouch I opened, that I bought several more from various locations to see if I had just stumbled upon a bad lot of it. It seems not, all of them had the same sour aroma. Once I got past the aroma and packed a bowl of it, the acrid taste replaced the aroma as my chief annoyance. Also, this blend is so heavily cased that it began to gurgle almost immediately. It took me an average of a dozen pipe cleaners to maintain a moisture free smoke with this blend, an amount of work that is not equal to the amount of pleasure it provided.

Well, it was a rite of passage, I suppose. When I started smoking a pipe in 1979 I started right off with Dunhill and Balkan Sobranie and a few house blends from the tobacconist. For forty years I never even looked at drugstore OTC blends. But come down-time during the Covid shutdowns I thought maybe I’d systematically explore all the old codger classics. So I did. A dozen of them. Some I actually enjoyed, some were of decent quality, and then a couple stood out as being bad. This was a baddie.

But my reaction could have been expected since I hate cherry flavoring in tobaccos, and can take chocolate only in small doses. For those of you who enjoy cherry blends you may very well find velvety luxuriance here. To me it tastes like a cross between Middleton Cherry + Lane 1Q, or Luden’s cherry lozenges covered in cheap, stale, waxy chocolate like you find at the dollar store. Tried drying and that reduced the candied cherry somewhat, only to reveal a new unpleasant taste: wet cardboard.

I tried three times in three different pipes, but could never make it through a whole bowl. Worst off, in a moment of glaring insanity, I tried my first bowl in a vintage Barling bulldog. Yep, it was ghosted by this ghastly abomination. Had to do the salt treatment. The other two times I tried it in my cheapest cobs.

I had to laugh when I saw a YouTuber who favors this blend and admonished all pipers to have patience getting to know a blend, and that you don’t really know all the mysteries of it until you’ve had fifty bowls. Bollocks. Sometimes you know from the first minute, so why keep beating your head against the wall? Anyway, this probably deserves two stars for being so smooth and velvety, but I’m giving one star because I don’t think sufficient warning has been given about the ghosting.

Smoking now:

The pouch note has an aroma of chocolate, cherry, and anise like an aromatic pipe tobacco. It also has this plastic Halloween candy smell, like sticking your nose into a plastic pumpkin with Halloween candy in it. Others describe it as a play dough smell. It’s odd. The tobacco is fairly moist. Opened the pouch a day before smoking giving it some air time before smoking.

The initial lighting had the most foul chemical taste I’ve ever had from a pipe. Good news is is that that goes away. The taste is very mild but it’s artificial cherry, chocolate. Leaves a play dough after taste that I did not welcome or enjoy and I’ve ate actual play dough… as a child of course. The retrohale is more of the same taste, very very mild burley nuttiness, plastic cherry, chocolate, and a harsh cigarette smell. Dried my mouth out and left my tongue angry and that subjected it to multiple bowls of this. Eventually I had to just stop because it was biting my tongue. Of the OTC burley blends I’ve smoked, this one is last on my list. I’m no tobacco snob but SWR I finished the pouch gladly. Carter Hall, Granger which I actually like, even Captain Black I’ll smoke before this again. Your grandpa might have smoked this but if he had access to what we have in the twenty first century he probably wouldn’t have. Literally gave it away to a tramp at the greyhound bus terminal for his RYO.

For the sake of the artful codger I really wanted to like this one. Just can't do it. I get no flavor from this stuff. Nice looking, nice burn, but no flavor.

Basic OTC Burley aromatic

I have recently been on a Drugstore blend binge. They are charming in a simple, nostalgic kind of way and all come in handy pouches, so it's convenient to stop on the way to camp and grab one for the pocket. I have found a few blends to be pleasantly surprising and others have left me in want for something pleasant to say- Velvet falling under the latter.

Starting off, I enjoy the presentation. Very simple and classic in appearance. The 'pouch-note' is terrific. my hopes for a good smoke were high with the first deep breath of leather-bound books, dates, raisin, and a nutty-sweet kind of sunflower aroma; my saliva glands were awakened.

The tobacco packed well and burned well enough. The pipe never got hot, yet I experienced a great deal of tongue-bite. The smoking flavour is that of the raisin, basic burley nuttiness, and Sambuca. Some chemical in there isn't burning well. There is a plastic note in the forefront of the smoke's flavour. A flat, sweet, tongue-covering sensation that when combined with the bite, proves to be too much to tolerate.

Bottom line: I love the aroma- Tin and room, but I can't smoke this tobacco. Even when sipped, my tongue feels coated and acidic. There is something in this blend's topping that is just not kosher. I recommend you grab any alternative. Even Red Cap which is basically cigarette baccy in disguise.

I ran accross an old pouch of this tobacco as I was out and needed some. The pouch was all dusty on the outside and looked old. The pouch not wasn't bad and had a berry scent. It lit without any problem, probably because the tobacco was so dry. It tasted like really bad cigarette tobacco. I didn't care for it so in the trash it went.