Missouri Meerschaum Lord Morgan

The musty sweet Cyprian Latakia provides a wealth of smoke, earth, wood, floralness, incense, and mild spice as the lead component. It’s sixty-five percent of the mixture. The fragrant Orientals offer a lot of earth, wood, herbs, vegetation, floralness, some buttery sweetness and tart sourness along with mild spice. They play a second support role. The earthy, woody, nutty burley is a condiment. So is the grassy, tart and tangy citrus, bready, sugary Virginia. A dash of perique produces a little earth, wood, raisins, plums and spice. The fruity bourbon topping moderately tones down the tobaccos. The strength and taste levels are medium. The nic-hit is a hair less potent. No chance of bite or harshness, and it has few rough notes. This easily broken apart crumble cake is mildly moist, and as per my usual custom, I did not dry it. Endlessly rich and fragrant, it burns cool, clean and a little slow with a very consistent sweet, floral, spicy, lightly sour aromatic, punchy, zesty campfire flavor. Leaves little dampness in the bowl, and requires a few relights. Has a pleasantly lingering after taste and room note. Can be an all day smoke for the veteran, and repeatable for the less experienced. Four stars.

-JimInks

If you like Plum Pudding Bourbon Barrel Aged you'll like this. It's basically a rebrand. I was hoping for a real kick from this but to me, it was mild. I've had three bowls in two days. All I got from the blend was a vanilla, Bourbon and Latikia incense notes. Thank you.

When I first tried this several months back I was hugely disappointed, in part because the various components and toppings were disjointed and inharmonious, and in part because I missed the initial online buying craze for limited edition tins and had to make a two hour roundtrip visit to my nearest brick & mortar store to buy a tin. Cost me fifteen bucks plus tax and time and gas. At least I had a couple of good pipes for the road trip!

Being in the jar now for four months, it has come into harmony with itself. No more the odd juxtaposition of 65% grill scrapings with super sweet and fruity toppings. When first opened, the very first puff tasted like blackberry jam, and I wondered where that came from. That was followed by fruity peach, mango, sweet banana custard and an undertone of butterscotch pudding – along with the burnt fat of course. Since these are not the flavors I associated with any Bourbon I’ve ever had (my preference being Woodford Reserve) I thought that Sutliff had just used an excess supply of their Ambrosia blend, added some stale blending Latakia, and made a deluxe overpriced crumble cake from it. So yeah, at that point I don’t know if I would have even given it two stars. Makes me wonder about the rush to be the first to review a blend. I think it is important to consider how a blend evolves.

So what about now? No overt fruit flavors now, some muted peaches n’ cream, but certainly no more of the startling blackberry. The infused bourbon character is now recognizable, and the muted chargrilled notes are well integrated into the overall soft sweet presentation. Makes for a pleasant afternoon treat. Fairly consistent in all pipes tried, though I had a 3.5 star bowl in an old Algerian briar, possibly because it has a 15/16” chamber.

So what good is a review for a product that is already sold out? Good question. I’d only say that if you tried it right away and found it disjointed, try it again now and see what you think. Beyond this initial harmonization I’m not sure this will age well (neither Latakia nor aromatic flavorings are likely to improve with age in my experience), so my one and only tin will be long gone by summer!

Tin note of fruity and smoky. Tobacco is a Krumble Kake of black with a little dark brown. Moisture content is ok, some pipe smokers will want to dry this a bit. Kake breaks apart and rubs out easily. Burns slow once lit with any relights. The strength is medium and nic is mild. Flavoring is mild, with notes of sweet Burbon. Sweet Burbon moves to the background within the first 1/4 and becomes sporadic afterwards. Taste is medium and mostly consistent, with notes of smoky, sweet bourbon, spices, floral, peaty vegetation, burnt toast, wood, herbal incense, sour hay, earth, lemon grass, leather, dried dark fruit, orange peel/zest, a tangy citrus background note, and a peppery retro. Latakia is leading with Burley, Flavoring, Oriental/Turkish, Perique and Virginia supporting. Room note is tolerable to strong and aftertaste is good.