Drucquer & Sons The Merry Monk

The Saint James perique provides a wealth of tart and dry, barely sweet plums, spice, earth, wood, mild dried figs, floralness, toast, sourness and mesquite. It takes a light lead at times due to the potency of the plum, spice and mesquite. When it doesn’t, the small lead belongs to the musty sweet Cyprian Latakia, which offers a fair amount of smoke, earth, wood, herbs, vegetation, floralness, and light spice. The sour, nutty, earthy, woody, bitter, rough, bready white burley is a couple of levels behind the perique and Latakia in the third slot. The bright Virginia is a tad more noticeable than the red Va. Combined, they produce mild tart and tangy citrus, grass, bread, earth, wood, tangy dried dark fruit, sugar, and floralness along with light sour lemon, spice and acidity. They are a couple of rungs above the earth, woody, and lightly creamy sweet, toasted black cavendish. It is a condiment. The strength is a couple of steps past the center of medium to strong. The taste just edges past that mark. The nic-hit is in the center of medium to strong. Won’t bite or get harsh. Has a little roughness. The mildly moist, mostly broken flakes may need a light dry time although I did not do that as per my review custom. It burns cool, clean and slow with an occasionally inconsistent, complex, rather dry sour, plummy, spicy, floral, mildly sweet, bitter, smoky and nutty, savory, rugged, piquant flavor that extends to the long, lingering after taste. The room note is pungent. Leaves little dampness in the bowl, and requires a fair amount of relights. Not an all day smoke. I recommend a wide bowl for this blend. Three stars.

-JimInks

Tin note of smoky, dark fruity wine and peaty vegetation. Tobacco is a flake of marbled black, brown and dark brown with a little tan. Moisture content is ok. Most pipe smokers will want to dry it out a bit. Flakes rub out with a little effort. Burns slow with a few extra relights. The strength is medium and nic is mild to medium. No flavoring detected. Taste is medium to full and very consistent, with notes of smoky, peaty herbal hay, lemon grass, toasted bread, zesty citrus peel, wood, spices, leather, earthy, slightly spicy, more buttery than creamy, tart dark fruit, slight dryness, a nutty and floral incense background note, and a very peppery retro. Latakia is leading with Virginia, Perique, Burley and Cavendish supporting. Room note is tolerable, and aftertaste is great.

A new blend and a good blend which is mostly broken flake in my tin. Slightly moist, but for me did not need drying. A little fruit flavor, sweetness, and the fact that it was pressed and sliced makes for a solid merging of the flavors. A year or two of aging will certianly merge the flavors even more. I will be buying an extra tin or two for aging

I appreciate what Pease has done recreating the Drucquer blends so this new release caught my eye. My first thought was to question if our hobby needed another English blend to go along with the hundreds already out there and if Drucquer needed another blend with the same components as Red Lion. After giving this a try the answer to both questions is a definite yes.

Despite having the same blend of tobacco, Merry Monk is nothing like Red Lion. I think part of this comes from a different proportion of the various tobacco used and some comes from Merry Monk being a flake while Red Lion is a ribbon. In Red Lion the Virginia seems more apparent while Perique leads the way in Merry Monk. If I had to pick one phrase to describe Merry Monk it would be smoked plums. But it is so much more than just that. The pressing into the flake form really serves to meld the flavors together. Where I could somewhat detect the individual tobacco types in Red Lion, that wasn't the case with Merry Monk. They all came together in one terrific taste experience.

I have smoked quite a few English blends but have never had one quite like this. I waiver between three and four stars but will give it a very solid three for now. I think many who try this will go with a four. Definitely recommended.