Dunhill A-21000

Forgive the long review here, but there's a lot to say about this one...and some of it has to do with politics and dates and marketing. A friend of mine recommended this while on a trip to San Francisco - so I stopped into the now gone Dunhill's store there and took a whiff - and promptly bought a tin. Even to this old puffer of flakes and strong English blends this is without question the best smelling tobacco in the universe - you literally are tempted to pop a handful into your mouth. I think it must also be given a dose of PG as it stays "moist" in the very large tin for extreme periods. Vanilla...OK, but there's a sort of cocoa undertone too that gives it a deeper note...just wonderful! Smoking characteristics are very easy...a very large bowl fluffs up on the charring light and then greatly diminishes in volume so that a fairly well-packed bowl becomes about a 3/4 load. Agreed that it burns very fast but you don't need to be super careful to enjoy it. Never had any issue with bite. Certainly a mild smoking experience - with one of the VERY few room notes I can get away with anywhere in this tobacco reviling world - this one produces a reaction similar to the old phrase, "men envy me, women want me". Even though the attraction for me is the aroma, it also has a decent tobacco flavor after the topping has burned away somewhat...after all it IS Dunhill's. I haven't noticed that it stinks up a bowl much, but then I'm careful not to smoke it in dedicated briars...it works nicely in a meershaum. Dunhill's has apparently closed most of their US stores (I've heard NYC will stay and that LA might too) but this is worth the effort to track down and secure. Nearly a year ago a BIG cubish tin cost me just $15 (I smoke cigars too, so pipe tobacco costs seem, well, like a joke) and it's well worth that minimal investment if all you did was just open the tin now and then and take a great big whiff! Going to a party or out on the town and don't what to see women go green and men give you the "fisheye" - take this stuff along and women will say," now, that's the kind of tobacco I like (while giving their cigar-smoking dates the elbow) and guys that aren't "allowed" to light up will stare at you wistfully and say, "I always did want to smoke a pipe". And it happens again and again.

Edit in March 2018: still love this stuff...It’s none other than the world renowned Lane Limited 1Q. The best selling tobacco in the world, so they say.

Believe it or not I still own a pound can of A21000 . This was a Dunhill store blend that could be purchased only at one of their retail stores . Back in the day they had dozens of these blends . After Dunhill stopped making their own tobacco you could still get them in London for quite a few years . I also have a one pound can of A26000 . The tobacco in both is in excellent condition and ready to smoke . Although I am not an aromatic smoker this might be one of the best aromatics I have ever seen . Not like the over the hill aromatics for sale today , A21000 has excellent Virginias and Cavendish and a light , smooth scent . The room note is amazing . This is like smoking history . I might bring them to Chicago for my friends to enjoy with me .

Pouch note - raisins, vanilla, nougat/caramel. Basically vanilla raisinettes if you guys remember the candy.

Char and initial light is a quite bright and citrusy tobacco, with a bit of roasted walnut (including maybe just a little of the pith). My mouth now has a taste of toasted bread and vanilla, but at no time does the vanilla seem to be a prime player. A quick snork confirms these flavors of bread, vanilla, and in lieu of "citrus", I prefer "sour apple" - it seems more on the mark being tart and earthy at the same time. There is still a little walnut pith bitterness as well, a good reminder to me personally to not hot-box this one, lest there be dragons... on my tongue.

As the bowl warms I'm also getting a hint of lightly sweetened cream, a typical reward I get when I'm patient in smoking any light cavendish. This plays nicely with the existing flavors. At the very end of the bowl I get a burst of sweetness as that last little bit of dottle and topping gets incinerated... I go for more... and boo, I taste the maple stem at the bottom of my cob.

Room note is great... baked bread with vanilla. Nicotine strength is quite low as well, I piggybacked this bowl with a bowl of Northwoods with narry a burley burp.

All-in-all, a well balanced, somewhat subdued aromatic. A little temperamental in smoking, however. Maybe the English and Burley's I've had recently are just that much more forgiving...

Word on the street is this is Lane's 1Q, the most popular bulk blend in the US, maybe everywhere.

http://www.tobaccoreviews.com/blend_detail.cfm?ALPHA=1&TID=630

Probably every brick and mortar tobacco shop in the US carries 1Q. At Tender Box, it is "Wilshire." At the B&M in my town it is (strangely) called "Shag."

It is quite similar to Captain Black Royal, also by Lane, but 1Q has less humidicant, and possibly a better grade of tobacco.

I bought this in 1 lb. bulk a while ago (uniformly medium brown cavendish cut) and still wonder why I have smoked it from time to time. Absolutely no tobacco taste for me whatsoever. Couldn't really taste the vanilla, nor was it really sweet either. What I tasted was chemically bitter, with a fair amount of moisture, goop, and tarry dottle. The room note is fine - but that doesn't benefit the smoker much (except for the fact that maybe it won't get you thrown out of a crowd the way things are now a days)! No bite to speak of - unusual for such a heavily, as well as chemically, cased tobacco - but that's probably because I'm a more seasoned puffer at this stage of my life! It sometimes tastes as if the briar wood is burning through!

I have even tried to add - very sparingly - a pinch of this stuff to other, more natural blends for a vanilla flavoring, but with little success. The chemical taste and bitterness are still there to contaminate the mix, and my batch of Mixture 21000 is about a year old now.

If you want to use some of the tobacco (unsmoked) as a room freshener, it's great! Just put in in a container on the window sill. It's just not my cup of tea. Can't really believe Dunhill had any hand in this. Perhaps they did way back when, but now some other manufacturer is probably paying to use the Dunhill name for such a mediocre product. It does taste like a typically bad Lane Ltd. concoction. What a shame. 2 stars out of 4 for nostalgia's sake.

A fine aromatic, this blend is, to me, a somewhat muted version of Captain Black Royal. Very smooth, sweet, and flavorful. This was my daily smoke for a long time, before I switched to Dunhill 965. I still buy a pound now & then, for cold-weather smokes.

I'm not really sure why i bought this specific blend. I was putting together a sampler online and this one just kinda caught my eye. I thought since it didn't have a flashy name like "Vanilla Paradise" or "Coconut Bay", something gay like that... it would be able to hold it's own on the taste department.

A little moist, but again it's an aromatic. I didn't dry it out really (unless you consider opening the tin a few times a week to sniff the stuff drying out). Packed nice and good and lit well first try. Pouch aroma is that of.... well, hints of vanilla cream which is good in my book. Now lets see if the taste can live up to it.

Upon light, I get the basic aromatic, sweet flavor that i find universal among all aromatics (even some non). Smoke was very thick and the bowl burns FAST, so be careful. Even though it did burn fast, i didn't have much goop at the bottom at all, so if you treat it w/ respect i'm sure you can have the same luck.

As far as taste goes, i will say that the first 2-3 bowels i smoked i wasn't very impressed at all. Just another run of the mill aromatic to me w/ slight hints of vanilla. It wasn't till about the 4th or 5th bowl i had that i really started to enjoy it. I dunno if it's had time to dry out or what, but it's starting to taste better. Mind you I don't get the creamy vanilla flavor i was looking for until about half-way through the bowl, so that would explain my 2 stars. But after about half-bowl, the taste got much fuller in my opinion.

Regardless, i'm glad i gave this one a chance because if you wait long enough and smoke enough of it... i think you will be rewarded w/ a rich, creamy vanilla flavor that follows half the bowel all the way to the bottom. 2 stars because it TOOK SO LONG!

Dunhill - A-21000.

It's mainly gold and brown Cavendish, there's only a tiny amount of black, 10% maybe? The pouch's smells sweet, yet not strong.

The smoke tastes to me quite mild with vanilla flavouring, I'd rate it as a steadfast mild addition. The Cavendish has a flavour that's honey-sweet, and somewhat crisp; pretty pleasant. A negative point is the heat: it burns far hotter than most straight Cav's do. It also gives me a little bit of bite, it's still an enjoyable blend, but needs a gentler technique. It also can burn a touch quick, so again, a gentle technique improves things.

The room-note's nice, it doesn't 'fill' the room with smoke, and the nicotine's mild.

An OK blend, but easily a lower standard than a lot of vanilla aromatics.

Somewhat recommended.

High quality aromatic which provides a cool smoke and no tongue bite. The flavor, a mix of vanilla and wood, is very similar to Captain Black White but a bit milder and with higher quality tobaccos. This seems to me a Burley/Black Cavendish/Virginia mixture, being the latter quite in the background.

There is no discernable difference between this blend and Lane's 1-Q. Considering that Lane is the U.S. distributor for Dunhill bulks, I would not be a bit surprised if i weren't the same exact blend. I certainly cannot detect any difference between the two.