Dan Tobacco Tordenskjold Virginia Slices

Not exactly a VA/Perique, in that the Perique is very subdued. It serves to add a little spice and body to the VA, which luckily is very tasty.

This blend can bite if you're not careful, and I imagine it would smoke even hotter without the Perique in it. The overall taste is sharp and pleasant. I get a nice sense of fullness in my stomach when I smoke this, which indicates a fair amount of nicotine.

Recommended to fans of Virginia blends, as the leaf is high quality and offers a sweet, tangy smoke. Fans of VA/Perique blends, like Haddo's or Escudo, will probably be disappointed if they approach it from that standpoint.

A nicely prepared flake of darker VAs that is more pliable than many. However, the moisture content does not result in a wet smoke. I sense the slightest hint of honeydew in the tin aroma but this disappears upon lighting and just good tobacco flavors come thru. Smokes cool and without bite with a uniform taste throughout. With a large bowled pipe and reasonable pace, it seems you could smoke forever. Even @ the end of the smoke, I don't sense the perique influence. If you're looking for a more complex tobacco, perhaps you should try others, but this is still an enjoyable tobacco for me.

Take a solid golden Va that is about a notch below MVF quality, add a little perique, and then a very mild chocolate casing. Not perique-y enough to qualify as a VaPer for most. I think of it as one and for me it works as one. The perique adds snap and spice and keeps this from being just another golden Va. Every now and then I'll really pick up the chocolate in this, but generally it is invisible IMO. I like it! Smoking a bowl as I type this and thinking the pound in my cellar isn't enough.

I am on my second pipeful of Virginia slices and enjoying the second more than the first. Virginia Slices is good, but not complex. I don't detect much Perique, which is a flaw only if you expecting it. Like any flake, it must be rubbed out some to make it smokeable. I am not very particular, so I just grab a fair size pinch from the tim, roll it around between my hands a bit, and stuff the resulting ball of tobacco into my pipe. I waste several matches and tamps to get an even burn, but no big deal. Nothing to it, although purists will probably cringe. Overall, Virginia Slices is good tobacco, possibly a staple in my rotation. The aroma and flavor are not intense, but there is an underlying complexity and richness that is fetching indeed. I paid $12.50 for 50 grams in San Francisco, which seems a bit pricy for a basic tobacco, but tobacco prices are everywhere these days.

Torden Virginia

The flakes are quite large, light brown / golden coloured, neatly cut but stacked slightly untidily in the tin. Moisture content is ideal: pretty dry, much drier than the British tradition for flakes.

The aroma in the newly opened tin was pungent: apricot jam. My impression was that it had a fairly punchy casing or topping applied, but with barely any airing (in fact, just a few times opening and closing the tin) this has largely dissipated and the aroma is predominantly of hay, horse food and more of a dried apricot aroma behind this. I'm now wondering if it was topped at all or if I dreamt it!

The flavour is of bright Virginias: hay, bread, a little citrus. There's a hint of dried fruit in there but it tastes entirely natural, this isn't an aromatic. People have commented favourably on the aroma though!

Like all bright Virginias it responds well to "breath smoking", giving its best flavours when tickled along gently. I've not suffered bite with it, it probably could if provoked. If rubbed out gently leaving plenty of large pieces, it stays lit very well and I've had hour and a half smokes with it. It does leave a little plug of dottle.

In summary, a very nice flake for a hot summers day, I've been enjoying it greatly during this heatwave! One final question - does it contain Perique? I hadn't considered it until I had written the above review: I hadn't detected any and took it to be a straight Virginia. If it does, it's even more restrained than in Orlik Golden Sliced, and I've been smoking it in my Virginia pipes.

The VAs are very hay-like, the Perique is more noticeable in the tin-note than in the smoke. The flakes fall apart easily into strands, and it smokes nicely, just on the slow-side. There is a hint of something between dark fruit and fig, which may be a v mild topping or the Perique. A nice smoke on a warm day.