Fribourg & Treyer Vintage

The various Virginias provide a fair amount of tart and tangy citrus, grass, plenty of bread, some sugar, mild vegetation, tangy ripe dark fruit, earth, wood, light floralness, and a hint of vinegar, smoke, and a couple pinches of spice. The mildly honey-ish, citrusy, slight vanilla toppings moderately sublimates the tobaccos. The strength is a step past the mild mark. The nic-hit is very mild as the toppings negate its potency. The taste level is a slot short of the center of mild to medium. There’s no chance of bite or harshness, and barely has a hint of a rough edge. The flakes easily break apart to suit your preference, and need no dry time. It’s monochromatic, but it burns cool, clean, and a tad slow with a very consistent, sugary, fruity Virginia flavor that extends to the very pleasant, lightly lingering after taste. Leaves little dampness in the bowl, and requires a couple more than an average number of relights. Has a very pleasing room note. An easy going all day smoke. Three stars.

-JimInks

Presentation is nice. The flakes are neat, moist and soft. I absolutely love it. The tin note is like grains, oats, sultanas and raisins, but the raisin notes don't come through in the taste. I let this dry for a bit to keep the heat low for smoking and make the combustion better. You could probably smoke it at tin moisture, but I prefer not to risk the tongue bite.

In the smoke I get notes of of topping of vanilla, sweet bread, slight honey, fermented overripe banana, cashew sweetness, shortbread cookie, some spice which is kind of tingly on the tongue and on the retrohale, oats, some molasses, a nuttiness develops, sultanas, some wood notes, a floral aspect too, pastry notes. Sometimes it seems like there is a vanilla note, and maybe cocoa. The end of the bowl is okay. It gets quite smokey and earthy with some spice, yet there is still an underlying sweetness. I get the barest hint of cinnamon and brown sugar as well.

Nicotine strength is maybe medium, for me, and so is the tobacco strength. The taste is medium. There are a lot of flavors.

I would buy it again. I would recommend it for the Virginia-lover. What makes this Virginia flake special is the sweetness and spiciness and slight pungency of the fermented taste quality. It also gets earthier than most Virginia flakes, and when I say "earthy", I mean like soil or mustiness of wood. Things like that. It's similar to Capstan blue in it's sweet, oat-like taste, but the fermented taste is unique, and different than the fermented taste imparted by Perique in Virginia Perique flakes. It's a pretty rich, tasty straight Virginia flake, and a good expression of Virginia complexity.

When I opened the tin I smelled dried tomatoes, very pleasant. The flake was not too moist and could be packed into the pipe right away. However, a little drying will not hurt and it will allow for a dry, cool smoke. This is as simple a tobacco as they get, but In a good sense. The taste is mild, rather flat (you won't get the complexity of some VAPER blends) and very good. The nicotine content is low, so if you need a powerful "nic-hit" this is not the way to go. FT Vintage is now on my list when I think about an easy smoke. Four stars.

Update: I have had one tin which I had allowed to dry out. While smoking dry tobacco is not the best thing to do, this blend performed very well despite its condition.

Straight Virginia tobacco. Folded into a flake. Laid in sheets in the tin. Comes in a 50g tin. Has a lid.

This stuff is good. It's not great, it's not bad. It's good. It's a great "go to" virginia if you are tired of ready rubbed, plugs, or coins, and want something that you can decide how big you want your tobacco chunks to be. Me? I rub it out (hee hee) until it's a fine flake and then gravity fill as normal - I haven't mastered the whole "fold and stuff" method, so maybe my review would be higher for this F&T mix. As it stands, it's a firm 3 out of 4 stars. I like it, I make sure I always have an unopened tin on hand, but it's not something that blows me away.

NOTE: I hear that this blend really improves itself with age. I've not tried it, but I have heard that it crystalizes itself nicely and really can sway your opinion. Take that for what it is - if I ever get my hand on something that is more than a year old I'll definitely come back and update this.

Flat tin and nice, wide flakes, perfect for folding. This is a darker shade of VA and doesn't have that overly citrusy tin nose. Kind of a non-descript, slightly hay-ish quality.

The flavor is middle-of-the-road and unassuming straight virginia. I don't taste any flavoring, so apparently the Navy designation is in the cut only. This one is not at the high level of F&T's Blackjack, but it's a decent smoke. The lighter notes are present and some mid-level as well but this one is firmly in the light camp. The Dunhill Flake I smoked recently had the bass notes as well, which I appreciated, as well as this company's Blackjack. The lightness of this one makes it good for a straight VA newbie, something to get the feet wet while he moves toward headier fare. This is certainly a good smoke with nice hay-like qualities - it just doesn't distinguish itself in the genre as some others do. I finished the tin but won't buy any more. Blackjack owns that part of my cellar that is F&T's.

An Excellent quality virginia as would be expected from this fine house. I was able to find this through the good graces of Synjeco who seem to have a plentiful supply of hard to find and interesting tobacco's.

As has already been noted by our esteemed and most worthy colleagues, this blend has a little more flavour than the usual F&T offerings, A very nicely presented flake, with a moisture content that few could complain about, I think I detected a little sour note to start but this soon settled down and a fine quality virginia took centre stage for the duration, neither too sweet, nor to dry, but a steady body that a good red virginia can deliver.

This may not go into rotataion, only because I have more than enough choice as is, but a fine treat and change of pace from time to time.

Well worthy of 4 Stars.

A very nice Va. flake. Not unlike Gawith?s Best Brown, Vintage has however a more consistent structure, a superior body and IMO it is easier to handle and smoke. Its flavour, though not complex, is sharp and rich. It doesn't get off to a great start but as you progress through the bowl, it really grows on you and settles down perfectly well. It also has a wonderful aftertaste.

I agree with other reviewers in that the difference with other offerings from the same house (Cut Plug in particular) are so subtle that it takes a while before you actually realise you are smoking something different.

Less fruity than Cut Plug, with perhaps a bit more of aggressiveness, Vintage is an excellent medium strength straight Va., very palatable and traditional.

Recommended to all Va. lovers.

I've been slowly working my way through a tin of this for some time now-- picking it up off and on for a few months. I must admit that I prefer Cut Virginia Plug to Vintage and they are relatively similar straight Virginia blends.

The tobacco is very pretty-- various shades of tan and brown Virginias intermingle in this pressed flake. The smallish tin holds perhaps fourteen thin slices that break apart easily for full rubbing out or partially breaking the flake for packing. I personally prefer the latter with large pieces over fully rubbing it out.

The tin aroma is pleasant, but unexceptional. Slight sweetness is evident plus a tartness from the acidity of the lighter Virginias.

The blend smokes much as one would expect given the tin aroma. This is superficially a very simple Virginia blend with a basic 'tobacco' taste and little else. As the bowl progresses, the sweetness becomes more evident as does a slightly tart taste (probably stemming from the lighter Virginias). All in all, it is a pretty decent, if unexceptional, smoke. Definitely worth a try for the lover of straight Virginias, but not interesting enough to differentiate it from other similar blends in my mind.

Another sample of Virginia tobaccos I bought from my local tobacco specialist, the aroma of the leaves is dark and sweet, reminiscent of leather.

The darker colours are inviting, of perfect moisture, and lights easily. Delivering more leather on the palate than other, more fruity, virginias, this was a pleasant surprise, despite being not what I was looking for at the very moment. It has a sweet tobacco taste, but is not overly strong and no more than medium bodied, making it a truly pleasant smoke.