Peter Stokkebye Black Kathy

Hardly has any tobacco taste, except for a mild grassiness from the Virginia. The burley is lightly nutty. The black cavendish probably has some vanilla, but if it does, it is greatly sublimated by the vanilla topping. Very mild, fairly boring, but not bad. It just doesn't have a rich enough flavor to be more than a mixer or to hold your interest all day, except as a mindless smoke. Has almost no nic-hit. Burns just a little fast and moderately cool, though I don't recommend puffing real fast. Leaves a little moisture in the bowl, needs an average number of relights, and has a pleasant room note.

-JimInks

Excellent smoke from start to finish. I discovered an ounce of this that I had under proper storage for about 15 years. First light was met with plumes of smoke and an interesting floral note that settled, down but was maintained throughout the smoke. The slightest note of vanilla was detected upon retrohale. The Burley and Virginia components, balanced by the Cavendish were each notable, and complemented each other well, with no one leading the charge. Aging under proper storage apparently created a better blend than I ever recalled from smoking this many years ago. Stayed lit on one match. Very pleasant!

Yet another average, sweet vanilla aromatic in a sea if black Cavendish aromatics. If this is your thing and you can get it less expensively that your current smoke give it a try. If you are looking for a better than average vanilla aromatic look somewhere else.

A & C Peterson's Black Kathy is one of those ubiquitous Vanilla aromatics so many he-man pipers chide about. Being a medium-English aficionado I suppose I should grumble about it too. But plain old fact is - if you can do aromatics at all, you'll probably like this one a lot. It's sweet with a capital "S" and plenty damp, but it does taste good, doesn't require much attention, leaves only the standard amount of aromatic sludge in the pipe and does indeed please the indigenous non-smokers a lot. Smoke volume and the light/burn properties are better than the average aromatic and aftertaste is minimal. BK isn't quite as nice as Tinderbox's "Midnight" (which is less of the "sweet" business) but way smoother and tastier than anything I can think of in the Cap'n Black genre. If you want/need an "occassional" aromatic that is likely to be very safe in all crowds, Black Kathy is a good choice and that's worth three stars any day.

Tiger

I've been looking for a good Vanilla Cavendish. After trying many mixtures, this is my favorite, so far. It's very mild. You can smoke it all day without tongue bite. Nice vanilla flavor. (I could use even more Vanilla.). It's a 4 for me.

Typical vanilla black Cavendish. By itself it's ok, nothing to write home about. I'll probably use it to sweeten something else. Impressive tin note but lacks the flavor I was expecting.

Not much going on with this blend, luckily I only bought a few ounces. There are much better PS black cavendishes available like Majesty. Kathy is a good blender though and definitely needs the addition of something. All in all, if you like very mild tobacco you may like this.

Yawn... It's aromatic. It's wet, but burns 'okay'. Its taste is very flat... I liked the strong fragrence of vanilla...but I wish there was something to 'taste'. Should I smoke it or just burn it as incense? I'll eventually light up another bowl...and I might eventually finish off the rest of it ...but there's no rush. It doesn't leave a contaminating scent in my pipe inasmuch whatever it leaves(aside from a little goop)seems to clean my pipe! Is it a kind of pipe cleaner? It might be a good 'mix' ie. to lightly lace up a real bowl of tobacco just to add a wiff or two of 'vanilla'? Yawn...