Reiner Blend 71: Long Golden Flake

I'll try not to be overly enthusiastic with my review; but dadgum, this is one fine tobacco blend!

The flake is beautiful and arrives in a large 100 gram tin in one long strip that has been wound up. The pressed leaf is at a perfect moisture content and breaks up and rubs out easily.

The taste is naturally sweet with just a hint of the spicy Perique and a roundness that only top-shelf Burley can add to fine Virginia leaf.

Upon lighting, the sweetness of the Virginia combines with the Perique spice to produce a true tobacco flavor blast that few other blends can reproduce. By mid-bowl the Burley begins to make its presence known and the sweetness of the Virginias subside a bit. By bowl's end, the compilation of tobaccos provides a finish that'll wow your taste buds!

This, my friends, is a pipe tobacco.

I don't taste the licorice others suggested is there, but I do get the slight orange/lemon toppings, and honey, and even then, they are subdued a touch by a light wheat note. Not much nuttiness or sweetness from the white burley because of the other flavors, but it does have a mild sharpness, earth, wood and a touch of floralness. The Virginia offers hay/grass and plenty of tart and tangy citrus, bread, mild sugar, vegetation, and light floralness as the base of the blend and the lead component. The plumy, lightly peppery, earthy, woody perique is barely evident. The strength is a step past the center of mild to medium, while the taste is a slot past that mark. The nic-hit is in the center of mild to medium. Not a harsh or dull spot to be found, but it does sport a few rough edges. Won't bite, but performs better when smoked a little slow as fast puffing may result in a light tongue tingle. Burns clean, a tad warm and easier if you cube cut it, but the fold and stuff method works well, too. The mild tartly sweet and savory flavor is very consistent to the finish. Leaves very little moisture in the bowl, and requires some relights as it burns slow. Has a lightly lingering, pleasant after taste. The room note is tad stronger. Can be an all day smoke. One of the nice things about this blend is how well it ages and as it does, gets a little more complex, and the citrus of the Virginia is lightly more prominent than when it's fresh.

-JimInks

I just had to login tonight to comment on some previous posts on this tobacco blend that I don't fully understand. Sorry...I know, I know...everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

But........F!

Like this quote..."Looks exactly like Solani 633 or SG FVF". What? Seriously? Why not just say..."Looks exactly like a kangaroo or a f'n chimp"! These flakes look nothing alike.

Someone explain this to me..."Similar ot [sic] Orliks Golden Slices...Also similar ot [sic] Stonehaven". What? Really? These two tobaccos are at opposite ends of the taste spectrum! What, exactly, was so similar?

We're not helping anyone when we dump this kind of confusion on this site. And I truly realize that I'm not helping either, when I post this kind of reproach. But seriously fella's!?!

We're supposed to sincerley HELP people determine what tobaccos to try next, in our collective pursuit of a good or great tobacco...and not confuse the F out of people.

Sorry everyone. I know I shouldn't have done this. Regret this post I might...but had to do it.

Good Lord. I haven't burned through 100 g of tobacco this fast in a looonng time. This hits all the right notes... smells super in the tin, tastes great in the pipe, just full enough, just sweet enough, just everything. Is there better pipe tobacco? Probably not.

Not much to add to what's already been said about this classic blend. It smokes very cool for the most part if you don't overpuff. One thing I noted that I didn't see from the other reviewers is that if it ever needed a relight, it became harsh for the first few puffs. That smacks of the burley rather than the virginia. The perique is noticeable but not overpowering; just enough to add some additional spice.

Smokes beautifully in briars, meerschaums, clays and cobs. Very complex if you sit and contemplate the smoke, simple if you don't. Not a perfect tobacco but close. This is going into my regular rotation and I'm also going to buy some extra to age in my cellar. GREAT tobacco - destined to become a classic if it isn't there already.

This is very similar to Orliks Golden Slices, only at 2 1/2 times the price

Updated 11/13/2013- Wow, I don't know if this needed a few weeks to breath or it was my technique, but, this is a 4 star blend. I just retried this same tin in a cob and at much slower cadence than I normally smoke, and it is smooth, sweet and flavorful. The initial light is still like "Orlik's Golden Sliced" in flavor but this quickly fades to a much more flavorful blend. The Perique and Burley never show their face , it just tastes like a great Virginia. I'd love to try this back to back with Solani's Silver Flake, I think they would be similar. Price still an issue

Latter-day Northern European blenders have a fine hand for Virginia~Périque concoctions. I have tried several good ones, none better than this auriferous beauty.

The shtick here is that the pressed tobacco block has been flaked without first segmenting it into plugs. The resulting flakes look like a man's leather belt, rolled up inside a tin of car wax. I am not sure what such formatting does for flavour, if anything, but the result is truly, unforgettably, delicious.

I suppose the white burley is there to buffer the potential aggressivity of the golden 'Ginny. You can otherwise not taste it (not that you would taste it even if it were there by itself...) and the golden Virginia is a veritable scrotum-tingling delicacy: nutty sweet like Roederer Cristal, whose colour it matches, mirage-like. The Périque adds excitement and allure, in Perfect Balance. Isn't that the definition of Classicism?

Ever since I first filled a gorgeous new Caminetto with Long Golden?I was sauntering down University Place towards Washington Square?I have been in HEAVEN, HEAVEN, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak! (In what other hobby can one have a true epiphany as often as we pipe lovers do??)

Recommended to friend and foe.

This is what pipe smoking is all about. Before I get to the actual leaf, let me just tip my hat to the people at Reiners. The packaging of this blend is downright regal in every way. Every time I reach for a tin of this blend I feel the history and pomp that can sometimes be attributed to the noble art of pipe smoking. It makes me feel nostalgic about the hobby in general.

The tobacco is just beautiful. The fact that this blend seems to only come in a 100 gram tin can cause some pipe smokers to steer clear. Yest it is a little more expensive than most blends but it is totally worth the money. The long almost strop like looking flakes are stunning to look at and rub out effortlessly. The smell in the tin is glorious hay-like Virginias. This is the smell that will make the mouth of a veteran pipe smoker water.

This is what I consider a "high end" Virginia. The tobacco taste is bright and lemony and hay like, unlike blends such as Wessex campaign flake which is a dark Virginia taste. This one is on par with my all time favorite tobacco Orlik Golden Sliced.

The perique in this blend is not noticed by some but is very evident for me, at times almost a little too much. I tend to detect perique as a tingle in my nose, and I can definitely pick it up in this blend.

A pipe full of this bowl really is a journey with many transitions, much like a good cigar. The farther down the bowl the deeper and more robust the flavor. One of the few blends in which I look forward to the last part of the bowl.

Highly recommended and as a Virginia lover I will always have plenty of this blend in my cellar.

Several flakes in several pipes, I find it burns hot no matter how much time I take with it. Fully rubbed and gravity filled, my Vaper pipes get too warm to handle comfortably. Air drying the rubbed flake 45-60 minutes doesn't seem to help. The flakes really aren't moist.

The perique is spicy and strong throughout. The VA becomes dominant and very pleasant during the second half. However, I've had better luck with Luxury Twist and Bullseye Flake, Escudo, Kingfisher, Haddo's, St. James, and Dunbar, etc.. I'll keep experimenting.

11/24/09 update. After consuming half of the tin with the same result..."it tastes like burning" to borrow from Ralph Wiggum...I put the tin away. Now, nine months later, in a small bent acorn with thick walls this Blend 71 is behaving. Early on in the conical bowl that "cinnamon sort of sweet spiciness" that laufenstoc identified dominates. A cinnamony rush of perique, I suppose, not bitey or hot, but fairly intense. Further down it settles into a mellow VA-burley treat. Very nice. Recommended!

Even if you do not smoke Virginia-based pipe tobacco, this is still a standout blend that you should try. I usually gravitate towards English mixtures, but the sheer quality of the tobaccos here are worthy of note. The tin note brings up a compote of Mirabelle plums with perhaps a touch of figs. A superb fragrance. At the match, I do not notice the Burley -- or should I say I do not notice the cigarette like characteristics of that leaf so often present in many us made blends -- and that is a plus. Interestingly for a flake, this smoke quite easily when crumbled. Obviously the tobacco is well-aged in that it does not burn (though I am not puffing it like mad either). This is in my all time top 5, along with Winter's tale, London Mixture (of old) and I guess two other I can't think of right now. Out of a 100 this would get 91.