Reiner Blend 71: Long Golden Flake

Tin: Gold paint can. Smells like sweet raisin cereal, with a dark scent. Looks exactly like Solani 633 or SG FVF. From a tin purchased 10 months ago.

Packing: Just twisted and mashed about 1 inch of it, then stuffed it in the pipe. Lit easily. The belt of tobacco was soft and supple.

Aroma & Taste: Sometimes it was similar to the tin aroma, and sometimes it had a smoky astringency, accompanied by a constant stinginess-bite, maybe from the flavor treatment.

Nicotine: not a lot

Room Note: not bad

Overall: Charlie Atwood's and Dr. Scott's reviews provide some insight on flavoring. Burley is commonly used to drink up flavor juices. Due to the constant sting and bite, it might be better classified as an aromatic.

This is one of my absolute favorite tobaccos.

I like to pack this flake vertically in a smallish pipe with a touch rubbed out on top, but I have also found that rubbing a bit out and placing it in the bowl first with bits of cubes cut from the flake on top works wonders as well.

Upon charring light there is an immediate bready sweetness and a noticeable spice. I find this flake to have a smooth body yet also a lively mouth feel, as well as a perfect balance between the sweet, spicy and tangy.

The primary flavor profile is on the sweeter side of the spectrum, and the piquancy of the perique deftly lingers in the background. The white burley adds a bit of depth helping to create a flavor that is moderately complex but never dulls. Long Golden Flake is simple yet delightful pipe tobacco of the highest quality and each time I smoke this I put the pipe down incredibly satisfied.

In my opinion, a reference blend in the Vaper category.

Highly recommended

Another great R. L. Will blend! and one that is accessible to a wide range of smokers. Being a fan of solani 633 and solani aged burley flake, I gave long golden flake a chance - and I am glad I did. This is an extremely well rounded smoke.. The first thing you notice about it is the care of the presentation. It looks amazing.. then you smell it and you know you are indeed in for something special. the smoke itself is mainly about the virginias.. although there is a little perique and some burley influence.. but you just taste the finest natural tobacco flavors in a beautiful flake form.. I think it is cased. but not much.. very natural tasting.. the quality of the smoke makes me wonder if there is some aging going on before it is packaged and sent off.. very smooth even and even elegant smoke. edit:

Having just recently tried orlick golden sliced it was interesting how closely related these two tobaccos seemed to be. Whatever flavoring is added (be it discreetly) is nearly the same! LGF has the addition of perique which adds a little complexity.. but both blended flakes are quite good and in the same profile as far as I am concerned.. I guess the novelty of the reiner presentation along with the perique give it a very slight edge.

It's all been said...but I love the subtle hint of burley and perq, all so soft, I love that it's VA citrus flavour is more oranges than lemon, I love that it still has that barny, hayfield touch. It's creamy, sweet, soft, subtle, with just the right amount of seasoning...no drying from the tin required, just rub and stuff. Long, big, golden quality in a understated fashion...shear perfection. 5 stars.

The cut of the flakes seems to be inspired by Marlin Flake. There are just five flakes in the tin, each one about a foot long. I have seen a longer flake only in the Marlin bulk packaging, where the flakes are about two feet long.

The tin of Long Golden Flake I am smoking now is about two years old, and given that there is no air-tight factory sealing, the tobacco has preserved its moisture very well. The golden colour has darkened a bit, and both the tin aroma and the taste have ripened.

I find this blend to be on the savoury rather than the sweet side. For some reasons of body chemistry I have never taken to either Three Nuns or Elizabethan: it seems to me that LGF does better than the former two in combining virginia and perique. A pity that this is not very freely available.

I guess I'm going to have to be the lone dissenter here. I really thought I would like this beautiful flake, but so far I really don't care for it. It seems to be topped with something I can't put my finger on and its flavor is cloying. It actually makes me slightly nauseous.

Of course, LGF has many good qualities. It lights easily, burns slow and cool, and is easy on the tongue. Moreover, the flakes are absolutely beautiful.

I guess I'll have to revisit this again in the future. Mr. Will is a great blender and I enjoy Solani 633 very much. I love bright Virginias, burley, and perique, so I'm really disappointed that I dislike this blend so much.

Update: I tried it again which causes me to downgrade my rating. I won't give this one another chance.

Reiner Long Golden Flake is a champagne of a blend. I received a sample from a good forum friend. From my sample, the flakes seemed like they were long and thin, and was quite broken up. The aroma from the jar was of strong hay, with subtle notes of grass and earth. The smell was sweet and tangy at the same time. I had no issues packing it and it lit very easy.

Before I noticed the actual flavor, I noticed the incredible silkiness of the smoke. It was very smooth and put me in the mindset of champagne. It reminded me of the creamy smoke you get from a nice Balkan blend. As for flavor profile, I noticed a sweet honey like topping that mixed very well with the sweet hay notes of the VAs. The two profiles compliment each other very well and play off one another. The Virginias are very hay like as mentioned before, with a touch of grass and citrus. I seemed to notice the perique more than other reviewers. I found it to be quite spicy, especially on the retrohale, and to sport a nice dark fruit flavor. This blend has a light sharpness to it that I feel may come from the white burleys, but it isn't a problem. The Burley rounds out the flavor profile nicely and is more noticeable in some puffs than others. About 1/3 of the way into the bowl I started getting notes of liquorish. This was only seldom but did last throughout the rest of the smoke. About halfway through the topping moved to the background and the earth notes of the blend became more noticeable. I smoked this blend down to the very end, more than I typically do with most tobaccos.

This blend was never harsh, and never gave me tongue bite, though there was a very light sharp note. All of the different flavors made it very complex, and every puff seemed to change a little. The little bit of ash that was left was very fine. I would say this is more of a weekly smoke than an everyday smoke. As mentioned before, it is a champagne style blend that is great when you really want to pay attention to the different flavor profiles.

These are my notes from 2009... immediately after popping the lid the very first thing I noted was a Licorice aroma. Maybe flavoring has changed by now. The licorice essence carried over into the flavor & subsided somewhat after a few puffs but continued to remain in the background... like a bacteria that couldn't be destroyed. It turned me off & I've never tried a Reiner blend again & couldn't finish the tin. It sat on the shelf for years until it dried out & was eventually trashed. Lesson learned: Just because the majority liked it & gave rave reviews, doesn't mean that it'll be favorable to you. I felt like my $$ went down the drain which is the only reason I persevered & tried to finish it off... but alas, it was no use.

Here's something I don't understand! JimInks, the Guru of Tobacco Reviews can taste the wood, earth, hay, grass, tangy sweetness of Red VAs, Cyprian or Syrian Latakia, nuttiness of Burley, lemony citrus from light VAs, Grandma's biscuits, toast, jelly, fruit... figs, raisins, prunes from Perique, Chocolate, Vanilla, Amaretto, Cognac, etc., pepper, barbecue, Rum, Whiskey, Wine, grapes, strawberries, plums, mango, apples, apricots & anything else you can think of but fails to notice the foul taste of Licorice in Reiner's Long Golden Flake makes me think there's something rotten in Denmark! My suspicions have become aroused. I will pay him no mind henceforth & reach my own conclusions & write my own, honest and reliable, unbiased review. That, you can rely on! To hell with these individuals who consider themselves experts & connoisseurs of blended tobaccos. Let's keep it simple from here on out... overall, it's either good or unworthy, plain and simple!

This blend smoked mildly with a "little" sweetness. I was expecting & prefer a stronger mixture but it appeared that the Burley played "second fiddle" in this blend. However the apportionment of the varietals melded OK after a few puffs & things turned out pretty good & gained a little more strength toward the end of the bowl... too late! Anyway, it was a VA/Bur/Per blend that didn't bite, was easy to prepare, good burn rate & burned down to a gray ash with little condensation. This didn't make it in my rotation, nor will it ever but I pinched off some of this flake belt and smoked it occasionally.

RLGF produced by R. L. Will is the only Reiner Mixture I've tried. R. L. Will also blends Silver Flake #660 which is one of my favorites which turned out to be a real treat for me & holds a General's rank in my top ten rotation. RLGF... maybe a Private. Because of the overabundance of Licorice flavor in this blend, I'll never seek out or try any other Reiner blend. I extremely dislike licorice in a tobacco blend. Hence the reason I've never attempted Bengal Slices... Licorice is not a bad candy or breath freshener but not good for mixing in tobacco. Thunderbird Wine or Naphtha would have been a better alternative for flavoring. Alas... one small mistake outweighs much wisdom & reduced what could have been something special into a below average offering.

Who the hell is Reiner & why did anyone allow him to produce such an awful mixture... a regular, Drug Store blend with an overabundance of an Ouzo, or a God-awful, Licorice addition. Shame on him and all those who rate this crap highly... this stuff is at best, no better than Bull Durham in a cloth bag that was sold for 7 cents a pouch when I was a child. Reiner should be banned from the tobacco blending industry. Everything with the Reiner name is foul or worse. C'mon people... wise up and see the writing on the wall!!! This is garbage & should be as plain as the nose on your face... but then again, there are those who try to explain away their wasteful expenditure. I've seen this many times on TRs... honesty is the best policy! Let's put a stop to this overrating, starting now! On the plus side, the empty tin is good for storing & retaining trinkets.

Jim Inks is spot on with tasting notes. Citrus, hay and wood. This is like Orlik GS but more potent, and seemingly with more depth. First thoughts...I took much too much time getting around to trying this! I'm not much of a VA guy, or even a vaper guy, but this stuff just hits the right notes. An instant hit with me and promptly added to cellar. Gotta love that paint can lid on the tin, too. Highly recommended!