Wilke Pipe Tobacco High Hat

I have long felt that P&W’s blends are among some of America’s best blends and often overlooked in the huge landscape of available tobaccos. A quick visit to the P&W blend's page confirms that those that have tried them agree. High Hat is a “rich” rewarding, smoky English blend that claims its origin back to the 1870’s when the Wilke Pipe Shop existed in New York City. High Hat offers billows of smoke and is a terrific evening mixture with Latakia, Perique and Virginia tobaccos along with some Kentucky. The P&W website doesn’t claim that the Latakia is Syrian, but as others have pointed it out it may have or had in its past. My jar from 2010 seems to taste that way. There are only a small number of English blends (aka American English) that utilize Burley that I enjoy and this one of them. It adds some additional strength to the blend while melding into a supporting role. I have smoked this new and as old as four years. I don’t find that the additional age adds much sweetness from the Virginias. It isn’t quite as strong as #400 from P&W, but more complex. There is a bit of sour, but in a good way. Lovers of the difficult to find Compton’s of Galashiels full English blends should definitely give this one a try. High Hat is one of the best full American style English blends I have smoked in a long time.

IMHO the best American produced English/Balkan blend available today. A cross between Bill Baileys Balkan Blend & Comptons of the Galashiels' Balkan. This is absolutely superb blending! It is by far the most European tasting English I have sampled on these shores. A very robust, tangy, and intoxicating blend. Full beyond your dreams and without nicotine overload. The flavor lasts and will leave you sated. If I could give this 5 stars I would.

It took me a year to finally open my sample of High Hat. I've been spoiled with 965 and Nightcap, my favorite Latakia mixes, and found little reason to venture away, which I've forced myself to do by limiting my insatiable urge to order more and more tobacco. I know people are still crying over Murray's demise, yet I can't fault the newer blending, as these Dunhills manage to retain essential features--they are smokey, and more importantly, strong. It's easy to find a full English with a ton of Latakia, but I crave nicotine laden blends--preferably with the strength coming from the Virginias, rather than the addition of Perique and Kentucky, as in the case of High Hat.

My experience with Wilke began as a kid. In my father's den there was an old tobacco tin listing a custom blend from the Pipework's and Wilke NY shop, no longer in existence. I didn't realize this until I began smoking years later. The reference clicked when I'd run across the occasional blurb about Wilke while ruminating through pipe literature on the internet. "The place still exists??!," I thought, in excitement. I decided to give the shop, now in Vermont, a call. People always seemed to have nice things to say about Wilke tobaccos, why not? A woman named Carole picked up the phone, and when I told her about the tin, she gave me a wonderful backstory about the place, and the nostalgia was overwhelming. I immediately told the woman that I loved her. It was instantly awkward.

I ordered four of her English blends--400, 10, 524 and High Hat. The tobaccos were unique, as most of them were said to include Syrian Latakia and exotic Orientals including the famed Yenidje of Sobranie fame, and a few others, from Shiraz to Xanthi.

400 is often mentioned as a Nighcap killer, strong and smokey. I devoured that sample first, and while tasty, it didn't appear to dramatically diverge from the standard. I didn't find the blend overwhelming in strength as many remarked, and the subtlety of the Syrian leaf was lost on me. I suppose that over the years I've hardened my taste receptors and killed whatever ability I had to detect the nuance of the leaf. It was no matter, 400 was a tasty blend, of which I consumed a couple of ounces quickly, in a matter of a few days. I next opened my sample of High Hat, hoping for a good comparison.

High Hat is a bit different from 400--chiefly, there are no Orientals included, but both blends contain Syrian leaf, Perique, and Kentucky. I normally skip Latakia mixes without Orientals, but I picked this one up out of curiosity and the measure of fine reviews. In the instances which I've sampled Latakia mixes that forgo Oriental leaf, including Gawith's Balkan Flake and Commonwealth, the blends have felt flat and unexciting, but I'm open to continued experimentation.

In that respect, High Hat is great. To me, it certainly feels heavier than 400, with that strong smokey element retained, and it also smokes rather sweet, perhaps from the inclusion of Golden Virginias, mentioned by the tin description. I'm currently puffing on my last bowl of a two ounce sample consumed over just a couple of days, and don't quite know what to do when I'm finished, having no other strong Latakia mixes on hand. I might just have to spike one of the remaining blends in my cabinet with a hard shot of Perique. Generally, that will kill the spirit of a Latakia forward blend, yet I really do hate puffing on a steamy English. But High Hat also feels Perique heavy, and though the blend includes Kentucky, which likely contributes to the strength, I'm poor at placing its presence. I would easily compare this to Night Cap in strength, and for once, I don't miss the Orientals, which tend to add an element of spiciness that I typically miss dearly in their absence. Despite this, High Hat strikes a wonderful balance of smokiness, sweetness and strength, a profile absent in many of the more popular smokes on the market.

I do have a full two ounces of 524 and 10 remaining, one of which should be sampled next...and we shall see where that takes us. 524 mentions "pan fired" Virginias. That's enough to garner my excitement (please excuse me while I dig through the contents of my sample in preparation).

Give Carole a call...she's a great tobacconist and a joy to speak with. But lay off! She's mine.

One of several Wilke blends I bought on sale and have been smoking on and off these past several weeks. This has a strong sweet tin note, which may or may not be heavy cased. This is described as an American due to the addition of Burley to the English blend. At one point this must have been blended with Syrian Latakia as I have read numerous reviewers stating as such. This is a really good smooth, sweet smoking blend with a room note that my neighbor likes when I went over to talk to her while smoking my pipe. The smoke gets a little less flavorful toward the end of the bowl but the more I smoke this the more I like it. My Hat is Off to High Hat. Try it if you like American blends, I believe you will like it as much as I do. Though this says no flavoring, I am putting down extremely mild and I may be wrong but the sweetness seems to me to be a casing. Of course that is just my 2 cents worth.

I couldn't find "rich" under the review quality of "Taste" but that is the most appropriate descriptor I can find. Another winner and so very nice and different. High Hat isn't overpowering or a one-trick flavor pony. Well compose, arranged and orchestrated for your smoking pleasure. I have no smoked this blend morning, noon and night and it works so well in any time frame. Get some, try it and then find storage for the stock you will be acquiring.

I am a shameless shill for Wilkes old Latakia blends. This one is flavorful and extremely mellow. It delivers a full measure of smokey Latakia complemented by a nutty burley. Brought this one to the Tuesday rump session of our pipe club and it was a big hit. Thank you John for continuing the tradition. These blends deserve more recognition.

Delightfully full, round, and rich. Reminds me a little of Tree Mixture, but with a dimension of dark chocolate sweetness alongside the spiced, smoky, Latakia. Very enjoyable

Yes, it's all true.  What you've read in reviews dating back to 2002 - it's all here.

Wilke High Hat is a barn-burner: an extraordinary tobacco.  The jar note hints at what's to come: musty, smokey, piney, savory, and subtly sweet with a hint of cinnamon and clove on the nose.  While the blenders description does not include Orientals, the complexity of aromas from the jar certainly suggest their presence.  The jar aroma of this blend has no equal. 

From the moment of the charring light, High Hat delivers what the jar note promises: deep, musty Latakia wrapped in smooth, succulent Virginias and buffered by that famous Wilke burley. Perique is a light condiment touch in this delicious, full blend, adding a mere suggestion of pepper that asserts itself slightly after mid-bowl.  The old Wilke recipes seem to have grasped the secret of making rich, full-tasting, flavorful blends that are medium in body and incredibly easy-smoking. That cinnamon and clove on the nose does not, thank God, translate into the taste. High Hat has only just enough natural sweetness, that tiny bit, to balance perfectly with what is an otherwise earthy, leathery, musty smoke: a masterpiece. It's no wonder this blend has been around for over 140 years. 

The mouth-feel in this blend is world-class: rich, thick, and creamy while never overwhelming the palate. High Hat burns smoothly, with absolutely no bite, and provides copious amounts of thick, creamy smoke. This is an arm chair tobacco, an evening tobacco: a tobacco blend of substance. The flavor stays with you a long, long time after the bowl is finished. You'll want to sit back in that chair and just revel in it.

This is a masterpiece of a proprietary blend that leaves other, mass-produced tinned blends in its wake.  

Edit/update 2021: I’ve been smoking quite a bit of the new version of this tobacco: John Brandt’s blend. So I thought I owed it to whomever may be perusing these aging halls to update my review accordingly. So here goes:

First, I do not know John. But I appreciate him keeping the venerable Wilke blending house alive. That this blend may differ from the original, or, if not “original” per se, from the Burns version of the Gilded original, can hardly be his fault. After all, so many of the original, and not-quite-original, tobaccos are simply unavailable, “unavailable” being the kind variant of “gone forever”. So what do we have here? A passable approximation of the “original” jar note, though no longer the “barn-burner” of yore. BurPer elements are good, though sadly not great - simply not as pronounced, the spice somewhat muted by.... new-school Latakia, a damp and dank recently put-out campfire, wet forest and mushroom, with a touch of Royal Scot cavendish noticeable in each sip, right down to the last.

Is this update a criticism? Hardly. High Hat remains a masterpiece of American-English blending, and while the flavor profiles have changed over the years with the available tobaccos, I salute Mr. Brandt for keeping this classic blend alive.

Wilke does a superb job of sourcing good quality ingredients for their blends, but also at combining a variety of leaf types in the right proportions to make a balanced smoke. The combination of pepper from the Perique and the sweet and smoky Latakia sits upon burley and Virginia. It's a strong flavor, but with no rough edges. It's not an all day smoke for me, but it's very enjoyable. I like this English blend second only to Crystal Palace.