Wilke Pipe Tobacco Wilke No. 13

This is a blend that was gifted to me in a bulk sample. After smoking several bowls in corn cobs and high grade pipes, here is my review:

Strength: Mild nicotine strength if any. The blend is mild to medium as a tobacco.

Flavoring: The flavoring is very good. It needed for me, to be dried out for a bit before smoking as it comes a bit too moist.

Room Note: The room note is to be tolerable. My wife asks me to smoke this outside as it is a little harsh for her. ( she likes Frog Morton as a room note ) This one isn't a social tobacco.

Taste: The taste is quite good, if you can calm the moisture down. Not a " write home to your mom " taste but decent.

Recommendation: I would recommend this blend to all fans of plain Frog Morton and Spilman Mixture.

I plan on keeping this in my occasional rotation...once the gifted sample is gone, I will likely not buy it as I can find tobaccos that I enjoy more to spend my money on.

I've tried about a dozen of the PW&W blends & this is one I always keep on hand.

22 May 2009 Update: I'm tightening up on my ratings and only give 4 stars to my top 5 blends that are in my core rotation of tobaccos. Those at this date are Escudo, Penzance, University Flake, Churchill & still deciding what the 5th will be.

I now rate this as a 3.5

I can fully understand why this blend has been beloved for so many decades: The taste is rich and moderately complex, the burn is even and without excess moisture and the tobacco is of the highest quality.

There is no bite in this blend and I find that I can cheerfully smoke it anytime and in any weather, no matter my mood. And I'm not really an English blend aficionado. The latakia is a wonderful part of the flavor--it doesn't dominate the room, it contributes and completes the blend. I don't know that I get much of a sense of the perique, but the blend has such a refinement that as the bowlful is smoked...it gets better!

It leaves a clean, dry ash and if you let it really dry out you are left with a really easy to smoke, delicious experience.

Accompaniment: Beethoven piano sonatas or piano trios.

What a difference a Cavendish can make. Elsewhere on this site I reviewed Wilke's #78 and commented about the very strong taste and the very strong Perique and nicotine reaction. The only difference between that tobacco and #13 is the addition of Cavendish between the Burley and Virginia, and let me tell you that addition has tamed this blend. At first I thought too far, as the taste was almost negligible, plus I had a difficult time keeping the pipe lit. However, after switching from a large bowl to a medium size, I now find this tobacco to be delightful. No lighting problems and it burns slowly and all the way to the bottom. And the taste is exquisite. The only reason I didn't give this blend the highest recommendation is because of the room note. However, after a dozen pipefulls, this is now my English of choice. I'll still return to #78 on that rare ocassion I want to set off an explosion in my mouth, but it looks like #13 is a winner in my book. Thanks, Carol, for including this in my sampler package.

This wasn't as good as the other P&W I've tried. It has an aromatic agent I couldn't identify. It gave some good sensation from the beginning to about half of the bowl, then it lost all the flavour and became dull.

I bought four ounces of this on a recommendation. Out of the four ounces I'd say I smoked about one ounce of it. The rest I will give away.

The appearance is very diverse with a little bit of everything in here. The smell from the tin is a cinnamon-like scent, almost like insense. The cut is shag/ribbon so packing is easy. The burn rate is slow and even.

Once lit, this tobacco has a very light English taste yet the casing starts to overpower everything else and it turns a bit sour after the first third of the bowl. As it gets down the howl it becomes quite unfriendly as it starts smoking hot and wet. The taste/smell starts to resemble a cheap after shave I've smelled before. It reminds me of that "old man smell" I remember from visiting my uncle in a nursing home. For the rest of the smoke it is strictly burning casing, tasting sour, hot and wet. The last few bowls of this I was not able to get past the first half of the bowl because it was so bad.

I appreciate the history in the above review, and that in part tempted me to try #13, since I, and many other pipe smokers are a bit anachronistic. I filled my decades-old Wilke Club, lit the tobacco (two matches) and walked outside with my dog. #13 has a sweet, natural tobacco pouch smell, and is an attractive mix of dark brown to blond flakes and strips. It began rather strong with a hint of tongue bite, but quickly smoothed into a delicious natural creamy mix of burley and virginia/cavendish - when I remembered to puff less vigorously. Next the latakia/perique came forward adding a pleasant spicy taste. A hint of sweetness peeked out now and then, but overall this a good, medium strength blend of pure tobacco. Late in the evening it hit me - this was the taste I was looking for a year ago in cigars, a Nicaraguan/Dominican blend that was out of my price range. I finally found it in this less costly Wilke blend.

Presentation is the usual P&W fine ribbon. Damp. Latakia in the jar note, enveloped by the subtle sweetness of the Royal Scot. I assumed this blend would be like No. 5 with the addition of Perique but found that not to be the case. I experimented with a number of different bowl shapes to bring this blend out while struggling to find the perique and found this smoked best in a tall, somewhat narrow billiard. The Latakia is more muted here than in No. 5, retreating to a whisper by the second third of the bowl. The Perique barely registers until that second third where it overtakes the Latakia as the primary background flavor. The flavors begin to harmonize by mid-bowl, presenting an interesting contrast of sweet and savory. Burns clean and cool despite the moisture content and really comes into its own in the second half of the bowl. In the final third of the bowl, the Perique finally takes center stage, overwhelming both the Latakia and the Royal Scot (the Latakia, in fact, fades into obscurity). For best results, I strongly recommend packing this one loosely.

Aromatic English blends are notoriously difficult to pull off, the challenge being one of creating harmony from seemingly disparate tobaccos. In that regard, the blender took on a tough challenge with this one. Overall a fine blend, but it could be that aromatic English blends and Perique simply don't mix (or at least not optimally.)

Recommended for lovers of this style, though I found No. 5 to be a better blend.

I will come back to this after a year in the jar to see what some age does to the marriage of contrasting flavors.

PS: Eulenburg's 2003 review, below, is my favorite review ever. A classic.