House of Windsor Country Doctor

To be fair I will preface my review by saying I'm not a fan of Latakia - even in small doses. That said, I agree with most of akaiser77's review on this unusual tobacco. Like so many of its long running, traditional American counterparts, you can usually only buy it in the big 14 oz can - not much good if you end up not liking it! Personally, I didn't and as dry as this concoction was it eventually succumbed to fungal rot after sitting for several years before it tossed it. I kept the can of course, mainly because of the quaint art work and in respect for an old time icon in American pipe smoking history.

As I recall some couple of years ago one of the Pipe/Tobacco magazines had a subscription offer whereby you got a sampler of tins of 5 different HOW blends along with your subscription. Thankfully, I loved the magazine because the HOW tobacco really didn't seal the deal as far as I was concerned. That said, of the 5 small soup sized cans that came, Country Doctor was the last one I tried, all the previous ones really didn't do a thing for me. I might have been saving the Country Doctor in the hopes it'd save me if the HOW tobacco's got any worse. This one of the bunch was perhaps the best of the lot, and maybe only because of my fondness for a blend of Virginia, Latakia, and Perique. The last two were in relatively tiny amounts too, far less than I now enjoy in other blends. This might have been an outstanding blend in its day, today its nothing to get excited about. I didn't finish the can.

I received a tin of Country Doctor by House of Windsor with a pipe I purchased as a "complementary" bonus. I put it aside for awhile, but finally got around to opening and trying it. My first pipeful was quite pleasant for the first part of the bowl, but by midway, had turned a bit spicy and harsh. Still, I thought I was onto something good. Later, I tried it in a Calabash Meershaum, to try the full flavor of the tobacco. Again, it started out pleasant, but became overpowering, hitting me with a nicotine overdose that took the entire evening to rid myself of. WOW...what a buzz, and an unpleasant aftertaste that would not go away. I thought, perhaps, I had simply overdone it, and decided on one more try. I chose one of my favorite pipes, a Ser Jacopo Maxima, and again lit up. This time, less than a third of the bowl through, I could no longer take the overpowering strength of the nicotine, and dumped the bowl. I almost had to sanitize the pipe, the aftertaste was so strong! I will NOT be trying this again, and threw the remainder in the trash. Most of my reviews have been quite positive, and I have a eclectic taste in tobaccos, but this does NOT fit into my rotation, from this point on. I cannot recommend this on any basis.

I really wanted to like this blend and was very happy with my first smoke. It was a "yummy" tobacco; there seemed to be a very subtle topping. It is finicky to pack though, and the taste would get more acrid with every relight. When I would go on to a second bowl of the evening, my head would ache and I would start to feel slightly sick to my stomach. At first I just attributed it to my second or third triple martini. But then I read somewhere that Burley has double the nicotine of that found in other tobaccos. So I did an experiment. On several evenings, and completely martini-free, I sampled the good Doctor. It didn't take long before my pulse was pounding--not an encouraging sign. Soon my tongue was bitten, and my head ached (and I still was trying to figure out how to keep it lit). The Doctor was more Kevorkian in nature than healer. I go for taste and overall experience. Mr. Nick O' Teen (as some have referred to it) is not welcome in my piping adventures. As soon as my father-in-law came for a visit I let the good doctor make a house call--out of my house and over to his.

One of my stops between aromatics and naturals, it falls nicely between the two, a nice cube cut and granulated cut, mosly medium in color. There is some slight aroma, fruity but not too intrusive. The flavor is American drugstore, but pre-Captain Black, in other words, not too goopy. Room aroma is not bad.