G. L. Pease Stratford

Tin note of pungent, tangy raisins and sugar. Tobacco is a Ribbon cut of orangish brown, tan and a little dark brown. Moisture content is good. Some pipe smokers will want to dry this a bit. Burns slow with a few relights. The strength is medium and nic is mild to medium. No flavoring detected. Taste is medium and mostly consistent, with notes of lemon grass, sugar, wood, spices, bready, floral, tangy raisin, zesty orange peel, fermented musty vegetation, tart dark plums, savory, a spicy sweet citrus background note, and a peppery retro. Virginia is leading with Perique supporting. Room note is pleasant to tolerable, and aftertaste is great.

Very pleasant tobacco without bite. mild nic, lemony flavor with hints of dark fruit, Perique spicy. ribbon'ish cut with a few relights burning cool at a normal cadence, to a nice ash. Easily an all day smoke.

Sweet, spiced, spicy. Some bread. Smoke is acrid and biting. Maybe a suggestion of light fruit, cider. No fetid notes from the perique. Not for me, but it might be for you; the unpleasant aspects outweigh the merits in my mind.

Tin note is slightly sweet fresh cut grass with some mild citrus, Fine ribbon cut mostly light colors with a few specs of dark. Packs very easily. A nice lite sweetness and citrus are the prominent flavors the spice from the perique is there but not too excessive. Burns very evenly in a wide bowl. The perique gets a bit more prominent as you progress through the bowl. My sample was a bit on the dry side so it burned a bit warm. IMO cadence is everything with Vapers. Puff slow you get great flavors puff fast you get bite. Nic hit is mild to medium. Could be an all day smoke if you can handle spicy perique. 4 stars

The 100 gram tin I got in my hands had the date of production in the summer of 2011 and was purchased by me as a "vintage" tobacco.

Appearance: after over 10 years of maturing in a tin the tobacco became almost an even mix of three close shades: bright virginia became light oak, and red virginia and perique became a bit darker. Occasionally, among the fairly even ribbon cuts, you can find pieces of very light straw-colored Virginia. In addition, I have also come across pressed pieces of perique, as from a broken flake. Overall, there is very little perique. Despite the fact that the blend was in a hundred-gram tin, which had enough complaints, this time there was no seam depressurization, the tobacco only slightly dried out over the years. It reminded me of Russ Ouellette's Golden Triangle series. And the scent turned out to be simple and quite similar.

Flavor: a typical old-fashioned bouquet from the Virginia-perique blend, dominated by light Virginia and very little perique - hay from the meadows with a floral nuance, a bread note with some malt woven in, barely noticeable citrus, figs, some pepper and a bit of dark plum. The ensemble of notes, on the whole, is very simple. If you rub the tobacco in your fingers and sniff a little, you get a slight smell of brine to the overall bouquet.

Taste: the sweetness of dark steamed fruit, a little lemon in sugar, barely noticeable spice, just a little earthy mushroom note - a little less perique, and the blend could be considered pure Virginia. Already quite smooth (if not " subdued ") in flavor, the blend is also quite dependent on the pipe shape and bowl size: in bents, the individual flavor notes are even more indistinct and dominated by the fruity red virginia note, while bright virginia and perique are barely perceptible. By the middle of the pipe, the flavor becomes even milder and therefore completely loses character. Like any blend in which Virginia is an absolute majority, the tobacco is very demanding in terms of smoking tempo and temperature, the consequences of intensive puffs - disappearance of tobacco flavor and bitterness in the mouth, a slight burning on the tongue and a hot pipe in the hands - immediately let you know that you are in a hurry. Given that the taste of the blend is unexpressive, tasting it was a real challenge for me. Add to this the fact that the strength of the blend is well below average. In a very large pipe, you can smoke it for hours on end without worrying about the consequences in the form of nicotine hit. It slowly burns into an almost white ash, leaving no moisture in the pipe and giving an aftertaste similar to what is left in the mouth after chewing a sweetish weed.

The sweetish smoke from the blend is barely noticeable in the room.

What's the bottom line? The Classic Collection series is based on old recipes, and it appears that Pease wanted to present this blend as a kind of Dunhill Elizabethan Mixture vision. My opinion - I'm not sure he succeeded. The Germans with their Robert McConnell Heritage Regent Street achieved more. If we talk about Pease's own creations, the result is also mixed. On the one hand, Stratford is pressed by the much more interesting Laurel Heights, where the absence of perique with a light touch of latakia gave the Virginian the opportunity to unfold at full force. On the other hand, a little more perique and, again, the addition of a negligible amount of latakia gave a truly great result - Fillmore. Stratford, on the other hand, was a bit lackluster, not too memorable. Some people may like it. But not me. I admit that it is more interesting in its fresh form, but I haven't seen fresh cans of this blend on sale for a long time.

G.L.Pease has several Virginia/Perique and VaPer adjacent blends in its catalog, and as such, it can be a little difficult to know exactly where for the intrepid VaPer enthusiast to start. Well, I argue one should start here. Stratford is their most balanced approach to this time-honored blend, and hues more closely to tradition than their other blends (most of which are fantastic, by the by).

The tin note is bright and crisp, with the Perique making its presence known and hints of lemony citrus also being present. The cut itself is that very fine ribbon cut so peculiar to many Pease blends, and like those blends, this smokes easily and coolly.

The flavors from the tobacco are straight textbook VaPer, and I mean that in the best way possible. The Virginias are sweet and slightly bready, with a brightness that plays very well with the spiciness and boldness of the Perique. This is a well-balanced blend, so those who want a stronger Perique punch in their VaPer will be better served with Pease's other VaPer blends such as Telegraph Hill or even Haddo's Delight. But those looking for a traditional, balanced, and smooth VaPer that can be put into an everyday rotation, well, look no further. Stratford is a consistent delight.

This is what Haddo's Delight would be if it wasn't on steroids. The flavouring is very similar but much more subdued, dare I say balanced. The cut is most unusual -- sort of a super-broken flake, stiff strands 2cm x 1mm, sort of a cross between a ribbon and a finely broken flake. It comes out of the tin dry, at the perfect smoking moisture. It burns cool and for me does not bite.

For all that, though, it's nothing extraordinary. I opened this tin after finishing 100g of St James Woods, and Stratford is a step down. St James Woods is way better, more complex, sweeter, after DGT, everything (althoug perhaps SJW does tend to bite a bit more).

It's a perfectly good vaper, but honestly I don't think I would buy it again.