Wilke Pipe Tobacco Vermont Maple Cavendish

In the Tin/Pouch or Mason Jar:

Very moist with an almost overpowering smell of maple syrup. Could mixing, mostly darker tobaccos. Sticky and nearly gummy in the fingers.

Had to let it dry out in the room for around 90 minutes. This dried it nicely and did much to almost remove that gummy quality.

Packing and Lighting:

Packed light and easy. On initial charring light saw that it was still moist and swelled considerably. Could have probably dried another hour to no ill effect. Took a couple more lights and judicious tamping but it finally got and remind even till the bottom of the bowl. Occasional sizzles and pops suggest the extra drying would help

First Impression:

Sweet, sweet, sweet. Had a morning cup of stout strong coffee which really helped. Might have been too much sweet without the drink. GF complements the room note and said it made her crave pancakes and breakfast sausage. She actually stated she could enjoy eating right next to me while smoking this blend. Clouds of thick sweet smoke and they too carried a strong maple essence.

Didn't get too aggressive with the puffs as the sweetness called for some restraint. Still, never got too hot or attempted to bite.

Overall:

Prefer the Wilke Cherry Cav over this. This was just so sweet. Might try to blend it down with something more neutral and totally lacking in sweetness. Great for breakfast with a strong hot cup of coffee. Pleases your companions, or at least pleased mine. Worth a try if maple is a taste you like.

I really like this tobacco. Actually, I like it the more I smoke it. I ordered it a few months ago and have been enjoying it through the late fall into the just-started winter. The pouch smell is incredible, with maple flavor hitting you happily in the nostrils. The taste of maple is somehwat subdued and actually could be stronger. It is much more noticeable in the room aroma. Overall a very nice, easy to smoke, non-tongue bite, aromatic. I can see this being a staple for me.

I liked it more at first now it leavs me kinda dry. Not a bad blend, kinda lite on the Maple, and a dry finish.

I read all the rave reviews about Carole's deftness with aromatic blends and I love maple. Seemed like a natural fit. I don't smoke a lot of aromatics but when I do, I like the topping such as here to be more that just a whisper or a suggestion of maple. I want to be hit square between the eyes with the flavor of maple. You can't be all things to everyone. If you're going to be an aromatic than dammit go with it. Nothing bad about this blend but nothing to float my boat.

I would like to see more more maple flavoring in this blend as well. The maple scent is there in the pouch, but when it is smoked it is hard to taste. The burn quality is great. Burns all the way to the bottom of the bowl and no goop. The room note is pleasant to tolarable. If there were more maple flavoring like in Town Topic, this blend would be a homerun.

It takes a pretty special aromatic to make it into my regular rotation and VMC is such a blend. The pouch note of this is a very full maple smell, and the appearance is appealing with light and dark brown flecks mixed in with the black cavendish tobaccos. Firing up a bowl, you first notice how much the tobacco tastes like the aroma in the pouch, something that doesn't happen a lot in aromatics. The only difference is that the sweetness of the smoke is less than that of the pouch note, something that suits me just fine. I don't care for overly cased tobaccos and this one isn't. The maple taste remains fairly constant over 2/3 of the bowl, then starts to fade away as the smoke ends. It generally leaves a bit of dottle in the bottom of my pipe, as do most aromatics. You will make a lot of friends with this one, as the room aroma is VERY pleasant. I find myself smoking this one every other day or so, which for me is unusual for an aromatic. Four stars for Vermont Maple Cavendish.

I am going to "ditto" what other 4-star reviews have said about this blend. It is a nice aromatic that does not leave your pipe with gunk, is cool smoking, does not bite, and has a nice maple flavor. I find it burns well and becomes especially flavorful mid-bowl to bottom. This is not a one-dimensional tobacco, but develops a host of nutty and maple flavors.

Tobacco quality is never an issue with P&W aromatics. You're always going to get a good or better grade of tobacco to go with your choice of flavoring(s).

The aromatic smoker need only find the right topping to be happy with these fine blends.

I found the flavoring in Vermont Maple Cavendish to be on the week side (although it did seem to amp up a bit after baking in my glove compartment for a week).

This isn't my favorite P&W blend but it might be yours.

* * 1/2

While this is an unusually well behaved cavendish with a nice aroma, it has so little flavor that I lose interest less than 1/2 way through the bowl. Like many extremely mild blends, I also found it to taste pretty nasty at the bottom of the bowl. I may mix it with some burley to give it some legitimate tobacco flavor, otherwise I'll pitch it. If you like aromatics, Wilke's own Bohemian Mixture is far more worthy of your attention than Vermont Maple Cavendish.