Peterson Connoisseur's Choice

In my MM Legend cob, I get an extrenely sweet smoke, with some sour fruit notes. I pick up some cherry in here, and definately some pineapple or other similar tasting fruit. I sort of get a lime-orange ish taste on my tongue. The pineapple note seems to be present for the entire bowl, along with the sweet smokiness. The cherry is mainly present for the first half of the bowl. The rest of the bowl is just...some unidentified but very fruity taste. It almost feels like I'm smoking a fruit salad :). Smokes cold and dry in my cob, but I can definately see this soaking a briar.

In the Old Friend, the firsr couple of puffs are all pineapple..followed by mild, plain smokey tobacco..amazing how tobacco can. change from pipe to pipe... in this pipe I now only get earthy tobacco (around 15 puffs from the initial pineapple-blast). I am probably 30 puffs in, the fruity aroma has yet to reappear. This is why I review it from pipe to pipe, every pipe gives the tobacco a new taste, a new character; a new personality altogether...I never would have guessed what this tobacco was if I was blindfolded. Around half the bowl in, it is turning very nutty, sharp in the retrohale. The pipe is now soggy; I cannot recommend this pipe for this tobacco...or is it the other way around? I did get some pleasant, fruity notes once in a while in this pipe, but a good tobacco taste slowly turning into a cigarette is NOT my idea of good. It smoked cool though, even in this pipe.

In the Carey pipe, I get weak hints of fruit with a lot of...rum(?) taste. Not exactly rum, but that rum drink with coconut hints..very sweet drink. I also get a lot of sweet nuts, and smooth, creamy tobacco. This tobacco is a very good tobacco, with a lot of complexity, depending on your pipe. One pipe had me smoking a fruit salad, another gave me rough smoke, with a cigarette flavor, while another served me a glass of rum with coconut juice. Did I mention the tobacco lights and smokes well, and give no bite? Go for this one if you want a sweet smoke with a delicious roomnote.

Edit: PLUM! Plum is one of those unidentified flavors sneakin up! And perhaps a bit of grape.

Tin note is quite intense, it smells like fruit jam (apple, strawberry, red berry) with a whiff of caramel and rum probably. It’s nice, it also reminds me of aromatized narghile tobacco. The aroma does not seem completely natural but not very chemical either. It consists of lighter and darker brown coarse cut ribbons and around 50% Black Cavendish. Moisture from the tin is ok, it can use a little bit of drying but it smokes well as it is.

Does not pose any problems in lighting it and it keeps lit and smokes to the end without leaving any dottle. Upon lighting you get the same taste you expected from the nose. The taste is nutty, sweet, caramelly with a rumy note and the fruity essence that you smell from the tin. This is a true aromatic, there’s no question about it, but the tobacco underneath is of good quality. No bite and no harshness.

I recently tried another Peterson aromatic, Sunset Breeze with an Amaretto flavor. Despite their different flavoring if I wanted to compare them, I could say that Connoiseur’s Choice is a fuller tobacco both in strength (medium) and flavoring. I also find CC mellower as SB did have some sharp notes. To my opinion CC is a better tobacco.

Beware though it will ghost the pipe.

I, as a beginner in pipe smoking, can recommend this tobacco, I'm not used to smoke (not cigarettes, nor cigars) and for me it was still kind of strong, but very aromatic and the overall impression was very pleasant. I was satisfied with my choice for the first tobacco I tried 🙂

Good, but nothing special.The taste is creamly and dark. The tin smell is wonderful, but, as most of the aromatics, you taste much less than what you smell…

This is good ! Fruit and vanilla are the main flavors. The rum just accents them both. If packed right it stays on the cool side. It can be a little bitey like all fruit flavor tobacco but it's minimal. It is similar to Stanwells Melange but is not as rich. Melange is deeper and has a thicker room note. If I couldn't get Melange I'd smoke this. Hell I have melange and I'm smoking it anyway ! Its a good blend, stays cool and has an awesome aroma ! Others around you will love it. Its lighter in vitamin N than Melange but also lighter in flavor. This would be a good all day smoke if you like sweet and fruity. It just lacks a bit in taste as far as richness and depth but is quite good taste wise. Try it ! Good and Fruity ! Lol . This has kind of a melon character on the palette. Kind of zesty actually. If you like Stanwells Melange you'll like this as well. It don't have the body or hickory note like Melange, but that may be a good thing for some. This tobacco would go excellent in a Peterson System with a P Lip ! Excellent palette flavor!

I figured it was time to branch out, to get to know aromatics. I know it's usually the other way around, to go from aromatics to english; but, as in seemingly most things in my life, I tend to work backwards from the refined to the popular. But I was curious to know what aromatics were about, precisely since some of the more arrogant cognoscenti in this hobby seem to depreciate the nectar of the neophyte.

Once I determined what was available locally I picked a tin at random that seemed promising. I was still relatively new to the hobby so I didn't know the reputations yet. Peterson's looked quality enough. Connoisseur's Choice, good name. Why not?

When I lit up that first time I was very pleasantly surprised. I instantly understood why so many smokers begin with aromatics and stay there -- they're very flavorful and easy on the tastebuds. For those who prefer sugar to salt, it's a natural choice.

I still can't easily discriminate the flavors that comprise the final melange of this blend. The primary sensation for me is that I've just walked into an old-fashioned candy store -- and that's not a bad thing. I sometimes like cotton candy. Connoisseur's Choice is very sweet without somehow being cloying, which makes for a nice smoke. It doesn't have any of the subtlety or nuance I like in english and balkans, yet it does have some complexity (in a two-dimensional kind of way), with all those sweet flavors swimming around each other. If I concentrate on the flavors I can tease out cherry and vanilla and maybe some tropical-type fruits, but the whole is actually greater than the parts, which makes this a really fun, pleasant smoke. RCUSElder said this was "candy in a tin" and I agree. Plus it smells great!

Now that I've smoked more aromatics I can better detect some flaws in this one -- it does have a slight chemical taste in the background, and it can smoke very hot if you're not careful. It also leaves a powerful ghost, so you really ought to smoke it in a dedicated aromatic pipe. But the negatives don't detract too much -- it's still a really pleasant smoke.

It's fortunate for me that this was my first aromatic. It encouraged me to continue sampling them. Had my first experience with an aromatic been an inferior one (like Peterson's DeLuxe Mixture, the next one I tried) I probably would have waited a couple of years before venturing away again from my latakias & orientals.

So I'm grateful that Connoisseur's Choice turned out to be so enjoyable -- it was my gateway 'baccy to a pleasant genre.

PS Kilmarnock Piper said this has "too many notes", and I don't disagree. But I'm one of the few who like Reger!

07/20/13: To Kilmarnock Piper: Just saw your update to me, and it gave me a big smile. Using an unpopular, unfairly maligned, (yet surprisingly important) composer like Reger to find a way to appreciate a tobacco is really something... Isn't it amazing how we can employ classical music metaphors to arrive at a mutual understanding to describe such a vastly different sensory experience? I personally believe our aesthetic experiences have some kind of synaesthetic hardwiring to allow us to make such connections across senses. "Brahms on speed or angel dust" -- I like that. Reger strikes me as a Teutonic Neo-Baroque Late-Romantic Milhaud or Martinu, churning out lovely meandering melodies underlined by contrapuntal, very complex harmonies. He's definitely not everyone's cup of tea (or bowl of 'baccy), but I love his music, especially his opus 114 Piano Concerto -- my favorite piano concerto, btw -- which I find transcendently beautiful. And his response to that critic has long been one of my favorite anecdotes.

Just bought a tin today, I am a aro n peterson fan, and was pleasantly surprised, rum vanilla and tropical fruit...if i had a coctail of the same ingredients I don't think I would like the taste. Simillar to Sweet Killarney, but better, I get a taste of pinapple and oranges with a hint of vanilla and rum, smokes well in my WO Larsen sandblast straight billard where others have not. Nice summer smoke, nice that it is light on the vanilla, and rum is always a winner with tobacco. Great sticky chunks and strips of baccy in the tin, yep it bites!. Recommended as a nice change from other candy tobaccos, as always good quality from peterson. I look forward to posting more on this one, and I can't wait to smoke this with a cool, fruity, strong and sweet belgium beer ( la chouffe) on a café terrace on a warm summers day. Oh the dreams of a pipe smoker!

My sample bag smelled slightly sweet like maple, chocolate, alcohol, raisin, and fruit. It’s a nice European style aromatic type blend with thicker cut pieces of tobacco that were not sticky or wet although I think this might come a little wet in the tin. Lite and burned well.

This is a mild tobacco forward aromatic. I get some fruit notes, some sweet alcohol flavors, bread, wood, hay. The type of aromatic blend I enjoy. I feel the flavorings compliment the natural flavors of Virginia and cavendish. Something I could smoke anytime and be ok with. Nicotine is mild, so is the after taste and mouth feel.

In my humble opinion its just perfect sweet, sugary tobacco, it has fabulous smell and lovely taste. . Typical sweet Danish aro - caramel/ toffee sugary taste, Nothing extraordinary nevertheless I like it. I definitely reccomend it if you want to smoke something one-dimensional and sweet EDIT: Do not listen to me, i hate aromatics