John Middleton, Inc Kentucky Club Mixture Aromatic

(1.88)
Five choice imported and domestic tobaccos - Turkish, perique, white burley, Carolina, and Virginia brights. The cut is a combination of ribbon, cube, flake, and shag. Slowly-aged pipe mixture. Cool burning, very mild, and refreshing, pleasingly aromatic.
Notes: This is the variety packaged with a red plaid label.

Details

Brand John Middleton, Inc
Blended By John Middleton
Manufactured By John Middleton, Inc.
Blend Type Aromatic
Contents Burley, Oriental/Turkish, Perique, Virginia
Flavoring Other / Misc
Cut Coarse Cut
Packaging 2oz Pouch
Country United States
Production No longer in production

Profile

Strength
Mild
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Extremely Mild -> Overwhelming
Flavoring
Mild
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
None Detected -> Extra Strong
Room Note
Pleasant
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Unnoticeable -> Overwhelming
Taste
Mild
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Extremely Mild (Flat) -> Overwhelming

Average Rating

1.88 / 4
1

4

10

9

Reviews

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Displaying 1 - 10 of 24 Reviews
Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Sep 27, 2014 Mild Mild Mild Very Pleasant
The earthy, woody burley is lightly molasses sweet and nutty, and is the star component in regard to tobacco taste. The earthy, woody, plumy perique offers a minute spice hit. The Oriental/Turkish provides a slight dry woodiness, earth, light floralness with no spice. Not much of it is present. The Virginia is a little grassy, and mildly tart and tangy citrusy as a supporting player. The topping is rather fruity, but it has a trace of chemical flavor. The strength and taste levels are mild. Has very little nicotine. Won't bite or get harsh. Burns cool at a moderate pace with a very consistent flavor. Leaves little moisture in the bowl, and requires few relights. Has a very pleasant room note, and decent after taste. A pleasant, mild aromatic that does better when smoked slowly. Two and a half stars.

-JimInks
3 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jun 24, 2014 Very Mild Very Mild Mild Pleasant
My two cents: When I smoke this stuff I get the feeling that this could have been really popular a couple of generations ago when guys walked to the corner store for their tobacco and smoked whatever that store could get. I got a great brownie pouch note albeit fairly mild. cut was a little finer than what I'm used to but loads, lights and burns well. you get a taste of subdued burleys and a little of the casing. Certainly no orientals or other exotic tobaccos. Nicotine is light but noticeable and room note isn't unpleasant. It's got a strong bite to it so no chain smoking this one. I'll burn a bowl of this every three to four weeks just for the pouch note but once it's gone that's it. No more KC for me. This is the age of the internet and I can get the best tobaccos in the world delivered to my door for a few dollars more than a pouch of KC so why bother? Not the worst class of tobacco so 2 stars.
Pipe Used: briar
PurchasedFrom: local place
Age When Smoked: 3 months
3 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Mar 07, 2014 Very Mild None Detected Extremely Mild (Flat) Tolerable
PG soaked mess, they say the tub is choc full of imported luxury tobaccos but all i tasted was red hot bitter burley that left slugs in my stem. Probably the worst of the Middleton line of tobaccos and certainly the black sheep of the Kentucky Club family.
3 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jan 24, 2011 Mild Mild Very Mild Tolerable
When I was a kid, my next door neighbor's father smoked this blend in his pipe all day long, even while mowing his lawn in the dog days of summer. It smelled good to me then but now, maybe because one's sense of smell becomes jaded over the years, I don't get that same olfactory enjoyment from this blend as I remember . I can also recall watching him fill his pipe and it seems to me that the mixture then was cube cut rather than the flake it is today, although many tobacco blends and manufacturing techniques have changed since the 1950s and this one is probably no exception.

Kentucky Club Aromatic is not "cool burning" as the packaging suggests. As previous reviewers have already warned, you'll feel like a fire-breathing dragon about halfway through your first pipeful. I don't know how one could make this an all-day smoke. In the cannister, the blend has a sort of very faint chocolatey aroma but it doesn't translate into the room note or the taste.

Bottom line is: with so many delicious blends to choose from, ones that you can smoke all day with no tongue bite whatsoever, I can't recommend that you allow yourself to suffer with this blend at all.
2 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Nov 01, 2006 Mild to Medium Medium Medium Pleasant
I tried this tobacco for one reason: Antiquity.

Growing-up in a small town in southeastern Ohio, one of the few surgeons around, along with his brother, used to do rotations, with other physicians, in the Emergency Room of the local hospital. This surgeon, Dr. D., used to pull ER duty in carpet slippers, cardigan sweater and pipe. Hard to imagine now...but that's how it was. Dr. D. lived to a very ripe old age, and he smoked nothing but Kentucky Club Aromatic, usually in a pot-shaped GBD with a Perspex stem. Once, when I had been riding on the handlebars of a friend's bike and dislocated my elbow, a trip to the ER found Dr. D. on duty. He recognized me, felt the place that should have been a bump, but was then a hollow, and gave the arm a good yank. I screamed, but the joint was back in-place, and I doubt we got a bill for it; he had bigger fish to fry.

Kentucky Club Aromatic is just that kind of tobacco--basic, experienced, and friendly. It is a genuine mixture, composed of Burley, Virginia, Turkish, and Perique. There is a definite fruity casing that makes itself known in taste, but more-so in room aroma. It is a friendly smoke that works. Just like Dr. D.

Don't expect anything fancy and you will be surprised...and pleasantly-so. Just let it air-out if you can. Middleton has a thoroughly nasty habit of putting WAY TOO MUCH PEG on their blends. When this evaporates, Ky. Club Mixture is a pretty good smoke.
2 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jul 19, 2014 Medium to Strong Medium to Strong Medium to Full Pleasant
Scratching my head on this one during the first bowl. With the second I caught on. It's all about the burley and perique, while the Turkish adds a note of spice. The taste was zesty, nutty and nice. As for the so called "bite" people keep refering to , I think they're confusing it with the tang-like quality found in perique. This does seem to dominate in the smoke but in a good way. The taste and aroma are akin to chocolate covered raspberries but in an old-fashioned pipe smoking way. Maybe that's what has turned people off from this blend. Pipe tobacco wasn't so overcased in those days so the taste is slightly forgein to us now. I think the issue is more with KCA in the pouch rather than the 12oz tub. A good pipe scrubbing might be in order if you find this one biting your ankles so to speak. That makes a world of difference. Works well in corncob or briar. Just remember John Middleton blends are meant to air out in small batches for an hour or longer before smoking. Now I have a new friend with a classic logo to boot.

Update: 8/22/14 Thank you Russ at P&C for giving great tips on maintaining our pipe collection. In a recent catalogue he said when rotating your pipes let them dry out for a few days or so, depending on the amount of smokes in a day. For example: 3 smokes out of the same pipe let that pipe dry out for 3 days. Doing so not only reduces moisture dramatically, it also combats the dreaded furnace effect. I recently tried this with my cobs (which are notorious for gaining moisture and overheating in hot humid weather or becoming brittle in very cold weather). Thanks to this tip I had a far smoother, drier and cooler smoking experience. The same technique should be used with any style pipe. It's a little tricky at first remembering which pipe you are drying out. Once you get the process going it will become like second nature. Labeling the days of the week on your pipestand is the best way to do it. So after all the negative reviews for KCA, I took Russ's advice and smoked some KCA in a cob.....very smooooth and no bite. I thought I was smoking raspberry wine with a hint of dark chocolate-not overly sweet. I did notice a slight peppery note, but that made the experience that much more interesting. It did get slightly more peppery at the bottom of the bowl, but it was also a humid, wet and windy night. This always seems to affect my pipes. My advice, if you use a cob smoke a full bowl and always use a match. Half a bowl and a cheap lighter later it's heat, moisture and clump city regardless of the blend. I've also been smoking Wessex Aromatic Mixture which is less sweet with a very noticeable but very nice ginger note. I'm torn between two lovers, because both blends are so damn good. Take Russ' advice and another try at KCA and I garauntee a very rewarding smoking experience. Now to smoke KCA out of a briar,,,

1 person found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Feb 06, 2014 Medium to Strong None Detected Medium Tolerable
I really wanted to love this as it is an old favorite of a good friend who swears its what Jesus would smoke if He was a piper. Pro - good nicotine hit. Con - extreme heat sans flavour. Really nothing more than that. The blow torch effect makes me think it would more likely be the preferred weed of the red guy with the pointy tail. If a ripping nickel buzz is your thing, give it a whirl and keep a fire extinguisher handy.
Pipe Used: falcon classic with dublin bowl
Age When Smoked: new
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Feb 27, 2013 Extremely Mild Extremely Mild Very Mild Pleasant
Mostly a fairly mild and inoffensive blend, although it does bite like a toy dog on your trouser-leg -- annoying but not actually painful. It does burn amazingly fast, and if there really is anything other than mildly-flavored white burley in this, I can't detect it.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jul 10, 2012 Mild Mild Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
I've had a tub of this sitting around for about 5 years now. It has gotten better, but not a lot better. The initial light-up is quite tasty, but then it gets bitey, even if smoked gently. I've tried this in small, medium, and large bowled pipes. Doesn't make much difference. Still rears up to bite ya. Packed loosely, it becomes tolerable. Maybe another 5 years on the mantle will do the trick. Carter Hall is still better than this stuff. Anybody want to swap tubs?
1 person found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jun 12, 2012 Mild Mild Mild Pleasant
Picked up a tub in trade and smoked from it over the course of a few months - about 5 oz or so. Middleton claims the cut is a combination of ribbon, shag, cube and flake which really means it's a coarse, choppy cut that resembles none of these. It looked like a cheap drugstore blend. Tub aroma is a bit on the fruity side and the tobacco came fairly dry. No idea how old this stuff was, and I doubt it matters much. $19.95 sticker on the tub, if that gives anyone an indication.

The claim is that there are several different tobaccos within this mix, but a sweetened burley is all I tasted. The flavor was decent, but the tongue sting mentioned by others was in evidence, which marred the proceedings. Ultimately, I had the best success with a mahogany calabash meerschaum pipe, which toned down the sting. I also tried rehydrating but all that did was cause the flavor to dumb down. This did produce a taste akin to cinnamon at times but sweetened burley was the main taste. Not nearly as hearty of a burley as KC Mild, which I smoke occasionally. Perhaps the aromatic component is causing the tongue sting. At any rate, this phenomenon hurt what otherwise would be at best a mediocre batch of leaf. I give this two stars but it's probably somewhere between 1 and 2. Hard to recommend but curious puffers may want to give it a go.
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