Ashton Artisan's Blend

If this tobacco is trying to be a sort of equivalent to Nightcap, then it has failed miserably. This is like a stronger version of those cross-over english blends like frog morton, trying to be several things at the same time.The tobacco lacks balance and is simply a mess. I would have to say that as far as Ashton tobaccos go, Consummate Gentleman is a better offering.

Forget the tobacco description on the tin. This mixture has Latakia, Virginia, fire cured Kentucky, Black Cavendish and Perique according to the Kohlhase & Kopp website. Now I really wanted to like this Latakia bomb. I usually like strong, pungent and earthy tobaccos. Maybe the old mixture was all that for the experienced pipe smoker but this new offering is disappointing.

The Latakia itself is very shy in the flavor department and works in spades. It is a bitter smoke for the most part that turns harsh for a few puffs then comes back to bitter with the too infrequent Latakia creamy like taste (a topping maybe). It smokes cool to a white ash and no gurgle.

While in Nightcap all the ingredients could be savored, in Artisan's blend you get a charcoal like flavor that could be interesting if it wasn't for the tendency of this mixture to turn bitter to a point that it becomes unpleasant with harshness.

I tried this tobacco with three different pipes, all Latakia mixture dedicated, believing that it was the pipes that were faulty. To no avail, the smoking experience remained disappointingly the same.

Virginia lover

I had wanted to try this for some time, so when a sealed tin was offered for exchange, I jumped at the chance. I have to say I was disappointed with the result.

The appearance of this mixture is quite dark & doesn't have the contrast of other English mixtures, without the interesting sights of light Virginias mixed with dark Latakia with other Orientals thrown in. It seems to be fairly uniform dark brown.

This tobacco has a fairly typical English mixture scent from the tin, but is somewhat milder than others, with less punch & 'oomph'. It just smells a little flat and uninteresting.

Loading up the bowl, the mixture pack easily, and burns fairly well. I would add that this is after a little drying time as mine came fairly damp from the tin, and when I tired to smoke a bowl straight from the off, it was a nightmare which kept going out, and packed clumpy.

The taste is milder than most Englishes, it seems to be an English struggling to escape from behind a moribund covering of substandard blending. There is no kick to the blend either. The fact that the English mixture is in there somewhere is its saving grace, but there is no real character to speak of. The typical strong hit of an English taste, with blended tobaccos working in harmony seems to be smothered - almost - to the point of redundancy behind a tobacco combination which just doesn't work for me. The Latakia & Perique could be sensed, along with the Virginia, but not enough to be meaningful within this smoke.

The room note, again is just somewhat bland.

The nicotine strength seemed to me to be quite mild, although my everyday smokes are somewhat stronger than the average tobacco.

All in all, it burned & packed well, but smelled, looked & tasted bland and uninteresting to me. For that reason I will give it 2 stars, many here seem to like it, so maybe I got a dud tin. I will also state that I cannot give it 1 star, because like every other tobacco I have tried, it's not nearly as bad as Clan, which is the benchmark by which I judge all other substandard tobaccos by when deciding on my start rating. I will not, however be keeping this around. For the sake of fairness, I will but some more in future to see if my tin was actually an exception to the rule.

Dunhill Nightcaps rival my arse...

Didn't get any of NC's powerful blasts of nicotine. All I got was warm coal-like sooty air passing into my mouth.

Latakia dominant to a degree, no perique present that I could detect. I gave up on trying to detect the other ingredients.

Still it's a nice posh tin, and alludes to us marketing suckers to part with more cash for yet another unnecessary purchase to add to the 35lbs we already have stashed away in the attic or celler.

Artisan is not my bag really, Nightcap is a nicotine bomb, and is a far richer blend if you ask me. Still each to their own, give this Ashton's mixture stuff a go, it may just be right up your lungs this blend.

Which = 2.5 stars

It wants to be Nightcap. .. If the mighty Velvet Hammer hadn't been revived by Peterson, perhaps I'd be singing the praises of this blend, as it fits the same spot: an English mixture of such enormity that you can taste it even after saturating your taste buds all day long. I love Nightcap, and was on the hunt for a substitute when I thought it was gone. This would be that substitute, but given Nightcap is back, and I don't need two tobaccos to fill that niche, I will review it by comparison.

Appearance: black with flecks of brown and just a tiny bit of tan leaf. Cut is a slightly uneven ribbon, and moisture content is on the higher side.

Tin aroma: heady, full, smoky, leaf mould, spice, resin. Smokiness is the dominant feature, and it carries less of the rich, yeasty, fermented odour than many of my Dunhill favourites, including Nightcap.

Right off the match it has a rich smokey flavour, with a salty, mineral tang and subtle sweetness like black treacle. Latakia is the dominant ingredient, the smokiness is charcoal and peat rather than campfire. My tin was bought in 2018, I doubt it contains much if any of the extinct Syrian Latakia, and I'm not well enough acquainted with that leaf to pick it out of it did. Certainly the Latakia flavour here is familiar and enjoyable.

The Perique adds some pepperiness towards the end, but no sour or fruity flavours, indeed I think there's just a smidgen of the Louisiana leaf here, accentuating the peppery character of the Latakia. This blend is less sweet than Nightcap, and what sweetness there is burns off in the first half of the bowl. I don't think the Black Cavendish content is very high, as this tobacco is neither sweet nor creamy smooth.

In terms of flavour development it follows a fairly linear progression towards a charcoal smokey, black peppery crescendo. The final flavour is if anything stronger than Nightcap, but less complex, and it doesn't take such a meandering path to get there, perhaps due to a smaller content of Orientals? They don't really feature in this blend as much, I think the content is less and gets rather steam rollered by the Latakia. Overall, the lack of complexity surprised me given the longer list of constituent tobaccos: Artisans Blend has Latakia, Perique, Virginia, Black Cavendish and Kentucky. Somehow the effect is monotonous.

This tobacco can get a little harsh on the tongue, but doesn't bite as such. All the same, a bit of a nuisance in a tobacco I'll often smoke after I've smoked more than I usually would in a day. It burns easily, with low maintenance and leaves a little dottle. It delivers less nicotine than the Velvet Hammer...

So the final verdict: Nightcap wins, for me at least. It's smoother, more refined, and ultimately more complex, and that's what I want in a final, contemplative pipe before I turn in. This is a tobacco for the Latakia lovers for sure, and might be more to the tastes of those who aren't so keen on the Orientals.

This is such a disappointment for me. I don't know if it aged badly and between my moving from France and Portugal several times something happened with the tins (I hope not as they are all well sealed). This is a four year old tin.

Bland bland taste, no specific tobacco shines, the mélange is as uninteresting as it can get. The Latakia is so weak, not strongly aromatised not as smoky as one would hope. The only interesting bits are the Turkish tobaccos... that's it.

A very spicy latakia/oriental blend.

Opening the tin, you get a very strong smokey aroma, like a good campfire or a very smokey single malt whiskey. The ribbon cut is very dark and quite moisty. There were some dryer harder stems of tobacco which I removed from the tin.

The taste is rich and very spicy. The spicyness can be sometimes too much for me. It is also creamy and leaves a creamy coating in one's mouth. The room note is strong and is not always appreciated. It lingers long in the room after a smoke.

Smokes always dry and leaves no dottle. Produces lots of smoke.

Typical a late evening smoke. Wouldn't smoke more than 1 bowl a day of this.

Minor update: A fellow pipester was smoking this while we were driving and I had a "revelation", LOL! This is Brebbia's #8 or #80 depending on how it is marketed. I opened a tin of #8 and lo! and behold! Same cut, same tin aroma, same packaging. Am I 100% certain? No, but I let you all consider it. Also, I know why I kept getting heartburn, the anise topping is what kept giving me heartburn. Another interesting thing I noticed is that the room note is remeniscent to the room note of the herb: "Deer Tongue". I feel so cheated.....LOL!

This is a excellent improvement over "Old Dog" or "Celebrated Sovereign", but still left this piper flat.

Appearance and Tin Aroma: Mostly dark leaf, some mohogany, and an occaisional lighter leaf. Smells earthy, musty. The Syrian leaf is not the same leaf that was used recenly by Pease, C&D, or McClelland. It smells almost like Cyprian (probably is IMO).

Packing and Lighting: This comes a little moist in the tin, you should leave it open for a little while (20 mins was enough for me). The medium-width ribbons packed easily. 3-4 lights max.

Initial Flavor: Earthy, dark, rich. This is definitely a latakia dominated blend.

Mid-Bowl: The richness is still there. The latakia still dominates. The other leaves are muted, too much IMO.

Bottom of Bowl: A decent amount of strength build up, can leave pipe a little moist, PG is noticable in the the shank of your pipe too.

Overall: I was really curious to find what Bill Taylor was going to get as a replacement for his now discontinued MC blended tobacs. While this blend is better overall, I found it too bland to make it a go to blend. I love latakia laden blends, but in this blend, I found nothing particularly special to keep me coming back. There was no tendency to tongue-bite due to the richness of flavor available, though. There was a chocolate, earthy, molasses flavor from the natural tobacs in this that I found a little cloying (similar to Mississippi Mud). The Perique is low enough that it does not give me allergies (thank you!). Unfortunately, something in this blend provoked heartburn in me everytime I smoked it (PG?).It tastes "almost" like Margate, it tastes "almost" like Preludio, it tastes "almost" like Nightcap. All in all an "almost" English style blend. Not good enough for this piper. I finished my 50g. tin, but do not plan on buying anymore.

In general, I am not latakia fun. Heavy aroma of smoky tobacco often kill the most valuable thing during pipe smoking: tobacco taste. It is very similar also with this blend. After tin opening, just latakia, nothing else. During seeping, there was smooth heavy smoke with taste of smoky, earthy maybe little tangy tones. Burns well without tongue bite. Feeling from quality of tobacco was obvious, but feeling from smoking was average.