Ashton Guilty Pleasure

Smell: Fruity (what exactly I can't say) and sweet. Pleasant. Not overwhelming, not natural.

Taste: In the first 4-5 puffs I detect some mild fruity flavoring. Then it disappears and what I taste is just some Virginia/Burley. This isn't what I was looking for otherwise I would have smoked a good Virginia. Quite disappointing for me.

Ratio Smell/Taste: Far to be 1:1. The smell of the tin promises a taste that is not there, if not for the first puffs.

Moisture: Quite moist. It needs some time for drying.

Filter: With

Ghosting: Medium.

My tin was nicely sealed and I’d guess no more than a year or so old. The tobacco was barely moist and even seemed dry. The tin note was nice and I did detect a slight mango aroma. Unfortunately, the smoke delivered nothing in the way of flavor and barely anything in the room note. I am in the process of rehydrating the tobacco to try and bring back some flavor and aroma - How can a tobacco that many others say is “like candy” “very sweet taste”, etc. deliver nothing to me? Something is wrong and hopefully rehydration will help - But as of now, this tobacco had no flavor at all and only a slight mango tin note. If it comes back to life, I’ll edit this review.

Tin note of vanilla, mild oranges and sugar. Tobacco is a course cut of black, brown and tan. Moisture content is ok, some will prefer to dry it out a bit. Burns moderate with a few relights. The strength is mild to medium and nic is mild. Flavoring is mild to medium, with notes of Citrus, Mango and Vanilla. Citrus and Mango dissipates rather quickly, and the Vanilla starts and finishes in the background. Taste is mild to medium and moderately consistent, with notes of tangy citrus, tart mango fruit, mild vanilla, buttery, savory, toast, molasses, dry wood, spices, cocoa, nuts, rich earth, floral, lemon grass, citrus peel/zest, brown sugar, hay, a creamy tart fruity background note, and a mildly peppery/smooth retro. Burley is leading with Virginia, Cavendish and Flavoring supporting. Room note is pleasant, and aftertaste is good.

A mild tobacco sweet . Smoke easy without relight. Similar to a older production of sunday fantasy but with a best cut. Good and persistent room note.

The tin was aged, a 2015 excise. When I opened it, at first I thought it was the same strawberry and cream as the 2011 Peterson Holiday Season, but after sniffing it, I realized that it didn't smell like strawberries, but mango. There was also vanilla and sweet citrus in the scent, but the nutty flavor of the burley was completely blocked by it all. The tobacco is extremely aromatic, you could even call it intrusive. Despite the ageing of tobacco, it was quite damp.

The color of the tobacco is heterogeneous, different varieties are easy to guess. The cut is mixed, sometimes there are pieces of leaf. There is no need to knead it. Perhaps the tobacco needs to rest a bit and weathered in the open.

The tobacco is very light, but at the same time the first couple of puffs unpleasantly burned my tongue. The flavor is smooth, sweet, and here with the sweetness came the nut. After a little bit of smoking I noticed that the tobacco has stopped biting, the excessive sweetness has disappeared, and the taste has become more harmonious. It's not hot, but it's quite moist. The ash is smooth, the tobacco in the pipe does not go out. The smoke is sweet vanilla and fruity, but not as with Nat Sherman #314, but a little stiffer and a little woody. The flavor is quite persistent.

What's the result? The feeling is strange: on the one hand I love light flavors as a dessert, on the other hand - this particular tobacco does not make me want to keep it in my collection (probably because I'm not very fond of mango). I'll have to try holding it in the air for a couple of hours to make the flavor less intrusive.

Opening the tin, you're greeted with a sweet smell, almost like medicine flavoring. The tobacco is dry enough to smoke right away - a nice plus. It smells really good upon first light, and I've gotten compliments from people about the initial smell. After that the first few puffs, though, the casing is entirely gone, and no sweetness remains.

That's really the problem with this tobacco - the flavor doesn't last. I bought it because I liked the Borkum Riff Cherry, but that was very early in my smoking journey. After having tried a few more, I've learned that the cherry casing isn't that appealing if the underlying tobacco isn't good, and well, this isn't that good.

It doesn't leave a lot of much at the bottom of the pipe, and it can smoke out of the tin, but that's not saying much.

I really like this aromatic blend. Matter of fact, it is what I grab when I want to smoke an aromatic. I love the tin note and the room note is amazing from what I'm told, I have trouble smelling the smoke while I'm actually smoking, it's strange I know. I'm relatively new to pipe smoking, I did it in college with the OTC tobacco and a Dr. Grabow pipe but we did it just to make our apartment smell good. 25 years later I'm an avid pipe smoker and am trying all types of blends both aromatic and non-aromatic. I have to say this was one of the first ones I bought and I really like the fruity taste, especially when it is first lit. There are some vanilla notes in there too which is nice, but I don't get that until I'm about half to ¾ through the bowl. It does smoke nice and cool and I get zero tongue bite. It came out of the tin moist which caused a little bite at first but after jarring and cellaring, it has dried out some and the bite is gone. I have several other aromatics that are in my rotation now and a few that I haven't opened yet so this may move a little down the list as I try more or it may not. I have maybe 4-5 more bowls worth of it left and I'm definitley going to order some more.

This review is based on my notes from 2009. Tin aroma...very nice. Moisture content was just about right out of the tin. Taste...flat & bland. Where is that great smelling topping taste? Where is that very pleasant room note that an aromatic should emit? Where is the sweet Virginia and burley tobacco taste & strength? Smoked a large bowl and still felt the need for some Vitamin N. Didn't get much out of this stuff. The only other quality attributes this blend possesses, other than a pleasant tin aroma, is mildness & minimal tongue bite. I don't think quality tobacco was used in blending & feel the topping was lacking in flavor. Ashton would be well advised to improve on this blend. This tobacco is being judged on the basis of an aromatic blend only. That being said, GP IMHO, is worthy of no more than two stars.

A very different smoke. The tin has tons of sweet smells ozzing out of it but for me it stopped there. After the initial lite,I found like some of the other smokers that it burned very hot and was a handful to keep lit. I also will note that the room note/smoke seemed to dance off quite fast. Will be my last dance with this girl.