Ashton Winding Road

A great Cavendish/Virgina blend giving beautiful light notes of maple syrup & fruity apricot but without being overpowering or sticky. One of my favourite aromatics well deserving of 4 stars.

Hmmm, the description says it is a bridge between an aromatic blend and an English blend. Since this has no real characteristics of an English blend, I would have to say this is one of those bridges to nowhere, since it never even gets off the ground on the aromatic side. This is a nice aromatic, but nothing to really write home about. YMMV. I would recommend this one to at least give it a shot, you may just like it. Just not my cup of tea.

I bought this cos I'd seen it had 4 stars and the tobacco shop I was in seemed to have a vendettat against VaPer and tobacco-ey tobaccos. Damn! Anyway, I suppose I should've checked out how many reviews there were. First things first, there's nothing nasty about this blend. It's perfectly decent and the tin aroma,which had me worried, didn't keep its promise of gooey, sweetened nonsense. This is ok tobacco, but really very mild and there's not a lot happening. Maybe I've jaded my palate with the stronger blends, but this seems insipid. This is a lot like a better quality gold block and obviously a lot better than the supermarket brands which unsult us on a daily basis, but just not tasty enough. Addendum:- After trying Consumate Gentleman (a stupid name if you ask me) I decided I'd need to salvage my Winding Road, so I thoroughly mixed-in about the same amount of well-rubbed Peterson's Irish Flake as there is Latakia. This improved things quite a bit, without changing the character too much. It's been given backbone and a multi-layered taste, but is still not stronger than 4/10, whereas previously I'd've given it 1.5-2/10. This might be a way to save it from lying forgotten at the bottom of your tobacco cupboard, if you've had a similar reaction to myself.

Having not smoked for 27 years I found the taste very pleasant and found other comments about being bland astonishing, perhaps when my taste buds get used to smoking I will progress to stronger flakes. I can hang the pipe in my mouth and puff away in a cloud of smooth smoke. The tobacco burns well without the need to keep lighting it. You can stall for a few minutes and then get back to chuffing. Perhaps this would be a good Tobacco to start with but I feel I would still like the flavour in years to come, like a flat white coffee. Not a a burning taste on the tongue. It's a breakfast smoke but equally nice sitting outside watching the stars rush by with a Whiskey 👍👍👍👍 I'd give it four thumbs out five.

Up date: I am on my fourth tin now and not tired of the taste. I should try other tobaccos but apart from Peterson's Killarney I haven't found anything I enjoy.

Now in my opinion, this is the best Asthon aromatic by a long shot. I have first smoked this blend in 2016, and picked it up again recently, not being able to find good enough words to praise it. Who read my other reviews already know I am not an aromatic smoker, but this is something else. It is a simple but balanced blend, with a taste midway in between a sweet apricot and a caramel, as in burnt sugar not toffee. The apricot is truly fruity, without the flaw of most soapy/candy like aromatic, while the caramel tones it down adding a bit of smokiness and reducing the over sweetness of a too ripe of a fruit, but without putting a raisin note to it. Not much to be said beyond that, simple, toned down, balanced. It smokes a tad wet, and if you rush it, it will punish you back.

Nice tin note but the flavors didn't match that so well. I tasted the Virginias but the aromatic casing and the perique were so far back into the mix that it just didn't work for me.

I took a chance on a tin of this a month ago. Based on the description of the blend, and some expectation in regard to the brand, I hoped for a better smoking experience than what occured. The aroma upon opening was almost non-existant. The first bowl burned hot and almost bitter. Thinking that maybe it was too moist, I waited to let some dry out a little bit before smoking a second bowl. The result was no better, and it burned even hotter. There is almost no flavor or aroma to this blend. I'll finish the tin and chalk it up to the fool me once category. Too bad, it does have a nice name...but my opinion is " Road to Nowhere"...

I think the information on this is wrong - I don't believe it's blended by McClelland - it's definetely a European blender. Sadly, Bill Ashton Taylor (RIP) is no with us, but it's good to see that those left behind are continuing with his pipemaking business and I wish them success.

Anyway, if bill was still around, I would have no compunction in telling him that this stuff is absolute crap!

I'm not sure I fully understand what the the goal was here? there is a gap between aromatics and what we consider to be traditional English blends: so what we have here is a quasi-English ribbon cut, English-looking - aromatic!! that simply doesn't work.

The citrus additive (purported to be an apricot aroma) transforms the smoke into a very bitter, tongue tingling after-taste that burns quickly and very hot. My very large, thick bowled bent Dunhill felt like the end of a 'Thermic-lance' within a minute or so of lighting-up - and I do not regard my 35 years of pipe-smoking to be entirely inexperienced.

Sadly, this one neither qualifies as a good traditional English blend or a good aromatic - avoid like the plague!

This is supposed to be a "bridge" from aromatic to English. As a lover of full English blends with a little something "extra" added, I was intrigued. Unfortunatley, this dissapointed. It is neither an English or an aromatic. It's flavor is flat and it burned hot and quick. The preservative (I don't know exactly what it is called) seemed to be the dominant flavor. Keep in mind that Aston's Artisan's Blend is one of my favorite smokes so I'm not sure what went wrong with this one. I've only smoked one bowl and I'm sure I'll try another one eventually (I'm invested in the tin you see), but I wouldn't recommend this. Perhaps my tastes will change, but I doubt it.