Lane Limited Captain Black Cherry

This blend features a combination of cheap tasting cherry flavoring agent and the goopy, sweet mess that one comes to expect from the Captain Black brand. For those who really, truly do not want to taste tobacco when they smoke a pipe, this is for you. Next step from here would be an 'e-pipe'. But like all Captain Black products, those around you will enjoy the aroma. Small consolation.

Bleck!! Bleck!! Ewww! Gross!!

Into the potpouri dish it goes...only thing its good for, might damage the glass though...ok the trashcan.

In Taiwan, we sometimes use a syrup to heal our coughing and throat aching, which is called "Nin Jiom Pei Pa Koa Herbal Cough Syrup". It is sweet, thick, and tasty, and this tobacco smells like this syrup rather than cherry as the people around me and I all agree (aroma wasn't pleasant for everyone around me, some people don't like it). But it's not that pleasant if I expected cherry flavour, but smelled something else instead (maybe it's how chemical cherry tastes like). Also, the taste is too mild, not enough sweetness or sourness, but instead, a little bit bitterness, and easily goes too hot which easily bites the tongue. I won't buy it again.

This was the first tobacco I smoked when I started smoking a pipe about a year ago. It was a nice place to start for a beginner, but after I got into other tobaccos I realized That there was very little about it that seemed like natural.

There are some CB offerings that I genuinely enjoy (e.g. Dark), but this one doesn’t appeal to me at all. The “cherry” , in my opinion, bears no resemblance to any flavor found in nature. It came as part of the five pouches for $5.00 promotion from Pipes and Cigars. As odd as it sounds, the first taste brought back the memory of a horrible liquid medicine I was given right before being taken to the O.R. over 50 years ago to have my tonsils ripped out. I didn’t finish the bowl for fear of ghosting my pipe. I won’t be trying it again.

I bought this as "Captain black Ruby", which I guess is the same (cherry flavour). I regret buying this. I don't really taste the cherry at all, and it has no sweetness. it's just got bitterness. If I wanter something bitter, I could smoke cigarettes, not an aromatic. At least it has that crisp warmness that cavendish tends to give. Nonetheless, I don't enjoy the taste, I don't enjoy the smell, and I won't be buying this tobacco again.

One word: Yuck.

I picked up a pouch with a pipe when I first returned to pipes. I didn't mind it at first. Now, after being back into pipes for awhile, I know why people don't smoke this crap. It tastes like cough syrup. I didn't notice it at first but maybe because my palate refined more or this just ages horridly, I can't take it. Awful.

My feelings on this blend mirror those below, so no need to get into them in detail.

My review is to share a nice discovery that worked really well with this blend. I added about 75% Cornell & Diehl Kelly's Coin (any dark, strong burley would probably work) to 25% of this and got a very decent and robust tobacco flavor with a hint of cherry. I made this in small batches so the burley wouldn't just soak up the cherry syrup if stored too long. The nicotine was seriously elevated and the flavor was also amped up considerably.

Don't throw this away if you have it! Try this recipe, or add more or less of the Kelly's Coin to your taste. It's not something I'll smoke again unless I'm gifted another pouch of this from a well-meaning but unsuspecting colleague, but it saved me having to toss this mess into the nearest trash receptacle.

I’ve been smoking a pipe since high school and I’m now 71 years old. I grew up with strong prejudice against aromatics in general. As a kid I recall smelling a cherry blend and my father remarking “Smell that? That’s a cherry blend. It’s a cheap tobacco and they have to perfume the taste out of it. It’s junk.” As a non smoker at the time, I thought it smelled nice. Since then I’ve been an English smoker and, like Dad, became something of a tobacco snob.

In recent years I’ve discovered that there are some very nice aromatics or crossover/hybrids. I’ve been experimenting.

This tobacco isn’t my cup of tea. Or my bowl of cherries. There is nothing subtle about it. It is goopy. It will ghost your pipe more than any other tobacco.

But I want to be fair. It packs nicely. It burns well. If you are partial to these ultra aromatics, you might like it. It might suck, but it doesn’t bite. If you like the smell, you might want to try it.

The cavendish base is really not bad, but the topping is, well, over the top. It is hard to imagine that they could possibly have added any more of the cherry cough syrup they put in it.

I suspect the flavoring actually isn’t from real cherries. But what is it?

Smokers of English tobaccos often say that aromatics are really about the smell, not the taste. That’s overstating it. This stuff does have a taste and it isn’t terrible. It’s okay. Few reviews of tobaccos address the after taste. Some tobaccos leave a very nice flavor that lingers. This tobacco has an acceptable after taste.

Not everybody is a connoisseur and clearly, there is a market for this stuff because it sells very well. A hundred thousand codgers can’t be wrong, especially since there isn’t such a thing as “wrong” when it comes to such subjective matters. Non smokers might like the room note.

I’ve discovered that ho-hum tobacco can be redeemed by mixing them with something nice. In this case I won’t pollute a fine tobacco with this stuff. I’m not throwing it out. I’ll smoke it from time to time.

It’s good enough for a cob. I won’t put it in any of my fine briars. I won’t even let it within ten feet of Dad’s Dunhills, he’d roll over in his grave, giving a different meaning to “ghosting.” It would be nice to see Dad again, but he’d be angry with me.

If you are inclined to try it, you might like it. I imagine some people who like vanilla topping might like it.

There are very few bricks and mortar pipe stores left but weed shops often stock this stuff and little else, so it’s available. But if you are serious about trying fine tobacco, you’ll need to use the Internet.