Astley's No.88 Matured Dark Virginia

This is a really nice smoke. Sweet and tangy dark fruit with a nice spice hit. True, there isn't a lot of evolution here, but the flavor compensates for that. I don't find it boring at all. It's quite enjoyable. I think it has great potential for blending as well. Pretty good stuff.

Mild to medium in body and taste. No added flavorings. Burn is fairly good, does need a relight or two.

It is inevitable to compare some of Astley's blends with Rattray?s. Both are high quality tobaccos, prepared with absolute care for detail and flavour, and both are now blended by the same German house (Cohlhacs & Kopp, that also blends Robert McConnell's).

Astley?s 88 is a very similar tobacco, in aroma and appearance, to Rattray?s Black Virginia and, to a lesser extent, to Dark Fragrant. Astely's is suppler in texture, smoother in flavour, and IMO, easier to smoke than its close relatives. It is a dark brown, almost black tobacco, short crimp cut. Though it is easy to pack it takes some time before it lights properly. It smokes very smoothly and cool.

I find this is not as tangy as Black Virginia, nor as sweet as Dark Fragrant. Rather it is somewhere in the middle. It is very savoury and palatable, and an excellent choice to sit by and read a book or listen to music. The quality is superb and the smoking experience is amiable and very pleasant. If you like dark stoved Virginias, with a hint of tangy sweetness, try this one.

Astley's No.88 Matured Dark Virginia.

This is the quintessential beginners/Cavendish lovers blend.

The contents of the tin are exceedingly dark, almost black. The majority of the blend is made up of medium sized ribbons, but there are quite a few rather chunky ones in the mix too. The moisture amount from a freshly opened tin's great, so lets talk about the smoking of it:

Lighting? As easy as a blend can be. And then it gives a very cool smoke and a consistent burn. The actual smoke has a nice quality to it: velvety, thick, and soft. There's one question that comes to mind regarding the nicotine: where is it? It's very mild, this would make it more than apt for a beginner. It says on this site that the flavouring's are 'other/misc', but to be fair, to me, it tastes like most standard Black Cavendish's; the only difference is it isn't as sweet as some BC blends; there's a bit more of the virginia's grass, and a less vanilla sweetness. For my palate, the only low point comes in the form of tongue-bite; it can nip a touch if it's puffed hard.

Other than the bite it's a good blend though: recommended.

Three stars.

The description on TR is rather skimpy but this is a late harvest stoved Virginia that is naturally fermented in its own juices, undergoing partial Cavendish process before long maturation process before packaging.

Good on its own, but really shines as a blending tobacco. Works nicely to tone down Lat-bombs, and I’ve also made a tasty coffee Cavendish blend using 3/8 Astley's 88. As a solo smoke I found it more appealing when it was relatively fresh. As it gets older it becomes more muted in flavor, though that often makes it easier to use as a blender in integrating with other flavors. Sutliff 507 follows a similar trajectory; must be something to do with the stoving process.

As a solo smoke I get five distinct flavors/aromas that come and go: sassafras, leather, molasses, German dark bread, and old ground pepper that has lost some of its kick. Not a must-have on your Bucket List, but more than an idle curiosity, especially if you are into home blending or like to tinker and tweak blends. I think it is one of the better examples of its type and different enough from Peretti Black Virginia or Sutliff 507 that I keep them all on hand for various blending projects.

Tin note/appearance:

A single colored, uniform looking tobacco, almost as dark as the label on the tin. Tin aroma of figs and fresh cut hay fields, with a mild fermented sweetness. The tobacco is packed tightly in the tin, you have to dig at it with a finger nail to loosen it up.

Packing/lighting/smoking:

Initially it feels very dry and crispy in the tin. However, once you begin to pack, you can feel the natural moisture and oils start to surface. With the deep rooted moisture in the leaf, it does take a few attempts to get a steady burn.

Don't expect this blend to envelope you in a cloud of smoke. quite opposite. Steady sips gets just enough smoke to know its still lit. This blend needs attention or it will continually go out, as relights are common here. I wouldn't call this monochromatic as some have, but it sure isn't complex. It keeps an even keel of flavor throughout the entire bowl. If you have smoked a stoved Va before, you know what to expect. If you haven't, then you should. To sum it up, it has a burnt sugary flavor profile. No wood, no leather, no fruit.

I guess this could bite if pushed, but it behaved very well each time I smoked it. I can see this being a great snowy day blend to smoke in between shoveling the driveway and stirring a pot of stew on the stove. I like it, a solid 3 stars!

Tin note of fermented vegetation, dry hay and cooked sugar. Tobacco is a ribbon cut of black and dark brown. Moisture content is great. Burns slow with few relights. The strength is mild to medium and nic is mild. No flavoring detected. Taste is mild to medium and very consistent, with notes of toast, wood, spice, floral, hay, creamy, savory, sugar, fermented sour, stewed dark fruit, bready, grassy earth, orange peel/bitters, acidic, a zesty tangy citrus background note, and a peppery retro. Room note is pleasant to tolerable, and aftertaste is great.

One word to describe this blend might be, subtle. The tin note is deep and rich, with notes of caramelized brown sugar. Probably one of my favorite tin aromas. The smoke, however, is much more subdued and at times is almost flavorless. Whenever the flavor does come through it really is something special if you like dark / red Virginia.

My main issue with this blend is that it’s like listening to a song you like, but someone keeps changing the volume between puffs. There are times when it hits all the right notes and tics all the right boxes, and then suddenly the tangy fermented dark Virginia flavor just disappears for a while. If you puff on it too hard in an attempt to find the flavor it starts to get a bit bitey, so I find it’s best to just wait for it to come back.

I don’t really care for nicotine and don’t actively seek it out, but this has one of the best nic hits IMO. It’s a soft and understated buzz that just kind of sneaks up on you that I find mildly relaxing. I haven’t really gotten this from any other tobacco and actually find it quite pleasant, though it can get a bit too strong if I retrohale too much in the hunt for flavor.

The flavor does seem to become more present and deeper towards the middle and bottom of the bowl, and this is where I find it becomes dangerously close to becoming a perfect smoke. At risk of an eye roll or two, it even vaguely reminds me of McClelland Virginia at times, though I’d never claim this to be a match or even a distant alternative. I could see this having some blending potential, but for the not-bulk price and it being a bit harder to find it’d probably be a bit of a waste to do so.

I’d also add that this is probably one of the least “beginner friendly” tobaccos I’ve smoked, as you definitely have to come to it and go at a crawl of a pace to get any enjoyment out of it. That being said, it’s probably very rewarding to veteran pipe smokers that know what they’re getting into with blends like this. I’ll have to keep coming back to this one, as I see it has a lot of potential to be a favorite, but the mechanics hold it back just a notch for me.

i'm smoking a 17 years opened tin which has been humified several times. it still tastes just about the same as i remember back then, but of course there's a lot less tin aroma.

it is, as others have noticed, rather bland in an aromatic way, but not sweet in the typical german/danish sense. it's a classical old fashioned english cavendish (can't say, of course if it still is, but judging from the other reviews i'd say it is).

as such, it is not that interesting to smoke on its own (and it isn't, really, supposed to), but try mixing it with a light virginia like fribourg & treyers golden mixture - it's quite surprising what it does to a blend.

astley's #44 isn't available in denmark anymore, but in the old days it contained a bit of the same sort of cavendish as #88. don't know if it still does.

(edited to correct the number of years i've had this tin: not 10 - 17!)