Peretti Park Square

Honestly one of the best VA/Periques out there. Park Square is wonderfully blended and easy to handle as far as packing. L.J. has been making this blend for years and I was told this particular blend was made personally for Ramsey Macdonald, former prime minister of Britian. It shows.

Park Square is easy to light and stays lit well. It is more on the moist side, but not too moist. It burns rather cool with little to no bite. I agree with previous reviewers that it should be puffed slowly rather than chugged through. The perique is noticeable, but not overpowering and makes for a great evening smoke.

There's a reason L.J. Peretti has been around for ever. They do it right. Park Square is a great example of Peretti's fine quality. Highly recommend it!

Every so often I enjoy a nice Vaper as a chage of pace. I tend to like Vapers that are on the sweet side. Park Square hits the mark for me. The pouch aroma is great as are the wonderful Virginia colors. I enjoy sipping this slowly after letting it dry out a bit as it does arrive (in the paint can!) a bit moist. If Vapers that have a sweet tang are your thing, this fine offering from Peretti's shouldn't be missed. I think a couple of years in the cellar will only serve to make this even more outstanding.

Park Square is bounded by Boylston, Arlington, Charles and Stuart Streets. Typically Bostonian, it is neither a park nor a square but a parcel of high-end real estate hard by the Commons and home to the Four Seasons and other swank. If you are sitting beside the wooden Indian at LJ Peretti's century-old shop and trying to understand the non-rhotic accents of the locals, you are staring dead head at "Paak" Square. The venerable tobacconists at Perreti must have prized the blend to bestow that moniker. And they should. Park Square is a colorful blend of Virginias and Perique as others have noted. It is sweet and steady with a creamy, full-mouth feel. The flavors and scents are complementary, producing a well-rounded smoke that can be enjoyed at most times of day and through multiple bowls. But don't miss Peritti's own designation of Park Square as an English Blend. This tobacco has the signature smokiness associated with an English and suggests the inclusion of Latakia or an Oriental varietal. It is not the overwhelming smokiness of a campfire -- more Highland Park than Lagavulin -- but it is unmistakable. While Park Square deserves a wider audience, I would just as soon keep it to myself and a few friends.

This is currently my favorite VAPER. It really is outstanding. It is fairly light in color mottled with stoved VAs ( I think ) and dark Perique ribbons. It has perfect moisture out of the bag. The unburnt tobacco smell is a sort of semi sweet chocolate. It packs easily. It smokes both sweet and savory with some earth notes. It doesn't bite. The Perique gets a little stronger toward the botton 1/3 bowl, but it's on the plum/figgy flavor part of the spectrum. Sip slow to get all of the flavor.

has great balance everything seems to come together with this blend smoke it slow and enjoy it. I will be ageing some to see how it turns out

Oh! This is some really good baccy. I generally do not like VaPer mixtures at all, but this is excellent. It is so masterfully blended it comes off as almost an aromatic. If you can imagine Deep Hollow meeting Haddo's Delight and combining the 2, you get a very good idea what this is all about. It is simply silky smooth, rich, and sumptuous. This is for all VaPer lovers and those who think they do not like VaPer mixtures. Please, if you try 1 new tobacco this year make it PARK SQUARE. 4 of 4 stars!

This is one of the house blends put together by the Perreti company at their store in Boston. Here is the description of the blend on their website:

Red Virginia, Matured Virginia and Stoved Virginia are delicately spiced with just the right amount of Perique to create a rich and complex blend whose character evolves and emerges throughout the bowl.

Boy was I surprised by the appearance and texture of this blend. It is listed on tobaccoreviews as a ?broken flake? but the sample that I got would be classified more as a ribbon cut. The only word that I can think of to describe it is fluffy. It is very fluffy and springy and at first appearance appears to be really damp. Boy was I wrong. This blend seems to defy the moisture rules that I have come to learn. Packing it was extremely easy and it pushed down into the bowl without any pressure having to be exerted on it.

The light was also easy. I had to wait for it to go out after the false light because it wanted to keep going!! Once this was lit it was off to the races!! I now see why this is one of everyone?s favorites. And again I am surprised at the quality and taste of a ?house blend?. This is sold in bulk and like AJ?s VaPer and Anniversary Kake the taste and behavior of this blend outshines many of the more expensive tinned blends. The taste and burn stayed pretty consistent throughout the whole bowl. Doesn?t smoke hot and there is very little dottle when you get to the bottom.

I would classify this one as a mild to medium blend that could be smoked all day long if you wanted to. It has about a medium amount of Perique in it. Not the most I?ve smoked in a blend but certainly not the least either. It is also very smooth when you smoke it. The different tastes play off of each other but never outshine each other. I think that they mixed the individual components of this blend perfectly

Intro: I have smoked many VA/Perique blends and have enjoyed almost all of them, yet none have ever stood out like Peretti's "Park Square". It has established itself as my main blend of this genre. Loved by many respectable pipemen, Park Square is a diamond in a mountain of rubies.

Appearance: Dark red, brown and black ribbon/loose-cut leaf. Pretty even ratio of all three.

Pouch smell: Cloves, pepper and fruity wine.

Smoking quality: Park Square burns cool, dry and leaves the pipe clean. It can bite if pushed hard which is only to be expected given the nature of this blend. When treated properly, relights are a minimum.

Taste: Upon the initial puff, one tastes the sweetness of the Virginias. Soon, the spiciness of the Perique kicks in and it all comes together in a well-balanced flavor of subtle sweet with a dash of peppery spice. It is best when smoked slow and savored. The fullness gradually grows throughout the bowl but never becomes overpowering. Eventually, it goes out and will not relight. Turn the pipe over and see the soft white fluffy ash fall out of the bowl and into your ashtray. You will feel sad at first that the smoke is finished, but there is always more. You will want more.

This blend came highly recommended to me so I purchased four oz. to see if it really matched the reports. I'm happy to say that it does. PS has a nice wine-like scent in the pouch that makes one look forward to smoking it. It lights easily and stays lit with a minimum of relights.

The taste is excellent, the slightly sweet tang of the three VAs balanced perfectly by the Perique in the blend. It's very rare for a tobacco to be this perfectly proportioned and shows just how skilled a blender Robert Peretti is, surely he is one of the world's finest. The only blemish on this fine tobacco is that prices have risen quite a bit. To be fair, this is an industry-wide trend, but at $45/lb. PS is an expensive tobacco.

Scores for PS: 18 out of 20 for taste; 9 out of 10 for burn; 7 out of 10 for value. 34 points makes Park Square a solid **** tobacco and another in a long line of winners for L.J. Peretti.