Kane's of New Zealand Lamb Cake Slices

The official description here is misleading, as I detect far more mutton here than the advertised "lamb". Upfront I should advise, as a number of pipe forum members know, that I run a fiber farm: sheep, alpacas, angoras. I know lamb from mutton, godammit.

While the grizzlier, damper, rain soaked fleece and spittle notes predominate upon the charring light, I will concede to a slight nuance of younger and drier lamb. However, these crisper flavors soon disintegrate into a homespun mess of deeper, nastier mutton and ram.

The delicate top note of elderberry does battle with the dank, dark mutton-fleece in the middle third of the bowl, adding just a touch of residual sweetness until the entire bowl collapses into a rain-soaked barnyard of dank mutton fleece and dung.

There is some Virginia sweetness here, yes. Glorious, for those intrepid smokers prepared to snorkel within the gangly mass of the four season, unshorn wreck of pseudo-lamb, true mutton tomfoolery.

For this pipesmoker, however, I'll get my lambs wool kick from the pure virgin article rather than suffer through this dank, mangy mess of a dishonest tobacco blend.

I should note, however, that the original blend was a sublime ornamental and artistic gesture, aiming straight towards the heart of the sun and falling ever so slightly short, falling as it were into the hands of mere mortals, mere pipe smokers, who took up this divinely lambish blend unto our pipes and stood somber, in awe, of what the pipe gods took their leave to bestow upon us.

This contains some of the largest percentages of Auckland latakia I've ever encountered. Made in the traditional way in the peasant homes of rural Auckland it takes on the smokey flavour of sheep dung used for domestic fires. For those lamenting the absence of genuine Syrian latakia, this is the answer.

The casing of lamb and mint is to my mind overdone. I agree with other reviewers who say that aged versions of this resemble mutton or hogget and are best avoided.

Produces large volumes of fluffy white smoke and will bite if pushed too hard.

I am told - I do not know - that there is a comparable French blend, in which the agneau is pre-sale from Bordeaux, and there is the barest touch - juste une larme, messieurs - of a Premiere Grand Cru.

I have to say that this tobacco is one of the hardest to get hold of that I have ever come across. By the time I had got my hands on it I was almost so out of breath that the thought of actually smoking it kind of put me off. Not only that, but as I like to smoke the original, just cramming it in the bowl is practically impossible. I use a Group 26 bowl which has a special floor stand to take the extra weight.

I must say that I found the tobacco resisted all attempts to feed it Virginia or Burley or Perique...though it liked Ryegrass and to be honest I don't think the flavour suffered too much.

I'd give it 4 stars but for the continuous plaintive bleating.