Mostex Stanislaw London Mixture

Bought this from Spain, as it's widely available there along with other Mostex products. Pleasantly surprised by this tobacco, as it's everything I like about English mixtures MINUS the bitterness (which can creep in with the best Dunhills) PLUS a sweet note, probably the orientals. A truly great mixture if you want a break from the more austere Latakia blends.

This is excellent stuff; as a previous reviewer has noted, it stands up well against Dunhill's London Mixture, and you can't say fairer than that.

On the face of it, the great advantage of Mostex's London Mixture is its cheapness. Unfortunately, though, you can get it in the UK only by ordering it through a website that charges so much for postage that it turns out to be not so cheap after all.

Before too much longer, I hope, Mostex will perhaps find a British importer. Mostex/Stanislaw tobacco won't be cheap then (because of swingeing excise duties) but it'll still be worth paying for. I recommend it highly.

(Then again, I sometimes wonder why so many excellent tobaccos are freely available elsewhere, but not in the UK: Esoterica's Penzance, the 'new' Balkan Sobranie and Capstan in its various flake forms are cases in point. I'm inclined to suspect a cunning, inch-by-inch movement towards actual prohibition; but that's something I'd really rather not think about!)

The first Air Line Collection that I tried, and, based on the ingredients, was eagerly awaiting to try out this english blend. The packaging in this one carries the picture of the venerable Fairey Swordfish (misspelled 'Fairley') biplane torpedo-bomber of the raid on Taranto and the chase of Bismarck fame - an aircraft that, despite it's outdated looks and technology soldiered on for all of WW2 and actually outlasted it's own replacement, the Fairey Albacore. I happened to get this from Stanislaw/Mostex's own tobacco shop as I was passing by in Ostrava, CZ, a place I highly recommend every pipe and cigar smoker to pay a visit to if they ever have occasion to visit that very nice Czech city, not far from the Polish border.

The pouch note is immediately that of a light, perhaps a little bit aromatised english blend, with a quite strong sweet undertone. The clean ribbon packs easily, lights and burns well. After all this it's a bit of a letdown how mediocre the smoking experience actually is - in fact, as an overall qualification, I would call this 'poor man's Early Morning Pipe'. The same clay-like undertone which I don't know where exactly it comes from is present here also but in even greater degree, tasting almost like moist dirt. Other characteristics are broadly similar too, but always falling just a little but short in every category compared to EMP - a blend that's not one of my english blend favourites anyway.

I wanted to like this, but am sorry to say that probably not going to buy again.

Beautiful english mixture. I smelled some orientals gently eclipsed by latakia. The smoke is very dense, sweet and smoky. Highly recommended for english mixtures lovers and also for those who want to try this as a first tobacco containing the latakia. Beautiful blend.

A very delightful english blend. Great composition of different tobaccoes including latakia. It's quite cheap but good quality. Burns perfectly to white ash. Tastes great with some beer.

My sister brought a pouch back for me from her recent trip to Prague. When I first opened the pouch, I was impressed by the aroma, but at the same time a little apprehensive. I prefer and usually smoke aromatics, and have not done too well with English blends. Usually the Latakia tends to be too strong for my taste and I wind up with a headache. With London Mixture, however, there is just enough Latakia to make it interesting, but not over-powering. The smoke is nowhere close to the mildness of my usual aromatic, but compared to all the other English tobaccos I have tried, it is remarkably enjoyable. It will never be my regular smoke, but it is the kind of tobacco that if you're hungry for it, nothing else will do. Now, my biggest problem is where am I going to get more after this pouch is gone?! Great job Mr. Stanislaw!

A gift from “Hetfield”, from his Christmas trip to Czech Republic. The value for money relation of this blend is un-be-lie-va-bly good. This is the main element of this mixture. When he brought to me and I smelled it, I didn't dare to say my opinion. “Pastrami, I said!” (like beef jerky but from camel meet) – don't laugh – few other co-smokers agreed. Maybe it is because I like pastrami so much, or maybe because some of the processing components of the two tasteful products are the same?? Who knows?? I like them both very much, anyhow. Of course, once you light up the tobacco you get no taste of the wonderful sausage. What you get is very cool smoke on the palate. Sweet taste. Very easy to smoke, as it is not particularly heavy. You can enjoy this blend all day long, and if you consider its price, your mood becomes even better. It contains Virginia, Basma, Izmir and Cyprian Latakia. I will agree, after all, with that Ukrainian seller that told me that Mostex has very nice Latakia blends

Simply fantastic. I'm impressed with the true quality of this tobacco. A real thing! Natural, smoky, fine, burns well and cool, just perfect...and inexpensive,too.

Croatia has recently appeared. All my friends from the club agreed that it is very similar Dunhill's 965, which is slowly disappearing. For every compliment! And at a price and in quality!

very flat and boring tobacco in my opinion. i gave balkan latakia three stars, this one goes two... i expected a lot more!