Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) Blue Ridge

50g Pouch

I have been going through my cellared jar collection lately revisiting some old friends and enemies with my Falcon, Alco, Brentford pipes which are my established favourite tasting pipes out of the 200 or so pipes I possess - I have tried more pipes than tobaccos if I am honest, but that's another story for the private science of my own pipe review explorations and not here.

Some tobaccos have a shelf life where they get worse with age, some keep well and preserved where they taste as good as first smoked;,others improve in ways where they taste greater than their initial purchase price and equal a genuine investment.

Blue Ridge was a budget tobacco I purchased and was impressed with its reasonable price point for what it was at the time.. It was to limes what Gold Block was to lemons,a light citrusy Virginia ready rubbed of cheap and cheerful ribbons. It could bite if pushed and was a little bit dry harsh like a cigarette on the throat, just a bit rough around the edges but nothing too intrusive-sort of like a dry wine-but I enjoyed it for what it was and that cigarettey quality also, because I also enjoyed cigarettes and was glad to have an example of a care free easy smoke pipe tobacco along the lines of a decent Marlboro Red.

I am one of the some who enjoys Gold Block because I have managed to tame it where I enjoy it as much as other things considered more 'vanden plas' ooh la la. :Blue Ridge was along the same lines as Gold Block and wasn't particularly special then I will admit, but on the basis that it didn't pretend to promise much either you could forgive it more than others that bullshit their prestige.

This Blue Ridge I have is a 5 year old example from a kilner jar that has certainly improved with time. Its appearance has visibly darkened .Its original citrusy quality has gained a mature ripe fermented plummy quality, its richer and smoother. Doesn't attempt to bite, burns cool and polite down to a fine ash. There was in the beginning an intitial light chemical taste or throat tickler like cigarettes which quickly self dissipated and didn't return though: This it always had, and this hasn't changed with time, but it isn't a spoiler and I can think of many expensive tobaccos that carry the same properties.

Really this review is to say that while I cannot imagine this being anybodies idea of an ageing tobacco,it definitely does age very well and improve where its taste value is worth more than its original asking price and puts it in the league of more expensive tobaccos.. Blue Ridge now has a natural kind of blackcurrent taste like a perique taste and has transformed into a kind of va/per almost. It tastes very different to Gold Block which when aged stays the same years later,Blue Ridge strikes out on a completely different ageing path and really gains a different identity all together.

This stuff has sat still and densely squashed into the kilner jar from the pouch where it hasn't been rotated or shaken for 5 years, it has definitely matured and fermented in there! There is even some plume white spots on some of it at the botton. I have had two bowls of it in succession this afternoon to confirm I wasn't deluded in my first opinion of it. To further varify I have tipped it all into a larger jar to shake it up and air it and to mix it up lest what I was taking off the top wasn't representative of the lower part of the jar where the moisture had sank.

I had an optimism that this was going to taste well as soon as I sniffed the jar,it had an absolute sour plum matured & sweet fermented Virginia air about it. Kind of like Barneys Parsons Pleasure.

Tasting a third bowl from the shaken stirred and aired mix I can vouch this is an excellent ager! Blue Ridge to me represents an 'age it yourself' Virginia tobacco kit.

Two stars for what it was, Four stars for what it has become.