The Malthouse Founders Reserve

Very mild, light tasting almost a sweet that tastes more like sugar than scotch. Pleasant to others, not overpowering, and easy to smoke. Tobacco quality is evident in the taste, and I could smoke this everyday. Compared to other scotch flavored smokes, this is a smaller taste and more of a VA type taste. I do enjoy this on warmer days, and it doesnt bite like some of my more aromatic blends do.

With Founder Reserve at Dan Tobacco they pay homage to Whisky flavoured blends, but to be honest on a “blind test” I wouldn't be able to recognize the topping as Whisky! FR is flavourful and with a good tanginess (even too much) surrounded by an elusive sweetness not easy to describe (not for me at least), I've experienced just little tongue bites and no gurgles, it's quite easy to maintain at the right temperature and it leaves a pale grey almost impalpable ash. Definitely quality is there for sure but it doesn't completely fits my liking, perhaps I missed something but now I can rate it just two stars. I'll revisit it again.... one day.

I stumbled upon a 2003 tin of this courtesy of Pipestud. I had high hopes for this blend, but having finished most of the blend, I find myself disappointed in how it smokes. I have to agree with other reviews that the blend is almost cloyingly sweet. Juicy fruit is an apt description, and that, to me, does not lend itself to a pleasant smoke. I do tend to prefer aromatic blends (that is mostly what I smoke), but this one does not cut it for me, despite the age of the Virginias. To be sure, this is another tobacco that should be sipped slowly to bring out the full flavor of the tobacco, or it will definitely bite you. Mild nic hit, too.

A 2 star blend at best. The cut was a bit thin for my taste, almost a shag that made me think of RYO ciggy tobacco. Kind of flat, slightly bitey, somewhat hot, and rather shallow blend. Not my thing at all.

Malthouse is presented well and looks like first class tobacco. The tin aroma is very nice, it has a tangy scent not particularly reminiscent of scotch. There are some broken flake pieces that need to be rubbed out to get some consistency, but it packs and lights easily once done. My tin was too moist and it did not burn well at first, but once dried out it burns well. The flavor is mild from the start and does not really change. I could not taste any scotch flavoring when I smoked malthouse but maybe it is there somewhere. It is not at all a bad tobacco, but it fails to achieve its goal: adding whisky flavor to good tobacco to make it even better. The tobacco does not have enough flavor to stand on its own and the flavoring is too light to improve the experience. In light of countless better options for a straightforward virginia, malthouse is not a very worthwhile smoke. Spot on is the fellow's suggestion to smoke an unflavored virginia and sip scotch on the side.

This is one of the few virginia blends availabe in my neck o' the woods that isn't cased to the gills. The casing itself is a little bit whiskyish but more along the lines of Dan tobacco's Daddy' favo(u)rite Baccy, which no one (except one other prolific reviewer and myself) has ever smoked. Malthouse has very little casing. The tobacco is high quality. If this didn't bite so much, I would smoke more of it. I have this problem with all of Dan's virginias. They bite. Otherwise, a good, cheap smoke. I say try it. If you like slightly cased blends with good tobacco taste, and if it doesn't bite you too much, you might just be in whisky virginia heaven.

I don't enjoy Scotch malt whiskey or most aromatic tobaccos but tried this as a possible change of pace. If you favor either of these, you might enjoy this blend of nicely prepared golden to darker VAs. It packed well and smoked evenly and cool. However, the tin aroma and taste had just enough influence from the whiskey to bring back some bad memories of Scotch from my youth. When I find the aromatic blend that has been aged 12 weeks in VO instead, that might be my choice.