G. L. Pease JackKnife Plug

I've been smoking Jack Knife Plug exclusively for 4 days now. With 10-12 bowls in various pipes, prepared a few different ways, I feel like I've got a good enough handle on it to post a review.

JKP is a tobacco I never expected to like. That I tried it all was purely an accident--it was included by mistake in an online tobacco order. The other day when none of the 8 tins I have open seemed appealing, I decided to give it a try. And I'm sure glad I did! I've enjoyed it immensely since the first bowl.

JKP fills the hole in my rotation for something heavy, dark, and strong. Mostly I smoke straight Virginia, Virginia-Perique, and Virginia-Oriental. I don't detest Latakia, but I don't get a hankering for it nearly as often as I used to. JKP should nicely fill the spot left vacant by Lat, for me, if that makes any sense.

This tobacco is a dense powerhouse of strength and flavor. There's nothing sweet about it, to my taste. It's dark, savory, and a little bitter. It reminds me of the thin brown gravy my mom used to make from pot roast drippings on Sunday afternoons. Or Marmite on buttered toast. That concentrated flavor, where too much is a bad thing but a little is tasty.

This stuff never lets up. The flavor and strength build continuously as the bowl is smoked. For this reason, I prefer it in smaller bowls. Otherwise it gets too strong, crossing over into harshness and too much of a nicotine kick. I've tried it in briars and cobs. Cobs lend it some brightness, which I like very much. A smallish cob like the all-natural MM Missouri Pride is a perfect companion for JKP in my opinion. It also works well in the smaller briars that I normally use for smoking flakes.

A few things about preparation. I've tried cutting it into flakes, cube cut, and rubbed out. I tried to smoke JKP the way I like to smoke Samuel Gawith flakes: folded and stuffed, or in large pieces. This didn't work out for me. Smoking it as a flake requires drying it out, and when JKP is dried out it loses a lot of the good aspects of the flavor and becomes harsh. Smoking it rubbed out negates the need for drying, and helps preserve the flavor. I've also been experimenting with a tobacco grinder, which tears the leaves into smaller pieces, rather than unraveling them as happens when I rub them out in my hands. Kind of a hassle, but I've had a couple of very tasty bowls that way.

I will definitely be keeping a few tins of Jack Knife Plug on hand from now on. It's been a nice surprise and I like it a lot.

I really do see why people like this. It is full, it is flavorful, and it's just plain, straight good tobacco. However...

The nicotine in this is huge. The average rating here says "Medium to Strong". I find that really difficult to swallow. I've had tightly packed pipefuls of other blends that this site rates the same, and the nicotine in those is MUCH less than JKP, and I feel fine afterwards with those. After one half-full pipe of JKP after breakfast, I felt ill for about 30 minutes. Put simply, I don't believe the flavor meets up to the nicotine content. Maybe some aging (as other reviewers suggest) could do this some good, but I gave the rest of my open tin to a friend of mine that can handle a little more nicotine than me. The only time I didn't feel slightly ill from a bowlful of this was right after eating a HUGE meal. Again though, in all fairness, it does have good flavor -- just not enough to justify the nicotine content.

UPDATE 4/30/2012: OK, you know what? I'm upping this to 4 stars. This stuff is great. I just have to be sure to eat a lot first. This is also a blend to sit, smoke slowly, and ENJOY.

UPDATE 3/14/2012: I came to this blend having only been smoking about a month. That's probably why I said all I said above. The nicotine doesn't seem so bad in it any more to me, though it's still strong. The tin note in this blend is still the best of VA I've had so far, and the flavor transfers to the smoke quite well. This is a good blend, though I generally prefer other VAs.

What can I say? I got caught up in the hype of this blend from the forums I frequented and snagged a tin when it first went up for sale by one of the major e-tailers about a month ago. I am certainly glad that I did even though it took me a month to get to it in my rotation. When I opened the tin I was treated to a lovely compressed plug of tobacco comprised of different hues of brown and tending toward rich dark colors on the top layer of the plug. The tin aroma was like smelling pure tobacco drying in my dad's barn and the plug itself was rather too moist to the touch for my tastes. I sliced the plug into a shag cut with a razor and let it dry out some before packing a pipe with it. An unlit sip brought the taste of drying burley.

After lighting I experienced nutty and earthy flavors that I assume came from the burley and it left an oily feeling on my tongue. After smoking it for a week my overall impression was of rich dark earthy flavors with a hint of walnut tempered with the delicious sweetness of the Virginia. The finish was very short and left my mouth feeling oily; a few times I was also left with a buttery taste. The ash was gray and white and the room note was very pleasant leaving the room smelling like an old tobacco shop's fragrance. This blend had quite the nicotine punch but it was very mellow without any bite. I also smoked this in a different pipe for each bowl, and I could not find one in my rotation that it did not taste great in.

This was not the Holy Grail of tobacco for me, but I found it to be a superb blend. I love the strength and the marrying of the different tobaccos and the flavors they imparted at different times. Anyone who loves burley should definitely give this a shot, and if you crave a strong hit of vitamin "N" then you also should not pass by this blend. I will definitely buy more of this as I want to try cutting it different ways to see how that affects the taste, and I want to cellar some and see how the different tobaccos develop after stewing together for a few years.

I've smoked about a tin and a quarter of JackKnife Plug as I write this, and hope that I've gotten a good feel for it. Unlike some other Pease favorites, JKP hit me as a wonderful smoke from the beginning, though as I have experimented with it a bit my affinity for it has grown. Upon first opening the tin you are greeted with an earthy aroma which is simply tobacco. Very pleasant to a smoker! My wife says it looks like a brownie in the tin. Certainly the appearance it is different than other plugs I've smoked. You can see individual leaves on the surfaces, and from the side there are flecks of golden-yellow interspersed with an otherwise uniform brown. The plug is quite moist, but if you slice a few flakes off it dries fairly quickly. I opened the second tin and allowed it to dry for about a day, then closed it for another day so that the moisture left would redistribute. I've tried smoking the plug three different ways. First, cutting thin slices off, drying them a bit, and rubbing them out into a fairly fine shag. Prepared this way, JackKnife lights easily, and with a rich flavor driven by the Kentucky burley but with nice overtones of sweetness from the Virginias. I found that packing is quite an important detail; if packed too tightly the tobacco seems to somehow expand and tighten the draw a bit, so that half-way through the bowl the draw becomes hard and moisture begins to accumulate. If packed loosely the draw remains open, and as you get into the bowl the flavor develops into a nice, rich smoke. The burley continues to drive the flavor, but the interplay of the Virginia allows the flavor to vary into some nice high notes of sweetness that are delightful to experience. Cut into thicker slices the plug rubs out into really good ribbons of tobacco. Again, pack loosely to keep the draw from closing. The lighting flavor is a bit deeper to me this way, with less of the Virginia pronouncing itself early in the bowl. Once into the smoke, however, I couldn't really tell much difference in the taste from when I cut the thinner slices. However, I did find it easier to get a satisfactory pack. Either way, the tobacco burned well, giving a satisfying smoke until nothing but a thick, grey ash was left. Finally I cut even thicker slices from the plug and then diced them into slightly elongated cubes. In cubes the blend is hardest to light, and really has a bloom (expansion from the top) when lit. For me, this cut also created the most bite potential upon first lighting. However, once lit and established, the cubes became absolutely amazing. I noticed a bit more sweetness to the smoke from the cubes, and properly dried the cubes burn extremely well. They produce a nice, thick smoke with the Burley still in charge, but the Virginias, for me, became a bit more assertive. And in the cube cut I have completely fallen for JackKnife Plug. As the bowl burns down the richness builds a bit, and the flavor simply sings through my pipes. JKP gives a rich, not overly sweet but sweet enough for me, extremely satisfying smoke from the lighter, sweeter notes early in the bowl to the darker, fuller, deeper flavor at the end. Judging from the early sales of this new tobacco, JackKnife Plug is something special. It is to my taste, I know. Of course, I love burleys and I love Virginias; here Mr. Pease seemingly has found an excellent balance between the two. I feel that JackKnife Plug is going to be an excellent tobacco to age, though the process used to create the plug does a great job of developing what would be a less satisfying smoke if sold as a loose blend. I've always sworn by Cumberland and Odyssey as my favorite Pease blends, but JackKnife Plug has equaled them in every way for me. I highly recommend the blend. In fact, I'd call it an essential addition to the cellar. It deserves five out of four stars!

I won't dally around with this review. JackKnife Plug is very good, you will enjoy it, go get some now if you haven't had it already.

For those of you needing more information, here goes. This plug smells like cured bacon and smoked meat. These descriptions are given in all of the best possible ways you can imagine cured bacon and smoked meat aroma in your tobacco. It is a hint of what is to come next. After slicing up some portions of the dense plug in your tin, you rub them out into a nice pile of tobacco to pack your pipe with. You smell it again so you can enjoy that exquisite aroma of cured meat, Virginia tobaccos, and the finest Dark Fired to ever come out of Kentucky. It is intoxicating to smell this blend. You will find yourself doing it repeatedly because just smelling it is so pleasurable.

Once you get this lit in your pipe of choice, you will be met with the smoothest and most pure smoky tobacco flavors you will ever encounter. It will be smooth, pure, clean, but complex in flavor all at the same time. That smoky meat taste will peak out briefly to tease you and then disappear. Don't lament, it will return later.

As your smoke progresses you will go through phases of transforming flavors. It will taste like your favorite VaPer, then change into something else. It will taste like your favorite Dark Fired mix, then change into something else. You will experience many flavor transitions until suddenly, that cured meat flavor returns like a surprise jack-in-the-box exploding unexpectedly. With it, you are met with the creamiest natural tobacco flavors you ever experienced in a fellowship stronger than what supported Bilbo Baggins to Mount Doom.

JackKnife Plug is probably one of the most perfect tobacco blends created in the 20th century. It's my personal No.1 blend and I keep pounds of it in my cellar.

This is really something special. Seriously, try it for yourself. I won't need to convince you after you've tried it.

As a kid I always wondered what plug tobacco was as it seemed to be a staple of any rural, southern, or 19th century character I read about, so I looked to this to find out. It is presented as a square bar, the outside bound by dark leaf and a mix of brown and golden cuts within. The plug is hard, but the layers are prone to separation. The aroma is pretty muted but with a variety of scents, most strongly the hardwood smoke of the Kentucky, but also spice, a little sweetness, some vinegar sourness, and some hay.

Preparation is not the simplest. The plug is somewhat difficult to get through, especially if you're trying to follow Pease's recommendation of a 1/32" flake! Thicker flakes are easier to produce, which can be smoked whole, rubbed, or cubed. Rubbed out or cubed is preferred for me, expect lots of expansion. In addition, pack lightly. While it feels pretty dry, there is some definite moisture. It lights well, but I found it still needed a few relights even if it doesn't produce a lot of wet dottle.

The taste, aroma, strength, and mouth feel don't work in harmony. First, I find the taste overall pretty bland. The components seem overly meshed, that is the different leaves, which are similar to begin with, don't really shine separately. There is some obvious hardwood smokiness and some deep malt components, very tasty, but they're not consistently developed. Definitely some distinct peppery notes. Some tangy notes are evident on the exhale through the nose. Overall, I rate the taste as mild, although it does pick up some at the bottom without developing bitterness. The dominant flavor note to me is brine. The taste is mild, but strength is higher bordering on strong. There is some prominent harshness though, and to avoid this and develop the best flavor sip slowly and patiently. Puff too hard and it loses its quality.

I feel like I often repeat this, but the leaf is of very high quality even if the blend doesn't quite work for me. As such, I can only award it two stars. While I usually don't look to revisit two star blends, I will try this again. I feel like aging could have a positive influence, yet I've been working on the same plug for over a year and I haven't noticed any real improvement. In any case, something worth trying but with tempered expectations.

Jackknife plug is an old school tobacco and one that is sure to please bowl after bowl. It shows up as a brick of tobacco that looks similar to a brownie with a little layer of peanut butter in the middle. After popping the tin, the aroma casually reaches up out of the tin and punches you right in the nostrils, but not in a bad way. My first thought was that it was actually beef jerky labeled as pipe tobacco. A little more nosing brought on some hickory smoke bbq scents. It is a very meaty aroma. After slicing it and rubbing it to a nice shag the aroma was more of a classic tobacco scent, a bit of an earthy sweetness.

Right from the get go, the smoker is treated to a very savory smoking experience. Jackknife primarily comes across as a spicy, tangy smoke. Mixed in is a bunch of subtle flavors. I'd occasionally pick up some saltiness, hints of lime, and a dry bbq rub taste. Even more infrequent was a great sweetness. It’s not particularly complex, but it is very strong flavor.

My wife generally doesn't like the smell of any tobacco but she did say that this one smelled "not bad" which I'm going to take as pretty good. Normally I don't think that I can detect the room note very well as the smoker, but I frequently picked up a very pleasant sweet tobacco aroma while smoking this. It's exactly the type of aroma you'd expect from pipe tobacco.

Overall, I really enjoy smoking JKP. I definitely plan on keeping some on hand and experimenting with it as it ages. I wouldn't say that this is the most complex tobacco out there however, it is consistently interesting. It's also a very full flavored smoke so it probably is not something that you'd smoke all day long, but it is wonderful later in the day. The nicotine hit can be quite potent as well which also enhances the enjoyment I get out of it as an evening smoke. This one definitely gets a 4 stars from me.

Certainly one of the deepest flavor profiles from a dark fired burley blend that I have ever tasted. The Kentucky is the focal point, with the Virginia’s adding a touch of fermented sweetness for depth and balance. The flavor is rich, smoky & earthy with a subtle honey & molasses overtone. As expected, there’s also some bitterness to the flavor but it’s very much in balance with the overall taste. Longer draws on the pipe are tangy & piquant with a lasting pleasant bittersweet aftertaste. JackKnife Plug is easy to cut and simple to prepare. I usually cut a few thin flakes off, rub them up a bit and let the tobacco dry for 10-15 minutes before filling up. A very well balanced savory & stout mixture with just a touch of sweet-spiciness. It’s strong, but not quite as strong or as complex as its New World Collection counterpart, Triple Play.

Ages superbly.

JKP is my #1 tobacco. It has been since I discovered it. To me, it exemplifies complexity and the true power of unadulterated tobacco tastes. I usually smoke it in thick cube cut format which gives an exceptionally long flavourful smoke. Thin slicing and fully rubbing it tasted deeper and smoked easier - smoking it in thick cube format results in a bit of a struggle to keep it lit but so far it has been worth the effort as well.

Throughout my smoke I find JKP to be consistent from the first match to its final incarnation as fine ash. This consistency is by no means dull as JKP meanders between its complex layers of Floral notes which often gives way to a deep earthy (almost musky) note as if its saying "Now that you have seen the flower and experienced its perfume, come, I'll show you the forest in which it grows!". I often also get notes of cigarette-ish flavours and I recently realized that its a sign of the Virginias given that when I smoke cigarettes I smoke Canadian cigarettes which I found out are almost always 100% Virginia (as opposed to Burly, presumably in the US).

JKP is strong and deserves a lot of respect in that department. Had it not been that strong I would've smoked it all day but unfortunately, when I do that, I end up with constant stomach cramps. It also has a tendency to dry my mouth so keeping things hydrated is essential here.

My last observation is in regards to its moisture level. My own experiments seem to point to it being at its best when very dry which is a far cry from how it usually first appears in the tin (although I've had a few tins that were very dry - which were the reason I got hooked!).

While I find Irish Flake and ODF to be genetically very similar, I think JKP is very uniquely fragrant and tasty. They are all favourites of mine.