Dunhill Aperitif

Like 965, and unlike DURBAR or NIGHTCAP, this has some Cavendish leaf in it.

English Cavendish is not like American Cavendish. American cavendish is made out of Burley, cased. English cavendish is made out of Virginia, pressed, steamed, uncased. It lends a mixture a buffering, velvety element which marries smoothly with the Orientals. Smootheness is of the essence.

965 being a "lotsa latakia" blend, I find the cavendish there a little diconcerting, like putting a bit of sugar into oolong tea. On the other hand, it certainly buffers the possible astringency of some Oriental leaf. This blend has considerably less latakia than 965, and so the cavendish is less surprising.

For me, smoothness is not of the essence. Since I love the natural astringency of NIGHTCAP and DURBAR, I have always tended to leave 965 and APERITIF alone. But they form a very significant flowerbed in the Dunhill garden, and people who like a cushiony, lush latakia~oriental experience will enjoy Apéritif.

This was my father's favorite blend. It's reintroduction was bitter-sweet for me as his last wishes included one last taste of his favorite tobacco - something he had not had for several years. I picked up a single tin of this the next year while on vacation and immediately upon my return home ordered multiple tins for my cellar. I was expecting to be as disappointed with Aperitif as I had been with the current MM965. I could not have been more mistaken.

At first light Aperitif brought to my mind the flavor profile of the 1960's Dunhills (way back when they were packed in 2 and 4 ounce tins, not 50 gram ones). The cavendish here was very similar to the Brown cavendish used back then and the Turkish redolent of the Dubeck (code named Macedonia Bright) which was the Oriental backbone of the original 965. The Latakia, smokey but not heavy handed here.

I was excited at this blend and angered as well. If the current blenders can do so well on this, why did they louse up MM965 so badly? And why so long to bring it back? No matter.

This is one of the finest blends I have ever smoked.

A real bell ringer for this cowboy. I found this blend to be subdued with its Latakia presentation, and a generous amount of oriental leaf was combined with some mighty fine old Virginia. I found the combination to be nothing short of spectacular when I tried one of these old tins a few years back. If you are an oriental fan then buy up all this stuff you can get your hands on. Just unique and truly wonderful!

I visited my regular tobacconist - the only specialist tobacconist left in Bristol, the fine Birds of Baldwin Street - intent on buying a tin of Nightcap and a flake of some sort. I'm a bit of a latakia nutcase; it became a bit like a drug, were I was constantly seeking a stronger hit. It started with Dunhill London mixture, and discovering that it was the latakia layer that I especially loved, My Mixture 965 and Nightcap were suggested to me. 965 didn't do it for me; it had the latakia but it didn't have enough 'belly' to hold it up; the way I taste it is that the latakia is a top layer that needs a strong foundation. I had the same complaint with a recent recommendation, Rattray's Black Mallory. Some latakia in there, but the underbelly was thin. Once I'd discovered Nightcap I thought that was it; the quest was over. I like to smoke a good flake too so I soon found the strongest latakia flake available to me, Gawith's Balkan Flake. But due to sometimes having difficulty getting down to this only pipe tobacconist in town, I found myself having to settle for whatever the newsagent had; usually some aromatic such as Clan. But this was actually for the best; dull though it was it cleansed the palate, and made that first bowl of proper tobacco such a pleasure. Experimenting a little I often buy a tin of Gawith's Navy Flake, with its latakia-rum mixture. But now to the Aperitif. Reading the reviews below it seems like this has been around for a while. This is puzzling as I thought uBirds were introducing it as new from Dunhill. (Or perhaps that was the one next to it on the shelf - I may have made a mistake). Anyway, asking for a description, the gentleman opened his own stash to give me a whiff of it - boom. Sold. I hadn't smoked a decent tobacco in about a week (by which I mean an English blend, a Dunhill or Sam Gawith, instead tolerating newsagent fare such as Route 66 and lord forbid Condor, so once outside I was like a kid at Christmas. I'll cut to the chase now: this is even better than Nightcap. This is the finest English Blend I've ever smoked. Now, I need to do a 'pepsi challenge ' next to a Nightcap, but I sense that this has more latakia and a richer foundation on which to layer it. Golly it's a full flavour, and as a result i suffer no tongue bite from 'oversmoking' - (when I find myself charging at a lousy tobacco to try to get a flavour that isn't there, and burning it up in the process). Whether old, new, or re-introduced, what I'm experiencing right now is absolutely the finest, fullest latakia smoke I've come across. The only problem is how to hide the smell from my landlord... Ouch..

This review is based on the Murray's version. It's not quite as well balanced as the description states, but there's a few things going for it. The Cyprian Latakia is smokey, earthy, musty and woodsy sweet, but at times is subdued by the spice, earth, herbalness, floralness, wood from the lightly sweet and rather sour Orientals. There's a natural citrus sweetness from the Virginias along with some grass and hay notes. The cavendish adds a little sweetness, too, but overall, this is not a sweet blend. There's some bitterness, but no harshness or bite. The strength, nic-hit and taste levels are medium. Burns cool and clean at a moderate pace with very consistent, mildly sweet and fairly sour campfire flavor that translates to the pleasantly lingering after taste. Requires few relights, and leaves little moisture in the bowl. Has a potent room note. A change from other English blends, and appealing to Oriental fans. How the new version that's to come will measure up is something I'm interested to learn.

-JimInks

Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!. I can't hardly think of anything else to say about this blend. I am not a fan of Latakia, but this blend has just the slightest Latakia edge, that blends with the other flavors rather than taking center-stage. This was coupled with some Orientals, and Cavendish everywhere, wonderfully sweet, not fruity, and silky smooth right to the last puff. The room note was incredible...a little spice, a bit of smokiness, and dark cavendish, mostly. No problems with lighting or burning. It's not real strong, but enough to be very satisfying, certainly better than most aromatics, which to me, mostly feel like flavored air. Absolutely no bite, or any other issues, except that I can only smoke so much at a time. I think I am in love......

I particularly like the picture on the tin label. Open the tin and you find the most perfectly cut and presented tobacco; a feast for your eyes. Perfect moisture, too. All typical Dunhill.

A strong Scottish Mixture, that’s what I would call THE APÉRITIF. Excellent smoking conditions. No tongue-bites. The body of this blend is brown and bright Virginias, donating a few sparkles of grass and hay notes now and then. The amount of Oriental is highly over-pronounced for a Scottish Mixture. On the other hand, Latakia is under-represented. The description mentions “Cavendish”. Yes indeed, but it is English Cavendish (uncased steamed, pressed, dark flue cured Virginia), NOT American/Dutch/Danish Cavendish (sauced, flavoured, steamed, pressed Burley) as my American pipe friends may assume. English Cavendish is always pleasant to have; it rounds up the blend, adds a discreet layer of natural tobacco-sweetness and mellows the blend. Unfortunately, in THE APÉRITIF is some unnecessary, additional, artificial sweetness as a topping, which I am sensitive for and don’t’ like.

Over all I find it a rather heterogeneous mixture. All added tobaccos can easily be identified, but it lacks harmony. For my satisfaction I prefer blends with a more definite, distinct character, on either side. In my view THE APÉRITIF is neither fish nor fowl. If you like pronounced Oriental flavours in a (sweet) Scottish based mixture, then go for it. If you generally love Orientals, Dunhill DURBAR (balanced Orientals) or Dunhill LONDON MIXTURE (spicier Orientals) would be a better choice. If you prefer more Latakia, less Oriental and similar sweetness, Dunhill MY MIXTURE 965 is your blend. You have the choice.

“It probably isn’t that great, I just want to say I tried all the Dunhill’s” – Me

I can’t say a single bad thing about Aperitif. In fact, I can only say great things: Creamy Latakia taste, smoky campfire and leathery flavor, spicy and flavorful Oriental’s that stimulate your taste buds, quality Cavendish to balance it all out, and a taste that never gets boring from start to finish. Aperitif goes great before or after a meal, during morning coffee, or having a beer or whisky towards the evening (one in the morning is fine as well, hell I won’t judge).

But see, that’s the point I am trying to make: As the title ‘Aperitif’ suggests, this tobacco is best paired alongside a meal or drink; it really does stimulate the appetite, at least for me anyways. Either that or I am a complete dope to autosuggestion from the name of the tin.

It is a shame Aperitif gets overlooked by other Dunhill blends, since it is definitely better than ‘Good Morning Pipe’ and right on par with My Mixture 965. Sometimes the most favorited and highest rated aren't always the winners *cough* Hillary *cough*; and it takes a 'high-energy' underdog like Aperitif to take center stage and make Dunhill great again.

When I first tried Aperitif, I was smoking 965 and Nightcap almost exclusively. This blend blew me away. It seemed to be a sweeter version of 965. That sounds very simplistic, and I am sure there was more going on than that, but I was a new smoker. I have smoked some Balkans that have a similar taste. It was as close to dessert blend as I enjoyed then. Toward the bottom of the bowl it almost had a very mild maple flavor. It was delicious. I hope to smoke it again one day. It made a great rotation blend. Of course the quality of the weed, was something Dunhill was famous for.

Based on the new Orlik version. This looks a lot like Durbar in the tin but the aroma isn't the same musty, juicy oriental-forward mouth-watering affair. Here the latakia is more to the forefront in the tin note but doesn't completely devour the orientals.

Balance is the keyword for this blend. For some reason, I like to dump latakia blends into English, Scottish or Balkan, but this one is so well balanced that it doesn't really fit into any of them. It may be called a Scottish because it contains Cavendish, but the latakia content is too high in my opinion. I think of this as more of an English, although the latakia content is too low for that, again in my opinion. Hence the problems with pigeonholing. At any rate, in the smoke, no one component ever rose up above the others. It was almost as if it was a single tobacco strain rather than a blend. I wouldn't call this a sweet tasting tobacco, even with the inclusion of Cavendish, nor a smooth tobacco. It had a nice "bite" to it (not tongue bite - more of a flavor explosion with guts) and even its bitterness worked to its advantage. I find this to be one of the better Dunhill blends but it still lacks something... and I wish I could figure out what. Perhaps a sweeter mix of Virginia? Hard to say. It wasn't a creamy smoke like 965, nor did it have that blend's robustness and character. I may have to experiment with this one some more. I liked it and am glad I tried it, but once the tin was empty I didn't have the desire to restock. If you want to complete the Dunhill ensemble of "time of day" oriental blends, this should fit in nicely somewhere between EMP and Durbar.

This blend blew me away. It reminded me of the murray's 965 which I throughly enjoyed. It has the distinctive dunhill signature, leathery, spicy and buttery thanks to the english canvendish. Easy to keep lit and full of flavour.

I regret I didn’t try the old version of Apertif. Never saw a tin back in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I recently ordered a couple of tins from Tabaqueria Xian (a heroic enterprise in a country where pipe smoking is rare and good pipe tobaccos are difficult to come by).

Apertif belongs to a range of three tobaccos originally designed by Dunhill in the mid 50’s to form a day long rotation, starting with Early Morning Pipe and finishing with Nightcap. Theoretically Apertif would be a pre-dinner smoke. It is medium to full but not as strong as to render the palate innocuous to the dining flavours to come.

It is a mixture similar to 965 but, in my opinion, not as strong. It seems that the English style Cavendish is more prominent here than in 965, whereas the Latakia has receded to a bare minimum. Yet there’s enough of it to make it clear this is an English/Oriental.

This is a very smooth and luxurious smoke. Easy to load, it lights up rather easily and it stays lit throughout the duration of the bowl. It seems to be a bit moist in the tin, but in my experience that does not affect the combustion rate. A very good tobacco that should be enjoyable to all English/Oriental blend lovers.

It's good to come back to a Dunhill blend. I've been smoking Samuel Gawith blends for the past two months or so and I can honestly say that I have missed Dunhill - especially their famous ribbon cut (still the best) and ease of smoking. You open the tin and it's ready to go - no need for drying out, no need for prep work, just fill your pipe and enjoy bliss.

Tin note is that of Orientals (being Turkish, I get the Turkish tobaccos in here very, very easily), Latakia, leather, some sweetness, some spice. It smells delicious.

And that's exactly what this blend offers, smoking bliss. The tin aroma gives off a nice whiff of Orientals, along with the Latakia. It's just a match made in heaven, and it's very hard to go wrong with a blend such as this. But this being Dunhill, it's been blended to perfection.

The smoke is sweet, silky smooth and just full of flavor. I prefer this to 965, which is also a great tobacco. But this is just sweeter, more mellow somehow, not as harsh. It's so easy to smoke that I barely even noticed that I was smoking it for nearly an hour. Also incredibly easy to light and maintain, no big surprise there. I'm sure I could have smoked down to the end of the bowl with just the initial light, but of course I tamped to have a more even burn. The ashes are quite fluffy and soft. The smoke itself produces thick clouds of white, soft smoke.

Really, this is an excellent, excellent blend. The nicotine level is quite normal for me so I could very easily smoke this all day. Goes great with strong black tea. Very impressed.

I really do not smoke much. In fact just during my vacations in Greece, where I'm always looking for the Greek cigarette "Papastratos" later named "ASOS" and I always smoke these oval cigarettes without filter. By accident, I jumped into a very nice tobacco shop in Copenhagen telling about my Greek habit. Then I was introduced to the Dunhill Aperitif. One pibe a day while walking my hunting dog has now become a daily pleasure and I always get the same lovely feeling from an excellent blend of tobacco with this touch of Turkish intensity. I love it.

New Orlik version and I never had the opportunity to smoke Murray's. The smell from the tin says 965 with Latakia quite present. The fine ribbon cut tobacco is moist but could be smoked right away. It lights easily and burns quite fast especially for fast puffers. The Cavendish is the dominating flavor, a slightly sweet and mellow taste with some tangy Virginia and spicy accents from the Oriental and Latakia. The description is spot on for a smoke before your last meal of the day. It's even good as a last smoke if one doesn't want something too strong but with a good amount of flavor. This mixture benefits more from sipping than fast puffing, the flavors tend to be replaced by a sharp tangy taste if you rush your smoking session.

Virginia lover

Aperitif is another one of the Dunhill blends that Orlik has chosen to leave as a memory with their return to the American market. I am not sure if it was due to lack of demand or lack of available leaf. Either way, like most Dunhill blends Aperitif is made of quality leaf and is somewhat complex for a blend touted as...well, an aperitif. Like most Dunhill blends, Aperitif will offer a good dose of Lady N if smoked quickly. This medium English offers an underlying sweetness to complement its smokey quality. It could easily be an all day smoke. However, I would agree with Claudius below in that its not distinctive, at least not enough to pay big bucks for when my small small stash is exhausted. I would recommend it for lovers of Dunhill blends that haven't had the chance to try it.

Typical latakia aroma when you open it!it comes at the right moisture though it might need a few re lights!nice cut easy to pack burns quite good.if you go easy some sweetness and citrus taste is there but latakia leads the taste.also it has all the quality standards of dunhill blends.after a good dinner it helps you relax more!i recommend it!

I Like this new release, period ! To me, Dunhill, has a strange marketing ploy, naming their blends for different times of the day, Early Morning Pipe, Nightcap, Aperitif. I actually like smoking their different blends, whenever, and this is no exception.

I find their "ribbon" cuts very easy to work with . Easy to pack, light, stay lit and no problems with embers falling all over.

This particular blend is smooth and I would compare it to a mild MM 965. I have never been a big fan of MM965 because I personally find it on the harsh side. This might not have the same bold flavor as MM965, but I do find it to be an all day smoke, while still being a flavorful, smooth, " Scottish" blend with plenty of smoky latakia.

I agree with reviewer ,"Eulenburg 2004-05-09" even with the new release.

This is one of my favorite Scottish Blends, though I must admit there are few blends I consider to fit the definition. Also, some might not consider the Oriental leaf in this blend to be sufficiently prominent to justify this blend's labeling as Scottish. Issues of definition aside, this is a very enjoyable smoke.

The Orientals and Cyprian Latakia take the lead from charring light to last sip. The Orientals consistently provide spice, woodiness, and some very mild (and welcome) sourness. The Cyprian Latakia is, of course, smoky and meshes well with the inherent sweetness of the unflavored Cavendish. The Cavendish not only sweetens the blend a bit, but also contributes a creamy smoothness that is always present in the smoke. I do not really detect the Virginia leaf, but I get the sense they are doing their job in the base of the blend.

The strength of the blend is medium for taste and mild for nicotine content. Few relights are required and the blend leaves a dry bowl. Considering the Latakia and Oriental content, the room note should be relatively inoffensive to bystanders.

I highly recommend The Aperitif. Where some other Latakia/Oriental-forward blends are smooth in a way that leaves me underwhelmed, the Aperitif is interesting in its complexity and Oriental spiciness/sourness but smooth because of the Cavendish. I hope that makes sense to the reader. I have liked this blend from the start, but figuring out what set it apart took quite a bit of smoking.