Dunhill Three Year Matured Virginia

This is the only tobacco I have ever smoked that made me vomit. No joke. After just one bowl!

Even I, the defender of bizarre and maligned tobaccos, cannot salvage the reputation of Dunhill's Three Year Matured. Mind ye', this is a weird idea for a blend: take sweet, stoved Virginia and bitter, pungent Orientals and then douse it all with--fruit sauce? It's just not a good idea. This becomes apparent soon after you light the stuff. All of that kooky fruit essence burns right away or sometimes settles near the bottom of the bowl. One is left with some generic dark Virginia and low-end Oriental leaf that do not go together well at all. The overall taste is like that of bad office coffee; uncomfortably warm and bitter in a way that is neither bracing nor pleasing. If your really lucky, that fruit stuff will rear its head again, now all funky and wet tasting, making latter half of the bowl almost nauseating. I kept smoking this stuff for a month, either because I am stubborn, poor, or stupid, but I could only manage to smoke a bowl of it about one day out of the week. By the end, it was tinder-dry. Surprisingly, this was not an improvement.

A very generic VA. Much like cigarette tobacco.

BETTER PICK: MCCLELLAND CHRISTMAS CHEER 05' OR 06

LIGHT FLAKE, DUNHILL- OR GOLDEN SLICES ORLIK

I usually really enjoy the Dunhill blends but there are a couple that are beyond awful,

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and this one is right out there in another galaxy. It produces a unique taste sensation remarkably similar to drinking a glass of grape juice

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after eating a taco. Hmm. I think that's probably all that can safely be said. This is another blend that will infest your pipe and never let go,

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so be warned.

**Revision - Six years later, I had the chance to try some of this again. My tastes have shifted a bit towards some Virginias in the meantime, and since I've become accustomed to the Lake District blends, I thought this might make a better impression. Sadly, not the case. Way too flavorful for me in all the wrong ways. An odd thing, too, as I usually liked the pre-Orlick-shift Dunhill tobaccos.

Upon opening this tin for the first time I was reminded of the Monty Python skit where the police man goes to the confectioners and complains about the larks vomit . Three Year Matured Virginia would lead on to believe the tobacco to have certain traits . None of which would be the heavy dowsing of fruit aroma . This should definately have a very large label on the front reading "WARNING ! FRUIT FLAVORED!"

I am new to the world of virginia tobacco. My experience is largely founded by trial and error, and limited to a graduate student?s budget. Being that my focus as a student is on literature, the future does not look better, according to job statistics posted on the math department?s entrance. So exited I was about my recent discovery of Dunhill?s Light Flake, that I ordered three tins of their Mature Virginia. After an initial four days since I clicked on the order, I waited like a sniper for the mailman, and entrenched myself in the bedroom with my required reading of Swann?s Way. The smell upon opening the tin was thick of raspberry! Something like an edible Hallmark Card. It is a dark brown ribbon cut with a few individual blondes hairs if you look hard enough. The tin smell was consistent with the aroma upon the lighting. The flavor was obviously fruity, with the intensity of the flavor varying from mild to medium, and the sweetness of it all was definitely too much for my olfactories. I found the tobacco?s body, in other words its effect on my palate, to be a bit overpowering at times. Perhaps my palate hasn?t callused enough for this blend. The smoothness of this tobacco (the relationship between the body and flavor), is subject to individual taste I suspect, and the fact that Dunhill mass produces this blend must mean that many pipe smokers appreciate it. Nevertheless, the body of this blend was not consistent to me. It possessed the overpowering sweetness of a virginia blend that may have been allowed to ferment too long in its own juices. I suppose I should have researched better before I purchased three tins. My girlfriend walked in on me and claimed the aroma was identical to a shower lotion she uses. On a positive note, the tobacco did smoke better in a MacArthur corncob, though there is something sacrilegious about the act.

I could describe it by one word: soar. Soar as hell. That was a torment, worst Dunhill tobacco as far. Smoking it slowly and carefully you will get sometimes a menthol taste instead, but not for long - even then it will remind how sour it is. Three Year Matured Viriginia is very pretentious - somekind mix of Royal Yacht with Saint Claude (cheapest and awful french pipe tobacco). I will never try it again.

Don´t waste your money in this trash.In the old times Dunhill made really good aromatics,though for a non aro-lover like this humble reviewer.But the point is that this a perfumated trash,of course IMHO.By the way the theory that asserts that meerschaums aren´t prey of undesirable ghost becomes absolutelly false with this grizzly blend.

It should be put to flame, just not in a pipe. Tinned for decades, so it must have a following. Longevity is not compelling enough for me in this case. Not terrible, just boring.