Esoterica Tobacciana Stonehaven

Contrary to what an earlier poster mentioned about it being a cased tobacco, it isn't. The apricot brandy aroma is caused by fermentation of the flake.

Stonehaven is a Virginia based flake with Burley, aged and fermented. It provides a cool, satisfying smoke with no bite and a wine type of taste to it due to the earlier mentioned fermentation. It is produced in dark, thin strips that are a bit on the wet side, but rub out easily and are easily smoked using the folding method.

I prefer the flakes to be completely dried and then rubbed out.

This is probably the most forgiving Virgina flakes available in terms of tongue bite. It's easy to smoke and quite enjoyable anytime of the day.

It's a bit pricey, but well worth trying and a favorite of many.

Just a short update. (followed by a long rant) I ordered more Stonehaven and received, indeed, Stonehaven. After a little research on this site, I think the last bag I got was mislabeled Peacehaven. I certainly won't be buying that one soon. As much as I like Stonehaven though, I'm leaving it at 3 stars. It's just that good.

10/10/2007: This is a new review because some things have changed for me with Stonehaven and the old review said, well, nothing.

I was ready to bump this up to four stars because the last few ounces I've smoked were outstanding. Tin smell was great, rubbing out was fun and, with a little dry out it smoked clean all the way down. Plenty of vitamin N.

Now, I open up an eight ounce bag and inside the plastic case sits a complete mess. What's this? It's not Stonehaven, I know that much. The flakes are light to dark brown and very mottled. They're cut twice as thick and smashed together in there. I'm thinking somebody at Esoterica wanted to get off work a little early and slacked on the job. Esoterica's consistency had always impressed me.

So, I open the plastic box. It smells vaguely like Stonehaven, but I'm still thinking this is a different blend. This broken flake is so wet it's not smokable. Even overnight drying doesn't help. Two days later and it's still damp, still won't smoke and tastes only vaguely like Stonehaven. I've dried some crispy and it doesn't stay lit. It smokes with substantial bite when it does burn. (There is no date on the sack).

The black thin flakes that rub out easily into soft needles and smoke and taste great are gone. There's seven ounces of a sad impostor in my Stonhaven jar. If I can smoke my way through it and if I order more, I'll be expecting the old style. I assume this was a mistake. If they changed the blend, or have given it over to Orlik (ha!)and this is the new stuff, you can bet your favorite pipe it'll get no stars from me.



Something else-- After a few more bowls of this, (I'm a trooper) I realize 2.5 things. 1.) This is cased with 'Stonehaven essence'. 2.) The base tobaccos taste very much like they were blended by McClelland. The McC twang is there. 2.5) I taste no burley. --- This is one strange sack of tobacco. Maybe this is the real 'Stonehaven on crack'. Or could it be a mislabeled Peacehaven?

This is a pretty good blend--it has a smokey, chocolatey cigar-like character, a sweet virginia element, and something else that tastes like raspberries (another reviewer said apricots, but I've always found that imaginary raspberries taste a lot like imaginary apricots anyway). I hear Stonehaven is not cased (via the same reviewer) but if this is indeed the case, pun intended, it sure acts like it. It bubbles and fizzes and turns a weird orange colour. It gunks up the bottom of the bowl after a short while with something that smells and tastes like road tar. It "ghosts" the pipe like one would expect from an aromatic. This may be something inherent in the fermentation process and not a bona fide "casing," but IMO if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, a pragmatist may safely treat it like a raspberry casing. Stonehaven really needs its own pipe, not only to permit one to enjoy its subtleties, but because it is utterly incapable of cohabiting a pipe with any other blend. It's tasty, with a nice nic hit, but I'm not sure it'll ever be a "go to" blend for me.

Others have described this blend accurately. I'm just going on record and doing my bit to keep Stonehaven's rating up there at four stars. This is the best tobacco I've ever smoked. ****/****

UPDATE, 11/19/07: Stonehaven has slipped a notch or so in my personal ranking since 2005. Still four stars I think (it's definitely quality stuff), but I now think of it as "somewhere in the top 10" rather than "the best".

I loved the presentation of the strips and the delicious winey smell when I took this out of the package but I couldn?t get a decent smoke. At the time, I had a lot of tins open so I simply took a kitchen knife, sliced the flakes in half so they would fit in a bail top jar and forgot about it. A couple of months later, a friend gave me a corn-cob and I gave Stonehaven another shot in a pipe that had never seen latakia. What a transformation! It revealed a depth and complexity that I thought were only possible in a full English. I usually lay out about 10 of the half strips on my desk to dry a few hours before sticking them in an old Penzance tin to transport to work. Then it is simply a matter of bending two of the half strips in half again and stuffing them in the pipe. This is such an easy flake to smoke if it is not too wet, and it seems to last forever in the bowl. Dedicate a pipe to this, even (or perhaps especially) a corn-cob, and you are in for a unique and bountiful experience.

This is a very good tobacco. At one time I smoked nothing but aromatic tobaccos. Having tried Stonehaven, no aromatic can compare to this tobacco. It is a good quality smoke. I smoke it in the evening with a nice glass of Imperial Stout Beer. The tobacco and the stout compliment each other. I give it four stars.

A lot of work but worth all the time . I'm not one to smoke many flakes but this could change my mind. Is truly a great tobbaco I measure the room note by my wife's thoughts. I found it not that bad.

The descriptions already submitted tell the tale, so I'll simply add my approval to them. I enjoy a good cigar occasionally and Stonehaven provides the same enjoyment for me with great economical benefits as well.

I did want to help explain DGT (Delayed/Deferred Gratification Technique) for the non-psychology types:

Deferred Gratification in the normal sense simply means the ability to forgo pleasure in order to have greater pleasure at a later time. You'll find lots of studies saying the person who can do this normally has a happier life and tends to become more of an achiever.

My more pungent definition is this: Your wife has been out of town for two weeks and you're about to burst. She'll be home day after tomorrow. A person who cultivates DGT will wait, knowing the delight both will have the first night she's home. The impulse gratification person will not wait. Nuff Said.

With your pipe it's not quite so dramatic. You simply put the pipe down for a time in mid-smoke rather than overindulging and satiating your taste buds. This allows a kind of ?self stoving? system that brings out a new dimension when you relight later. Works quite well actually and helps teach a discipline in smoking that few huffer-puffers know.

With sixty reviews already written about Stonehaven, most of them positive, it seems redundant to heap more praise upon this blend, but praise it I will.

My every sense feasted on this stuff. My eyes were infatuated with the dark, jerky-like flakes, but were not as pleased as my nose. As others have stated here, the aroma of these flakes is reminiscent of red wine (undoubtedly the fermentation), a hint of licorice, and dark chocolate. Even my tactile sense was teased by the pliant, moist texture of the flakes.

They rubbed out with some effort, but nothing undue the anticipation of a great experience, which I knew would likely come to fruition with proper patience and technique. I rubbed my flakes out by folding a single flake edge to edge, not end to end, then pinching off a half-inch portion and rubbing it into a somewhat loose, but still intact wad. I repeated this process until the entire flake was complete and in the pipe, ready for smoking. I loaded a Stanwell Golden Danish 64, which has a generous bowl size, and lit up.

The first aromas and flavors were nothing short of wonderful. In my relatively brief experience in pipe smoking (two years), this was the best tobacco I had yet to taste. The wine-like aroma came through in the flavor, but not in the fashion an aromatic might have its flavor dominated by a topping. The smoke was substantial, filling my mouth with voluminous clouds of flavorful smoke. Throughout the bowl, the tobacco underwent nuanced changes in flavor, far too subtle for my still-unpracticed palate to discern, but none of them were unpleasant in the least. Relighting was occasionally necessary, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of the overall experience with this blend. As I made my way through the bowl (and several others over the course of days and weeks), I repeatedly commented to my wife how glad I was that I purchased this tobacco, and that I couldn't believe how great it tasted. She offered me her usual "That's nice, baby," and I went about my contented puffing without further sharing my experience.

Perhaps I'm too easy to please. Or, conversely, perhaps I have been so frustrated and disappointed in so many other tobaccos that I am elated to finally discover a blend that rewards me with the experience that makes pipe smoking what it is supposed to be.

The room note is pleasant to those who enjoy tobacco aromas as a matter of course, but would likely put off the housewife or houseguest whose affinity for potpourri-scented Glade Plug-Ins leaves no room for an earthier, more sublime sachet I like to call Stonehaven.

****/****

Update 5/5/07:

I have a strong aversion to the tell-tale 'nicotine slap' that gives me a nauseated feeling in the pit of my stomach and leaves my head swimming. This blend didn't do that to me before, but after months of aging and drying out somewhat, it has begun to have that effect on me, even if I smoke it directly after a large meal. While not egregious enough to merit taking away a star for quality, I do find myself smoking Dark Star (or my local tobacconist's bulk version thereof), more often than Stonehaven, not because of quality issues or flavor preferences, but only because I've become wary of being sickened by the nicotine. I still smoke it on occasion, but it pains me to admit that I will most likely not purchase another batch of it for this reason. Still highest quality and very pleasurable for the smoker who can withstand medium to high nicotine content. I, however, cannot.