Erik Stokkebye 4th Generation 1931

Tin note of honey, floral and nutty. Tobacco is mostly broken flake of marbled reddish brown, dark brown. Moisture content is great. Rubs out with a little effort. Burns slow with a few extra relights. The strength is medium and nic is mild. Flavoring is mild, with notes of Honey. Easily distinguishable in the beginning but faded quickly and was hard to distinguish after the first 1/3. Taste is medium and very consistent, with notes of mild honey, nuts, wood, earth, bitter, spice, floral, toast, peaty vegetation, molasses, orange peel/zest, sugar, savory, tangy dry dark fruit, tart citrus, acidic, spicy, a lemon grass background note, and a peppery retro. Burley is leading with Virginia supporting. Cavendish and Flavoring supported from the rear. Room note is pleasant to tolerable, and aftertaste is great.

Smoking now:

The sample bag smells of honey. Very sweet, hay and wood. It’s quite nice. The sweet smell does NOT translate over to the smoke. The flakes broke apart effortlessly packing and lighting just fine.

The initial light and smoke gave me a sharp mouth feel that I associate with burley. I’m rather negatively biased towards burley because of the ph level. Thankfully that went away as the bowl progressed.

Again the sweet smell does not translate over as much to the smoke. There’s a decent amount of sweetness from the Virginia don’t get me wrong but this is not as sweet as it smells. Grassy, a little hay, some honey, on top of a dry woody burley that gives it some body. The cavendish I suspect is what makes this as mellow and pleasant for me. The retrohale is grassy and floral. A rather easy smoking mild to medium bodied natural tobacco flavored smoke. The nic level is definitely a medium maybe surpassing it. With morning coffee after breakfast I felt it. Enough going on to make it interesting.

I'd never smoked ths Eric Stokkebye blend until the well-stuffed and well preserved pint mason jars came along at our recent show. I liked the looks of the blend through the wide mouth Mason jar; all brown and gold brown intermixed in flake form. The jar aroma was heavenly with intermixed Burley and Virginia odors that begged me to light up. Right from the first light I knew it was going to be good. The higher register Virgnia notes mixed well with the lower Burley notes and produced a wonderful VaBur smoking experience that I saw as a four star performance. This high level enjoyment only subsided slightly as we crossed over to the middle third; a common trait of many pipe blends. Things remained pretty good until we reached the midpoint of the smoke. Here the blend began a decline in aroma, taste and smoking enjoyment until, in the bottom third, it became almost tasteless and gray and ashy. I was taken aback at how quickly this blend just gave up the ghost. Still, that top half more than made up for the decline and I am recommending it to the reader at three stars.

Right up front, you should know that burley is not my thing. I find it's often kind of harsh and cigarette-like to my taste buds. Normally I wouldn't have bothered trying this, but Smokingpipes.com sent a sample with my last order so I figured, why not? You know what? It's actually pretty good! If you like burley, you'd probably say it's great. I smoked it in a corncob pipe because a lot of people seem to think burley sings in a cob and I wanted to give it a chance. I rubbed the flakes out. The first half of the bowl is pretty enjoyable. Simple, plain tobacco flavor with just a hint of sweetness. Not complex but not boring either. Then that bitter burley-ness starts building stronger and harsher, and I can't smoke the last third. Again, if you like burley you'll probably love this. I generally don't like burley, and I still got some enjoyment out of it. I feel a little bad about giving it 2 stars because it's obviously quality tobacco.

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I'm rounding this up to 3 stars because every time I smoke it, I like it a little bit more. Smoked slowly and in a smaller pipe, that bitterness I mentioned doesn't build up to an intolerable level. I've only got about a pipeful left now and, even though I probably won't go out of my way to get more, I think I'll be a little disappointed when it's gone.

Nicely prepared flakes typical of Stokkebye with an ideal moisture content from the tin that permits easy packing just by folding. Smoked dry and cool without any bite. Burned evenly without the need for relights. However, as compared to Stokkebye's available bulk flakes, I don't see the comparative value of this tinned blend.

I am a "flake" person so when I spotted this tin I had to give it a whirl. This is a bolder navy flake than I have ever tried. Trying to place it in the floral strength panel. I would say it is between GH's Ennerdale and Rum Flakes. It is fuller than both but the notes that you taste and smell are similar. The pretty little flakes twist easily into presentable pieces to go in my small flake pipes. This is a pleasant tobacco for morning or afternoon.

The 4th Generation line release has a variety of blends. I received the 1931 Eric Peter's Blend, some of the others seemed more appealing to me, but a gift is a gift. This also lets me see what's new out the gates. Well they are perfect cut flake, with a marbling of tans cross in waves. I cut it into small cubes to get a tin note, as it came in a plastic sample bag. The aromatic stood out, other than some hay from the burley the Virginia was absent. A dry flake it just needed a few minutes to be ready for the bowl.

Char lite let go some aromatic fruitiness maybe even some honey it's hard to tell as the Cavendish quickly burned. The true lite had the VA stands up right away, the burley providing a bit of hay back ground. This burns hot so sipping is a must. By the half bowl the burley had taken over and it stays there. It smokes slowly and you get a hint of sweetness appear every once in a while from a basic good tasting classic burly. The bowl remained consistent through to the end with no relights to a salt and pepper ash.

In the small tin of 1931 I bought were 2 rows of moist, perfectly made, striated flakes ranging from blonde to medium and dark brown. Tin note is refined dates, citrus, honey, and flowers melded with the slightly bready VA and Burley tobaccos. I fold, spindle and loosely stuff most of one flake into a suitable group 5 pipe, straight from the tin. It’s worth noting, I think, that 1931 expands considerably when it’s lit. The tobacco lights OK and it burns quite slowly and well, yielding huge, thick clouds of smoke. In fact, 1931 is exceptional in this regard. Initial aromas and tastes echo the tin notes, then the tobacco flavors increase gradually and substantially. Burley predominates. It’s deep, rich, earthy, nutty, buttery, and fairly tannic, and I would not be surprised if there’s some DFK. There seems to be a range of robust, complimentary VA varietals and cures, from grassy lemons to sweet, rich, air-cured browns, to earthy, stoved reds. The Cav is hardly needed for body, but it may well contribute to all the smoke, and it binds the blend with the toppings. Like Solani’s 660 Silver Flake, 1931 increases significantly in intensity over the long course of a bowl, and I prefer to moderate my cadence rather than brook some roughness that occurs if I let it get hot. Taken slowly, 1931 is a long, leisurely, and satisfying smoke. Strength builds slowly to just over medium. Tastes deepen to past medium. Room note is tolerable. Aftertaste is best-of-the-smoke, and it lingers long.

IMO, 4th Generation 1931 is a top quality blend that works best with a measure of attention. A few years ago I would have given it 4 stars, but now there is stiff competition in this genre. 3 + stars.

Of all the Navy flakes I have smoked, this one hits the spot.

High quality tobacco, no bite, lots of flavor, it's a deep and rich yet mild-mannered and friendly flake that, unlike other flakes in this style (MB for example), I never get sick of smoking.