Erik Stokkebye 4th Generation 1931

This tobacco has such a striking tin note of honey, I have to question the descriptions out there that claim it is not flavored - I'm assuming it has a honey topping, which works. Right out of the tin, folded and stuffed, it lights well and stays lit. The flavor is rich, warm and sweet. The honey comes through but in a subtle way. There's a wonderful nutty flavor, dark fruits and a bit of spice.

This is a wonderful tobacco. I could smoke it every day.

I did not find this to be so different from Mac Barren Navy Flake to justify the extra $4. It is good but I would not seek it out over MB's offering.

Here we have a nice looking Virginia-Burley flake. Gently rubs, packs, and burns easy. No Va tang to me but solid, natural flavor IMO.

I had tried about an ounce sample in a thin plastic pouch given out earlier in October, 2012. However, the flavor seemed to dry out quickly. The tin preserves the freshness better.

Smells like a slight top note in the tin but I personally don't taste any added flavors while puffing. (Could there be some residual from Navy Flake or Mixture Flake processing? Don't know.) At most it tastes to me like a traditional English flake, or biscuit like. Not sweet like the other two. Whatever essence may be there in the toasted cavendish is in a word, slight.

Mild and cool enough to me, yet tasty. Someone who is not use to or fond of burley may rank it stronger.

Tastes kinda like a lighter version of Aged Burley Flake, so if you cotton to that one but find it too strong, this may be a substitute. ABF has all burley, including Kentucky. This one has much less burley. But it has more burley and some darker Virginia than Long Golden Flake. I'm sure this one is not by the same blender as those two, and is neither as strong as ABF nor as sweet as LGF. Maybe in-between, and good.

Sure, give it a try. Mostly on the natural flake side of the house.

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.

There are few blends that reach the pinnacle of perfection,but this one does. My tin is dated November 2020 and the moisture level was perfect to be smoked right away. The Burley and Virginia are high quality and matured. The light honey topping enhances the flavor making this a smooth,sweet smoke, but not in an artificial way. I could smoke this all day if I had the time. It burns clean and cool. No bite or harsh spots. Room note seems ok of course my wife loves pipes ( I'm a lucky man ). This smokes the same all the way to the bottom. Top notch flake! Highly recommended.

Lager

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.