Lane Limited HS-3

Plain ol' sweetend golden sliced Cavendish. On it's own, it's a flat, boring, one dimesional aromatic. However, as a blending component it shines. Throw together of 50/50 mix of HS-3 and McClelland VBC and your have one tasty butterscotch flavored aromatic. It also mixes well in other more complex aromatic recipes.

This isn't to my nose a strongly vanilla cased tobacco. It could be in there, along with licorice and perhaps other aromas. But I really doubt it's got vanilla in it at all. (Read on for why I think not.) The pouch scent is a rather mild, generically fruity scent that reminds me of chewing tobacco, but isn't strong.

It really doesn't taste like a typical sweet aromatic to me. It's definitely an aromatic, but the aromas are different. It's a mild, cool smoke. Burns rather quickly and dry. The room note is mild and pleasant. The bowl fragrance is interesting. Kind of an herbal, grassy scent with a bit of vanilla-like scent that's not quite vanilla. I think it fits the "new-mown hay" description generally given to tonka bean, a common pipe tobacco "sauce." In foods, tonka bean's been used as a substitute for both vanilla and bitter almond, so it's not easy to pigeonhole. The taste has a slight bitterness to it, with a little tingle to the tongue; definitely a change from the sweet aromatics, but it's not one of the heavy hitters by a long shot. Just a nice difference.

It's a nice changeup for folks who like aromatics but sometimes want a little break from the routine. It's got a stronger taste and aroma, and to me a stronger nicotine kick than Lane's typical sweet Cavendish blends. I've decided I like it well enough that I bought a half pound for a change of pace. I've gone back and edited my earlier impressions of this stuff after smoking it a while. I do like this stuff. One thing I've found is that if I smoke a single bowl of this in a pipe seasoned with my old favorite BCA and then refill it with BCA, that bitter note I mentioned that's slightly noticeable while smoking HS-3 is quite noticeable. Takes smoking several bowls of BCA to clear it all out. I'm presently devoting a couple of pipes to HS-3. This isn't Lane's usual vanilla aromatic.

I've recently tried mixing HS-3 and BCA. I'd imagined that if the bowl residue is so noticeable in a fresh bowl of BCA, in a blend any amount of HS-3 would completely overwhelm it. What I find is that it indeed tastes like HS-3, but mellower, and it burns really well. Makes great clouds of thick white smoke with a pleasant aroma, not so strongly aromatic as BCA. So much for keeping the two separate in separate pipes! 🙂

this tobacco was a bit of a disappointment to me. I was really hoping for more of a sweet smoke which this isn't. It has a little musky taste and aroma which I can find elsewhere. It is smooth smoking but not one I would want to make my wife endure very often.

Aroma is the important consideration in this blend of Cavendish tobaccos. This is a good Anytime blend and suggested smoking method is medium to large bowl pipes. Because of the thin string cut this tobacco tends to burn more quickly than others and in a small bowl pipe it could burn hot and that is never a good smoke. Puff slowly and enjoy!

Compared to other vanilla aromatics I have smoked (Danish Black Vanilla - yuck!), this is honestly not too bad. My local tobacconist sells it under the name of Brookwood. It starts off very mild, almost flat, then builds in fullness and body throughout the bowl. You can't really taste the vanilla flavour except towards the last quarter of a bowl. That's a bit disappointing since, if I'm going to smoke an aromatic, I'd at least like one that tastes like it's supposed to.

The room note on this is pretty nice. Its a nice change of pace, but I won't make it a regular smoke.