Lane Limited John Rolfe

John Rolffe Mixture is the other blend dredged from my early smoking memories by an ebay offering of one boxed pouch of Hayward Mixture plus one boxed pouch of John Rolffe Mixture. In my early smoking days I tried all over the counter blends available in drug and grocery stores (in the back water of my home town there were no smoke shops) and I do mean all - rows and rows of boxed pouches and tinned mixtures. I started in the beginning of the first row and methodically smoked my way through them all to find out what was what - it was fun and I have fond memories of doing it. Some were good and some not so good, but, there were two mixtures that stand out in my memory as failures: Rum and Maple and John Rolffe Mixture. The Rum and Maple I recoiled from, as I had never tasted nor smelled anything like it before. Convinced that a pipe tobacco should NEVER have an aroma or taste like that, it became the first pipe blend that I promptly threw away in disgust after two bowls. I still feel that way about it to this day.

The John Rolffe Mixture was somewhat different, in that I stuck with it for several pipe fulls and gave it a good chance. In those days it was more of a flake cut than the current ribbon cut from Lane. It smoked like Prince Albert with a peach brandy flavoring. I wanted to like the blend but the peach brandy aroma I always found off-putting. However, underneath was a solid smoking mixture of cavendished burley that I liked. Unfortunately, every bowl-full smoked okay down to about the one third point and then it became a little bitter. The cheap peach brandy flavoring and the persistent grottiness that came into each bowl became too much and, inevitably, out it went.

I recently had a chance to smoke the Lane version but one whiff from the small tub I was offered brought back old memories and I passed. Because some of us like this type of blend (note the four star reviews below) I give it two stars.