Cult Blood Red Moon

Cherry explosion! From the char light to the last sip there is cherry flavor. Chocolate is muted until toward the end of the bowl where it slowly creeps up on you. Other than the cherry / chocolate, I got nothing, no tobacco flavors.

What a delightful smoke. Honestly I think Cult hit this one out of the park. The tin note is absolutely exquisite. "You can just sit that out and let it freshen the room" - Wifey. Wonderful scents of cherry and cocoa on opening that are not at all unpleasant. Smoking is the quintessential cherry pipe tobacco experience. The cherry and cocoa flavors are present and bring to mind a cherry covered in dark chocolate. But make no mistake it's not in a syrupy artificial way. There's a subtlety so there's no syrupy medicine taste to the top. There's also a hint of earthiness in the smoke. It packs well and needs minimal relights. The room note is the classic cherry pipe smoke smell that has please so many for so long. My wife loves when I smoke it in the house because it brings back memories of great grandpa who smoked a cherry blend.

Had to try this due to all of the hipe and glad i did, now have a new favorite aromatic, velvety smooth with no bite at all, super sweet (smoke your desert rather than eat it), requires practically no relights, great room note, super tin aroma (maybe just a little heavy), smoked clean burning to nice grey ash even with minimal dry time, slightest of ghosting to pipe. best cherry blend I have ever had!!!

12/12/16 update- simply had to downgrade rating due to fact that this is "over the top" aromatic that gets tiresome and has a much higher "ghosting" affect than i originally thought. Be careful what you put it in! Go for the cobb or the pipe dedicated to aromatics.

I begin this review with the following proclamation because me thinks an aromatic guy should more fairly judge aromatics & a natural tobacco guy is going to do the same for those blends which are low or lack casings & top notes. But when all is said and done .... personal tastes are well "personal". I've been a fairly dedicated aromatic pipe smoker for 35+ years (although I occasionally like a Vaper or mild Latakia blend for a change of pace). This aromatic is a very good one. Excellent Burley tobacco taste with a good cherry/chocolate casing. Burns well with consistent flavor to the bottom of the bowl. IMHO, me thinks this is one of the best (if not the very best) cherry blend on the market today. I will surely use this one in my rotation of aromatic blends.

Not an expert but both feet are pretty "wet" at this point. I have tried some very interesting (and some NASTY) non aros and I am definitely an aro guy. I have had some very decent Cherry styles, some I would buy again some not so much. THIS is the blend I have been wanting but it took me wading through a bunch of others promising very cherry, mild, "no tongue bite" (man, you do get tired of hearing that, huh?), with that super pleasant room note. I gotta say that as much as I was awash with memories of my dad's pipe when I was a kid, the first time I fired up Peter Stokkebye 302, Cult - Blood Red Moon was that on steroids, in a very good way. The room note and taste was just SO over the top. I LOVE this stuff!

When the tin is first opened you get the feeling that this is going to be a sugary chocolate cherry mess. Smells like a box of cherry cordials. Lights easy and smokes easy, did not gum up my pipe as I thought it might. If you are looking for a good cherry blend this may well be your tobacco. I will most likely smoke it as a dessert.

It is a good tobacco very smooth and Mild with a hint of cherry which is a natural Cherry not an artificial cherry flavor. The black Cavendish shows up with just a little bit of earthy Virginian. I would wish that the Cherry was a little stronger in flavor in my mouth however when you smell the smoke with your nose you can detect the Cherry.

I gave it is a low star rating because I wished the Cherry was stronger and more pronounced in my mouth. If left me wanting more and not in a good way. It left me wanting more cherry for those of you that like the taste of tobacco more so than an aromatic Cherry this is a good smoke that being said I would prefer the cherry flavor to be the hero of this and it was not the black Cavendish was the hero that stood out.

I might be in the minority on this site when it comes to my tastes, but I am an aromatic smoker and I prefer and enjoy the taste of a flavored tobacco when you can truly detect the flavoring of the tobacco.

Cult "Blood Red Moon"

This American-style aromatic is heavily topped with rich chocolate and a very natural but sweet and pronounced cherry. It tastes like chocolate covered cherries, but the good ones bought at a candy store and not the cheap prepackaged ones on the drugstore shelf.

The tobacco is quite moist from the tin and will benefit from an hour or so drying time during our typical early spring Minnesota weather. It loads easily and evenly into a pipe; I initially used a cobb, as I was afraid of leaving behind The Pipe Ghost from Hell in any of my briars. The flavoring is quite strong, to the point where there is no tobacco flavor left in its wake.

Do I like it? Yes, but only because I got the tin on sale. I found Black Cordial to be as good and at 1/4 the normal retail price of the Cult tin.

This behaves very well in the pipe and burns down to a mottled grey ash with a small amount of dottle and just a little bit of sludge. Slow smoking cadence of course, helps reduce the dottle and goop...but this still smokes wet and sticky. Not a problem for users of cheap cobbs and/or those who don't mind having to do vigorous maintenance of the pipe after each bowl. Burned to the heel with a total of 1 charring light, one initial light and three relights in a large bowl meerschaum billiard. And yes, this tobacco was made for meers and cobbs.

For me, this tobacco was tongue bite hell. If one gets a little careless and overpuffs, the tongue will fry. Slow and gentle with this one. I suspect the tongue bite comes more from my reaction to the chemistry of the casings than to the steam this weed generates when smoked. It took two full days of not smoking to heal from one bowlful's tongue bite. This however might be attributed to my body chemistry as much as to the tobacco itself, and other smokers might not have the same problem.

The artwork on the tin is cool. The tobacco is beautifully presented in the tin and smells appetizing as one could ever want. The tin aroma translates completely to the flavor of the smoke. It's good, but I don't think it is worth the tin price. These days, I buy tins for aging and bulk for smoking right now. As I can't see this tobacco as being one which would benefit from aging, the two tins I bought will be the last two tins I'll buy. Even so, I give this 3 stars; it is a quality product for fans of super sweet and flavorful aromatics. I can't give it four stars, because I don't find it to be a great value for what it is, and because the tongue bite (possibly my fault or that of my chemistry) was too much to handle on a regular basis.

One of my favourite aromatics. This blend features a sweet, almost cherry cordial-like taste while not overpowering the the tobacco flavour. Most aromatics taste like hot air, especially cherry aromatics. Not this one! This is an exceptional aromatic and one of the few cherry aromatics that gets it right. This blend produces thick clouds of smoke that are very pleasant to the nose (good for smoking inside!). The flavour of this tobacco is about half cherry and about half milk chocolate, which is why it reminds me of a cherry cordial. The casing doesn't overpower the natural tobacco taste, which is also present within the blend. Overall, I'd rate this one of my favourite aromatics, up there with Lane Dark Red.