Rattray Sir William

Appearance: 50 gram tin of the 2022 release. The blend of tobacco is a little brighter and lighter, which can be attributed to its freshness. Overall, it wasn’t affected the quality of the blend. And it also doesn't have any lighter varieties of Virginia, but there is clearly more Virginia than in Irish Whiskey. Perhaps in another situation it would have pleased me, but here there is a clear departure from the Irish Whiskey.

Flavor: the light aroma of a good cookie - flour, butter, a little alcohol, a bit of coconut (WHAT?!), coriander and cinnamon, faint notes of citrus and berry essence. Behind all this, you can barely smell the Kentucky notes, but if you sniff longer, you can catch a slight scent of cocoa. As for the whiskey flavoring… Well, if it's here, it's obviously been skimped on. In any case, the smell of coconut and bread notes overpower it.

Taste: the base is made up of burley and kentucky notes - smoky, woody, nutty. But, at the expense of its freshness and clearly more than in Irish Whiskey, initially the Virginia tends to remind with its sweetness and hay flavor that it is here as well. Overall, the flavor is initially a bit brighter than that of Irish Whiskey. The tobacco is somewhat unbalanced and stiff - perhaps it should have been left to rest for a couple of years in a tin. By the middle of the pipe, the blend gets more smooth than at the beginning, where it is quite demanding on the smoking tempo. I found no indication of the orientals mentioned on some sites - the blend is a quality Virginia-Burley blend, with the sweetness of the virginia quickly coming off, with kentucky as support. However, the amount of virginia continues to be felt when smoking - the tobacco clearly smokes hotter than the previous blend. The strength of the tobacco is also different, it's closer to medium. At least in a very large pipe, I didn't feel the nicotine kick. The tobacco burns into a fine light gray ash with a slightly larger dark fraction. It leaves some moisture in the bowl. The aftertaste is sweet and woody, slightly tart, but not persistent.

The smoke from the tobacco has a woody smell with a slight cocoa flavor.

What's the bottom line? Weird-smelling coconut German blend (thankfully, it's not in the flavor) that has more Virginia than Irish Whiskey. If you forgive Sir William its coconut smell from the tin, it could be considered a regular everyday Virginia-Burley blend for smoking in a relaxed setting.