Peretti Royal Blend

This is truly a top blend with a wonderful room note. It leans a little to the dry, sour, slightly-heady side of things and comes up a tad short in slip stream complexity which I'm always searching for. Not that it doesn't score very well in this department, but is more sour-piquant as opposed to a rich, full spectrum of flavors, if you know what I mean. This no doubt comes from the yenidje and like other blends that lean on this leaf, Royal Blend also lists to port in this regard. While I think this blend must take a back seat to Hearth & Home's - "White Knight" in overall balance and complexity, it is still in the lead car; and others may very well find this more to their palatal preference than mine. This blend also beats out most of Pease's Balkan blends by a mile. IMHO, TR's overall 3.7 star rating is spot on.

having returned to pipe smoking after a 20 year hiatus (after 20 years as a pipe smoker) I am compelled to write a brief review of Peretti's Royal blend. In my return to pipe smoking I have started in the places where I I left off: English blends such as Dunhill standard, 965 etc as well as 1Q and Peretti's 432 (similar, but despite what others have written, vastly superior to 1Q). In any event, I was happy to discover Frog Morton's Cellar. It is a wonderful smoke!. I Finally got around, however, to order a lb. of Royal Blend. I had smoked this blend so many years ago. While it is expensive, and while cellar is terrific, there is no contest. Royal blend is, in my view the perfect English style blend. Not so overwhelming on the Latakia that it is oppressive but, truly, much more flavorful than Frog Morton. It comes very tightly packed and is at the perfect moisture level. The flavor is more pronounced than Frog Morton but not completely different. So, if you like Frog Morton's Cellar ( which every pipe smoker should try) I think that you will find that Royal Blend is similar but more enjoyable. When my next 100G tin of Frog morton is gone I may just re-soak the stave and put it in the Royal blend tin!

This mixture has something special in it that makes it outstanding. There's a slight salty, almost sweat-like tang to the taste and room-note that is out of this world. This is the first blend I've tried that is so delicious and satisfying I simply have to get some more! I am a long time cigar smoker who started smoking pipes in December '08. I've tried several Peterson aromatics and other Peretti American and English blends and this is the first one that just blew me away!

Fantastic!

UPDATE 09/11/10: I just finished another bag of this stuff which means I've smoked two in the intevening years since my initial review. I still find this to be an OUTSTANDING oriental from first to last puff and bowl. An excellent, excellent blend I could smoke all the time except I'm still sampling blends from all over.

Of interest: Perretti says this and Oriental #40 are their closest blends to the mythical, long-lost Balkan Sobtranie.

Ever since this sight turned me on to Peretti’s oriental forward blends I have been hooked. I started with Tashkent and Oriental Nr.40. I then ordered Omega and Royal. Not being a lover of Virginias I was expecting to be less enthusiastic about this blend than I was about Tashkent and Oriental Nr.40. Having now tried Royal, I can say that I love this concoction. The Virginias that are in this blend are only just detectable but they don’t seem sweet, as Virginias most often are, they are hardly even noticeable. The Virginias might increase the nic. levels a bit. The real beauty of this blend lies in the wonderful interplay between the fragrant orientals and the musty Latakia. The orientals seem to be different, or at least in different in proportion, than either Tashkent or Oriental Nr.40. The Latakia isn’t so heavy as to overpower the orientals. This is a truly beguiling blend of tobaccos.

I bought an ounce of this about 4 yrs ago and just recently smoked through it. I only really bought this upon the recommendations of others while placing a large order and I am glad that I only purchased on ounce. This was not to my personal liking, but still was far from bad.

I have gotten to the point where these VLOs (Virginia, Latakia, Oriental blends) that are sharp and edgy and mostly sour are too tiresome on my palate and I find this to be amongst that variety. I tend to prefer the "creamy and smoky" or the "really sweet with a touch of sour and smoke" varieties.

In this blend, I had pinpointed the oriental used as yenidje before I knew it was in the blend. I find it a distinct flavor to pick out. I do not really like the taste of this leaf, particularly when it is used in a relatively large quantity, but the aroma from the sidestream is out of this world. Such is the case with this one and the primary reason I did not care for it. I found the Yenidje to be too assertive for my tastes, but sniffing the pipe bowl as it burned was a pleasure. So I will leave this at a 2.5 rounding up to 3 stars.

Peretti's - Royal

I'm finding, particularly toward the beginning of the bowl, the same sort of light sweetness I found in Tashkent, but dialed back a notch.  Also the same sort of leathery but dialed back a couple notches.

This smoke is more astringent, with a certain piquancy that I'm having a little trouble conjugating.  I notice, particularly on a snork, this flavor of rye (bread, not whiskey) that I'm really enjoying and some yenidze spice. Again, the latakia is well balanced, here almost to the point of subtlety, and I like how it and the oriental varietal get along (as DK has already expounded upon nicely).  The flavors give way from the slight leathery at the start, to the light toasted grainy rye thing in the middle, to a pleasant understated buttery sweetness towards the end.  At times this blend has a certain clean, almost refreshing quality about its taste and mouthfeel.  Nicotine hit is more to the mild side.

This is my third Peretti's blend and they're batting a thousand so far, so to say.  This one is an elegant, aptly named blend, exactly the sort of tobacco triumph I always hope for.

Well had the Peretti Royal Blend yesterday and this morning. It's great. The Latakia, Oriental/Turkish, Virginia are a Nice blend. The latakia is second to the oriental. Which is strange because you smell the latakia in the bag but when light up the oriental is the front. Mild taste burn with one light to a clean ash. I've read some call this a Balkan blend. I can't wait to try others of Peretti blends. Will probably get more of this. Highly recommend this blend. Hope you fine the useful.

The initial note from this blend got my hopes up for something spectacular but i was quickly let down. i got a peppery smell that reminded me of 3 oaks syrian but is changed to a a nasty taste in my mouth that i can only describe as ashy. Maybe this blend needs to "sit" for a while im not sure. The orientals smell nice but the balance tips of to something else. When i left the room and cam back for a relight i detected a strange smell that i could not describe, not bad just odd. I tried the relight to see if it would be different but it was more of the same. I would say look elsewhere after paying for shipping and whatnot there are better tobaccos out there. I will come back in a few months to update. i smoke black house, balkan sobriane, blue mountain, golden sliced type tobaccos. i would rate this on a scale from 1 - 10 as a 5

There are two things I love about all of the Peretti blends I have tried so far: 1) The high quality tobaccos used and 2) the ready to smoke right now moisture level. Royal blend is no exception in either of these aspects and the flavors of this tobacco blend are fantastic - rich, smooth, slightly sweet and buttery. Aptly named - no king or emperor ever smoked anything finer than Royal Blend.