Peter Stokkebye Luxury Twist Flake (No. 402)

This is my favorite bulk plain Virginia Flake. This is one of my "regular" tobaccos. Just a plain good tobacco you can enjoy all the time.

I've found Luxury Twist to be one of the tastier VA flakes on the market. It is in the same vein as Rattray's Marlin Flake, being a sweet, rich flake of medium strength. It's a tad sweeter and mellower than Marlin, but lacks some of the Rattray blend's punch and personality. Nevertheless, it's a great tasting high quality flake at a bulk blend price and for that reason I tend to smoke it quite a bit. All in all, a very good offering from the Stokkebye folks in Denmark.

Notes: Smoked on numerous occasions in various pipes, I prefer this one in a tall, narrow billiard.

Appearance: A light golden to medium brown thin cut flake, square cut.

Aroma: Wonderfully enticing, tawny aroma to match its color, with the suggestion of fig, grape leaf, date, and faintly of spicy ketchup.

Taste: Delicious straightforward Virginia flavor: sweet, nutty, mellow, and mild. On the mild side in body, with a modest amount of nicotine, it has a mellow nutty flavor that is unassuming and easy to smoke, without the complexity that other Virginia blends, such as Dunhill Flake, present.

Comparisons: Sweeter than Dunhill Light Flake, not as nutty as the Gawith flakes, with a certain distinctive flavor aligning it with Dobie's Four Square and Capstan Medium.

Bottom Line: An easy to smoke, enjoyable Virginia flake. It lacks the vibrancy to make it a permanent resident in my cellar of aging tins, but I enjoy it from time to time in my rotation.

This is a very attractive flake. When I first saw this I thought this was going to be very good, I was somewhat let down. The flavor in this flake is very good, however it is a little to bitey for me. I would say this needs some aging and then it would be a grand slam for flake lovers except for the fact that the sample I recieved was over 7 years old ( thanks Hal at The burley and briar pipe shop ). I may experiment more with this one and see what the results are. If I could get the bite factor down a little bit more on this one I would give it a 3 star possibly even a 4 star rating.

Pouch Aroma: This is a rich, sweet-smelling twist that smells of matured tobacco and a hint of some kind of casing, which I've been told is orange peel. It's very mild and pleasant and smells faintly of honey or a field of wildflowers in summer. Very evocative.

Appearance: This is a twist which has been sliced into very thin flakes. Each piece is about 1.5" x 1" and contains a lot of small stem slices (birdseyes). Colors vary from pale yellow to deep rich brown. This is a nice-looking tobacco which rubs out very easily.

Packing and Lighting: I very lightly rubbed out two flakes - nothing more than lightly crumpling them in my palm, actually - and these filled my Tinsky Custom Rhodesian almost to the rim. The pack is rather loose, but I like to adjust that with my tamper after the bowl is well-lit.

The charring light was slightly uneven (normal when I smoke flakes) but judicious tamping and a second light fixed the whole thing perfectly.

Exposition: The initial smoke was very intense, due to all the well-aged virginias present and the fact that this was my first smoke of the day. It's very perky and bright, waking up my tastebuds without assaulting them, but I can see that this would require slow smoking to avoid a tendency to bite. This blend seems best in my Savinelli Autograph Canadian - but I could probably smoke a poodle in that pipe and it'd taste good.

The Story: Once the pack was adjusted, the burn settled down and my palate fully awakened I settled in for a nice slow smoke. There is very little nicotine in this and a fair amount of body. The sweetness comes across well in the flavor, but the orange flavor is more subdued. The predominant flavor is natural tobacco, light in strength and of medium body. There aren't a lot of subtleties here, just a nice unified one or two note flavor. The room aroma is quite nice and shouldn't offend anyone with even a modicum of tolerance for pipe tobacco.

The sidestream smoke is quite sweet and woody, with a sharp note that would be nice in a bent pipe if I were inclined to smoke them (my Rhodesian is a custom and not even 1/8 bent).

As the bowl burns down toward the halfway mark, it has begun to pick up a little heaviness typical of Virginia flakes. A little musky woodsiness has crept in under the sweetness and added some layers of flavor, reminding me of McClelland's 2015 without the Perique. The sharpness is still there, as is the sense that it would bite my tongue if I'd let it. The burn is even and consistent, and it stays lit quite easily.

Denoument: The flavor and aroma have both remained pretty consistent throughout the entire bowl, only gaining in strength and complexity. Not a hint of sourness or bitterness, and it still smells really good.

The further down it burns, the less I notice the orange casing (which was never overpowering to begin with) and the more natural and full it gets. It burns down to a nice speckled ash and leaves the pipe clean.

Pros: This one's a keeper. It smokes dry and clean, burns evenly and well, and gives me good natural tobacco flavor. If you're a fan of Virginia flakes, try this and tell me it ain't good. I dare ya!

Cons: It does have a tendency to bite, but slow smoking in a wide-bowled pipe seems to help that. There was some moisture present, but my Tinsky has that problem despite the nice layer of cake I've laid in the bottom. I just need to find the right tobacco for it.