Peter Stokkebye Luxury Twist Flake (No. 402)

Well this sort of tastes like tobacco. This is not much better than those so called "tobacco" blends with cavendish and sugary food ingredient toppings such as Autumn Evening, Molto Dolce, Vanilla Cream, 1Q etc. Overly processed and heavily flavored. These types of blends were literally created by marketers so they could sell more tobacco to men with nagging wives by the way. Not because they taste like good tobacco.

If you want a good straight virginia, do yourself a favor, skip this, and go for Union Square, Opening Night, Derringer, Pure Virginia, C&D Virginia Flake, Yorktown or even the C&D blending virginias. Those are all infinitely more rewarding and satisfying.

When you walk into the grocery store, which section grabs your attention no matter how hard you try to deny it? The bakery! Bread is delicious and sugary, but then we coat it more sugar, and it becomes a confection. Fried bread, sweetened bread, cake, bread drenched in sugar icing... fats and sugars together will always draw our attention.

It is easy to see why "Luxury Twist Flake" is so popular. Open up the package, and a delicious scent of grain and sugar wafts toward your nose. Draw out the anomalously soft and very thin flakes, and you might think you are looking at one of those spiral cakes they sell at Randall's. At first light, the caramel-vanilla flavoring jumps at your taste buds, but then you settle in to a mixture of bright Virginia grains and brown Virginia molasses, crested in the gentle nudge of the surprisingly light topping. It is slightly tangy from the lemony brighter Virginias or perhaps a slight citrus topping, but mostly just a gentle sugar-drenched grain like breakfast cereal or a donut. In fact, this blend is best described as a tasty donut.

With that it in mind, it is entirely possible to see how this blend is such a favorite. Everyone likes donuts, at least in theory. The only problem here is that this blend is dog day afternoon boring once you get past the sugar blast. Like too many Va/Pers, although this is a Cavendish-roasted pure Virginia flake, it is fairly monodimensional because the overwhelming sweetness crowds out anything else. Oddly enough, that is the same reason that I stopped munching on donuts in the office. Luckily, "Luxury Twist Flake" will not make you fat, and as a mild-flavored low-Nicotine and mostly biteless smoke, can be a companion all day.

EDIT: User "Cosmic" over at Pipes Magazine Forums believes that the topping is coconut-based. I have no reason to doubt him, but did not taste anything like what I recognize as coconut.

i find the casing so overwhelming as to make this unsmokable. i have smoked va-per flakes for many many unfortunately many years. i can not remember a more heavily flavored tobacco. i can not finish a single bowl. i do not know what that foul additive is. way, way too much tonkin ?, peach brandy ? whatever---ugh. this reminds me of a really cheap drugstore blend--- worse. presuming there is a decent tobacco underlying the aromatic flavoring it is drenched in, it is like hiding a single malt scotch in double sweet coca cola.--. i will never smoke a bowl of this again.i only hope i can get the taste out of the unfortunately excellent pipe in which i tried it. sure the bag smells okay, and the room is perfumed--not with a tobacco richness but the stink of cheap perfume in gross excess on a lady of the eve.

I really wanted to like this tobacco. The flakes are unique and the smell is sweet reminding me of cookies. Sadly, that where my interest ends. It is just boring. I put some aside and returned to it about six months later with the same result. The cavendish leaves a unwanted coating in my mouth. It's just not for me. Not Recommended.