Peter Stokkebye Natural (No.1)

I disliked this one immediately. It tasted like soap to me. Smell reminded me of some kind of plastic, or scented candles. I did not smoke enough of it to find out, but although the taste is very mild, it felt as though it was going to bite me.

Did not finish bowl one.

UPDATE: I tried again, with more perseverance. The last half of the bowl was not as noxious as the top. I could actually taste a little tobacco flavor. I think I am going to try to salvage the stuff by heating it in the oven. Maybe some of the flavoring will boil off.

I'm a big fan of the Stokkebye range with Pressed Burley and Cube Cut being amongst my all time favourite tobaccos.

But I loathe this! It's not the slightest bit natural: as has been mentioned, it has the strangest topping, and...oh, who cares, there are many better blends out there.

Revised review 2021-01-21: I've revisited this after not smoking it for quite awhile. I'm dropping it to one star. It's got a strawberries & cream topping that I don't enjoy. I remember it as being relatively unflavored. I wonder if the recipes were changed after Eric Stokkebye left to seek other opportunities in 2012?

Original review 2006-06-21: Though this is a rather plain Viginia & Burley mix, in the Danish style, I find myself returning to it quite often. It's very similar to Mac Baren's Mixture (aka Scottish Mixture), though the Stokkebye is a bit less tangy. It's probably been sweetened a bit, but not too much. This is one of my favorites.

I second Eulenberg's impressions of this tobacco. I tried Pete's Natural just a month or so ago and had a lot of trouble tasting anything other than the mildest of Virginia sweetness.

If light and mild tastes good to you, then so will this. As for me, I prefer something with a little more flavor.

Summary: a light Cavendish-Virginia blend with a fruity topping and some white Burley for support.

On the first light, this gives off the distinctive "cotton candy" flavor of propylene glycol, then allows in a flavor of vanilla and what seems like strawberries or a very sweetened cranberry. This flavoring stays with the blend throughout the whole bowl. A bit damp, it nonetheless smokes well, but other than a general sweetness and the topping, there is not much to taste, and almost no nicotine to speak of. The room smells nice afterwards. It burns down to chunk grey ash, and you could smoke it all day. The real problem with this blend is not that there is something wrong with it, but that there is so little to recommend it.

Stokkebye's "Natural" is a somewhat bitey version of Kentucky Club Mild (in the blue can). Both blends use a casing sauce, which I strongly suspect is coumarin: a fruity, perfumey, vanilla-like chemical found in many plants, including the tonka bean. I also find this same taste in Stokkebye's Cube Cut, which has a very similar taste, but different burning properties.

I recommend you take a pass on this one, or buy the smoother, bite-free Kentucky Club Mild (which is probably less expensive too).

Natural? What's so natural on this blend? Had it been named "Kumquat" it might have gotten a better review from me, because that's exactly what I taste.

A major tongue biter. Towards the end of the smoke you get to really taste nice Virginias and Burley, but by then you'll feel nauseated by the kumquat topping and your scorched tongue won't be able to enjoy much anyway.

Stay away.

I am ashamed to be smoking this in a briar; it deserves a corncob at the most.

The casing is strong and hurts, rather than enhances, the Virginias present.

I'm told on good authority that Satan himself profers this blend to newly-arrived guest smokers hearkening unto his Infernal Kingdom. It verily gives them pause at how truly nasty and custom-fitted a Hell they have earned by their graven misdeeds.

Wow- a Virginia with little flavor. Only the light taste of smoke.