Peter Stokkebye Optimum (No.31)

I am not sure why so many reviewers dislike this tobacco. Although it is not one of my favorites, it is a pretty good smoke. Fruit flavor takes the front seat in this blend with a slight vanilla note. Tobacco quality is good. Very pleasant room note and good aftertaste. I admit the first time I smoked it, it didn't impress me as much, perhaps because the taste was unexpected. The more I smoke it the more I like it.

I received tly pulled out a 2 year old jar of this to smoke. The toppings were delight and did not taste syrupy. The tobaccos seemed to have enough complexity to make the smoke enjoyable.

On opening the bag (sold in bulk) your nose is hit with the sweet scent of tropical fruit. Although vanilla and citrus are also included as a topping I couldn't detect them. Lights easily and burns well. Doesn't leave behind the goop common among lower end aros. Makes a good change of pace smoke.

Very nice aromatic to smoke when you want something light, has a light nutty taste with vanilla. Burns cool and doesnt bite.

This one is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. I know I shouldn't like it, but on the right occasion it's a real joy.

It's a mild aromatic blend, cased with just the right amount of vanilla. The vanilla doesn't overpower the tobacco but adds a bit of sweetness and depth. Overall, the taste is very light and smooth and I find it goes perfectly with a cup of good coffee in the afternoon.

It's certainly not a tobacco I could smoke all the time because it's just too sweet but once in a while it's very enjoyable. I'd only recommend it as an occasional smoke, and the room note is one of the most pleasant I know of so perhaps a good after dinner pipe when in company.

Ideally maintaining the True North of an open mind, when presented with a tobacco blend labeled as optimal, my learned pragmatism automatically takes over filtering my reaction. Coming home to roost is a working recognition that, largely, blend ratings can be highly subjective. So, with best intentions I strive to promote unobstructed impartiality and factual accounting as the sited target. And with that goal in mind, we see entering for consideration a customary Danish styled aromatic tobacco, Optimum No. 31, from one of the piping world’s most prolific blenders the influential Peter Stokkebye.

Optimum No. 31 renders a standardly sweet and mild admixture of substantial Black Cavendish, modestly tempered Burley, and a tactful gathering of choice African Virginian strains. Generously dressed in a combination of fruit-based coatings, refined vanilla, and a few other unchristened seasonings, this Stokkebye product ministers a softly cultured flavor and a polished texture that is creamy smooth. Regaled in appearance, the mixture comes as a well-prepared combination of an ennobled dark base of deepened brown/black morsels coarsely cut, lightly disturbed by a scattering of gold-tan fine shaggy stringers.

Individualizing the pouched nose, Optimum carries a quiet and delicately polished air. Mainly, a sweet mixed fragrance of sugared berry and enriched vanilla gracefully embellish the prime introductory facing. Sheltered passively below this forward aroma, the dimmed confluence of a peaceful soured nuttiness, a bundling of cultured tart grass and some well-seasoned native wood fill the bottom layer of standard essence. Supremely dry in composure, the mixture lends itself to an easeful exercise in packing, thus offering the advantage of smoking immediacy. As a light-bodied blending, Optimum exemplifies the fine traditions of European style aromatics, posing a casual topping-prevalent depiction that leads the smoker onto a pleasantly tasteful course of eased mellowing sweetness. In fact, if I were to estimate I could presumably state that the gentled flavorings seem to occupy about 70% of the taste sphere.

On that attribute, at first lighting, a pleasing duo of a rich French vanilla note and sugary berry come to center without delay as the featured headline. Namely the vanilla endows a milky, custard-like influence as the tart sweet prominence of mixed fruit, blackberry and perhaps elderberry, sort their way forward forming an appealing ground of contrasted sugariness. Pleasing accents in the form of basic mulling spices such as reduced cinnamon, clove, and trace hints of sweetened lemon garnish the rendering. Furthermore, existing with a trailing highlight is an interesting blood orange tea nuance perhaps a combination of an additional citrus flavoring and a stronger native attribute occurring from the Virginia.

The native tobacco streams themselves are not that succinctly independent, but rather roll and tumble fused in an expressly joined fashion. Nonetheless, waves of distinguishable indigenous flavors do randomly crescendo for proper individual registration. With Optimum, the resident Cavendish endows a supporting wealth of smokey, spiced earthiness. The succeeding evidence of the Virginian is a bit wider of girth, projecting some Red fermented herb-wood, a base citrusy tang, decorated by dark tarty fruited undertones. For the Burley, it tends to encounter as a brown sugared candied nuttiness, occupied with just a hair of controlled sourness. Overall, the combined savor is charming by all objective measures.

As one would anticipate, the elegant brilliance of the lighter resultant room aroma is markedly polite in demeanor. The sum effect of the thickened gray cloudy smoke generated by the tobacco’s expending, is a plush sweet airy fragrance of buttercream fruity effervescence. This reserved essence is tailored with a slighted natural low fringe of darker zest, paled grass, and earthen wooded tart. Exceptionally docile, Optimum scent charts a tolerant impression on the accommodating scale of orderliness and magnitude.

Given consistently solid mechanical properties, the only demerit worth mentioning is that the tobacco tends to deposit a considerable lot of displeasing gungy dottle at the end of the bowl. And as indicated, the quality of smoke is unquestionably smooth, tendering no experiential palate bite with the up taking. Additionally, this mixture ignites easily, burning with an obliging coolness and moderate relaxed tempo.

As such, I can think of no plausible reason why any standard aromatic pipe smoker or those who are looking to simply try a peaceful specimen of the subject genre would find dissatisfaction with this blend. Is it perfect and optimum? Maybe or maybe not, again that is a delicately subjective and conditional assessment 3.1 Pipes

First Take: This blend has a very pleasant, soft, pillowy, slightly fruity, tobacco-forward flavor. It reminds me of 1-Q in its flavor profile and its relative mildness. It burned a little faster than I anticipated.

Mine was bone dry. I needed to relight it a couple of times even though I constantly puffed on it. Other than that, I had no issues. I burned it hot, and it didn't bite at all. Because I burned through my bowl so quickly, I went ahead and lit a second one, and I still didn't feel any nicotine.

Pleasant and mild aftertaste. This blend is not bold and doesn't linger. I'm glad I tried it and I would definitely recommend this blend to anyone looking for something around the 1-Q target, but different. That said, I won't re-up.

2023-02-10 Update: I smoked this blend in my churchwarden, and I think that made a pretty big difference. This blend shines when it has a bit of heat, and the long stem of a churchwarden helps cool the smoke from the hot ember. I'll reinforce the 1-Q link, as I smoked 1-Q yesterday. However, this blend doesn't necessarily taste like 1-Q. It tastes like Stokkebye's answer to 1-Q, as in it fits the same niche. This blend is well-rounded, well-blended, high quality, low nicotine, lightly cased, naturally sweet, approachable for any newcomer, and interesting enough to keep a well-seasoned pipe smoker entertained.