Hearth & Home Viprati

This is the first hearth and home blend I have tried.. overall really impressed.. decent va/per with a dash of dark fired as advertised.. subtle fruity notes but also definitely a little earth and spice.. Has an odd burn to it and certainly different processing than I am accustomed to.. You do have to kind of tease out the flavors and I sense it isn't completely natural.. but that is ok.. the end result is a decent smoke at a good price.. I think it will age well... the blending is sure top notch.. Interesting marriage of flavors.. I think the only thing that puts me off is what I perceive to be a processed flavor.. maybe some kind of additive..

The appearance of Viprati is a ribbon of several varieties of Virginia hay-colored to medium-brown, with finely chopped bits of burley and perique mixed in. Occasionally there are badly shredded leaves, but, in general, the cut is quite even. The tobacco is a little dry, but even in this form it can be stuffed into a pipe for immediate smoking. Nevertheless, I slightly moistened it to the desired condition.

Smell: Bread aroma, with hints of molasses, hay and dried fish. There is also a fairly bright note of figs and dark raisins, lightly seasoned by the aroma of spun wine and a slight hint of bitter chocolate. Surprisingly, the perique gives off little to no spicy flavor or peppery nuances. The flavor, on the whole, is quite simple and easy to decompose into components - one gets the impression that something similar can be made at home. The tobacco is extremely easy to light.

The taste of the tobacco is quite obvious wheat bread with raisins and nuts, on which a fair amount of perique is immediately imposed, giving a spicy and even somewhat pungent taste, which may not appeal to everyone. Nevertheless, those who are already used to spicy food are probably going to like it. A little later the ensemble is joined by a citrus note with a slight sourness, but, in general, the tobacco is sweet enough. Excessive spice smoothes out fairly quickly, closer to the middle comes spicy notes and a light flavor of dark dried berries (raisins and plums). The blend becomes a harmonious sweet-spicy tobacco of medium strength that doesn't bite or dry the throat. It has almost no presence of burley. Nevertheless, it dominates in the aftertaste, taking Virginia to the background and leaving an earthy peanut flavor in the mouth. The tobacco smokes dry and medium-hot, a slight nicotine hit is possible when smoking in large pipes. The blend burns into a light gray dry dusty ash, leaving a drop or two of moisture in the pipe.

The smoke from the tobacco has a woody, bitter aroma with a hint of roasted spices like ginger and turmeric. It is pleasant enough, easily dispersed.

Bottom line: my initial concerns about the presence of burley and too much perique in the blend were not confirmed. The blend was quite interesting and certainly of very high quality. The only downside for me would be the aftertaste which is a little bit dominated by the burley. Undoubtedly, the tobacco is worthy of its place in my collection. I have another tin, and after a few years I'll open it to see if Virginia can eventually take over the initiative.

Smells nice in the tin and a nice cut. There's clearly a topping on this and its a bit distracting in the initial part of the bowl, but fades quickly. The smoke has nice body and the taste of the perique is a bit different here than you get in a standard VaPer. Some sweetness adds to its depth, and in some bowls that grew as the bowl progressed. Overall, a good VaPer that I'd recommend trying, but not something to unseat other favorites and benchmark blends.

A singular VaPer. Absent of spice, this one is all sweetness. Great Va base, and the Perique here adds big fruit sweetness. IMO the single best thing Russ O. has made. If you took the best light Va ribbon you could find, and blended it with a fruit-y sweet Perique, you could not come up with this. It's absolute perfection as VaPers go, IMO.

It seems that Mr Russ is very fond of Latakia, and although this mixture is much smaller and more subtle than Chatham Manor, it has still been spotted by me. Someone who knows Mr. Russ should confirm my findings.

No matter how excellent works are, they are not the only ones here. I will smoke many times a day, but I will never smoke only one thing. The wine cellar will not store one style of tobacco.The wife didn't like the smell of the room

I had very high expectations here. Another reviewer of this blend likened the tin note of Viprati to feminine odor - ah yes, that’s Perique for you, that musky perfume of spice and warmth, raw and pungent like Nature itself. I even blushed a little bit when I opened my tin, but only because I think Mother Nature forgot to sit on mine - I just bought a tin of Bright Virginia. No, this was a sweet field of hay, but it tasted as good as it should have when I smoked it. It’s high quality Virginia ribbon with a smoky sprinkling of DFK in the background that doesn’t bite as awfully as some other reviews claim. I’m sure some others will say that if you smoke five tins of Viprati the sixth one contains a Corsican Maiden. They might be right, but I’m not out to wed this one.

I'm writing this after a long working trip day.

The aroma from the thin is sweet and cytrus. From the beginning its sweetness is evident and could be a little cloying. Latter on some toasty and leathery flavours emerges.

It is not a complex blend, the flavour is almost the same the whole time.

It could be a nicotine bomb, in my opinion, and although I rest it for a while it would produce some moisture. Because of both reasons I would recommend slow smoke.

Marinated with a Los Monges Dark Strong Ale, great way to bring all the flours and bring some complexity to the blend.

In my case best smoked on a briar bent apple.

https://www.instagram.com/kik_rpm/

Oh, the Marquee series delivers again. This time with a VaPer of the highest order. Rich, sweet fruitiness that takes on an almost tangy ketchup(not quite) to the under notes. Some lovely wood and slight spice notes creep up from the depths of this blend to be just complex enough without over doing it. The burley adds just the right amount of boldness to the overall character of Viprati. One I will smoke on occasions and always have some in my stock.