Dear Perry,

Hi! I just looked at your new articles and thought I would submit a tobacco review. This is in a format I am proposing for use on the pipe news group I participate in.

Tobacco: Butera's Kingfisher

My Preferred Tobacco Style: Light Virginias and Natural aromatics
My Favorite Tobacco: No real favorite, still searching for the Holy Grail
My Everyday Smoke: Nat Sherman 307 and MacBaren Dark Twist

Name: Kingfisher
Producer: Butera. May be produced by Esoterica for Butera
Ingredients: Virginia, Burley, Perique
Cut: Cross Cut (Krumble Kake)
Type: English
Strength: Mild-Medium
Packaging: 50 gram Tin

Price: $8:95, Tobacco Supermarket
Review Date: March 16, 2000
Pipe Choice: No name $25 Italian quarter bent apple. I chose this pipe because it is my coolest smoker and it likes English blends. After this I may smoke only Kingfisher in it.

First Impression: The smell in the tin of this tobacco is sweet like dates and currants, but at the same time hints at black pepper. The straightforward smell of Burley is also evident. The kake rubs out nicely, and requires little work to pack.

Top of Pipe: The tobacco lit easily, but went out quickly after the first lighting. Not as much curling from the charring light, but the ash was fluffy and tended to fly around some. After the second lighting, it stayed lit better. The taste was characteristic of a mild Virginia with the thick swirling smoke of Burley. Although I could detect the presence of the Perique, at this stage it is more of a suggestion. The room (truck cab) aroma is straightforward tobacco, not aromatic.

Mid bowl: Now the Perique is really beginning to assert itself. The overall flavor is still mild, but the effect is similar to a slice of pastrami, with a mild, meaty sweetness surrounded by black pepper. The ash at this point is very loose and tends to fly out of the bowl when using any kind of blow and puff technique that is associated with smoking Virginia tobaccos. This is not an outdoor smoke simply because the ash wants to blow about. The flavor at relight is very harsh, as many Burley based blends tend to be. I minimized this by dumping some of the ash.

Bottom bowl: I was able to smoke this down, with just a bit of dottle left. The flavors equalized mid bowl, and stayed about the same to the bottom. The Virginia did intensify in sweetness some.

Post-Smoking Impressions: I liked this smoke very much. I did find that after a stint of smoking Virginias almost exclusively, the nicotine really gave me a buzz at the end of the bowl. The ash was clean and grey, and left my pipe smelling rather good. I did get some wetness toward the end, but I think that Perique makes me salivate excessively since I don't smoke it that often. The Perique flavor in this tobacco really is more like black pepper than McClelland 2015, and not walnutty at all. I will probably keep this on hand. I liked it better than Three Nuns.

John 14:6
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

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