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Aromatic Smokers ... When You Finally Find The Specific Blend That Meets Your Flavor Profile

If I were to tell you there were well over one hundred pipe tobacco blends with the word vanilla as part of the product name you might think me mad. But I assure you it's true. And even more when you include those blends with vanilla as the predominant casing. Some claim to be heavily cased and flavorful appealing to the aromatic smoker, while other blends marketed for the more sophisticated palate of the Va-Per or English smoker looking for a little change-up might temper the packaging description suggesting the vanilla was applied with a light hand.

You could spent several months salary trying out all the blends in your quest for the ultimate vanilla. 

Same applies to aromatic flavors like chocolate, peach, cherry, rum, caramel, honey, maple, and other popular flavored tobaccos. But at some point in time that quest must come to an end otherwise you'll find yourself stocked with a cellar full of nearly indistinguishable vanilla blends, with scarcely any difference other than price. If a sweet heavily cased aromatic is your preference then an expensive tinned product isn't always the best choice. Try a cheaper bulk blend. After having gone through so many vanilla blends I finally settled on Sutliff "Vanilla Custard". Now if I want the rich sweet taste of a heavily cased vanilla blend it's my 'go to' tobacco and I've quit buying other vanilla blends. The same with chocolate. My quest for the ultimate chocolate blend has come to an end now that I've found Sutliff "Chocolate Mousse". Yet there are blends I'll try that tout the flavor of hot cocoa, which is quite different from the dark chocolate flavor of "Chocolate Mousse". I've also marked off my quest for a rum flavored tobacco once I discovered India Trading Company "Officer's Club". It's hand's down the best flavored rum blend I've smoked. So even if there may be a more flavorful blend out there which I haven't tried yet, I'm completely satisfied with "Officer's Club" and will look no further. I've narrowed my choice of maple flavored tobacco to Sutliff "Maple Walnut" and Sutliff "Rum And Maple" - but this one is still open for experimentation. I've yet to pin down the perfect fruit flavored tobaccos like Apple, Peach, Cherry or Berry. Although I've made a friend in Panama Jack's "Key Lime". And I've yet to find a suitable brandy, wine, or whiskey liquor flavored blend. So my quest for new blends is far from over, and fully expect to throw good money after bad buying new blends to add to my cellar in the future. But by marking off predominantly flavored vanilla, chocolate and rum blends has narrowed my search and should save me money in the process.  

By marking off vanilla, chocolate and rum doesn't mean I'll discontinue trying blends with varying combinations of those flavors in consort with other flavors. Many of my favorite Russ' Monthly blends like "Warm Up", "Candy Corn", and "Spring Break" include vanilla, honey, caramel, nougat, rum, and dark fruits for an altogether different flavor experience than a straight vanilla based blend. Vanilla and chocolate in combination with other flavors can mimic anything from marshmallow Smores, Caramel Corn, Snickerdoodle, Peppermint Paddy, and Almond Joy. So finding blends with a multi-layered flavor profile is much more appealing to me at this point than buying just another straight vanilla, chocolate, or rum blend.

By using my checklist approach and paring down your aromatic blends to a more manageable level you can continue to experiment with other flavor combinations without having a cellar full of similar tasting tobacco under a different name.     


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