Branzig Reviews: Brucks Batch 15 Virginia W/ Rum Flake

[Branzig]

Special Thanks To @Bruck For Sending Me This Flake To Enjoy And Smoke! This Review Is For You Brother!

Tobacco: Bruck's Batch 15 Virginia with Rum

Pipe: 1950's Wally Frank

Prequel: After commenting on one of Bruce's posts regarding the tobacco he was making, he was kind enough to supply me with some. After 3 bowls of this flake, I decided it was time to write up a little review of what blend-master Bruce put together here!

Tin Note: Nice sweet Virgina notes. Good hints of hay and citrus in this one. The rum topping is very faint, but still there.

The Smoke: This homemade flake came with the perfect moisture content to smoke. I decided to use a wad, or what some call a "musketball" method of packing this one. The tobacco took light very easily and only required a few relights here and there. No tongue bite whatsoever, this nice Va blend behaves itself very well. Surprised me with big, bellows of tasty and chewy smoke. Not what I was expecting! Burned down to a nice grey-black ash with minimal dottle.

Flavors: The initial charring light gave off a nice hint of sweet Virginia, almost vanilla flavor followed up with a hint of citrus. I was expecting more hay or fig tones judging from the tin note, but was shocked by the more citrus, almost spicy hits I was getting. As the bowl heated up, I was amazed at how light and cool this blend was smoking...for a Virginia it is pretty incredible. Kind of reminds me of some of Peter Stokkebye's Luxury offerings, where you have to really try to get the stuff to smoke hot. Moving on into the half way point, the Virginia started to give off some sweat grass type flavors, but that spicy citrus remained on the after taste. Also around here, the Rum decided to say hello. Excellent, sweet rum flavor mixed with the citrus undertones made for a great last half of the bowl. The deeper into the bowl I got, the better and more intense the citrus and rum seemed to get. Really good, bold flavor at the end.

Conclusion: Well, look out folks, but it seems we have a sleeper of the blending world right here on our very own forum! I did compare Bruce to Peter Stokkebye in this little review...so that should say something to everyone reading this. Bruce, you made some great stuff here and I am honored to of been able to smoke it. I am still amazed at how well it behaved for a Va...I am not joking when I say I couldn't get this stuff to bite even when I tried. Just big, mouthfuls of smooth and delicious smoke. You may think I am just being overly gracious to a fellow BOTL here, but I am really not. I would pay for this blend. If I was to give any criticism, it would be over the fact that the flakes are kind of irregular and odd, which makes them a little hard to fold and stuff properly...but I am sure that comes down to the equipment he is using. When it comes to finished product, and most importantly flavor, you knocked it out of the park (at least for me). So, Bruce, sleep well knowing that if for some reason your day job doesn't seem to work out, that you probably can pick up a career as a tobacco blender!

[Bruck]

Thanks Brandon, you're too kind! Mixing up another batch of this blend today. A component of it is some topped VA that @Tobias Lutz sent me last year (he recycled the Puff thread where he shows how to make it in the Do it Yourself section), so, credit where credit's due

It's a pretty simple blend - mostly VA bright leaf, some Turkish Imzir, a bit of Dark Air (cigar leaf), and Tobias' sweet VA, all topped with Rum.

[Bruck]

PS, yes, I slice it by hand

[Branzig]

Not to kind! Just speaking the truth man!

Really good stuff. Where did you get the other tobacco from?

[Bruck]

Sources:
Cigar tobacco from wholeleaftobacco dot com and leafonly dot com.
Cigar and pipe tobacco leaves from thetobaccobutcher dot com.
Some specialty components, such as perique and latakia, from regular pipe tobacco distributors.

Not everything is "from scratch." I also do a certain amount of "rehabilitation" of commercial blends that I bought but no longer like, or never did. For example, a VA/Burley I'm working up right now includes the remains of a pouch of half & half. & in some cases I'll use a perfectly decent (but cheap) commercial blend as a foundation for one of my flake blends, e.g., VA Gold or Captain Black.

[Branzig]

Sources:
Cigar tobacco from wholeleaftobacco dot com and leafonly dot com.
Cigar and pipe tobacco leaves from thetobaccobutcher dot com.
Some specialty components, such as perique and latakia, from regular pipe tobacco distributors.

Not everything is "from scratch." I also do a certain amount of "rehabilitation" of commercial blends that I bought but no longer like, or never did. For example, a VA/Burley I'm working up right now includes the remains of a pouch of half & half. & in some cases I'll use a perfectly decent (but cheap) commercial blend as a foundation for one of my flake blends, e.g., VA Gold or Captain Black.

Well it is all quality leaf from what I can tell!

Once again, great work!

[quo155]

Great review...and I'd trust anything from Bruce to be good stuff. Sounds like some tasty stuff!