Posted on August 1, 2022
Now don’t go thinking I’m not the sort of guy to give this tobacco a fair chance; I smoked the whole tin of it before making up my mind
This one is an aquired taste, I believe. This is recommended as a good after-dinner smoke. Although for me it takes a backseat to some other more subtly topped blends.
This is my favourite “desert tobacco”. As other reviews have stated it has a rich caramel flavour and just in general is an enjoyable pipe. The room note is also pure caramel, and so is not likely to offend non-smokers (unless they also happen to hate caramel).
This is an odd one. I have dabbled in aromatics from the mundane and downright awful (Cherry Paladin and Borkum Riff), to the subtle and sublime (Poschl Tabak’s Blue Train). I thought, well, I can tolerate Peterson’s Irish Oak, and I like Old Dublin. Maybe Sweet Killarney is a winsome Irish lass? Not! I found this tobacco to be a bit too sweet, a tad on the moist side, and the caramel flavor was cloying. The room note went along with the flavor for me. To be fair, I’m going to give it another try, on another day. Can’t recommend this one at this time. I might throw some Latakia in and see what happens. if you never hear from me again, I will have expired from caramelitis!
I’m not sure if I bought the same tobacco or not?! I looked at the distinctive label, and it looks the same, but that’s where the similarity ends with the other glowing reviews.
In a word, I’m disappointed. I really wanted to like this tobacco. I have a couple of steady-diet smokes from my local tobac shop, but I wanted a high-quality, dessert smoke. Sweet, but not rot-your-teeth sweet. Flavourful, but not soaked in PG so you need to let it air out for a month before smoking. A good mix of nice tobaccos, not just sticky Black Cav.
With most aromatics, I find that either the taste and smell are full, and so is the tobacco (full of PG). Or it’s a more natural tobacco, and the flavour is gone by the first third of the bowl.
From what I read, Sweet Killarney met all my criteria. At last! I’ve tried it twice now. It’s a nice tobacco, but the aroma and flavour were no where near what they were described as here. They were so muted as to be almost not there. Some sweetness in the tin, and a hint in the first third, but after that. gone!? There is some redeeming quality in the tobacco itself, but I’m going to have to blend this with some English blend to give it some lift. The Virginia is still there by the half-way mark, but all-in-all not even close to what I had hoped for.
The SK provides a little lightness to the IO
Maybe I’ll have to try the Sunset Breeze, but at $25/tin here, I’m not sure if I’ll spend the cash.
UPDATE: I had a tin of Irish Oak as well. Not bad, but a little heavy on the nicotine. (That’s another review). I decided that since this tobacco needed a little body visit our main web site, maybe I should mix the two. It’s not a bad combo. The IO provides a little body to the SK. My “new” tobacco would definitely score higher.
Please don’t think I don’t like aromatics; occasionally I’ll still reach for 509 or Cn. Black. And virginias are my staple choice. So with that in mind, let us continue to the review.