Decadent Vapours Welsh Pipe
ConcreteRiver
Disclaimer: I didn't pay for this, shoutout to Decadent Vapours for sending this to me.
Setup: Recoil w/ flavor barrel, Dual 12 wrap 24g 3.5mm SS316 @.30 ohms. 60w power, 450F temp limit. Full Cotton Wicks.
Testing: Decadent Vapours Welsh Pipe, 5% and 10%, 60/40 VG/PG base, Steeped 56 days.
Flavor Description: A robust and fairly dirty sassafras-ish pipe tobacco.
Fairly aggressive tobacco absolute base. It’s definitely a very traditional tobacco forward concentrate. Nothing smokey but a pretty intense dirty ashiness. Robust and dark tobacco flavor, with some heavier roasted coffee or cocoa notes and a moderate amount of sweetness to it. Bitter accents, being picked up by the herbal or botanical side of this.
DV calls out “botanical” notes here, and that’s probably a pretty good description. I’m picking up something like an aniseed or licorice. Seems to come across more like sassafrass than anything else. It’s vegetal while still being fairly crisp, with maybe a hint of fresh grass. No darker, swampy vegetal notes. Also seems to have a bit of a spearmint in the finish, complete with a light cooling effect. I’m not getting that standard Desert Ship type of arabian/turkish vegetal note, seems likes a fairly different beast altogether. I sort of hate that desert ship vegetal note up against any kind of a hint of cocoa or nuttiness, but this seems to be working fairly well.
Full mouthfeel. Not too dry, but also doesn’t feel damp or too moist. Aggressively aromatic without those botanicals being too sharp or thin. Sweetness of the tobacco base plays off the ashy absolute notes and the sharpness of those botanicals to feel pretty well balanced overall.
Off-Flavors: Nothing that feels out of place for a botanical pipe tobacco.
Throat Hit: Moderate, but that kind of feels like part of the point. It’s fairly robust in general.
Percentage testing: At 5%, this is punching pretty hard. Balance isn’t bad here, but feels a bit flat without those sassafras notes really coming through clearly. Perfectly workable here, but maybe a bit less fun.
At 10%, this is bold. Pretty aggressive overall. Heavy ash, heavy tobacco, heavy botanical accents. Still balanced, but a lot fuller.
DV, as usual says 20%, but this is plenty intense for me lower than that. Just based on these tests, I’d probably be around 8-10% solo with this, given my setup and everything. I’d use it as an accent closer to 3%.
Uses & Pairings: This basically just feels like a fully realized solo flavor to me. It’s full, pretty intense, and I can’t really think of anything else I want to throw in there except maybe some FA Black Fire for some smoke.
You could probably use this an accent with a slightly less intense tobacco that doesn’t have that absolute kind of dirty base. This would work well for a cigar wrapper effect in those applications.