Ho ho ho and happy holidays, boys and girls. It's Santa here, filming on location at his favorite tobacconist, Low Country Pipe & Cigar in South Carolina, the sister store to Smokingpipes. Today I'm smoking a very special holiday blend in the Low Country Pipe & Cigar line of tobaccos produced by Jeremy Reeves and Cornell & Diehl: Carolina Christmas.

Carolina Christmas Components & Tin Notes

Carolina Christmas is a complex blend of Red Virginia Cavendish, heirloom Burleys, matured Red and Brightleaf, Genuine St. James Parish Perique from 31 Farms in Louisiana, and exotic Katerini Turkish. This is a really complex mixture with a lot going on with the components and flavors, and really, that's the way Santa likes it.

Let's see what the tin has for us. It's very rich, slightly earthy, slightly sweet, and there's some hints of baked goods. There's a little bit of earthiness and a little bit of a floral quality coming from both the heirloom Burleys and the Katerini Turkish, with just the right amount of spice and a little bit of dark fruit notes from the Perique.

Carolina Christmas is a really nice wild, or loose, cut. There's a couple of different widths of ribbon here. It has the perfect moisture content straight out of the tin. I think this works well in a variety of chamber sizes.

It's really easy to pack and light, it takes to the flame really well, and the burn is really dynamic and forgiving of different cadences; You can puff away on it and still enjoy it, or you can back off a lot if you're really in search of the complexity and the flavor.

Bold & Natural Flavor Profile

There's so many big, bold flavors right off the bat. It's hard to pick a thread to follow, really. I think that what Santa gets initially is the body and the earthiness from the heirloom Burleys and probably also the Katerini Turkish. There's a little bit of that floral quality and the Perique is just in the background in the beginning. You feel it a little bit, especially on the retrohale, with a nice spice coming through the nostrils. I'm definitely getting a little bit of the dark fruit notes on the finish and I think what it does is it amplifies the sweetness from the proprietary Red Virginia Cavendish, and also the Red and Bright flue-cured leaf.

As the bowl progresses, It's very evident that Carolina Christmas is rich and medium plus in both flavor and strength. I think it will appeal to a lot of smokers out there, especially those of us who really value and prioritize natural tobacco flavor in our pipe-tobacco mixtures.

As the bowl progresses, it's evident that the Red Virginia Cavendish and the heirloom Burleys are the foundation and they provide a really nice stage for the Katerini, the other Virginias, and the Perique to really come in and out of the smoke. This is one that is going to shift several times throughout the bowl and I think it really takes a lot of bowls to wrap your head around it.

It has the complexity of flavor, the versatility, and also the dynamic burn qualities that Santa really appreciates from some of his favorite Cornell & Diehl-produced mixtures.

Comforting & Complex Blend

Carolina Christmas is a holiday mixture that Santa's been dreaming of. It really gives you everything that you want if you seek out complex natural tobacco flavors, but it does have hints of warm spice, mulled wine, dark fruits, and even a touch of cocoa flavor. This is all naturally occurring, and what you end up with is an extremely complex blend that is comforting, complex, and perfect for the colder winter months.