Bear in mind that it is an excellent product, much appreciated by generations of people with bad taste.
Some of whom, no doubt, have gender issues.
Here then, courtesy of a fellow pipe-mayven who sent it to me, is John Offerdahl's take on a certain well-known Dunhill blend.
It is more prolix than any of my own pithy and brevitous reviews of ghastly tobaccos.
Clearly John Offerdahl was traumatized. Severely.
One can only sympathize.
RECONSIDERING ROYAL YACHT
By John Offerdahl
April 7, 2012.
I reviewed this blend some years ago, but have revisited the blend recently. My opinion of it has changed! Here goes:
Upon opening, the eyes are teased with a relatively monochrome presentation of Virginia leaf. %adly, the eyes can't behold the presentation for long; the "aroma" coming from the tin sets them quickly to watering. Or perhaps it is the sight of the maggots dancing among the leaves....
To me, the tobacco is a bit too moist upon opening. This is a tobacco that needs open time to breathe and air. I suggest doing this in a remote area. When I tried to air my tin inside the house my wife complained that the stench filling the house was far, far worse than a dozen cat litter boxes. I didn't take my gas mask off long enough to verify her statement, but my dogs running from the room gave indication. Once dried to a more appropriate level, I resealed the tin for a bit.
And then came the loading. The ready-rubbed leaf begins to show a bit of coloration, with some lighter and some darker golds and browns. (Here, I should throw in the warning that it is best to handle Royal Yacht while wearing gloves, kind of like when handling Habenero peppers, though the damage done to bare fingers by Habeneros is nothing as painful as from RY!!!) Thus, gloves protecting my hands I carefully stuffed the tobacco into a favorite Dunhill bulldog (which, as it happens, is the only bulldog to ever bite my hand forloading it!).
With the false light came some pretty amazing flavor! I was immediately drawn back into a deep, long-forgotten memory of my childhood. As a boy, I spent summers in Northeast Iowa on my cousins' farm. They raised cows, hogs, sheep and chicken, and the amazing draw of flavors of pigsty and sheep intestine rolled through my pipe and took me back to those now lost days. I could almost see my "Uncle" (really a cousin, but the age of my mother so I called him "Uncle") sitting on that old Ford tractor, the wheels dripping with pig waste, staring down at me as I hauled a bucket of slop to feed the sows, and remember how he used to laugh and say, "So, how's the feedin' comin', City Boy?"
But this is not a tobacco to just sip, as I do with most Virginias. Rather, to appreciate the full experience of Royal Yacht it is necessary to inhale. I mean take draws like you did on that bong 30 years ago in college kind of inhale. Draw the smoke into your lungs like an almost drowned man finally getting his first gasp of fresh air after crawling out of a sinking submarine whose hull ruptured 300 feet below the surface!
And then, after exhaling, it happens:
My first vision was of Satan. He was sitting in a bright red seat of flames, somehow now where, moments before, had been the television, laughing his low, guttural laugh, and telling me that my soul was now his. "NO!", I screamed, as I drew in another puff of this notorious weed. He smiled, and almost immediately was replaced in my vision by 70 dancing, naked virgins. Yet the flesh was not for me - these hags were 80 year-old virgins, having attained their chaste status through years of overeating, not washing, farting, and being just plain hideous! I set the pipe aside, walked to the living room, and poured a double shot of bourbon in hopes of driving the witches away.
Oh, those *itches left all right. And this, sadly, encouraged me to again lift and light the pipe. Once more, the relatively cool stream of smoke drew through the airway and invaded my mouth. Though not hot or acidic, the smoke still somehow burned away about 2 layers of tissue on my tongue. I would liken the experience to drinking a freshly opened bottle of lye, though at least the lye has an acceptable flavor. And with this draw the witches were replaced by diahrettic flying gorillas circling my head, propelled in their flight by the jet propulsion caused by their condition. I watched them circle over me, faster and faster, until they suddenly began hitting me in the head. Their fists were hard as rocks. My head shook. My neck flopped like a broken rubber band. Finally, I was overcome with pain and fear and passed out.
When I awakened, the tobacco, my pipe, and the table on which I had set the pipe, had all burned to a fine, gray ash. I found no dottle at all, though I was a bit troubled by having to clean up the charred hag and gorilla bones.
Highly recommended for Haggis fans, Masochists, and Pipestud.
[SOURCE: http://www.smokersforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=105118 ]
AFTER THOUGHT
John's review is sufficiently revelatory (and utterly factual) that without a doubt, whole hordes of people with an unreasonable fondness for this dank putrid mess will come after him with pitchforks.
All eight (nota bene 8!) of them.
As well as Pipestud.
Who likes it.
I smoked it years ago. The words 'repulsive', 'nasty', 'horribly bad', 'bleah', and "good god what is that offensive skunk-ointment they sprayed on this?" came to mind. The underlying tobacco has no redeeming features other than a certain Netherlandish stringiness.
Which isn't enough.
But I had the presence of mind at that time to never put up what I really thought for all the world to see, not conceiving a need to rile up the venomous bastards that actually like this stuff.
From all accounts, they are inclined towards violent behaviour.
Vengeful, and probably undomesticated im gonzen.
I like a great many Dunhill tobaccos.
This is not one of them.
Thank you, John, for taking one for the team.
And luring the brutes out of hiding.
We now know who they are.
And are warned.
Ga'verdamme.
TOBACCO INDEX
UPDATE AS OF DECEMBER 11, 2012
Hi Pipestud. Howzit?
-----ATBOTH
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