I've just sampled the III Castles and if how it tastes in its unsteeped state is anything to go by, it's going to develop into a fine liquid. This is apparently a RYO tobacco extract which was inspired by someone Clay knows.
I smoked Three Castles exclusively for about ten years, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. The Brits went to Virginia each year and bought the pick of the Virginian crop---the very finest selection among the various different Virginia tobaccos---then took it back to England and processed it without chemicals or additives. Three castles was indeed an RYO, in a ultra-fine shag cut, packed moist and tight like a pound cake into round (cylindrical) metal tins with beautiful green lids. Imported back into the U.S., Three Castles put to shame every other RYO (such as Drum, Sail, or Flying Dutchman). It was the best by a mile.
Naturally sweet without any toppings, Three Castles was the best-tasting tobacco I ever smoked. A single hand-rolled cig could last an hour. You could take a draw, savor the flavor, put down the cig, and it would stop burning and go out. Then you could relight it in five minutes for another puff. As testimony to its purity, Three Castles had a wonderful room note that even non-smokers liked and passed the "
yes, but will girls still want to kiss you?" test with flying colors (I was in my 20s then). If I remember correctly, a 3-ounce tin was $1.85 back in 1975, although the price steadily rose over a decade to almost triple that. A single tin would last me two weeks. I saved the empty tins for storing knick-knacks (rubber bands, paper clips, whatever) and still have one or two in service all these decades later.
Eventually I had to give up Three Castles, though, for two reasons: 1. while the nicotine was quite low, the tar content was brutal in an unfiltered roll-your-own, and cumulatively way too much for my lungs, and 2. finally the U.S. outlawed importing it from Britain, even to the point of banning private shipments from overseas.
Absolutely great stuff. If Clay has been able to replicate the flavor even approximately in a vaping NET, that's a heck of an achievement and some fine magic.
