Ethanol and tobacco

Rin Japanese cigarettes

by

rin cigarettes

Rin cigarettes is the latest offering in the Japan tobacco market
and has an almost Zen like minimalist approach to the design of the
pack. It’s marketed by Japan Tobacco (JT) and the most interesting
thing you’ll notice straight away is the URL listed in front of the
pack – http://www.mhlw.go.jp/topics/tobacco/main.html. It goes to a WHO
tobacco health warning website. You think you’ve seen everything, and
something like this comes along… 😉

rin cigarettes back

The back of Rin cigarettes is similarly verbose, in a minimalist
way, of course. Did that even make sense? Nevermind. Anyway, Rin
cigarettes from JT come in a beige colored pack with a single red
Japanese character for “Rin” (I presume) which makes it stand out. This
product was bought in Japan (Thanks ff!), so the only English
characters I could make out is the phrase “Japanese Original Blend” and
the numerical “100%”.

rin cigarettes texture

The flip top pack is embossed with a raised grid texture too – a
very novel design decision that I’ve never seen implemented in
cigarette boxes before. The grid is not merely functional e.g. to
provide a better surface grip, but is pleasing to the senses as it
portrays a throwback to the old days of Japan (not that I would know
what that is like, it just gave me that feeling).

rin cigarettes filter

The open pack of Rin cigarettes also reveals another complementary
unconventional design aspect – the filters of Rin cigarettes come in a
very interesting shade of light amber. The grid texture combined with
this unusual choice of filter makes it stand out from other cigarette
offerings.

rin cigarettes taste

Rin cigarettes is a near full flavored cigarette blend at 11 mg tar
and 1.2 mg nicotine per cigarette too. It tastes good…very smooth
draw and it has a nice, toasty aftertaste.

rin cigarettes single

The tobacco contained inside Rin cigarettes is unusual too…the
color is distinctively different, but unfortunately, I only noticed
that when I used one to spin…it matches the filter color in some
shades. Nice…

Pall Mall Classic cigarettes

by

pall mall classic

Pall Mall came out with Pall Mall Classic cigarettes earlier this
year as a limited production run. It’s billed as a cigarette with more
refined tobacco mix and the classic taste of the original Pall Mall
cigarettes. Unfortunately, Pall Mall Classic was taken off the shelves
due to low consumer interest before I could get a pack.

pall mall classic box

I was pleasantly surprised to find a 25 pack of Pall Mall Classic at
the store of the grocery shop one of my friends own. It was supposed to
be recalled by the manufacturer, but he kept one anyway, and gave it to
me, knowing my legendary tardiness and paradoxical fondness for new
and/or limited edition cigarettes.

pall mall classic foil

The gold foil preserving the (dubious) freshness of these long due cigarettes has the letters “Pall Mall” inscribed on it.

pall mall classic 25

Tearing off the foil lining reveals the familiar sight of the 25
cigarette array (used to get Marlboro 25’s in uni coz it’s cheaper)…

pall mall classic cigs

…and each of the Pall Mall Classic cigarettes has the standard black font “Pall Mall” letters scripted on the tip.

pall mall classic stick

Despite the time, the Pall Mall Classic cigarettes taste good. There
wasn’t any hint of the staleness that I expected. I thought Pall Mall
Classic is a great complement to the existing Pall Mall line. It’s a
mystery to me why Pall Mall decided to pull Pall Mall Classic off the
shelves.

Just like the mystery behind Cherry Coke being taken off the shelves years ago. It still keeps me up at night…

Lite-Up cigarettes – RM 1.50 only!

by

lite up cigarettes

I’m pleased to present to you the cheapest pack of cigarettes I’ve
seen to date – it’s called Lite-Up and comes in a red box and retails
for the amazingly low price of RM 1.50 per pack!

lite up sibu

Lite-Up cigarettes is made in Sibu, which also happens to be my
hometown. It’s a limited distribution locally produced tobacco product.

lite up open

The pack of Lite-Up opens up to show the standard King Size filter
20’s cigarettes. It has a stylized L on the tip of the cigarette and a
stylized “LITE-UP” font in red on top.

lite up single

I can’t say much about the taste of the cigarettes…it’s not all
that good, which is pretty much obvious when you take into account the
incredibly low RM 1.50 retail price.

lite up spin

You can’t argue with the price though…and the tobacco is nice and dry. I just use the tobacco to spin. 😉

Just: The new way to enjoy wine

by

just wine display

The Just label is not well known for wine…at least I haven’t heard
of it, until I saw this display at the Jusco supermarket. The
attractive features of the Just wine display is the unconventional wine
bottle size, the wide range of varieties available and the affordable
price at RM 8.50 per bottle.

just wine display close

Just seems to be a new label and has an interesting tagline which goes Just: The new way to enjoy wine.
The small Just wine bottles are color coded based on the type of wine
it contains – there are various options of red and white wine.

just cinsault merlot

I couldn’t resist the interesting bottles and grabbed two different
ones, a Merlot and a Cinsault. The bottles have easy screw on “metal
corks” (otherwise known as covers) and thus can be appreciated without
having to purchase a corkscrew. Just wine is a produce of France.

just merlot

The Merlot is described as “a round and balanced Merlot with aromas
of ripe fruits” and weighs in at 12.5% alcohol. It tasted alright, but
I’m no wine connoisseur so I can’t be more descriptive than that,
unless I sprout some pretentious bullshit about the wine being “naughty
to the palate at the beginning, with an aftertaste that caresses the
tongue with warm notes of oak” or something to that effect. 😉

just cinsault

The Cinsault has a label that describes it as “a consistently fresh
and aromatic Cinsault with delicate aromas of red fruits”. I’ve never
heard of the word Cinsault before, but it tasted like a rose wine. This
one comes in at a slightly more satisfying 13% alcohol. I had it at
room temperature, and it tasted alright nevertheless.

just new wine

Just: The new way to enjoy wine!

Carlo Rossi 187 ml mini bottle

by

carlo rossi mini shelves

I saw this interestingly sized bottle of Carlo Rossi red wine on the
shelves – it’s between a long necked beer bottle and a 750 ml wine
bottle with normal dimensions, so the diminutive size is quite
noticeable. I also got the unusually smaller bottle to the right, but
haven’t sampled it yet.

carlo rossi mini bottle 187

Carlo Rossi is a well known local brand due to its competitive
pricing structure (a pretentious way of saying that its cheap ass wine
;)). I’ve had this particular label quite a number of times, and while
it’s nothing to write home about, I can’t argue with the value. Carlo
Rossi red wine comes in the normal bottles and larger 3 liter ones as
well.

carlo rossi mini cali red

This small bottle costs RM 11.65 and contains 187 ml of red wine. It
was dusty when I got it off the shelves…I wonder if it’s meant for
sale or rather as a free gift. Nevertheless, it was collecting dust on
the shelves of the local supermarket, so I decided to relieve it of its
pain. 😉

carlo rossi mini 14

Carlo Rossi red wine contains 14% alcohol. That’s on the higher
range when it comes to wine (not counting port or brandy), so it comes
out as a pretty good value for the price range.

carlo rossi mini

Download: Carlo Rossi 187 ml [sixthseal.com].

I drank the small bottle of Carlo Rossi red last night, and found that it was the perfect size for after work quaffing.

That’s right…you don’t sip Carlo Rossi…you quaff it. 😉

Sobranie Mints cigarettes

by

sobranie mints

Sobranie is a London based cigarette brand and Sobranie Mints is one
of their slim cigarette product lines. Sobranie Mints are not available
in Malaysia, as far as I know, but I managed to get a pack of these,
courtesy of Irene. Thanks!

sobranie mints back

This pack of Sobranie Mints is from Korea and the back of the pack
describes it as “A menthol cigarette of style and distinction from the
famous House of Sobranie”. These cigarettes are definitely different
from the first look – the pack is long and thin.

sobranie mints specialty cigarettes

Sobranie Mints are marketed as specialty cigarettes and retails for
much higher than normal premium cigarette brands, from what I gather
from the prices on the Internet cigarette retailers. It certainly looks
nice, with the blue-green hued graphics…

sobranie mints made uk

This particular pack is made in the UK despite the Korean
characters. It’s an ultra light cigarette with 5 mg tar and 0.5 mg
nicotine.

sobranie mints pack compare

Here’s a size comparison to give perspective to the dimensions of
the Sobranie Mints cigarette pack. It’s much longer and slimmer than
regular King Sized cigarettes.

sobranie mints foil

The pack is lined with gold foil with “Sobranie” inscribed on it.

sobranie mints cigarettes

The Sobranie Mint cigarettes have a nice greenish blue hue on the
filters, which slowly tapers off as it reaches the end. The tip of the
filter has a gold band and letters spelling SOBRANIE, also in gold. The
cigarette body is inscribed with “Mints”, written in the same bluish
green color, in italics and underscored. This is one classy cigarette…

sobranie mints filter holes

Here’s a closer look at the Sobranie Mints filter – notice the two arrays of airflow holes…

sobranie mints cigarette compare

This is another side-by-side comparison to a regular cigarette.
Sobranie Mints are much longer and slimmer, with an equally generous
filter.

sobranie mints cigarette

Sobranie Mints are fun to smoke. It feels strange to hold such a
slim and almost fragile cigarette instead of the regular sized ones.
Sobranie Mints smokes well too, with nice notes of mint dominating the
tobacco taste. It’s well made and burns nice and long, producing a very
satisfying smoke.

sobranie mints end

I finished the pack of Sobranie Mints before I knew it. It really is
that good. I wouldn’t say that it’ll replace your regular cigarettes,
but these things are so fun to smoke that you can’t help but smoke
every one of them…

L&M promotional cigarettes packs

by

lm collector pack

L&M came out with this limited run packaging for both the
menthol and full flavored variants last year. It’s nothing to write
home about, I imagine it’s marketed as a collector’s item.

lm collector pack slip

It has a pack of L&M cigarettes and a lighter for RM 9. I
remember L&M cigarettes were going for RM 4 before the price hike,
so that means the lighter is RM 5. That’s one hell of an expensive
lighter, considering it’s not refillable, like a Zippo.

lm collector pack naked

Here’s a closer look at the front of the pack, without the distracting translucent cover…

lm collector pack back

…and here’s the back of the pack.

lm open pack

The limited edition box features a slide-out, flip-open design –
revealing a recessed receptacle containing a pack of L&M cigarettes
and the L&M lighter.

lm open design

It’s quite well designed, though I can’t imagine the target market with the pricing…

lm lighter instruction

The interesting bit in this particular is the lighter, which also
came with an instruction booklet (!). I’m glad it did, God knows I
can’t operate a lighter without reading a manual first. 😉

lm lighter

This is a closer look at the lighter in question…

lm lighter light

…and the L&M lighter when it’s in action.

lm new promotion

L&M seems to have a fondness for designing clothes for its
cigarettes for they came out with another promotional pack recently.

lm new promotion pack ff

This is the full flavored packaging design. It features a male and
female model in what I presume is supposed to be a rugged, rough look.

lm new promotion pack menthol

The menthol version features what seem to be the same two models,
this time going for the hip and cool look. Is hip even a word nowadays
or did it get deprecated in the turn of the millennium?

lm push out

Anyway, the interesting part of these new promotional packs is the
price – it retails for RM 8! That’s two packs of L&M cigarettes,
together with the push-out packaging for the pre-price hike price of RM
4.

lm new promotion packs

It’s a great deal! L&M – Mellow, distinctly smooth… 😉

Shag cigarettes review

by

shag cigarettes carton

Shag cigarettes is a specialty, limited distribution cigarette brand
based in the EU. It is not currently available outside of the UK, Spain
(Ibiza), Gibraltar, and South Ireland. The major distribution channels
for Shag cigarettes is the UK and I happened to stumble upon the Shag cigarette website
[shagcigarettes.com] one day and loved the advertisement campaign, so I
got Jasmine to get a carton for me before she came back.

shag cigarettes front

I received the Shag cigarettes yesterday and was mildly surprised
that it made it through customs, since it does not have the requisite
watermark indicating local or duty free cigarettes. I was also more
than mildly surprised that the package was not…intercepted, shall we say; by some postal worker for their personal use since cigarettes is a valuable commodity. 😉

shag cigarettes back

Here’s a look at the back of the pack of Shag cigarettes. The color
scheme of Shag cigarettes is black and there’s also a warning label on
the back of the cigarette which is about the same size as the one in
front. The whole Shag cigarette pack looks sleek and they do get
attention when you put it in your front pocket, as I’ve noticed.

shag url

There is a sign in the middle of the back of the box that has the
Shag logo and their official website. This is a very niche tobacco
product, and I was pleased that Jasmine managed to get a hold of these
and send me a Shag, as it were, as I’ve been interested in collecting
these hard-to-get cigarettes.

shag made in eu

The top of the box is adorned by a UK Duty Paid stamp and lettering
that says “Made in the EU under the authority of Shag Tobacco Company
Ltd.”.

shag adult

The side of the flip-top box has a sign indicating that Shag Cigarettes are “For Adult Use Only”, which I found to be funny.

shag funny

It’s nowhere near as funny as the huge “Smoking seriously harms you
and the others around you” warning label on the front though.
Seriously? Well, no shit, Sherlock. 😉

shag active contents

The bottom side of the pack lists the active contents of Shag
cigarettes as having 8 mg tar, 0.6 mg nicotine and 9 mg carbon dioxide.
That’s a very low figure for a full flavored cigarette compared to
Malaysian standards which is 20 mg tar and 1.5 mg nicotine, more than
double the amount of these cigarettes.

shag side print

The other side of the pack is lettered with “These cigarettes have
been manufactured from the finest quality tobaccos to give a rich,
smooth and satisfying taste”.

shag pull

Opening up the pack, I found the usual foil that has the familiar “Pull” sign on it.

shag open surprise

However, I was surprised to find some sort of script on the inside of the flip top box.

shag flip top letters

The text says “These cigarettes should reach you in perfect
condition. If you have any problem with this product please visit our
website at; www.shagcigarettes.com”. Interesting indeed…

shag cigarettes

Shag cigarettes have the “Shag” logo printed on them. I have smoked
these cigarettes yesterday and today and found them to be comparable to
Mild Seven Lights. It’s admittedly weak; this is not the “first
cigarette of the day” type of cigarette. It’s not strong enough for
that. It’s good for a fun smoke and the novelty value though. 🙂

shag logo

However, I can appreciate the marketing efforts of Shag Tobacco
Company Ltd in target marketing this brand of cigarettes towards a
certain niche market that’s willing to spend for novelty value.

shag care for one

Care for a Shag, anyone? 😉

Dunhill 40th Anniversary Limited Edition Pack

by

dunhill 40 pack

Dunhill is producing elegantly designed limited edition packs for
its 40th anniversary. The interesting twist about this is that it
retails for 50 cents less than the usual price. The limited edition “40
Years of Dunhill” packs goes for a special price for RM 6.00 instead of
the usual RM 6.50.

dunhill 40 pack 1

These limited run packs to commemorate Dunhill’s 40th year of
production in Malaysia features a well-designed and stylish pack, a
nice aesthetic change from the usual bland Dunhill packs. There is the
familiar Dunhill crest spanning part of the front of the pack…

dunhill 40 pack 2

…continuing through the side…

dunhill 40 pack 3

…and ending at the back of the Dunhill 40th anniversary back. It’s very artistically done.

dunhill 40 pack back

The back of the pack is also different from the usual Dunhill packs.

dunhill 40 pack sig

There is a script in the bottom left corner that inscribes the 40th anniversary of Dunhill text and the accompanying signature.

dunhill 40 pack top

The same “40 Years of Dunhill” celebratory message is also imprinted on the top…

dunhill 40 pack bottom

…and the bottom of the pack.

dunhill 40 pack open

I proceeded to take off the wrap (the flip-top box also has a 40 Years of Dunhill text) and was surprised to find…

dunhill 40 pack wow

…this beautiful foil which features and intricate design with the red and golf motif! I started to pull at the “foil”…

dunhill 40 pack revealed

…which disappointingly reveals that it’s a card insert.

dunhill 40 card front

The front of the card details this limited edition run as a “only
while stocks lasts” item to commemorate 40 years of causing cancer and
heart disease to Malaysians. 😉

dunhill 40 card back

The back of the card states the same thing in three different languages, just to rub it in.

dunhill 40 pack sticks

Unwrapping the normal foil reveals that the cigarettes are the same as the Dunhill ones, the changes are just aesthetic.

dunhill 40 pack norm

The cigarettes are no different from the usual ones but this 40th
anniversary limited edition Dunhill packs is going to sell fast for one
simple reason:

dunhill 40 pack end

It’s 50 cents cheaper to celebrate 40 years of causing cancer and
coronary problems to Malaysians. It goes for RM 6.00 instead of RM
6.50. Grab it while stocks last!

Dunhill – 40 years of providing cancer. 😉

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...