I smoked one yesterday and initially held out a lot of hope for it. It started with some nice black cherry flavors and some nice earthiness, marred only slightly by dirt. (I know earthy and dirty sound the same, but to me, earthy flavors are good - think of nice fertile earth and the rich smell it gives off, and dirt as being the taste of dry, powdery dirt, like you just dropped some food in it and ate it anyway). The cherry flavors were in and out, but eventually the dirty flavors won out and overwhelmed any other flavor in the stick. By the half way point, I didn't even want to smoke it anymore. A purge and a clip - a little tar showed up - helped a little, but not for long. I smoked it into the final third before pitching it. IMO, these won't improve.