G. L. Pease - Barbary Coast pipe tobacco reviews

Review

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Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
Showing reviews 1 through 20 of 143 reviews of this tobacco NEXT >
Kashmir	05/18/2010	Mild	Mild to Medium	Very Mild	Pleasant
This is the second tin of Barbary Coast that I have gone through over the last month, and I can now sit down to write a review. I really wanted to like this blend from G.L. Pease, but I can not bring myself to do so. I alternate between different Virginia- Perique blends like Escudo and McBarrens HH Acadian Perique, both of which are my favorite tobaccos. I also like Hado's a lot. Westminster, with its heavy Latakia presence, I do on the road, as the wife can't stand it. Back to the review: In Barbary Coast its like the potential is there, but was never fully realized. I give it an A for effort and intention, smell and feel, but B minus for execution and the actual smoking of the blend. Tin aroma is a bit much on the brandy casing, but reminds one of dried fruits, especially dried prunes to my nose. Consistency of the tobacco is marvelous, and very easy to pack, just use a light hand. The Burly is also very nicely sweet, although subtle. The Perique comes on strong past mid-bowl. Barbary Coast (non-aged) arrives much too moist to my liking, and will require multiple lightings, at least for the first third of the bowl. Poured the entire tin onto a plate and let it air out for two days, then it lights and keeps lit much easier. But something is missing here. The sweetness of the Virginias and Burly is never fully realized. Does one subtract from the other here? Don't know. Perique is just about right. All is all, I was not wowed by this blend and give it only 2.5 stars out out four. Sorry Greg!
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Pipedawg	04/08/2010	Medium	Medium to Strong	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable
I absolutely love cube-cut tobacco, and I don't know why it's such a rarity in blends. However, this particular one will not find it's way into my regular rotation. I do like that real earthy, dirt taste of these Burleys, and that's about what I have to say in the positive side. It has WAY too much casing, and you have to dry this tobacco out real good to make it burn well. But once you've managed to find the right dryness, it burns fantastic! But popping the lid is just not enough. I've tried that, came back to it after 2,3 and 4 weeks and it's still as moist as hell. I'd recommend spilling it all out on the table (or where ever), and let it dry there for a day or two. Even though it is not an overwhelmingly strong bacco, the nicotine content is pretty high. If there is any Perique in this blend, it must have drowned somewhere in that brandy sauce. While not in steady rotation, I do buy a tin of it every two years or so. Yes I do like it, but this is not a blend I crave for very often. But every once in a while, perhaps on a warm, dry summer night, I enjoy a pot of Barbary Coast along with a cold glass of greek white wine (Retsina). Without the casing, this could've been a favourite of mine.
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Alguhan	04/03/2010	Medium	Mild	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable
The tin moisture would make it hard to light and smoke. So please have patience with this blend. It packs and lights very easily after a nice airing. This is a nice blend. Spicy, cool smoking and satisfaction guaranteed taste. Just because of the full brandy taste I can't smoke it daily. It is an ocassional tobacco for me. It tends to burn fast because of the fine cube cut. So it may satisfy the fast smokers. I personally prefer to smoke very slow. I found this blend week on sweet Virginias. If you are searching for sweet Va this blend may not be suitable for you.
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Tortuga	03/20/2010	Medium	Medium to Strong	Medium	Pleasant
After reading the tin description, how could you resist? I would say, however, that the "kiss" of Brandy is more of a wet, tongue-down-the -throat kind of kiss. What I believe could be billed as a more classy style of aromatic, Barbary Coast just doesn't cut it for me. It consists of extremely damp, curled cube cut that reminds of gunpowder green tea. Each fleck has a rolled quality to it that insures the only way to load is by gravity fill. I tried drying it on a side board for 3 days and it still smoked so hot that any flavor created from the very fine tobaccos used by GL Pease is rendered moot. Toasting in the oven was recommended to me by a veteran smoker, but that's kind of where I draw the line. I don't want to involve any additional labor on my behalf after making a purchase other than perhaps a little delayed gratification if necessary. If I have to bring an oven in to it, I'll pass. After finishing a tin I can say that I had exactly one rewarding bowl. That came after deciding to store it with the tin lid cracked for several weeks. I think if you love burley with a generous helping of perique, something like OJK, and can handle a very hot smoking blend with a nice scent of brandy, you may have a winner here. For me, it's just to hot to handle, as they say. Lovely tin aroma by the way, but all things considered, not worth the effort to wrestle a fine experience out of it. Barbary Coast was a brilliant idea that suffers somewhat in execution. 2 of 5 stars. Maybe more if you don't mind a hot smoke or like to wear an apron while smoking.
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bumbum	03/08/2010	Extremely Strong	Very Mild	Overwhelming	Pleasant to Tolerable
How can anyone recommend this tobacco as "mild"? It's overwhelmingly strong, and I had to give up smoking it, unless it was mixed with some mild stuff. Bumbum.
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Tripjoker	02/27/2010	Mild	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
This had been on my radar for several months to try. I finally went to the cellar and popped the top on a tin. Wonderful tin aroma and a beautiful presentation of tobacco. That is where compliments start to fall off. After the initial light, you will be teased with a flavor that would be sublime if it were about twice as powerful. You get the impression that a little more aggressive puffing will get you there. It will not. The nicotine level here is low...do not look to this for satisfaction on that end of the equation. The smoke volume is low, the taste is low...you get the idea. It's too bad that the market has so many of these near misses IMHO. For this level of satisfaction, I can chw a stick of gum and keep a few bucks in my pocket. This will be a midlevel aro for the aro loving crowd and will probably please the lighter weight smokers in our society. I for one will give away the remainder of the tins in my cellar to someone who can appreciate it. It breaks my heart to let it go, but as much as I like the flavor and aroma, I just can't justify smoking something that lacks critical strengths in multiple areas.
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CPT/VSG	02/07/2010	Mild	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
A fine burley based blend, nutty with fruity notes. Easy to keep lit, cool smoking, no tongue bite. I'm an English/Balkan blend smoker but this is a nice change of pace smoke for me. Recommended.
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Thorre	01/21/2010	Mild to Medium	Medium	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable
Lights well, burns well. The quality is there, as with all Pease blends. I just did not like the brandy flavoring. This is the only G.L. Pease blend, that I've tried, and do not highly recommend.
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don1688	01/14/2010	Medium	Mild to Medium	Medium	Tolerable
Good blend. I find that the blend is more of a strait forward (albeit high grade) burley when well lit and large amounts of smoke puffed. I also find that when it is smoked in a smoldering way the blend is much more deep- VAs and perique more noticable. With the above being said, this has many nuances no mater what the pace smoked. This is quite evident when compared to other burleys (solani, wessex, peterson and edgeworth for eg- for which I like the whole bunch). This blend proved to me burley is a wonderful tobacco and drove me to enjoy and appreciate the burley leaf.
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SteelCowboy	01/14/2010	Medium	Mild	Extremely Mild (Flat)	Pleasant
Upon opening this tin I was greeted by a wonderful aroma of raisons, figs and plums. The tobacco itself looks equally as wonderful. With great anticipation, I packed my first bowl, which packs easily. That's where the joy began to lesson. I found the flavor to be flat. I continued to smoke through the tin and now that I have reached the end, it really remains a disappointment. Pease blends are designed with aging in mind so I have cellared three or four tins and see what happens next year.
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CD Primal	01/05/2010	Medium	Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable
Nearly finished with my first tin of this very nice blend, my first from the Pease line. I have several others that I am looking forward to after this initial positive experience. My tin was very young, a little over a month since packaging, so I cannot say what this would be like with some age on it. I can say that I like it very much as it is. It has a bright, fresh taste that I particularly like in the afternoon. The perique comes through most toward the end of the bowl, but it is pleasant throughout. This has a light topping of brandy that I cannot detect while smoking but is evident upon breaking the seal. After my first smoke was just a little more damp than I like, I left the lid off for a few hours to dry it out just slightly. Also, as some others have noted it can be a bit tough to get lit, and easy to over pack. However,a little drying, a light touch and few matches will reward with a gentle but "exuberant" smoke. I cannot speak to the roomnote as I have not had the opportunity to smoke it inside, but would think it would not be terrribly off putting. I certainly will buy more and look forward to trying this again with a few months or more of age on it.
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ask4free	12/08/2009	Mild	Medium	Medium	Very Pleasant
Just had one of my best bowls ever! Barbary Coast is fantastic! Nice rich flavor almost perfect sweetness. Cool smoke and very easy to pack bowl due to the cubed cut. It went very well with a sweet rum & coke. I will definitely buy more when this tin is finished.
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Memsys	11/28/2009	Mild to Medium	Mild	Medium	Pleasant
This is good pipe tobacco, I like the tin note, the taste, and the room note. But it bites me every time I smoke it. I have tried the drying it out, charring it and letting it sit for 8 hours, I have smoked it as slowly as I can, I even tried the breathing technique someone mentioned to me (not a fan). Yet every single time it bites me. One day as I was smoking my standby P.A. I had an idea. I mixed Barbary Coast with Prince Albert, a rough 3 to 1. Broke out my largest Wiley and struck up a match. The flavor is very close and it smokes better with less relights. Since P.A. is a mildly sweet burly they mix well and the room note is still pleasant. Now I can finally enjoy Barbary Coast and I do daily. If you love Barbary Coast but your tongue hates it, you might want to give this a try.
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Coskun	11/19/2009	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable
Wet Wet Wet...Tobacco almost perfect but its too moisture! Wait like 2 hour but same again... Cube cut easy pack and lit...Brandy smells everywhere...Burley is perfect, taste some dried fruit and brandy.... I like this stuff...Want to keep my cellar 2-3 tins...
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Big Nick	11/14/2009	Medium	Mild	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable
This is one of those blends that I really wanted to like, but it did'nt happen for me. The cubed Burley and red Virginia is simply gorgeous to look at, combined with the Brandy and Perique there is a wonderful aroma wafting from the tin, it really seems that your in for a treat. My tobacconist warned me to gravity load the pipe and tamp very lightly through the smoke. So I loaded up my Peterson 309 and with great anticipation I fired it up, and fired it up, and then I fired it up, and once more I fired it up. Notice a pattern, very difficult to get it started. Once started it was also very difficult to maintain a burn. As for the taste, anticipation turned into disappointment. I got no sweetness from the Virginia's nor the Brandy. I did get some stale nuttyness from the Burley, but who wants that. My tin is almost gone and not much has changed. I'm going to let the last couple loads I have left dry out to crispy and give it a try. If that helps I'll let you know.
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BigWhiteWilly	11/12/2009	Mild	Mild	Medium	Very Pleasant
Un-freakin believable tobacco. The perique starts off strong and gives way to a lovely complex smoke. There is a wonderful sweetness and flavor that develops from about the beginning of the 2nd half of the bowl. At any time you can bring the perique back full force by some heavy puffs. Towards the end it reminded me of some whiff of pipe tobacco from a distant time, you know that hauntingly beautiful smell as a child that made you want to smoke a pipe? Here it is. Oh! mistress nicotine how I adore thee!
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Mitch	11/02/2009	Mild to Medium	Mild	Mild to Medium	Unnoticeable
I prefer English/Latakia blends, so if your a perique smoker, don't read this. I thought the tobacco was good, just not for me. I don't like fruity flavors in my tobacco. I have had two different perique blends, and so far didn't like either of them. To me this tastes like a air freshener. I am more of a english style of guy anyway. As for quality of tobacco, I thought it was great. Lights really easy, burns smooth. Great blend if you like Perique.
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pipe pirate	10/24/2009	Medium to Strong	None detected	Extremely Mild (Flat)	Unnoticeable
It was kind of bitter and flat tasting and very difficult to keep lit.
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ProdigalWeb	09/01/2009	Mild to Medium	Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
After a long hiatus from pipe smoking, I have returned to it recently. Living way down here in the Appalachian part of southern Ohio, a wide variety of pipe tobaccos is not locally available. Thank goodness for the development of e-commerce since I last smoked. After trying to locate the Balkan-style blends I used to smoke (some of them are still available, but they aren't the same blends they used to be), and after a lot of reading, I decided to work my way through every G. L. Pease blend I could get my hands on. I am starting to work through them in the order they appear on his Web site. The first one is Barbary Coast and I located a supply at Pipes & Pleasures in Columbus, Ohio, a two-hour drive from here. I must admit that I approached this blend with trepidation since it's a Burley blend and my history with them is not terribly successful. When I opened the tin, I was bombarded with all the variety of aromas, especially the chocolate and the fruits. I had a reasonably new pipe that I thought wouldn't have a lot of leftover notes from my old Balkan blends. The tobacco was probably a little wet, but I let it sit for 30 minutes or so and then packed my pipe. At the first, I noticed quite a bit of tongue bite and thought this was going to be a disaster. But the roughness quickly disappeared as it settled down. Very quickly the sweetness and fruity notes became quite apparent. As I reached about the half-way point, the flavors and aroma became more complex and there was a savory note that I love in my foods. I am having about my sixth pipe of this blend as I write this. I notice different notes with each pipe full. This blend will probably never be my favorite because I think Pease will have some Balkan blends that will take over that spot, but I will return to it often just to keep my palate from becoming bored. I will probably also keep a couple of pipes dedicated to this blend and to others similar to it. When I finish this tin, I will move on to Cairo. In the meantime, this is good stuff.
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gillywalker	08/17/2009	Medium	Medium	Medium	Tolerable
I'm a fairly new pipe smoker and for the past year I've fallen in love with burley blends and I'm searching for something that has a decent aroma because most of them smell like either cigars or cigarettes. This has a wonderful brandy/figgy/dried fruit-like aroma in the tin that continues while smoking It was difficult to get lit but once it started it was a nice slow burn. I don't think I let my first tin dry out enough because it really left a goopy coating in my bowl. All other tins have been perfect. I've concluded that following all the burley blends I've tried the past year coming back to this stuff has me saying why did I ever stray? The taste and aroma are so good. This is one of the few tobaccos I've smoked where it actually tastes as good as it smells in the tin. I just bought 16oz of it and this stuff is my go to all time favorite. Thank you Mr. Pease!
Showing reviews 1 through 20 of 143 reviews of this tobacco NEXT >