Room note is just smoke.

I only bought a 10g sample of this, for which I'm glad now. I'll retry it on another day, but I'm definitely not buying more of it.

The tobacco packs very well and tastes wonderful from the first light. The cherry is more noticeable at first but develops into a creamy more vanilla-flavoured smoke. It burns slowly and remains a pleasant cool sweet smoke right down to the end of the bowl. Sipping slowly will pick up more of the cherry tones but I like to occasionally take big mouthfuls to enjoy the vanilla flavour and nuttiness of the Burley. It is medium bodied and will satisfy those looking for a little strength and nicotine. The flavouring is well-balanced and does not overpower the natural tobacco taste. Overall, an excellent aromatic built from quality tobacco.

If I can ever find this in stock, I'll buy more.

But to me, it is somewhat bitter -- not biting per se, but disagreeable enough after several tries that I probably won't come back to it again for a while. I'm not sure if it's the topping or the constituent tobaccos (the Burley dominates), but whatever is causing it, I don't like it. It smokes cool, but I found myself tugging a bit harder to coax out more flavor, but that just exacerbated the problem.

I prefer blends with more punch. If you're in the mood for something flavored but still serious, then give Firedance a whirl. It's head and shoulders above this one and it's from the same great blender.

In the Tin

This is the first and last time I buy a pipe tobacco based on how cool the tin looks. I like Celtic art and the knots really appealed to me so I bought it (stupid, I know). The smell out of the tin is not unpleasant but not what I expected either. A bit like Cherry liquor. The Ribbon cut was quite nice and the tobacco was the rather moist out of the tin

The pack and the toast

After a few hours of dry time the bowl packed nicely and evenly. Upon toasting I was immediately taken aback by a flavor I can describe no other way than the flavor you get whe you mistakenly shoot bug spray in your mouth. I know that seems harsh but this was a bad flavor.

The Rest

I have smoked a pipe long enough to know that it can take several bowls to get used to and enjoy some blends. I gave this blend 6 tries over about a one month period. My opinion never changed. A lot of reviewers speak highly of this blend and it tends to be sold out on the online retailers but it is not for me. If I had to give this blend some sort of compliment I would say that the burn characteristics of it are great. This blend did not require much relighting and seemed to burn evenly and into a fine white ash.

No good for me. Hope it treats you better.

The hint of cherry carries over into the smoke when you light this tobacco. The taste of good quality tobacco, typical of all their blends, mixes very nicely with a gentle flavour of cherry and a hint of vanilla. The taste remains pretty much the same until you reach the end of the bowl, when it becomes slightly less aromatic and more tobacco flavours come through.

Not as strong as many aromatics, but I like that as it allows the tobacco to blend in with the flavour. I will certainly be keeping a tin on hand so I can enjoy this on a regular basis.

The tin note is chemical and awful, and might bring to mind children's cough syrup. This will cause you to lower your expectations, and if you lower them enough you might enjoy this.

It's a blend predominantly of Burley, I think, and cavendish. The taste of cherry is far more muted in the bowl and actually agreeable, taken for what it is. It tops a rather dry, nutty Burley taste unlikely to impress or offend. I wouldn't know there was any Vanilla in this if the tin description didn't say so, but I thought I tasted a whiff of vanilla halfway down the bowl.

Someone somewhere wrote that this tobacco reinvents the aromatic. I don't know quite what that means. I'll say this: I did actually taste a bit of cherry in it, and the tobacco had a touch of vitamin N as well. And it didn't bite. In those three ways, the tobacco pleasantly surprised me.

I didn't hate it. But it didn't convert me to aromatics.

The tobacco, as noted above, is a tasty blend of virginias with burley and cavendish. I find the mixture to be very balanced. It is not goopy in the least, and does not befoul your pipe. Others have noted the dominance of the burley. I am not sure I would go that far, but the virginias are definitely subdued, which gives this its cool burning characteristics. It is a rubbed out shag type cut in the tin, but I still rub it out a little more. If you are getting bit by this blend, you are not letting it dry out enough, and smoking too fast. It is very cool with no bite if dried properly and not puffed like a maniac.

The flavor is rich tobacco with an overtone of cherry. I can taste the virginias and cavendish, and plumes of smoke are produced. This can be a strong smoke. It is nothing like Gawith's stronger flakes, but it is also nothing like a truly mild blend. If you put it in a large bowl and smoke the whole thing in one shot, you are going to feel the nicotine. I like that, and that is often what I find missing from milder aromatic blends.

Not to sound like a broken record, but the smoking experience here is really dictated by the level of moisture when you light up. If you smoke it right out of your tin or at "storage level" you are not going to get the full, subtle flavor of the tobacco, and it is going to burn hot, and probably bite your tongue. If you let it dry to the touch, it lights more readily, burns very evenly, and will provide you with a rich, cool, and lasting smoke.

Maybe we got a bad batch, because it's difficult to believe SG would intentionally release a disaster like this.

There is nothing in there that compells me to try another bowl of this, the burley is totally dominant and takes over the few lingering strands of a good aromatic.

I can see what they were aiming for, but they missed the target by miles and miles.

Samuel Gawith's other products all outshine this. Not worth your while! -Sorry!

Like all Gawith blends, the tobacco is top quality and the flavoring adds to the fine tobacco flavor. For me a once a month treat when I get a sweet tooth and am bored and tired of all the latika and perique.

The truly great quality of most Gawith blends is their ability to always have a fine tobacco flavor under a subtle added essence. Usually they only blend one or at most two flavors into their blends. While to some they may seem one dimensional, to those of use who enjoy the flavors they use, the taste is exactly what we wanted. In this case Cherry and light vanilla, but such a perfect cherry in a great tobacco tasting base.

The tin aroma is similar to Firedance with cherry instead of blackberry and brandy. Also, Firedance is a flake that smells much stronger and needs a few months to calm down, but is equally enjoyable when the need hits.

Uncle corncob will give you the details. I will only say again this is a blend for the discriminating palate, and not to be missed if cherry is what you want. To bad it bites if you are not careful.

This tobacco is somewhat wet when freshly opening the tin which makes it harder to pack. The amount of moist in it makes it hard to keep lit, requiring more relights than average.

The taste however is the opposite. Little to nothing of the overwhelming smell is left in the taste. Upon lighting this tobacco, without first smelling it, you wouldn't know it's a cherry aromatic.

Personally, this is the tobacco in my collection which I like the least. Due to my not liking it, I haven't smoked it very often, so my opinion might change later through the tin...