House of Windsor - Briggs pipe tobacco reviews

Review

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Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
< PREVIOUS Showing reviews 21 through 37 of 37 reviews of this tobacco
akaiser77	02/18/2006	Mild	Mild	Mild	Pleasant
Don't believe the hype: Briggs is an excellent burley blend. It is also one of the HOW's best pipe tobaccos. A big seller between the 1930s and 1950s, Briggs was famous for both its slogan ("When a Feller Needs a Friend") and its boast of aging for four years in "oaken casks--extra long for extra flavor." If you like burley, you'll love Briggs. One reviewer here compares it to Edgeworth Ready Rubbed. This is an apt comparison, but I find Briggs a more satisfying and flavorful smoke overall. Both share a largely burley composition, with a dash of Virginia white flake added. Briggs has a slightly sweeter taste, and the tobacco used herein is unassailable in its quality. I find it ideal as an all-day companion: cool-smoking, mild, and delicious. If you are interested in exploring the pleasures of burley tobacco, and looking for something more than the bitter dreck of Prince Albert or Carter Hall, then Briggs is a superb place to start. Three stars for this oft-overlooked American classic.
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Jakob Kiilerich	10/09/2005	Mild	Mild	Mild to Medium	Very Pleasant
If this is how true American, pardon my French, blue-collar tobacco should taste like, well then; Hats off! This is a nice Burley blend with a certain pine-like aroma to it; It actually tastes like fresh harpic when lit. Nutty, fresh and mild. As opposed to Union Leader and Country Doctor, this one will not burn the tongue, which is good. As opposed also to Union Leader and Country Doctor, this one does not contain any nicotine, which is bad. Therefore the two stars. I'm off to Granger in a couple of weeks when my shipment arrives to Denmark - I have launched "Project American Drug-Store Blends", since I reckon there might be some good stuff among those products. Jakob Kiilerich, Denmark.
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prison chaplain	07/16/2005	Mild	Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable
The cut makes packing, lighting and smoking Briggs as easy as riding a bike: no problems, nothing complicated, nothing spectacular, but rather nice. The tobacco in the tin has, to me, kind of a tutti-fruiti scent, but that did not translate into the taste of the tobacco. Its a nice smoke; I enjoyed it. I would smoke it again after this tin is gone. The moisture content was just right upon opening the tin; I had no trouble with gurgle or wet heal.
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CantTest	06/17/2005	Very Mild	None detected	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
I have a soft spot in my heart for this blend. This is a tobacco that lives up to its advertising, "when a feller needs a friend." Of all the tobaccos I own, this one is the most mellow, predictable, consistent, and pleasing when the world gets a little too fast and sharp-edged. It is a good friend with a gentle touch on the palate and a slow easy burn. I like Briggs in the morning in one of my briars I made with my own hands along with a strong cup of black coffee. If I'm in the mood for a nicotine kick but don't want the world to spin, this blend works well as the bottom portion of a parfait-packed pipe with another maligned blend on the top, Royal Yacht. I know everyone has their own taste, but sometimes I'm just not in the mood for "tastes" and bite and cross-eyed nicotine blasts. Early morning, it's more times than not a visit with a good friend. For me that's really what pipesmoking is about.
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DUPE.1512	05/24/2005	Mild	None detected	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
There's nothing special about or wrong with Briggs and if complete mildness is what you seek you will definately find it here. While it burns cool, it simply has no flavor, body or taste.
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Rusty	05/17/2005	Very Mild	Very Mild	Extremely Mild (Flat)	Pleasant
This blend came to me as part of an 8-tin sampler of HOW re-creations. This was described on their web site as a "full-bodied,full strength cube-cut burley with Virginia white flake". I take exception, it isn't full bodied at all. The physical appearance has already been aptly described, the burn is cool and steady, but with so little taste that I would have to say "why bother?" (Or, maybe it's just my burnt out taste buds failing to respond after all those years of balkan-type blends) Overall, there's nothing wrong with Briggs, if mildness of everything is your measure. But ask yourself, if you already like one of the old drugstore burley brands, would you be willing to pay twice the price for Briggs?
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Pipestud	05/15/2005	Mild	Mild to Medium	Mild	Pleasant
Now that the House of Windsor has taken over many old classics, and now that P&T magazine's Summer 2003 has featured them, I was a sucker to purchase them all. So far, I have fallen in love with Country Doctor and have great respect for Union Leader. Briggs Mixture though, is not my cup of tea. Briggs Mixture looks like chunky, broken up pieces of cardboard in the tin. Unfortunately, the stuff smokes about the same way it looks. Although cool burning, it is very bland with little variance in flavor. Though topped with something, the topping is so light it is almost undetectable. Positives: Relatively cheap, burns cool, has a nice room note. Negatives: Tasteless, light on the nicotine, burns fast and leaves ashes everywhere. Update 5/15/05***** Last night I revisited two HOW blends (Briggs & Revelation.) Sometimes my impressions change a little over time. Not this time. Briggs is still at the lower end of my tobacco food chain. Revelation, on the other hand, is still quite tasty.
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Silver Satin	05/11/2005	Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Mild	Pleasant
I'm getting to like the "Drug Store" blends more and more. I bought the eight tin sampler of HOW re-issue blends and found smoking them to be a pleasing experience. Okay, Briggs does look like broken up cardboard a little bit but I like the larger bits of tobacco. I further agree that it is a great first pipe due to it's characteristics. I might buy the sampler again (with the nifty three pipe tote) from Thompson's but will probably pick up a large tin o' Briggs next time I am at Iwan Ries.
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CpnFred	01/31/2005	Mild to Medium	Mild	Mild	Tolerable
Bought a can of this stuff just for the slogan. It definately has some rum taste to it. I found it to be nothing special.
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lustra	08/10/2004	Mild	Mild	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
If you have read the preceding reviews, you need little more information from me. Briggs smokes quite cooly for a blend that burns so fast, has a light natural taste, and leaves me with that burn in the back of my throat I get from some Burleys. In the same line, I much prefer Union Leader and Barking Dog. Union Leader is terrific, by the way.
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augiegus	05/18/2004	Extremely Mild	None detected	Extremely Mild (Flat)	Pleasant
Try to imagine a vacumn a big ol space of nothing. Ok now make a tobacco blend out this concept of nothing... yep that sums up Briggs for me. I smoked three quaters of the tub and finally put it in my compost pile. Well even House of Windsor can't hit every one of em out of the park.
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Bobbior5907	05/01/2004	Mild	Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
It is quite true: this looks like granulated cardboard. That didn't bother me. What bothered me the first time I tried this was that it seemed too mild, almost tastless. However, we all know that reviewing pipe tobacco is extremely subjective. Not only do tastes differ from reviewer to reviewer, but I know that my taste changes over time. In fact my taste changes with the time of day and it depends on what I've eaten, what I've drank, what I've smoked earlier, how I'm feeling, etc. Anyway, I happened to smoke Briggs in the morning one day and it was a revelation (ahh... House of Windsor's Revelation---a great tobacco---but that will be another review). Suddenly, Briggs tasted great and smelled great. As a result, I've been smoking it as my first pipe of the day with enthusiasm. Briggs works well in any pipe but, for me, only in the morning. As with many of House of Windsor's tobaccos, Briggs seems to need humidification. However, I've come to appreciate the lack of moisture because I've been acquiring many fine old estate Kaywoodies but which have the constricting metal "Drinkless" filter and I've found that a dry tobacco does much better in them than a moister one. Due to lack of humidification this tobacco lights easily and burns well, yet it does not seem to bite. I give this a grade of "B".
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Pipe Smoker	04/20/2004	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable
Has a nice tin aroma. Hard to keep mosit in a day pouch.
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Pounder 5000	01/27/2004	Mild	Very Mild	Extremely Mild (Flat)	Strong
When a "Feller" has friends like this, who needs enemies?!! Seriously this stuff was retired for a reason. It is a very boring tobacco with little taste that makes the room smell like stale cigarettes. HOW has done a marvelous job of reintroducing the old classics, but I'm afraid this sucker should have been left in its grave.
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generalpatton	12/01/2003	Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Very Mild	Tolerable
I have to agree with the previous reviews in that Briggs has a very mild taste overall. The first third of the bowl is pretty bland and the light flavor begins to come out as you smoke down the bowl. I would characterize the flavor one does get as a definite burley flavor.....and Briggs reminds me very much of Edgeworth Ready Rubbed, although to me, Briggs smokes much cooler. Edgeworth will scorch ones tongue if not smoked slowly. I'm normally a guy that likes a heavier flavor.....but I do like this tobacco. This is a blend you could have going all the time without it getting "too much". I normally only smoke my pipes at home anymore and sometimes I like to have my pipe going all the time if I'm in the garage or outside doing some work. Briggs is a blend you can do that with. I must also comment on the surprising high quality of the HOW blends. I purchased a sampler package of all 10 blends in the small cans and I'm working my way through them. They definitely are head and shoulders above what I consider to be typical "drugstore" blends. These blends were gone from the drugstores by the time I took up pipes and I'm glad they're back and fairly well recieved........
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PipeSmokerForLife	09/28/2003	Very Mild	Mild	Extremely Mild (Flat)	Tolerable
I can't say anything bad about this blend. But by the same marginal token, it is hard to say anything good about it, as well. I did not like this as much as I thought as I would. I found some similar elements such as room aroma and taste to be similar to Country Doctor, but still somewhat removed. I would still prefer Country Doctor over this blend any day. The big problenm is that until very recently most House of Winsdor brands were unavailable in my part of the country. Then one day about a month ago, the tobacco shop down the street from me started carrying most of their blends in pouch form. After reading about these blends in P&T, I bought one of each. Now, I'm mentioning this because 35 years ago, many of theseso called drug store blends were available almost anywhere (department stores, grocers, drug stores, etc.) Over the years many of these blends dissappeared off many store shelves. So it's been a long while since I've smoked many of these. My big dissappointment is that Briggs, like many others that have been re-introduced recently, just don't have the same taste or smoking qualities like their counterparts from 35 years ago use to have. In short, today's Briggs, just isn't the same from the way I remembered it from the 1960's.
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BriarLaw	08/31/2003	Medium	Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable
Eh. I know we are not supposed to make comments about other reviews, but Pipestud got it right when he said cardboard. I wanted to like Briggs (sort of a nostaligia kind of thing), but it was pretty marginal. Not "bad" . . . just too plain. Cubed Burley with a very light topping. Not enough there for me.
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