Samuel Gawith Black Pigtail

It takes a while to prepare as ropes always do, and will need some dry time before you actually smoke it. I crumble up a little at the top and bottom to help the burn rate as I prefer to stack the coins when I cut them thinly enough. Otherwise, I cube cut it. The Kentucky and Virginia offer grass, earth, spice, smoke, wood, and a very slight nuttiness. I detect a light sweet, floral topping, too.The nic-hit is potent. Won't bite or get harsh. Burns slow, clean and cool with a very consistent, punchy, lightly rough and creamy flavor from start to finish. Needs some relights, and will leave a little moisture in the bowl. The after taste is long lasting. A very smoky, woodsy experience that I would not recommend for a beginner. Use a small bowl, and eat first.

-JimInks

Small packet version - a gift from a friend. Very full tasting but it does settle down a little once you get in going. Unfortunately, it was too harsh to enjoy and I wasn't able to finish a full bowl, although I tried 3 times.

Strong, yes - but not overwhelmingly so. There's a difference between a tobacco's strength and it's smoothness, or in this case, lack of smoothness. This is a very harsh tobacco - not as strong as some other blends I enjoy, but very harsh. If this were a cigar, it would be the last inch of a King Edward or El Producto machine made panatela with processed wrapper. Harsh and exceedingly unrefined. I suppose this is tobacco and I realize that it's a throwback to a time centuries ago, but there is simply too much expert tobacco blending around these days to spend any of my time with this sort of thing. I'm quite sure this will be my final foray into ropes. Did I mention that this stuff is harsh? For those that enjoy it, kudos. To the friend that gifted this to me, thanks... I guess. 🙂

I would say that this old-fashioned, no-nonsense tobacco has five defining characteristics:

(a) It's strong – don't make any mistake about it, you need to treat this with a lot of respect, and it'll test your nerve. Don't try to smoke too much of it at once, don't whatever you do inhale, and don't try to smoke it too quickly. This is certainly a tobacco for your smallest bowl.

(b) It's laborious to prepare for the pipe (though no more so, to be fair, than twists, pigtails etc. generally are). It's best sliced into thin discs that are then rubbed out; if you didn't rub them out you would, I imagine, have constantly to be relighting because . . .

(c) Black Pigtail as sold is very oily/moist. To get a really trouble-free burn, you'll need to dry it out a lot.

(d) It has the kind of full, demanding, organic flavour – hefty, meaty, sour – that you would expect from this kind of tobacco, combined with

(e) a pungent, frying-mice room note that is almost certain to be objectionable to innocent bystanders. It's as subtle as an axe in the head; Klio and SWMBO won't have it at any price.

It seems to me that Black Pigtail is a heavyweight commodity that no one is going to have mixed or lukewarm feelings about. If you like a strong, completely natural, old-time tobacco like Popeye the Sailor or Great Uncle Caleb used to enjoy, you'll love this; if you don't, you'll run from it squeaking and gibbering. It's a simple as that, I reckon.

To the smoker who likes this kind of tobacco generically, I'm happy to recommend Black Pigtail. Others take note, however: it's an acquired taste that will take a fair bit of acquiring. To my mind (though this is perhaps just a personal peculiarity) a tobacco like this is a good midwinter, cold-weather, outdoor smoke. In view of the room note, the family will probably drive you out of doors to smoke it anyway.

Maybe my pouch (several years old), was the low octane variety because I've smoked many blends with more strength than this. Once I sliced the discs and rubbed them out I let the leaf sit for an hour before loading. Smoky and somewhat rough but very typical of a Lakeland processed air cured Kentucky.

Smoking this reminded me of sitting close to a campfire on a cool night enjoying nature in the raw. It won't bite and the flavor of the smoke will stay with you for many hours after your last puff.

I cut thin coins of this black and oily tobacco and it rubs out well. It will need to be given time to cure and dry back a bit so I just put it in a baggie and forget about it for a week. It lights easily and for what would appear to be a heavy smoke burns fairly fast. I do get a good nicotine hit but not the kind that makes me spin out and feel shaky and sick but a nice across the top of the head stimulated sensation. This is good narco drug grade tobacco but not like your smoking rocket fuel as some suggest.

The mouth feel is velvet smooth and rich, semi sweet leather grass and mild liquorice. I can detect an additive of some kind that reminds me of paraffin wax but not in a bad way. Overall taste is one dimensional but dark and rich. A solid smoke that treats me well but not something I smoke a lot. A good smoke if you need to drive and are a bit tired as It will make you alert for some time. Not a smoke for a good nights sleep.

This is something! Something special! Smell of tobacco is very interesting - it's "heavy", "oily", "dark". After cutting into small slices, it rubs guite well. In the beginning smoking is a bit difficult, but after few minutes it becomes easy. Smoke is very cool, rich and oily. It is VERY strong tobacco, so be careful with it when smoking. If you want to meet the devil on Earth, you should try this one 🙂

This is very much a standard black rope in strength and in flavour. Seemingly one can only buy it is 25 gram packets, which is kind of frustrating, but it slices easily; rubs out easily, probably due to it being in such a small quantity in the bag, and lights easily as well. By itself it smokes as a typical black rope/twist would and which has bveen described previously. To me it's a pleasant warm meaty flavour, comforting and not at all strong or overwhelming. I recommend it unreservedly. I also smoke it as a third equal part of a mixture of St Bruno, Mellow Virginia..and Black Pigtail of course. Thoroughly mixed together it affords a very pleasant smoke; each constituent adds a distinctive colour to the whole.

I was told that this would kick my butt butt is was meek and mild. It has a strange musty, sour aroma and flavor but it actually was a nice smoke. Supposedly has high "n" content but it never bothered me. Best smoked in a small pipe, as it is very oily and a heavy smoke. Would not buy more but I did enjoy this first sample amount. Just like a more fragrant tobacco.

Original review 01/12/08: This is the 1st twist tobacco I have tried & after ordering it online (25g from UK Tobacco), I awaited it's delivery with baited breath, hoping for a good experience. When it arived in a plastic pounch, it gave of the most pungent aroma - a distinctly dark, oily, woody smell, with what seemed like slight undertones of licqourice & possibly wet rubber. It's pungency could be detected from a few feet away, even though I have a cold which is affecting my sinuses. I sliced this twist into thin disks & leaving them whole piled them into a clay churchwarden (I have never smoked a clay pipe before). Upon slicing, it could be seen that the tobacco had developed an almost putty-like quality at the centre, it was that tightly packed. I fired it up & was immediately stuck by the depth of the smoke, very very dark, warm taste. I found that this didn't really develop at any point, so, although it was quite pleasant it became a bit boring when it failed to evolve into anything else. The other complaints I have are that it kept going out & became somewhat harsh on the throat (maybe this was because I puffing hard to try & keep it alight). I do recognoise that it is possible that the clay pipe was responsible for either of these particular problems. The tobacco was strong, as expected but overall, I would say that I was maybe expecting too much. For my second bowl of this, the next day, (I couldn't smoke 2 bowls of this in a 24hr period) I rubbed out the disks, I would say this possibly improved the burn by maybe 5% or so, not very noticeable - it didn't alter the smoke in any other way. The room note will win you no friends, but I smoked this alone as I was quite prepared for that. I would recommend that this is tried, for the experience & just to see if it does turn you on - but buy a small quantity for caution's sake. I am ageing some sealed in my 'cellar' (an old swing-top bin) to see if it improves, & if it does, I will report back here & change my rating if necessary. NOT FOR BEGINNERS. I would also urge caution as I accidentally inhaled 1 puff & my throat was on fire for a while & was uncomfortable for a good 30 minutes afterwards.

Update 07/07/08: Not really much of an update, just to say that when it had been dried for a little while longer & smoke in my briar churchwarden instead of a clay the burning properies improved. Not enough to upgrade my rating though, still waiting for the aged stuff to mature a bit before that is a possibility.

Bought online fron synjeco, this tobacco came in a plastic sealed 25g pouch. To give you an idea, if Latakia is orientals smoked over burning ceddar wood then Black Pigtail is virginias smoked over fried bacon. I scraped enough quantity to fill a small Big Ben pipe, and took the lethal first puff. It's taste was oily like fried bacon. In fact it left me an aftertaste of fried bacon. This tobacco starts as strong (7-8) and gradually goes to very strong (8-9). Definitely not for novices. I do not recommend it to inhalers. I give it 4 out 5 stars for its smoking characteristics (leaves a beautiful white ash and burns slowly and cooly, no tongue bite) and for the originality of the experience.

P.S. You can smoke it in a fast food , noone will ever notice that you smoke (due to fried bacon effect), but almost nowhere else...