Samuel Gawith Brown No. 4

Folks, this one is simply unique. It is strong, beefy, earthy and greets you with a bunch of smoke you feel as if you are down a steam refinery in the early 1900. After all this ain't no joke, really strong but tolerable if you care to puff slowly...but it isn't that easy especially if you don't allow it to dry a little.

Great stuff, indeed to be smoked alone and exceptional if you mean to use it to harden another mixture. I use it even with some of the few aromatics I smoke and it works well, because its earthy full taste doesn't battle with any other flavour. Some floreal scents are present too, as the bowl goes down.

Plus I love the smell and let me say I don't care, just for this one, about room note or people around me. This is simply the Nicotine bomb you'd expect to smoke in a Tim Burton's movie typical village.

Highly recommended.

In my search to find a tobacco a hint stronger than the truly delicious 1792, I came across many claims that the Gawith ropes were truly the end of the line. My friends, they weren't kidding.

I'd read about the No. 4 and the XX, and I went to my local (30 min. drive) tobacconist to request some XX, andI noticed their decent selection of SG tins, including this one. I couldn't resist.

I decided to try some in the car, in a small briar pipe. I was immediately taken aback, as I, like many, have never worked with ropes before. I used a method similar to the "flake" method, but putting the thin leaves into tiny bunches. I opened the tin and was hit with the smell of a choice cut of beef. Yum.

I lit up half a bowl, using matches, and noticed that this stuff is extraordinarily difficult to keep lit if not let to dry for a little while. The first experience was decent, with great flavor and thick, blue smoke.

The next time, however, was different. Having only taken a few good puffs before allowing the bowl to go out, as I had somewhere to be, I returned afterward for the rest. I lit up the now much dryer smoke, with a little more added to the top, and began to puff. This time, it stayed lit wonderfully, and I found myself puffing away, feeling as if I was sitting in a business conference room in the 1940's, the room awash with fragrant pipe smoke, as I puffed freely, not allowing it the chance to simmer down enough to go out.

A few minutes after the bowl was finished, I found myself slumped over the front seats of my car, feeling extremely calm and woozy, but at the same time, feeling as if I had swallowed a concrete block. This was AFTER having a decent-sized breakfast, as well.

Delicious, nostalgic, strong, and to be enjoyed by those who only wish a demon to tame, as does the pipe smoker in all of us.

Recommended with reservations. This is a STRONG tobacco. I didn't read any reviews before trying this tobacco, so I was plesantly shocked. Packing this was involved and fun. This was my first time with a rope, but I had someone explain it briefly how breaking apart flakes and ropes are similar. Mistake 1- I packed a large pipe(23cm dia. 2 inches deep). Not knowing. Great taste, lit up nicely after letting air dry about 10 mins. Third of the way down I was feeling nice an cozy(should of gotten the hint then), with only one re-light. The taste deepens/thickens about 2/3 down. This is when I should have stopped, but I was enjoying the great taste and I hadn't tried to stand. It went out sometime I don't remember because i was just enjoying looking out watching the cars drive by. Then I tried to stand up, and sat right back down. That was a first for me with pipe tobacco. It was a good woozyness though, not the sick to your stomach feeling. If your looking for something different, or have friends that only smoke strong cigars saying "There's no Pipe tobacco like strong cigars". Have them try this.

This is the blend by Samuel Gawith I much love, with Black XX and FVF. If you want a great pipe tobacco, try it!

I've tried chewing and smoking this one and both offer two different yet similar taste experiences. Although it is classified as an air cured while chewing it I find I taste a large degree of what I'm assuming is a result of fire-curing. The first time I chewed a double coin size slice of this it was like popping the embodiment of a very smokey camp fire in my mouth. I have come to enjoy that aspect though as it is a completely different experience than smoking it.

When smoking I get a hint of what some might consider a "minty" quality, a result again of what I'm assuming is from fire-cured tobacco leaf, or the aging. I don't taste any cigar or cheap cigar qualities except for perhaps the sweetness similar to cigar smoke. But it is a good hearty full bodied smoke, cool as long as you don't over do it, and relatively slow burning.

The only thing chewing and smoking this rope have in common is the nicotine hit. It is a very strong tobacco, and will knock you for a loop if not smoked slowly and deliberately.

I thoroughly enjoy this one. I will have to try it's twin in the G&H Brown (Happy) Bogie. I've read reviews and some people say it's a close match to Peterson's Irish Flake, another strong tobacco that I thoroughly enjoy smoking. I find that Brown No 4 has many of the same qualities as Irish Flake as well. But different enough for when I want a slight change of pace.

January 2011 Update: After letting the turd like rope dry out for several months now in the tin I find this stuff to be amazing! Sweet! Full-bodied! Strong! This is right up there with my favorite non-english (read: latakia) blends. Don't let any other reviews saying this has no flavor, or it tastes like crap fool you, it does not, and perhaps only needs a bit of time and a different state of mind to try. I'll be getting more of this one for sure. One thing I'm finding works quite nice is cutting a slice off about the size of almost two nickels thick, then cutting it some more, tearing off chunks, getting it to about the consistency of a rough ribbon cut, a bit more chunky than some of the C&D ribbon cut blends. I don't discard the outer tobacco as others may have you do either. Simply delicious!

this is an interesting baccy.it tastes like a full bodied cigar...and a good one.pretty strong with no flavores. I highly recommand it for people who like full taste tobaccos with no flavor. I personally dont like aromatic stuff so I highly rate it. DO NOT smoke it with empty stomach and you will be rewarded. great late evening smoke after a full dinner to unwind. WARNING: if you are into aromatics or mild to medium tobaccos give it a pass.

I keep reading reviews of this tobacco that say it taste like a bad cigar. Well I happen to love cigars, and to my palate it does taste like a full bodied cigar, but a good one. In fact this blend reminds me very much of a Flor dominicana double ligero. Hey if you like a fruity, low nicotine smoke, this probably isn't your cup of tea, but for someone like me that thinks big full bodied straight tobacco flavor is a good thing, this is a great smoke.

No poetry here, only prose

but while cutting tobacco with my rasolino knife, I think to miners (often children) who found solace chewing something like this one and a shadow of emotion pass me on the eyes.... But it's only a moment, there is no time for reflection...

No lyricism here, just epic

so I put the feather and I run to clasp my pipe, I'm going to fight a new battle with this dragon.

Sam Gawith's Brown Rope #4 Finest Kendall Twist seems to be one of a handful of love-it-or-hate-it-blends. At least that's what a quick read of the reviews here seems to suggest. Complaints tend to focus on the overpowering strength, the coarse (even fecal) quality of the flavor, the extra work the tobacco requires to prepare. Praise tends to focus on the same things--the abundant nicotine, the robust flavor, the pleasures of preparing a rope for the pipe. Love it or hate it, it's tough to have neutral feelings about this stuff.

Count me as one who absolutely loves the stuff. I don't know of any more intense, flavorful, pure, occasionally sublime, occasionally brutal experience I can associate with pipe smoking. Sometimes when I smoke this stuff, I feel like I'm on a sort of sacred, drunken jag. My ears buzz, my knees get a little weak, I experience bliss. Other times, every puff feels like a jab to the chin from an angry heavyweight. My ears buzz, my legs feel like string cheese, my brain tells me that man was made to suffer.

This isn't the prettiest tobacco. I've only ordered it in bulk, and when it arrives it looks like a great, coiled thing that might have been released by the Jolly Green Giant a few hours after a big dinner. The aroma is earthy, dirty, cedary, cigar-like. Whenever I break into a new batch of this, I typically section it off in 2-inch chunks and stuff it into jars. When I plan to smoke it, I cut it in half length-wise and then slice little half moon disks that I rub out more by hand. Drying it out to the edge of crispy seems to work best for me. I've found that if this rope isn't sufficiently dry, it produces a steamy, bitter smoke. It DGTs well—which will be a boon to anyone who truly does find the strength here overwhelming.

Regardless of strength-tolerance, I recommend smoking this stuff slowly and contemplatively. The Italians have an expression for some of their bigger, brawnier red wines--vini di meditazione, or "meditation wines." Properly and patiently sipped, I think this rope is as close as I'll ever be to a "meditation tobacco."

A brilliant, immensely enjoyable tobacco.