Samuel Gawith Grousemoor

Un gran bel profumo all'apertura della scatola e null'altro.A mio avviso insipido con leggero sentore di limone e erba probabilmente aromatizzato con additivi chimici. Non raccomandato

This is not really a terrible tobacco. I just can't recommend it to anyone. It is something that is so unusual that I only prefer to smoke it now and then. And if you only smoke it now and then, the contents of the tin turns into sawdust In the future, if I need a burst of the scented Lakeland tobacco, I will stick to Kendall Cream Flake.

If you do smoke this weed, I would suggest confining it to one pipe.

I'm know this blend has fans, but I am not one of them. I just couldn't get over the smell. Too much like room freshener to me. And anything but small bowls made it burn hot for me.

Had one to only go by the tin description, you might get the idea that this is an "outdoorsy" tobacco. One for men walking the moors, guns in hand, dogs afield, hunting for grouse. Sadly, that picturesque image is not to be found here.

Think rather of your kindly old Auntie, dressed to go to the Ladies Temperence meeting in the church hall. Floral print dress, sensible shoes, prim hat and gloves, and over-perfumed. Coming to kiss the top of your forehead before she leaves, your eyes nearly water from the cheap toilet water she has bathed herself with.

Thinking there must be some virtue others had missed in this venerable 200 year old blend, I bought a tin. Opening it upon its arrival, I nearly gagged. I was initially unable to smoke it from the overpowering perfuming.

After a few weeks of sitting, I reopened the tin, managed to pack a bowl, and took it outside to smoke. It lit easily, and the perfume subsided after a few puffs. Subsided mind you, not dissapeared. The first half of the bowl was OK at best.

However, something dramatic seems to happen with the second half of the bowl. The perfuming does now seem to disappear, and I am provided with a very fine VA smoke. Very fine indeed, except that my tongue has now been coated with the perfume glop, and I cannot fully appreciate the fine VA for what I can tell it is.

In conclusion, I could not, with good conscience, recommend this to another pipesmoker. How it has earned its venerable history is beyond me.

EDIT 9/6/05: I've tried Grousemoor a few more times since this review, most recently as 3 days ago. I find absolutely no redeeming value in this tobacco, and have downgraded my initial 2 stars to 1. I genuinely cannot figure out how this tobacco has survived for 200 years.

Marketing your product correctly will ensure the success of the brand... The label on the tin and product discription are nothing less than outstanding. However somone may have spilled some cheap French perfume in the blending room. Once in a while I will fill one of my knockaround pipes with this foul weed in hopes that my opinion will change. It hasn't. This is foul weed indeed.

I admit to being nervous before opening my tin of Grouse-Moor. Some of the posts had me fearing the worst. As not to be-foul one of my favorite pipes, I took an old corn cob out of the pipe box in my closet for this one. I opened the tin and it didn't smell bad. Granted, there was no Virginia or latakia to seduce me. There were no orientals here. The leaf was a bright colored ribbon cut. The smell was clean. I read that the leaf in this blend is Zimbabwe, a leaf with which I'm not familiar. Based on the aroma, the closest comparison I could manage would be a cavendish based Danish aromatic, a type of blend I haven't sampled for nearly a decade.

As I packed the cob, I noticed the tobacco was fairly moist. I rolled the leaves in my fingers to break them apart. Even still, I packed this pipe a little too tight, affecting the draw. There was not a lot of flavor as I smoked this bowl down. There were little hints of it here and there. My one complaint of this smoke was the tight draw, which forced me to puff a little harder and smoke a little too hot.

For my next bowlful I chose a double walled porcelain pipe. I was more careful in packing this pipe and the draw was smoother. The Grouse-Moor smoked cool in this pipe and was a little more flavorful than the smoke from the cob. All in all, this tobacco was well suited to this pipe, which is perhaps why the Danish tobacco firms used to sell these pipes with their logos on them.

I was now ready to try this blend in a briar. I chose one of my fathers old pipes since he was a cavendish smoker. I have a number of his pipes that I haven't re-seasoned with my English and Oriental blends. I picked out an unmarked little straight-grain that could best be described as a prince raised by a pack of Dublins. If I didn't originally buy my father this pipe, I at least picked it out for him. This pipe, like the cob, smoked a little hot despite an easy draw. The flavor was neutral. It also smoked very moist.

To be fair, I won't call this a bad tobacco. It just doesn't suit my taste. If you like Danish style aromatics I would recommend trying Grouse-Moor.

Naaaaaaasty! Smells like Grandma's perfume. Burns well, and the Lakeland smell is quite strange. I guess im just not used to this kind of tobacco, so I wont be buying any more of it.

This is an aro in my book, and a very very hard one to smoke.

I had huge hopes for this, such a great tin note of hay and grass and fruits of various kinds, but my doubts started by how sticky and wet the tobacco was. I got it dry enough to try some, and this did such strange things to my pallet that I could barely finish. Irish Oak did the same to me, I don't know if I have the problem or what, but this gave me horrifying dry-mouth and the aroma almost made my eyes water.

Its a sharp, sour and very tangy and strange aroma. People beside me in the lounge I was in said it smelled rancid almost, such an odd experience. I can't really explain it that well, but it smells like gone-off fruit mixed with cider or something. This was the greatest example I've ever had of the tin note betraying the actual flavor.

This ghosted my pipe so much that I almost needed to bring it somewhere for severe cleaning.

Get a cheap pipe and get a sample before you pay SG prices for a tin. Also, dry it out until its almost crackling, smoking this wet will remove your ability to taste for a day.

Yuck! It tasted like a Virginia flavored with soap, like a Lake District blend. I only smoked two bowls before this blend landed in the trash.