Samuel Gawith Perfection

How ironic that there is a faithful looking retriever on the front of the tin.....

The only thing that's missing, is the accompanying freshly laid 'lawn turd' situated right behind mans best friend in said picture.....Because that's what this bland flavourless dross smoked like.

Weak, tasteless, smokeless, indulgent rubbish. The worst SG I have sampled to date. The only reason it gets a star, is because I like dogs.

If you want a decent medium English, try Old Dublin, not this kackarakkahoohaar!

There are NO traces of the suggested VANILLA in this blend whatsoever either..

Perfection this aint...

I had very high expectations for this light English blend but to me it flopped. As with most Sammy G. Blends the tobacco condition out of the tin reminded me of a drowned rat. It took hours to dry this out to the point that i thought it would be OK to jar-up. The tobacco form that point would take an additional 10 minuets before stuffing into your pipe. The tobacco did behave well in the pipe with minimal relights but just lacked in flavor that was even remotely enjoyable to me. Hope this helps.

Well, no. Although this is mild, and has in it some good quality leaves, the synthetic-tasting vanilla topping is absolutely masking everything else throughout the smoke. Frankly, I did not notice the word 'vanilla' before a bought a tin to try. Without the vanilla, this may have been a nice, smooth mild semi-English, but with it, it is just another ersatzed nonentity.

Well, Sam Gawith struck out on this one. Mixing Captain Black and Standard Mixture Mild does not yield anything that excites me. I just could not get this blend to taste like much of anything. Room note is all right. Maybe a transitional mix for some - it's easy enough to smoke, and quality is high.

For me, I'd rather sink into some Commonwealth or Squadron Leader if I want an English, and if I want an aromatic, I'll hit the Captain Black or Argosy or something. Once again, a tobacco tries to do it all, and comes out flat.

Bought this in bulk. Hope the tin is better. Mine smelled nasty upon opening and tasted more like some kind of chemical than vanilla. Was really disappointed as all the other SG blends I've tried were awesome. Ended up in file 13.

I had found that the SG line of flakes were very inconsistently sized. The cut would be thin for one flake and then thick for the next flake. Also the flakes were a little difficult to rub out. Lastly, I had trouble keeping this stuff lit and producing an acceptable amount of smoke. These flakes had really nice flavor though. Eventually dropped the whole line of flakes due to these drawbacks.

Ok..Whats up with the weird flavor additives!!

I should have known better than to put this in my pipe. A sample, unsolicited, from my B&M tempted me to lose my mind and think I could stray from my antipathy toward flavored Latakia blends. The esteem in which Samuel Gawith blends are normally held I will, probably unfairly, blame for my momentary insanity.

As with Esoterica's St. Ives, I had the identical, feeling of nausea trying to smoke this. Cross-over "English" blends and I do not do well together. When I want vanilla a once in six months cob load of 1Q suffices. Here the flavoring just ruins good tobacco to the point I can't really rate it outside of the flavoring. Sorry, guys.

Yes, the desert island test would find that I would quit smoking rather than suffer this one.

Somebody got a load of old leather boots together and set fire to them.

Perfection is whats left over.

Not for me.

5 years later and I'd like to claim that the sample I had here is still in existence, but that would be a lie.

Mind you, this has to be one of the wettest ever blends from Samual Gawith's and this sample has indeed been around for at least half of that time. It's weathered quite well and my taste for tobacco has matured since I last tried this.

It isn't that strong really, unless you really pulled hard on this and I've certainly had latakia loaded blends heavier than this one. So, I tone down my ratings a little, but still wouldn't buy a full tin of this as it's not an all day smoke and could spend another 5 years in the dungeon.

Avoid if you dislike latakia, sample if you do.

I hoped for more and got much less. Perfection arrives way too moist and the cut is very rough requiring (for me) a lot of rubbing out. The flavor is bland and the vanilla....no vanilla to be found. It really needs some vanilla because as an English blend, it lacks badly. When I want and English with some Vanilla, 4 Noggin's "Britts Balkan" is the go to blend for me.