Samuel Gawith Squadron Leader

As a relatively new pipe smoker, and a recent cigarette smoker (who doesn't want to go there again), I was looking for something a little different from my usual aromatic blends. I use these reviews for my purchase decisions-and when I went to my tobacco shop, I saw this one and bought it..and scratched it off my "tobacco I want to try" list. Short version-NO DISAPPOINTMENT HERE! I didn't really know what to expect...but when I popped that tin open, I realized I was onto something. The tobacco scent was absolutely fabulous. The smoking experience was just as good. I look forward to many quiet evenings in the boat, fishing, with this one. Try it...you will not be disappointed.

A very nice English style with a good blend of latakia, but not overpoweringly so. The other tobaccos in this keep the latakia "at bay" for want of a better term. Half way down, the church incense aroma kicked in and it REALLY reminded me of walking in the woods of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia on a warm autumn day. The pine/spruce smell of I assume the latakia and other orientals really tickles the nose. Though I like my latakias a bit brighter, you still can't go wrong with this one. If there was a 3 1/2 I would rank it as such, as I was torn between 3 and 4, so I gave it a 4. I also like the tin graphics.

Classic and very distinct english. SL has many nuances through the bowl, not boring at all. I usually smoke it in the afternoon/early night. The unburned leaf is the most beautifull I've seen.

Excellent tobacco here. All the components of what I want in an English blend and blended to a perfect homogeneous mixture. I would have liked a "darker?" richer smoke from this and believe that I've read that Skiff is the next step from Squadron Leader although can't confirm this first hand. In a less than objective manner I'm happy to report that while unwinding from another day working that I can't recall the last time I enjoyed a new tobacco so much on the first smoke. Squadron leader took me back into a flood of feelings and memory that I could not pin down. Mid December days in Prague, a sojourn in in the northern Mediterranean in the late fall. The stacks of the Olin library on a rainy nite.

Squadron Leader is an absolute delight to smoke. It is a perfect example of a good English mixture that can be smoked all day long. The room note is pleasant and the Latakia, oriental and VA's are perfectly matched. Not a Latakia monster but great medium example of English blends. Recommended for seasoned and beginning smokers alike.

I was turned onto this English blend by this website, when reading another review. Up until that time my only experience with an English was with Tinder Box's Sherlock's Choice. In my naiveté I thought I had a good bead on English blends. Hell, at that time I never really even looked into tinned tobaccos.

So, reading the other reviews here I had an idea of what I was in for. I was getting a tin that was difficult to open, emblazoned with the famous Sopwith Camel.

When the tin arrived I went after it armed with a trusty screwdriver, and was greeted with a familiar English aroma, damp and tightly packed surrounded with gold wrapping paper. I dug out enough for a pipe and lit up.

Well, this has changed my perception of what English blends are supposed to be. It delivered a wonderfully complex mix of tastes, especially when compared with Sherlock's Choice. I fluffed out the contents of the tin and put it into a mason jar for storage.

Now, about the dampness. I ended up putting SL back into the original tin, because I actually managed to smoke this quickly enough to get my pipe to gurgle. But I never had any trouble with the tin drying out to the consistency of kindling while I worked through the contents. Some here recommend loading your pipe in the morning and then smoking it in the afternoon. That approach works well for me.

I've since opened a brand new tin of SL (which I suspect was fresher than my first one) and I notice some....... peppermint? I never picked that up from the first tin, so I'm interested to see if that overtone drops away with time.

UPDATE: I cracked open a vacuum sealed bag of this from Synjeco, purchased early in 2003. The aroma was that of rancid chocolate, of all things, the colour was almost black, and the leaf had hardened into a rock-like mishapen lump, with a few shiny crystaline bits on the edges.

Broke it into pieces with a knife, crumbled it up and packed a small billiard. It was completely unlike the fresh blend, as reviewed below. Dark and smoky, the Latakia comes to the forefront and the orientals are quiet. More like Balkan Supreme than Squadron Leader.

I wonder if anyone else has had this experience -- should tobacco be left in vacuum packs for a long time, or decanted into jars and sealed for storage?

ORIGINAL REVIEW With some trepidation, I write my first ever tobacco review, after being a keen reader of other people's reviews for the past several years.

Squadron Leader, smoked in the right pipe, fairly slowly, in the right mood and situation, seems to this relatively untutored brother of the briarhood at any rate, to be the tobacco equivalent of listening to Tatum playing Sweet Lorraine -- nothing too fast or discordant -- or perhaps the Ellington orchestra's Moon Mist. Every colour, tone and combination of flavour is there, changing in volume, pitch and texture as one burns one's way slowly but certainly to the final ashy remains.

Lighter than London blend, and less muscular than Durbar, sweeter and brighter than the old Balkan Sobranie of happy memory or Balkan Supreme/Sasieni, Squadron Leader might best be described as an oriental partly disguised as a balkan. I don't feel there is enough Latakia to call it an English or a balkan, and the virginias alternate with the orientals rather quietly -- like Ellington's wind and brass sections. There is an odd mixture of sweet and sour tastes, and in my case, the orientals suddently started shouting about 2/3 of the way through.

Unfortunately, there must end my comparison, because I don't know that many blends. Some people have compared SqL to Skiff, and the latter is definitely midler, and some have said that SqL is better described as the wimpy brother to bolder, darker and more volubly balkan/English blends such as Penzance. I can't say.

It may have been the pipe, the weather, or the slow smoking pace, but I started to imagine what would happen if we could just get all the delegates at the UN together, give them each a pipe full of Squadron Leader, a supply of matches, and start them smoking. Apart from the silence, I can picture a kind of contented, shared satisfaction, resulting in immediate cessation of all sqabbling and hostility and a promise of good fellowship all round when they had tapped out the pipes and settled back into business.

I can recommend SqL as an alternative for balkan devotees like myself, and for people keen to try orientals. Don't confuse it with a real English blend and then be disappointed.

It's difficult to come up with original commentary on this oft- reviewed, classic blend. Thus, I'm merely weighing in. The Virginias are very nicely balanced, the latakia subdued yet impressionable, and the Turkish is the proverbial icing on the cake. I enjoy this blend in nearly any pipe and time of day. Well done, Samuel Gawith.

I was really turned off by the first English blend tobacco that I tried. Must have been way too heavy on Latakia, just not enjoyable. So when I decided to try this one, and opened the tin to a strong whiff of Latakia, I thought here we go again. I lit up and immediately was able to taste all of the components of this blend and not just the Latakia! What a great surprise and a great smoke! I love the tin too, what could be manlier and cooler than a sopwith camel on the attack?! Is that Snoopy in the cockpit?