Gallaher Limited Condor Ready Rubbed (Green)

Floral? Yep Soapy? Yep Cool? Yep Slow Burning? Not for me!!

Admittedly, the prospect of a floral, soapy smoke doesn't sound appealing, but this is one hell of a great smoke any time of day or night. Just get some! No bite, I find a good half hour drying is needed to calm down the soapy edge. I also prefer this in a bigger bowl, loosely packed and I can see her off in about 30 mins, ideal for a quick, strong smoke...

It was with great trepidation that I first opened up the packet to this, my first foray into this tobacco. Having tried Condors' fantastic long cut, I was a little worried that this might be like a bands' difficult second album, or a sequel to a fantastic film, you're never quite sure it will live up to expectations. Luckily, I think, it turned out more Beverly Hills Cop II than III.

The aroma upon first smell was a heady rich mixture of the original movie, SGs' fabled Squadron Leader and a more pleasant incarnation of largely atrocious Mellow Virginia. Packing is fairly easy, though, due to the large ribbons, a little care is needed. This also makes it a little harder to light than most ribbons, but it's no really biggie. The taste in the mouth is just fantastic, a mixture of Long Cut and a nicer Mellow Virginia. The room note is very good, and has a way of just nicely hanging around the place, popping up every so often to provide a pleasant reminder of a thoroughly good smoke.

A very good everyday tobacco, so good in fact, that I smoke it to the exclusion of my other stashes of the naughty leaf and finished my first 50g packet inside a week. It is a heavy smoke though, not for beginners, but can be sampled regular with no big deal once you're used to it. If Condor Long Cut is a fine steak to be eaten best in the evening, this would be a fine bacon - good all day round.

Crikey Moses! This was perhaps the first pipe tobacco I ever tried (when I was younger than I canre to mention!).

Not for the feint hearted, a very bold and powerful aroma indeed. Admittedly a very pleasant room note, but right from braking the seal you can tell its going to be a strong one!

I must say, for all its downfalls, this is a fantastic tobacco. Its just one which should not be touched with a barge pole until you've developed a bit of a pallete and indeed a tolerance to nicotine!

Tounge burn is noticable, and the nocitine hit can leave an unwary smoker wondering where he is. However, if smoked with caution the tobacco is very pleasant, complex and intriguing. A powerful, spicy, sweet tobacco with hints of all sorts, mentionably rum, pepper and spice.

To be enjoyed in the depths of Winter, it will undoubtedly warm your coggles!!

This is the first tobacco i tried in my pipe. Big mistake. The nicotine hit was so hard that I was left wondering what had happened. Nicotine naivety!! Now that I am slightly more matured in my pipe smoking, quite enjoy this now and then. I generally prefer aromatics but this one is the exception. Beginners beware a must try for the more seasoned ones

I deleted my old review of this because i felt it was now obsolete and i felt like something to write about this popular british OTC enigma,so if you feel like something to read; let me waste a minute of you life.

Condor ready rubbed

'Making friends with an old enemy'

I have been piping for about 7 or 8 years;in that time only one tobacco ever kicked my ass and it was this;it hit me like an uppercut to the solaplexus and left me winded and spunout(i was a novice at the time).. I really wanted to like this one for this act alone because it had commanded my respect in the nicoteen department even if i was not sure of the taste.

I hadn't forgot this strange tobbaco and out of morbid curiosity of wanting a rematch i went to sainsbury's and bought a 50g pouch as a folly,as well as my regular golden virginia rollup (I had bought an estate pipe on ebay recently,and whilst examining it i sniffed the bowl and it smelled of 'condor the king of floral pipe ghosts',so i decided that this would be a dedicated condor pipe whether i liked it or not).

When i got home i anxiously sniffed the unopened pouch to see if i could smell the pouch aroma that was inside,because in my memory this was the strangest smelling tobacco i had so far experienced(i couldn't actually smell anything BTW)

Anyway i took a few preparing breaths,tore open the packet and took a big (over the top) 'condor moment' sniff and then thought for a few seconds,then took another(this went on for a few times):its not as strong as i seem to remember it(possibly because i knew what i was expecting) and it has a slightly sweeter smell than i remember. Pouch aroma is still a strange one though;Pick'n'Mix foam pink shrimps sweets, meets domestic cleaning product ala wood scented wood polish,green smooth in the round tin 'swarfega' mechanics hand soap, brings long lost aromas and dejavue of my youth in the 70's;opening tins and sniffing things in my dads shed, and furniture polish of our wooden cased ITT television..

The pouch appearance wasn't as dark as my memory seems to remember either(i have since smoked 'revor plug' and 'black xx');a dark brown rubbed flake,no predrying necessary this was ready and easy to load.I then transfered the whole pouch into a glass kilner clip sealed jar incase this was going to be save it for later type. I pulled out an unused fresh 6" clay pipe for an accurate review and loaded up with that certain "i don't know why i am doing this" russian roulette wearyness/anticipation,lit it up and noted from my previous experience two cautions to be utterly obeyed; 1) do not over puff, 2)do not under any circumstances inhale!

Ok;it lights ok,smoked ok,and still tasted 'strange' but ok;I initially got placebo symptoms where my emergency body responce mechanism got ahead of itself and my heart was beating a bit and my stomach moved like a washing machine,but it wasn't nausia(infact i needed a shit and this was the first pangs) My previous notes from my first experience seem exagerated in places(due to overwhelming impression at the time),but certain factors still stand.regarding the omnipresent 'lavender soap' aspect.

After a 1/4" had been smoked;the mystery topping diminishes somewhat to reveal the qualities of the tobacco (dark fired virginia,strong nutty burley,light unsweetened cavendish?) underneath which can be momentarily quite meaty in a tinned dogfood type way(as a toddler i would help the dog consumme its 'pedigree chum') Simularities to other tobacco brands i know;'revor plug' meets 'irish flake';i may prefer this to irish flake i think because it occupies a more individual slot between 'university flake' and revor plug',whereas 'irish flake' although strong in nicoteen;i just prefer the taste of 'university flake'. This may of been my first 'burley',so its no wonder it took me out the first time when i was first inhaling it(plus alcohol).

Half way down the bowl the topping softens again from the lavender to a taste more akin to 'Barrets foam pink shrimps' penny sweets ;another unique flavour which only pink shrimps seem to taste like pink shrimps.Although these aromatic properties are present,i do not call this an 'aromatic' tobacco;its just a strong tobacco with a unique topping.

The nicoteen is about on par with 'revor plug' i would say. It can burn hotter,or seems to be felt that way in my clay compared to my long ago briar experience, but still cool and tastes clearer than my first time.( by sipping and keeping two fingers over the bowl to preserve the chamber heat at the top ,its a nice steady puffers puff of a smoke right from the go).

Floral Factor: The floral factor in this blend in no way compares to 'lakeland's' rose/pinewood-esque essence;this is something more artificial and applied,but it doesn't effect the smoking properties,it just adds an aromatic note.Its like comparing perfume to an air freshener(condor is an air freshener)

Soap Factor: The soap factor is another area where condor differs from other 'kings of soap';its soapness is not like a 'cold cream' bar of white soap or like lemon washing up liquid,but mainly more of a sweet glycerine fruity lavender soap ,,with a mild liquid hand soap aroma/airosol sweet beeswax wood polish,and swarfega/lux flakes essence for added measure,, which is ok,intersting and not atringent or penetrating of the mucus of my pallette

Condor has a natural sweetness,which suggests an unflavoured casing or maybe a touch of cavendish(cavendish is usually made from burley i think),,;the sweetness does not spoil or turn acidic, and infact is more akin to artificial sweetener than sugar..

No tongue bite makes this one of the best OTC british pipe tobacco's and i now consider this up there with 'erinmore flake'.If i could locate some easy i would be intersted in trying the flake variant of condor because flake in general has a slower burn rate better for burley.

Burns to a dry ash with no real dottle(in my clay at least)and proved to be a low maintenance reliable smoker.The tobacco quality itself is not quite as rich as peterson standard(it has a slight cardboardness)but in its OTC nostalgic economy it out performs a few more expensive tins and for the images it conjours in my mind of good times long past and the way it tested me out the first time this gets a full 4 stars****(i am now a pipe jedi after all)..

I got through the pouch quite rapidly without smoking anything else in between,and it makes a solid well behaved alldayer;i know for certain that i will be keeping some of this in my permanent rotation.

This one took some getting used to for me, in the end I liked it and may get some more while I'm here in europe, but it was a challenging blend. The smell out of the pouch is very soapy with overtones of hay. I recommend this particular blend for cobs and clays. It packs quite easily and for me I found it tasted better in non briar pipes, not sure why, particularly enjoyed smoking it out of my clay, but it seemed to take a natural liking to my MM Diplomat as well. I would be very interested to try the long cut version of this blend, although it is easy to pack, I'm not a huge fan of the way these more finely rubbed blends burn they tend to dry out quickly and burn a bit hot. Good blend worth trying, I would say it is somewhat unique even in it's class, you should devote a pipe to this blend, as it ghosts heavily.

This stuff is ... weird.

The smell and first taste is just .. strange. I dont know enough about tobacco to say its 'this' or 'that' flavour. Once you get over the initial strangeness it is not a bad smoke and the you get used to the flavour.

As for that 'Condor moment' unfortunately I didnt find it.

It is still worth a try and readily available

One must first smoke Condor to really understand these reviews. Where else can you find a blend that smells like your great aunt Sue and kicks like your cousin Jimbo?

My wife describes the scent as "incense-like", and she could live with it if she had to. I find the blend to smoke very smoothly, taste as it smells, and leave you wanting more -- perhaps you won't get around to it for another week or three, but you'll want more. Smoke this slowly or with some food in your stomach, though, or you'll spend the next half-hour sitting.

This blend is best smoked in a pipe that is used for Condor or for sampling new blends, because you'll taste its ghost for a while.

This review completes my experiment with the three major commercially available tobacco brands in rubbed form here in the UK - those being Clan, St. Bruno, and Condor. The latter is, without a doubt, the best, and proves that there is some credence in entrusting your choices locally, as opposed to the specialist.

Without a doubt, this is a classic Lakeland style tobacco, but although the usual floral scent and soapy taste that usually fires a warning shot is present, I find the casing to be much more acceptable and palatable than that found in many other brands - notably the Gawiths. Indeed, it's a good deal more nectarous, slightly spicy, and a damn sight more unusual, without impinging on what seems to be a naturally sweet Virginia base.

I don't find this to be particularly overly cased, nor that potent, if truth be told. The flavours seem well-balanced and seemed a far cry from the "Condor Moment" which smacked of the sourness you'd expect from some of the more pungent Burleys in the Peterson line. It does contain a good dose of the old Vitamin N, but it's well managed.

The only downsides are really the ghosting and the need for several re-lights; though it's a moist tobacco that burns surprisingly well, it becomes a bit top- heavy with ash. Furthermore, the room note is a tad monotonous and a touch off- putting for some, but everything is there in the smoke itself, which really sings. I can't dedicate a pipe to this, so I'm anticipating some aftercare with my Peterson System, but it's a small price to pay for a quality smoke that I can purchase where I want, when I want - and in smaller pouch sizes that neither break the bank, nor become boring.