Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) Half & Half

Smoking now:

Making my way though OTC blends. Next up, Half and Half. Bag smells like burley. Has a chocolate cherry brownie smell. Had a bit of that plastic smell similar to other pouch OTC blends.

Now I was super looking forward to this blend because the art work on the pouch and that it has Virginia in it.

The taste… it’s harsh. Burley tobacco usually bites me and does not agree with my Ph. This is no exception. I can’t tell if their is Virginia in this or not. It’s not sweet at all and has mostly burley flavors. Slight chocolate cherry flavor. Earthy nutty plastic burley. Has a sharp mouth feel… it’s not good. It’s not as bad as velvet, but not even close to SWR, Granger, or in the same league as CH. When smoked very slow with a coffee it’s doable. Probably am not finishing the pouch. Non smokers in the room with me said it wasn’t offensive but the aroma wasn’t good either.

Your great grandpa probably smoked it but if he had access to the internet he probably wouldn’t have.

What a disappointment.

I have to say I was expecting a lot from Half & Half. It's a burley blend, and I love burley; it's been around for ages, so it has some degree of popularity at least. But already the pouch note is a little bit off: An aromatic? Smells like a laundromat, what the heck have they put in this, and above all, why? Good burley is good and needs no flavouring whatsoever, and bad burley - insofar as such a thing exists - would not be worth keeping at all.

Then, the first few puffs... What the... How... Why... Feels like a solid burley base, but in an effort to spice it up (Again: Why? WHY?) the taste is as if someone sprinkled my good burley liberally with washing powder. And now that I read the contents list here at TobaccoReviews I can see that they put aniseed in it and that pretty much explains everything; I hate the stuff up to the point of being almost allergic to it.

No, no, no, and no. Never again in my pipes; I'm pretty sure it even ghosted the one I was using with aniseed a little bit. What a waste of good burley tobacco!

(Now I'm actually a bit at a loss as to which Half & Half I should put this review under as there seem to be two identical articles for this tobacco in the database, but since mine came in a pouch and this has a picture of a pouch, I'll put it here.)

I bought a pouch of Half and Half because it's cheap and I was low on cash and I've seen it on the shelves of my local drug and grocery stores all my life so I thought I'd give it a shot. I needed some tobacco to take to work with me. I was very disappointed. I found it very wet and sticky and has the nastiest aroma. I puffed on it for about 10 seconds and had scoop the nasty stuff out of my bowl. I wanted to brush my teeth in the worst way. It really gummed up the bowl of my pipe. I figured maybe I should let some dry out then give it another go. That was also a mistake. It did load easier and didn't gum or plug up my pipe but it burned incredibly hot and the aroma, just can't get passed the smell or flavor of this.

I have had decent luck with some of the OTC blends like Prince Albert and Carter Hall and I try to compare them to each other rather than to more expensive boutique tobaccos. Unfortunately, my experience with Half and Half just went from bad to worse. It starts with an awful pouch note that smells of medicine and goes downhill from there. In the pipe, I find the flavor to taste somewhat like burning plastic smells. It bites and will ghost a pipe. Whatever Virginia is in there, it is not of high quality and the Burley is well below average. There are simply better over the counter blends on the market. I also have a tip for those that say that it’s all about the price. If you compare the cost per ounce here in the US of Half and Half to the cost per ounce of a wide variety of bulk aromatics made by blenders like Lane Limited, Newminster, or Altadis you will find that they cost the same or are less expensive and of much higher quality. It is rare that I can’t find at least one redeeming quality in a pipe tobacco and as a result, I seldom post one star reviews. But Half and Half has well earned it.

The classical American Burley-Virginia mixture.

Classically know to have "Virginia" regular tobacco, instead, their Pouch firms that it contains "Bright" Tobacco, not regular Virginia.

Bright Tobacco is a variety of Virginia,but generally flue-cured,for reduce their Nicotine ammount.

Half and Half is considered not aromatic, although for me, Half and Half haves a flavour, seems to me Flowers, Roses,

Very good tobacco for begginers and easy to find in any country.

This stuff is nowdays produced by the American company Pinkerton Tobacco Co, Kentucky.

RE EVALUATION: i bought a new pouch, in June 2013. Now I see that it is produced by Skandinavik

No more flavoured, seems pure tobacco,and a bad one!

The new formulation is made with very bad quality tobaccos, and common.

unfortunately, is very far from the good tobacco hat it was! Not more recommended! it is almost non more "smokable".

This stuff is vile.

So I'm a newbie pipe smoker, reveling in the experience of taste-testing the vast world of pipe tobacco. Not a snob, no preconceptions, and every 'baccy in this country costs the same (i.e. too much) so cost-cutting didn't enter into any buying decision. I caveat all this because some people try to paint criticism of OTC blends as some sort of class thing. It isn't.

“Notes of anise, cardamom and coriander.” Great! I think. I love those things! I eat Dutch licorice for fun. Buying it blind but can't go wrong, right?

Wrong. I bust open that bright retro pouch ready to meet my new favourite tobacco, and I'm immediately repelled by an overwhelming waft of cough syrup and vomit. It's like someone in a desperate and dark moment of life tried to chug a bottle of Robitussin and threw up into an ashtray. I'm not getting herb or spice, just sick-tinged cherry chemical.

But I'm a newbie so it's got to be me. I'm misjudging this stuff. So I half loaded my brand new dee-luxe MM Kingston Judge and took a sip. I was hit a sharp spike of pure chemical that caught my throat and made me gag as a actinic tang rushed through my sinuses and into my skull.

For some reason I soldiered on and finished the bowl. It never improved. The sweet and sour taste -- less reminiscent of Chinese takeaway and more of animal decomposition -- would fade into wet cigarette then blare up again as I hit another hellish flake of casing. I have never so badly wanted an aromatic to fail in its duty, and never had one so stubbornly, even spitefully, refuse to do so.

My head was reeling afterward, and it wasn't nicotine but some other nameless additive that was making my brain hurt. The tongue bite was the worst I've ever experienced, and my mouth felt like it was coated with burnt plastic. I went to brush my teeth. I always do this after a bowl, but this time I started seeing black, tarry soot slithering down the brush. --> Half & Half made me spit black tar! <--

I coughed for three days while my scorched throat healed, and a month later I'm still trying to get the vomit taste out of my poor snob-cob. I'm too cheap to throw the pouch out but I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I hear it shuffling and muttering in the night.

This was quite a disappointment. I was hoping, especially with the aromatic classification, for a unique, good-ole-days smoke. This was an odd smoke all around. First, I noticed no topic. I was confused as to how it was even classified as an aromatic. It just tasted and smelled like burley. That's all. Just bland all around. Perhaps it can be useful for a DIY blend, but I'm going to avoid it myself.

I’ve given this stuff several tries within the past two weeks. I should have stopped at the first bowl, which wasn’t pleasant. But I decided everything deserves a second chance. So I left the pouch to air out a bit.

When I returned to it a few nights later, the second bowl was reasonably pleasant. Of course, it was in the wee hours of the morning after a long day of heavy smoking.

So I rise the next morning, cautiously optimistic, and reach for the same pipe... not completely finished. So I decide to give it a couple more puffs.

Oh god, what a mistake. Sour. Bitter. It was like inhaling throw-up. Clearly Half-and-Half is not one of those tobaccos you can let sit once you’ve started.

Anyway, I decided maybe that was my mistake and went about the task of packing a fresh bowl of H&H in a different pipe.

Nope. Read the other negative reviews here to get more detailed descriptions of my experience. Just lousy. Very chemical-y. Coats the mouth with a foul layer of vinyl.

I really tried. While, true, I apparently have caviar tastes when it comes to tobacco, I’m quite a spendthrift and would like nothing more than to be able to make my primary tobacco something economical. It certainly won’t be Half and Half.

Scandinavian Tobacco Group - Half & Half.

The most of Half & Half is almost cube cut, but there are a few ribbons, and smaller flecks, too. The pouch has quite a spicy/sharp aromatic aroma to it. The moisture level makes for fast a smoke without any need for drying.

It only took me a short while to work out I didn't like the topping, it tastes quite, what's the word? Rank. Astringent, sharp, maybe acidic, and heavy. The tobaccos are a redundant flavour, as the topping covers them. I'm guessing many peoples opinion on the strength of added flavour will differ, but to me if the added flavouring qualifies as horrible that's more than enough credence to mark Strong! Here's a good point: the burn. It has a steady, and medium temperature, burn. Getting back onto the bad points, it bites me.

I don't find the room-note TOO bad, and the nicotine from Half & Half sits at about medium, maybe higher.

Not a fan:

One star.