G. L. Pease Barbary Coast

Because Burley is naturally low in sugar it can absorb added sugars, casings, and flavors. You can tell when Burley has been heavily cased by it being hard and sticky to the fingers. The down side to all the artifical goop is tongue bite and burn.

Barbary Coast on the other hand is soft to the touch. It did not stick to my fingers and rewarded me with nutty flavors and no tongue bite. Barbary Coast is slow burning, requiring some matches, but such is the nature of a cube cut Burley. In this case it is well worth the effort, for this is the finest cube cut I have ever smoked.

Upon cracking the tin there is a top note of brandy. The alcohol is evident to the nose; I like this since it is also a mark of quality. The Virginia tobaccos and Perique provide for a subtle sweetness and plum flavoring. However it is subtle, never overwhelming the Burley. I smoked this mixture in a Canadian pot, a favorite for cube cut Burley in the Fall. Couple this with the World Series, a beer, and life is good!

This is a nice quality blend, smells great in the bag, packs well, but the lighting part was very challenging...and keeping it lit...sheesh. Additionally, It was wispy and the volume of smoke was quite poor. This lacks the strength I like and I found the aftertaste to be typical of many cased tobaccos...it wasn't of tobacco, rather is was medicinal. As with many topped blends it has a nice aroma and room note. Not for me.

I'm sorry, I know a lot of people love this and think everything Greg Pease makes is perfect, but this is one of the most boring and tasteless tobaccos I've ever had (especially considering the cost). I like straight-up burley (like MacBaren's London), so I'm aware that it's a very subtle tobacco. The flavor of this goes beyond "subtle," however, into "nonexistent."

I don't personally know any pipe connoisseur who could knock this blend. Overall, Every GLPease blend ranks a 3 or 4 in my book. Barbary cost ranks a 4 because of its general taste, complexity, balance, perfect moisture content, and finish.

Being that it has a large amount of cube cut burley, it took me about 3 - 4 bowls to find the best way to pack. Gravity packing with a gentle tamp is the best way to start. Puff on it for about a minute, then gently tamp again and relight. Using this method, it will smoke 2/3 to 3/4 of the bowl before the final relight. From the first to the final puff, the experience is a nutty, vegetal, grassy like experience with an exotic spice to round off. All of these flavors mix well, rotating their dominance in succession throughout the experience. The last quarter or so of the bowl after relighting allows the walnut-fig like taste of the perique to dominate with a sharp spice, but without bitterness. There is usually a flake or two left of uncharred burley when it is all said and done, but hardly wasteful, as the experience is what I consider ideal for any pipe smoker.

Two recommendations: 1) as the tin gets down to the last 20%-30%, drop a little humistat disc into it to allow just enough moisture to keep from smoking too hot. 2) Smoke in a fine briar when you have time to sit & enjoy. It is too good to waste on an on-the-go venture.

Boy, am i glad i kept this tin, and smoked it all the way throgh. Here's the story on my affair with BC.

Popped the tin a month ago. Sticky chunks. Smelled good, but... essentially sticky chunks. I went to rubbing a few. Played with packing for a few days, knowing beforehand the challenge most described with packing this. Like many reviews here, my reaction was...

"... is that it?"

It was ok at best. Nothing deserving praise or worship, like we all hear. Then one day, the extremely loose plastic cap(which most pease tins suffer from) which i kept covering the tin fell off, when the tin was(unknown to me) knocked from my desk. I found it 4 days later, 1/8th contents on the floor. I still had well over half the tin safe, so i cleaned up the chunks, and decided to smoke some then and there. The chunks were now bone dry. So dry, certainly considered unsmokable quality for most tobacco. I gave a whirl.

....Wow. It was -amazing-. I just dropped the chunks and dust into my pipe, and for reasons i can't explain, this stuff just plain works best that way. I cannot detect the brandy at all, just sweet virginia and burley intermingling, with a very light hint of perique, almost undetectable. I was simple astounded that a blend without latakia could satisfy me so much. So do yourself a favor. Get this stuff BONE, and i mean bone dry, and try it. I scincerely believe if any of the reviewers here that give 3 stars or less, tried this really dry, we'd have solid reviews of 4 stars. Your results may vary ofcourse, but i just don't see how. I'm now a Barbary Coast junkie.

Happy smoking to one and all.

I find it difficult to develop an appreciation for Burley blends in general. With a couple of exceptions, I just don't understand what all of the fuss is about. Having said that, I think that Barbary Coast is one of the more interesting Burley blends I have tried.

I enjoy the smell of the leaf in the can, and I really love the cube cut of the tobacco. This blend provides a smooth and mild smoke, maybe a bit too mild for my taste. The Brandy adds an interesting top note to the Burley. I find the room note to be mild, but my wife claims that it smells like a cigar (?). Lighting is easy and the burn rate is good. Did I mention that I really do love the cube cut?

I agree with other reviewer's comments re: the nuttiness, but I find that the Virginia flavor is very much in the background. I like the overall taste of this tobacco, but I just wish that there was more of it.

Post Script 5/4/2004: I recently opened a can of Barbary Coast that had been aging for well over a year. What a difference - absolutely fantastic! The nutty, creamy Burley is well balanced by the sweet, tangy Virginia flavors with just the right amount of Perique spiciness. This is what I was expecting when I reviewed a fresh can months ago. Also, this blend seems to work best for me in a larger (group 4-5) size pipe.

P&T magazine reviewed this much better than I ever could, so I'll just add that I really like this blend and it has MUCH less of the harsh pepper taste that Haddo's Delight carries. It DOES get stronger as you get towards the bottom, but the flavors mature and grow in a swell of spicyness, mellow sweetness and creamy nuttiness.

This, along with British Woods, is going to be in heavy rotation in my tobacco choices.

As a recovering Cig smoker and one who smokes almost nothing but english blends, I decided to try this as a "change of pace".

I ploughed through my 2 ounce tin using a fresh cob. I also tried it in several other briars as well as cobs (all my others were pretty much english only since that is all I smoked).

I love this stuff! I wake up with Dunhill London every day, and go to bed with it every night.

All day in between, this is the magic. Most days, a smoke is about a 5-10 minute drill between meetings (down 12 floors, out front, light up, hammersmoke and back up again).

I deeply enjoy the play of flavors, the mildness and the lack of burley bite. This is especially wonderful in a pipe that has a good cake from latakia use.

I have a pound inbound and I need it now!

Thank you Mr. Pease.

Dislike Aromatics? Try this, you WILL be glad you did.

I will admit right off that I have little experience with Pease Blends. Thanks to the internet that has changed..... I was looking for a mild Perique blend and found it with this one! The Burley plays well keeping things in line with the Virginia, and the Perique comes out nicely with a wonderful touch! This really has some complexity to it. For someone looking for a mild blend with Perique I feel this is it. The tin note and smoking experience reminded me of Royal Yacht. I did not notice the brandy at all. One of my favorites and heartily recommended!