Samuel Gawith Firedance Flake

Bought a 10g sampler of this. First try was awful. Couldn't get it lit, tasted of chemicals and was gurgly. Obviously it was too moist. For the 2nd attempt I rubbed it out and let it sit for 30-45 minutes to dry out a bit.

MUCH better results. It still took a few tries to light, and required several re-lights. The taste and smell were pleasant, and I didn't taste too much chemical nastiness.

Wife says room note was pretty "meh", and "Tolerable" was a good rating.

Overall it was OK, but not something I'd be in any hurry to purchase more of.

Firedance Flake doesn't fit my body chemistry. I find it to be an artificially tasting, tingling, sweet-sour (as in sherbet/kali) smoke, though the tin aroma is absolutely pleasant (blackcurrant, gooseberry, vanilla). Tobacco quality excellent, though my tin was slightly moist. I'm sure many people love this one, it is a different aromatic than the typical Danish ones, with excellent room note and low to medium Vitamin N. I won't buy it again, but it was not that bad.

puhh...very strong casing. The tobacco is S.G.-style top notch. BUT the casing is not my cup of coffee. Smells artificially intense. After lightin up it doesn't get better for me. It tastes like burned rubber. Eventually the true tobacco taste gets a chance to linger through this artificial candy-bubble-gum-like flavoring and my hope in not dumping the pipe-load rises.

i'll have to pass on this one.

This has a nice flavor to it and burns well but it is just OK overall.

Being a fan of most of the Lakeland flakes (with the great exception of Ennerdale), I wanted to like this one – especially since so many other people think well of it. In the event, I found it a disappointment. As always with G & H and SG tobaccos, the leaf itself is of high quality, but the casing is (to my taste) just plain odd, and certainly not subtle. It comes very moist in the tin (the besetting sin of SG flakes) and I found it a very hot smoke that needed a lot of relighting. The suggestion is that FF was blended to suit the female palate. I didn't know that there is such a thing as a specifically female palate; but, if there is, it's very different from my male one. This stuff is worth a try – all SG flakes are – and it all depends on what you like, of course; but I couldn't recommend it more than somewhat. I'd looked forward to trying it, but I won't be getting any more in. Cellaring will probably calm it down a bit, though.

The flavours aren't massive here, and are more subtle than expected, a little vanilla spice here and a noticeable blackcurrant overtone there. These pleasant aroma's waft from a medium strength virgina that doesn't bite..

Smoking Firedance is at times, reminiscent of catching the 'occasional' whiff of someone baking a blackcurrant crumble (cobbler to the yanks) as one stroll's along a country lane in England during the height of summers eve.

Still not as nice as the real thing though, and this could have been better..

I wish I knew what to make of this strange tasting, strange smelling tobacco. I've been on a bit of an aromatic binge lately for some strange reason and thought I may as well explore my feminine side with this "ladies' tobacco."

Things went awry from the getgo. I'm usually impressed with the flake quality in SG tins, but this one looked like wet flank steak slices arranged by a blind man. It looked, actually, vaguely chewed.

The disconnect between the advertised "Blackberries, Brandy & Vanilla" and the real tin aroma has been mentioned by everyone. I was looking forward to the berries and though they were there, they were buried beneath more intense smells. This tobacco is floral for sure, but it's a vaguely unhealthy smell, too, something like a rose consumed by powdery mildew. My first instinct was to sprinkle some garden sulfur on those mangy flakes and fill a bowl with something else.

Since then, I've pushed through a few bowls of this stuff and every time I smoke it, I feel like I'm doing myself potential harm. Maybe I've just learned that I don't enjoy smoking something that looks like a half-chewed flank steak and smells like a sick rose.

I was looking forward to tasting blackberry with brandy and vanilla. Except there isn't any.

You get a faint whiff of berry from the tin but that's about it.

I guess it's cheaper to sell water than tobacco, considering how soggy the flakes were in the tin when I opened it.

It's got a sort of floral aroma and taste, like a straight virginia with a weird top note.

Hugely better than Devil's Holiday, but that don't make it great either.

Won't be buying this again.

I've had a tin of this around for awhile and decided to have another offering of Firedance. I smoked it in a larger bowl, and it was fairly nice. Do keep your palette moistened as a helper. Actually, when a blend such as this has a revealed recipe of flavorings, one should know that this will be a what it is... a fragrant pipe tobacco. It's a bit like ordering desert at a fine restaraunt. The quality of leaf is good, as all Gawith is top notch, but the disclosed ingredients of berries, brandy and vanilla is a clear notice to all who partake. I would treat it for what it is, and enjoy the good quality dessert that it is.....and it is less filling. I prefer the naturals but once in a while it's nice to go elsewhere for just a change of taste.