Samuel Gawith Firedance Flake

While I enjoy Best Brown and other flavored blends from Samuel Gawith and Gawith & Hoggarth, I'm not a fan of this one.

Fire Dance Flake smells delicious in the tin, and the flakes pack beautifully. Upon lighting, there is an initial whiff of light berry flavor, then the brandy and vanilla step to the front. . . and their combined taste in this blend was not at all appealing to me. (Frankly, "sweaty feet" was the mental image created by the aroma.) While I don't doubt that there are fine Virginias here, they never really have the chance to shine on their own. I like everything in this blend; I just found the end result to be much less than the sum of its parts.

I had picked this one up thinking that it might be a good compromise between being a pleasant-smelling tobacco for passersby and an enjoyable pleasure for the actual smoker, much like Bob's Chocolate Flake is for me. After making my way through an entire tin, though, I felt that it missed on both counts. Hopefully, your mileage will vary and you'll find something here to enjoy.

A truly odd smoke. On the positive side, the flake texture is lovely, albeit way too moist out of a fresh tin. As for the smoke, it is odd in the same way that an orange milkshake would be odd, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. There are conflicting notes everywhere, in the casing itself and certainly between the casing and the tobacco. A peculiar citrus note seems to dominate which is not completely unpleasant but I felt it should have been far less obvious. The room note went down in a similar way, with most reactions along the lines of "What exactly IS that you're smoking?". Once again, more down to curiousity than revulsion. To sum up, Fire Dance is neither fire nor dance and would make a respectable entry in the Gawith R&D log, but a poor product on the shelf.

Smells strongly of berries in the pouch. Mostly tastes like soap in the pipe. Had three bowls, traded away the rest. Yuck. Had to salt and acohol the pipe twice to get rid of the floral taste.

I cannot be counted as a fan of this offering from Sam Gawith. The flakes bear a physical resemblance to Best Brown, but sadly, the similarity vanishes upon consumption. Berry flavor, not unpleasant in pie, is less than ideal in my pipes. Not much in the way of flavor of any sort, very little strength, unremarkable finish, it rather reads like a summary of British politics...

Tin note is like those Fruit-To-Go bars. Tastes like a decent grassy virginia with a pear brandy caseing. Quite moist. Bites like a pirannah. Will ghost a briar, or in my case a cob, in short order. Erik Stokkebye's 1982 is a far better vanilla blackberry aromatic with no bite if that's what you're after. If you're an SG fanatic working through their catalogue, have fun, I'll pray for your tongue. Disappointed, but it'll make a great potpourri for the porcelain office. 1 star. All there is to say.

This is a unique tobacco. As the description states, it's made with Best Brown Flake and topped with the blackberry Brandy and vanilla. It's a pleasant smoke and worth to trying.

Not all tobaccos age the same way... I don't remember how I got a 40-gram bag of Firedance on my shelf. Of course, there was no date on the package. But by the look of the warnings about the dangers of smoking, I could tell that the tobacco was released before 2013. The excise stamp, which indicated Q3 2012, also spoke in favor of this. So this Virginia blend had aged a fair bit, which was supposed to do it some good.

It looks like a pressed brown flake with an uneven cut and yellowish flecks. The tobacco has been very well fermented over the years of storage and has dried out somewhat. However, the moisture content remained quite acceptable to be able to stuff a pipe.

The smell of the tobacco has changed over the years when compared to the manufacturer's description. It is claimed that the flavoring that was used contained brandy, vanilla and blackberry. In reality, however, I was met with a bouquet consisting of dominant citrus notes and sugar as well as vanilla, faint remnants of berry and a small amount of Lakeland essence containing clove and rose oil. Together it gave off a strange but pleasant smell, somewhat like orange jam. I broke out the flake and stuffed it into a pipe, a billiard with a fishtail mouthpiece designed for Virginia.

Some disappointment awaited me. Despite the fact that over the years the Virginia was supposed to give more sweetness, the tobacco turned out to be frankly sour on the palate. Well, I mean, there was sugar in it too, but it clearly wasn't enough to interrupt the sour lemon note. It additionally had the taste of yeast dough to it. To top it all off, the tobacco turned out to be stiff - at the slightest warming it wanted to bite my tongue. In my memory, this was the first time in many years that I almost immediately put out and shook out the pipe. It didn't have time to heat up much, so I immediately stuffed it with another virginia blend to kill the rest of the smell it had time to absorb.

The next day I picked up another pipe, with the same cup size, but already bent, and with a P-lip mouthpiece at that. To top it off, a filter could be inserted into it. I filled it with a portion of Firedance and smoked again. The flavor situation changed considerably for the better. First of all, the tobacco was no longer so stinging. Yes, it was still stiff (I partially solved this problem later by adding a filter), but the flavor has "picked up" and become more interesting. The yeast disappeared from it, a berry note appeared, and somewhere on the far approaches a drop of brandy was felt. However, the orange jam, lightly spiced with vanilla, dominated. When I added the filter, the flavor became more muted, and the tobacco could be smoked without fear of the tongue, but as a result, the berry and brandy notes disappeared - the tobacco turned into the usual (and very mediocre) aged Virginia of medium strength, which is clearly overdue.

I won't write anything this time about the smell of smoke, the humidity, and the amount of ash, because I'm convinced that this tobacco shouldn't be aged as long as it's been on my shelf. It should be smoked fresh, and I'm sure you'll get a pretty good European aromatic with just Virginia.

I had bought 10 grams sample of this modern Samuel’s blend. Fresh smell was after some fruit, maybe blackberry or forest fruit. But what was surprise for me, also something like cinnamon or spice. After light smell was only a bit noticeable. Burns well. Mayor taste is sweetness from virginia. I had only little moisture on the bottom of bowl. It cause sometimes a tongue bite. Overall, I have already smoke much better aromatics.

Firedance from Samuel Gawith is highly flavoured tobacco, so tasting the Virginia used in this product is nearly impossible, but visually I can only suppose, that base of this product could be a Best Brown.

As producer quote, the tobacco is flavored by blackberry, vanilla and brandy. Vanilla with blackberry are clearly perceptible and the blackberry give the tobacco a gently consummate character. In my opinion blackberry also could taste like other berry fruits e.g.raspberry etc. Vanilla flavoring emphasize sweetness of Virginia, but personally I must make a push to feel brandy taste - the alcohol don't fizz in nose, it's gently subtle.

The room note is the biggest asset of this product. I smoked this tobacco a lot of time in company of non smokers and anti smokers, and they was delight and fascinate of amazing fruity (berry fruits) and sweet aroma. Some of them also think, that this is smell of electronic cigarette, so if you are a beginner pipe smoker or aromatic tobacco smoker I can highly recommend this product.