Gawith, Hoggarth & Co. Best Brown #2

Another premium tobacco from Gawith Hoggarth. Beautiful looking flakes, wonderful smell, easy to pack, burns easily, no tongue bite or harshness. Can be all day smoke. Highly recommended.

Nice looking flakes that come in a baggie. Needs a little drying time (nothing like SG blends) or be prepared to relight your pipe several times. But once it gets going.....Oh boy is it great. Gently smoking this blend gives a sweetness like no other blend I've tried before. The burleys provide the backbone and the floral topping hangs in the background and is barely noticeable. In fact, sometimes I don't even notice it. Highly recommended.

Sweet and sour, tangy and delicious!

This is yet another one from GH&Co that just ticks all the right boxes. To be honest, this one took me awhile to figure out and really fall for. I remember tasting a light Lakeland topping when I first tasted this blend but I don't pick up on that anymore, at all. I'm assuming I just got used to the topping and I just don't taste it anymore. This is a very sweet, tangy Virginia blend. The leaf had some obvious age on it when I got it as I could see the beautiful sugar crystals (bloom) covering the flakes. I also pick up that vinegar, ketchup type smell that you will sometimes find with well aged, fermented VA's. When I say this blend is sweet, I mean it is sweeeeet. Not in the overly topped aromatic kind of way but in the all natural tobacco kind of way. I'm sure I'm picking up on some of the casing in this tobacco but overall it tastes just like a natural tobacco and it's absolutely wonderful! This one isn't too strong in the nic dept but it's strong enough to satisfy my needs and I'm a proud nicotine addict. What we have here is another winner from the GH&Co house and I rate it as an absolutely essential blend for the experienced pipe smoker, their tobaccos make me wish I were a Brit.

Tastes like soap. (Hmm. My original three word review was rejected, because it must be at least 25 words in length. So, let me add some words to this review.) Let's see. How's this? This tobacco, unlike any of the other many, many dozens that I have tried and smoked over the years, TASTES LIKE SOAP. There. That oughta do it.

I'd like to clear something up. BB#2 is not a floral or soapy tobacco. However occasionally you'll get a tin which is tainted by whatever was processed before it. BB#2 seems to be the only GH tin that has this problem. Most of the time BB#2 is just plain straight untopped tobacco with that vinegarish tang to it which is just a natural byproduct of fermented baccy.

Out of about 8 tins, I have had 2 'tainted' tins, which have a really nice violet/lavender thing going on. I prefer the tainted stuff myself and in fact I only order it in the hopes that it will be, because I only have access to the tinned GH stuff and none of those have the lakeland florals. The tainted stuff gets 4 stars. The usual unscented BB#2 is very high quality but actually quite boring without the floral, and is what I am rating.

I agree with the reviewer who said it's like bob's choc without the choc.

I find it strange that people detect 'floral' toppings or 'soap' in Ennerdale or Rum flake. Ennerdale tastes like almonds and citrus fruits (like european pretzel) and rum flake tastes like....rum. I constantly see people referring to Ennerdale as the 'quintessential' lakeland floral/soap when it has no floral/perfume toppings whatsoever. None of the Samuel Gawith tins have it either - except arguably Kendal Cream Flake. I just put it down to lack of experience. If you've ever tried Condor, you'll know what 'lakeland soap' is without a shadow of a doubt.

My theory is that what people are describing as 'soapy' or floral is just the effect of GH using natural essential oils and real plants as opposed to artificial flavorings. Case in point GH top black cherry uses real cherries - I even got a whole cherry stone in one of my tins! Bob's choc has actual cocoa. SG 1792 has bits of fibre in it from the tonquin beans. People are not used to it, and they are expecting soap, so they taste soap. It's a psychological thing.

I'd give this four stars except I get some tongue bite from it. It is definitely lighter than FVF, definitely a bit more interesting than BBF in terms of additional Lakeland flavors but lighter in body than BBF. Nice stuff, but I prefer Brown Flake Unscented which seems to have a bit more oomph.

this is the only lakeland flake that i enjoy, i guess cause i don't get the soapy aftertaste from best brown #2. this blend is very much like rum flake only less soapy and much easier to dry out.

Update 8/10/11 This is the second of the six samples I picked up on a recent trip. I'm only changing the taste rating, up to Medium. I want to reiterate that the tin aroma here is the best I've ever smelled. I know that seems like judging a book by its cover. But I can't get over that. The taste varies a lot, and I can never get a handle on it. This one is not amazing in any particular way, but it gets under your skin.



Original Review 6/25/08 This is my fourth stop on the Lakeland tour.

First, some interesting differences between this flake (and I presume all G&H flakes) and Samuel Gawith flakes. BB2 came in flakes that were much more consistent in thickness, etc. than the SG flakes so far. Also, the texture/consistency was more brittle or flaky, whereas SG flakes are more, say, leathery. Perhaps because of this, BB2 dried out much faster. Finally, I got more smokes out of BB2, about 20, than the SG flakes (15 or so). We'll see if these differences hold when I smoke Rum Flake later.

When I opened this tin, I was greeted by the best tin aroma I have ever smelled. I just couldn't keep my nose out of it. I took one flake out, rubbed it out and dried it for maybe 30 minutes, loaded it and fired it up. At that time the flavor and aroma was very sweet, with notes of rum, licorice, chocolate, and such. I wondered if I had gotten Rum Flake or Bob's Chocolate by mistake. Even when still a bit wet, this is still a nice smoke.

Sometimes I would smoke this for about 15 minutes, then leave the pipe smoldering for 20 minutes, and then relight. Those were the best smokes. The burley flavor came through very well, salty and earthy.

Toward the end of the tin, this became salty and vegetal in flavor, with perhaps a bit of spiciness. Not great but still good.

Very consistent and user-friendly, this one, also in comparison to the SG flakes. However, I don't mind some trouble and for my money I'll still smoke BBF and FVF. If I were looking for a bargain, all-day smoke, I'd buy this by the pound.

I had to wait several weeks and try a several times for this new blend to be posted, and other reviewers have beat me to a punch. Nevermind, after two full tins in a large bent Don Carlos, this is a good, trusty, but full Lakeland flake, almost all natural in my book.

I too like G&H flakes, including Brown Flake and Rum Flake. Best Brown no. 2 is very close to G&H's Brown flake (unscented) in my book, but not quite as robust in my opinion. Don't confuse the two, as some have. I don't really compare it much at all to the floral scented flakes (Ennerdale, Brown flake aromatic, or SG Best Brown, etc.), which have varying degrees of extra sweetness added.

This is just a tad, and I mean tad lighter than the full bodied G&H's Brown flake. It may have more portion of virginia than burley than in Brown flake, and has just a hint of sweetness more so.

Overall it starts creamy, builds by mid-bowl to full, and ends nice and round-like. Its sweetness may be just from the sweet virginias added. Any scenting is musty and minimal. It is earthy but a little sweet nonetheless. (It is not sweet in the sense of SG's Kendal Cream Flake.) It is not a light smoke by any means.

It smokes dry and steady. Easy to rub out (I do just a little). It feels like a good cigar in body (but no cigar leaf is added). It leaves a strong room aroma.

I can compare it most to Germain's Brown flake, but it is fuller than that (with a touch of sweetness). It also has some similarities to University flake but is fuller and better in my opinion.

I don't know whether I like Germain's Brown Flake(which can be smoked more as it is not as full), G&H's Brown flake unscented (which is even more robust), or this variation better (the mid-full ground). They are all variations on a theme of earthy, fuller flakes. Still less full than darker flakes. Highly recommended to fuller side flake lovers, va. or burley or both, but a little milder than most dark flakes. Not necessarily for those who prefer lighter or sweet golden virginia flakes.