G. L. Pease Sextant

This is an outstanding tobacco. It harkens back to some of the old tobacco of the pre WII era. Rum has always worked well with tobacco and this is a doozy. The dark rum blends perfectly with the tobaccos especially the Kentucky. I am not sure this would age well because the rum might well dissipate and in this blend the rum is the secret ingredient. You want it full and favorable. Without it this tobacco is just nice. With it it is intriguing and exciting. Some tradionalists may not get this tobacco but they will be missing out on some kick ass blends.

Whoa. This is strong strong stuff.

5 times I have been put on weird street by pipe tobacco, and 2 of those occasions were due to this guy. The Vit N hit I get off this turns my wheel, I now need to be armed with a sweet tea and a stomach load of hearty carbs to guard against the sweats.

Anyway, this is sublime. Its kinda rough, the edges are not smooth at all and its something of a concoction. Heavy hands blended the components and brought it together, big douse of Kentucky, heavy splash of rum (the best rum note of any blends - real, heady and delightful inyourface scent), decent hit of Latakia.

It all comes together very nicely into a dose of oily, dark, murky goodness for a winter's night. I imagine this hearkens back to days when tobacco was the reserve of sailors going to and fro exotic new lands, and back in England when they mashed it all together, the finished product was something like this.

Gives your palate a noticeable film of something that tastes glorious, beautiful aroma, needs a little drying, easily rubbed out, took a few relights, but well worth all the effort.

A real find.

Can only imagine what an old tin of this will do!!

Love this! Especially drawn to the divine mix of smokey latakia and the nutty Kentucky. The modest rum topping lends itself perfectly, adding to the sweet aroma found on the nasal exhale. As others have mentioned earlier, not an aromatic. At mid-bowl, this has my eyes rolling back in their sockets... already excited for the next bowl. Smoked in a GBD Bermuda bulldog bent. Folded and stuffed. Burns perfectly to a white ash. For comparison's sake, my faves, in no particular order: Sextant, C&D Black Frigate, Penzance, Peterson's 3 P's, MacB Old Dark Fired, SG Navy Flake.

I was one of the privileged few to sample this in early March at our pipe club dinner, where Greg Pease is a member. He brought an unmarked tin of this (approximately 3 weeks before release) for all to try, and by the time he left it was empty. Everyone loved it.

The rum flavor is very muted in this blend, lending a touch of soft sweetness, and complements the Latakia and Kentucky leaf quite nicely. A number of us felt there was Perique present in the mix, which Greg assured us was not. It is likely the Kentucky leaf (at least this is my guess) that gives this a bit of spiciness. This blend produces a very thick and luxurious smoke that does not bite no matter how madly I puff it. It has a generous nicotine kick, and I recommend sitting down for this one. I have cellared a few tins of this, and it is likely to become my after dinner smoke for the time being.

Although I like a lot of different tobaccos, GL Pease blends have become my overall favorites due to their consistent fantastic smoking qualities. Greg's experience as a master blender is very evident in everything he markets. This one is sure to please any lover of English blends.

Aye mates, this is a keeper. Tested it in a new, larger Ardor (10 bowls) and in an older, smaller GBD (11 bowls). I think better in a smaller bowl.

A rich, rounded, partially broken flake which becomes fully rubbed by the time you have dug in the tin by half way.

The base is virginia and the other tobaccos are not too noticeable to me due to the rum topping, though you occasionally get a dark note of the latakia or kentucky.

When freshly opened, I felt I noticed more latakia at the outset of a bowl, but it was quickly engulfed in the rum which flavor becomes more prominant as you go on.

My test for this blend was in the keeping character of the rum, which quickly fades in some other blends (Aliester's rum topping was similarly strong at the start but after a few days it faded almost completely -- though that older tin was 15 years old when I smoked it). The first few days Sextant's rum is the dominant flavor, but after smoking the entire tin in 10-11 days, the rum mellows out some (not much) after a few days yet stays with the entire bowl to the end. If you will take more than a week or so to smoke a tin, you'll need to better protect the contents to maintain a solid rum profile. I did nothing special to preserve it but put the top folders back in and lid back on.

Although the base tobaccos make this blend rich overall, it is the rum profile that makes it taste delicious. The base alone would not do it for me (I smoked the remaining scraps after 11 days and it was -- exposed in a pretty much empty can -- rather plain by then). If you don't like rum or liquer flavors in tobacco, this blend is not for you. I didn't know I liked them so much until after a few bowls of this.

I was impressed as this is a full tasting blend (not as heavy as an English) with a tasty rum flavor (Master Please admits it's rum, but if there is something else to help it along, I do not know). The flavor is why I like it and I am not normally an aromatic smoker. A fairly consistent flavor. Not hot or bitey or wet to me, but a full sensory experience. 1 or 2 bowls a day was plenty for me.

This has more flavor, character, and body to me than either MB's or SG's Navy Flake. Of course, this is a deluxe navy flake with a virginia flake and light english mixture pressed and combined.

Highly recommended to the bold virginia smokers. Make it so.

G.L. Pease Sextant is a ready rubbed Navy style blend, presented in mid brown to almost black shades of leaf. I find the smoky-sweet tin note very compelling and once lit the taste does not disappoint. This is easily a three to four star when fresh.

Aging a previously opened tin for another couple of months (up to a bit over a year in my case), makes the smoke extraordinary gentle and mellow. It loses some of the edge and some of the casing compared to a fresh tin and has the Orientals come through to take over the lead. Despite the softness, the tobacco remains satisfying. The nicotine reveals itself about half way down the bowl for me.

Be careful not to accidently draw in some of the super fine, bright ash remaining and enjoy.

Last spring my wife and I took a trip to Ashville NC with our son and daughter-in-law to celebrate our daughter-in-law's graduating with her PHD. While we were there we wandered into a pipe shop (sorry, I don't remember the name) and my wife bought me a new Savinelli pipe. I had brought a few cigars with me on the trip, but since it was just two days, and since I didn't know if I would have a time or place to smoke, I hadn't packed any pipes or tobacco.

When we checked into our hotel I noticed that they had a big covered porch with nice comfy chairs and ceiling fans and thought that would be the perfect spot to sit in the evening and enjoy a pipe, but as i mentioned above, I hadn't brought any (my mistake!). So when my wife purchased the new Savinelli I had to get something to put in it so I could have the first smoke in it out on the porch, so I looked around the tins of tobacco that the shop had and the first one that caught my eye was Sextant.

The tin said that it contained Ripe Virginia, Latakia, Orientals, and some Dark-Fired Kentucky with a hint of Dark Rum; this sounded right up my alley, so I bought the tin and cracked it open as soon as we got back to the hotel.

The tin aroma is sweet and slightly smoky and you can taste the sweetness from the Rum when you draw through the unlit pipe, but that kind of goes away on the light. When lit you get the smokiness of the Latakia (and the Dark-Fired?) at first, which transitions into a more Virginia sweetness as the bowl progresses.

This was the perfect tobacco for that evening out on the hotel porch, and I continued to enjoy the rest of the tin when I got back home.

I have never had a bad GLP tobacco, but this one ranks up there with some of my favorites. I love this one and it is highly recommended!

I had one or two reservations upon ordering this, the description as a rum laced navy flake reminded me a little too much of SG's Navy Flake, an insufferable tobacco that I ended up disposing of about half way through the tin. I quite rightly questioned my desire to purchase this on that basis and can only put it down to my desire to try some Pease tobaccos and this being one of the few in stock when I placed my order online. My subsequent experiences of smoking it, however, are justification enough.

Upon opening the 2oz drum, I was greeted with a strange smell, it was one akin to silage with a sweet whiff to it, so wrong yet somehow strangely and very palatable. The rich dark browns of the flakes did, though, provides a lot of reassurance, they just seemed so right sitting there in the tub. Rubbing is no problem as the flakes just pull apart so easily, making the packing a doddle. Upon light, the flavour hits and it's so nice, less silage, more rum, just as sweet. The flavours from the tobacco nicely raise their head during the smoke, almost as if peeping out through curtains, especially the latakia, giving a delicate complexity to the experience. Throughout the remainder of the tin the flavour has remained pretty much the same, it will be such a shame when I have finished it. The only other thing worthy of note is the strength, it does pack a punch on the nicotine front.

This, then, is an absolute delight to smoke. I really do have a job pacing myself with this as I am finding it hard not to smoke this all the time. Sadly, this is not in stock at the moment with Gauntleys of Nottingham, the only supplier I can get it from in the UK. It's probably just as well as I seem to have found a tobacco that I would be happy to smoke all the time. I can't help crack a smile, though, that a small, relatively new, independent blender can outperform a well established brand like SG on what must be quite a difficult tobacco to blend. Thank you Mr Pease, keep up the good work.

This blend took a few smokes to grow on me. It prefers, at least in my opinion, thick walled pipes with a medium sized bowl, in a smaller bowl it gets a bit to sharp and in a larger bowl in my opinion it's just to much smoke, to rich of a blend to be smoking for that long. With that said, once I figured this out, I loved the blend, I'm still smoking it and will probably buy more, this one has become a fast favorite. I love the burley/va interplay overtop of the hint of leathery latakia with that nice hint of rum to top it all off! I don't care for aromatics, and this blend isn't one, the rum complements the existing tobacco flavors very well in my opinion and does not overwhelm anything. The flakes are easy to rub out and pack, virtually falling apart in your fingers!