Gawith, Hoggarth & Co. Kendal Mixed

Kendal Mixed in the bag has a light Lakeland style scent that doesn’t crowd out the tobacco. I found this to be true in the pipe as well. A super fine cut makes this simple to pack and smoke. It’s very straightforward in flavor without much change in taste throughout the bowl. The balance between the Burley and Virginia’s is perfect although the Burley flavor comes through a little more for me with some slight nuttiness. There is no bite, but be aware, this stuff burns quickly unless properly packed and can smoke hot if not using the proper cadence. There’s some nicotine here, but not a lot as I find it slightly more than mild to medium. All in all, a pretty simple, no frills blend.

Bag states, "A classic blend of the highest quality bright and dark fired Virginias." A little research stated its roughly a 50/50 mix of bright and dark fired Va's.

Package note of barbeque and peaty vegetation. Tobacco is a shag cut of yellowish light brown, brown and a little dark brown. Moisture content is ok. Most pipe smokers will want to dry this out a bit. Burns moderately fast with a few relights. The strength is medium and nic is mild. No flavoring detected. Taste is medium and mostly consistent, with notes of peaty vegetation, bread, floral, slightly tangy, sweet woody, mild oak smoke, sugar, sweet grass, mildly savory, spices, mildly herbal, mildly bitter, earth, a semi-sweet hay background note, and a peppery retro. Room note is pleasant to tolerable, and aftertaste is great.

Hmmm... Sometimes there are discrepancies from retailer to retailer with the naming of a blend. I'm reviewing "Kendal Mixture" from 4Noggins. It is a shag cut, so I'm putting it here.

In my sample, I detect nothing other than tobacco. Strong tobacco. Once in awhile, it can bring me to the point of having nic-ups. To my taste, the cigar-like note provided by fire-cured leaf dominates, it reminded me somewhat of French tobacco in that regard. Not quite my cup of tea, but the world can always do with a well made blend of natural tobaccos.

Yes, this is one of the Kendal's, and it shows in your smoke right from the outset. They sell this mixture as a blending tobacco, but the Kendal essence is spoiling it for that particular purpose in my personal opinion. I am not trying to imply this tobacco is not good enough, but that you would have expected a blending tobacco to be more neutral in order to marry well with other tobaccos. Having said that, Kendal's Mixed seems to be a good smoke even though I am not overtly excited about it. The appearance is borderline with shag tobacco, so it burns quite evenly in your bowl. As you approach your mid bowl the flavour changes considerably. The Kendal essence becomes less apparent and something of a Burley undertone sort of flares up. It has earthy undertones and a sweet dimension that comes and goes as you progress with your smoke. I guess I will have to have a few more bowls to get a better appreciation of it, but my first impressions are good.

I bought a 2 oz sample of Kendall Mixed and liked it. By appearance it seems to be a mix of mostly light virginia & burley with a small amount of dark fired tobacco. The cut is a very stringy shag, with absolutely no stems. I like it. It packs easily. The flavor is TOBACCO. Reminds me of a high quality roll your own cigarette tobacco (something like "DRUM" only much better) in appearance, smell & taste. KB smokes cool & dry to the bottom of the bowl with a very consistant flavor. I found KM to be a delightfull change of pace tobacco. I'll be buying more of this. Based on the quality of this tobacco, I think I will sample some of the other shag cuts Gawith,Hoggarth has to offer.

This is a fine option from GH. I’m a fan of these folks anyway, and this blend, sold as KENDAL MIXED by many popular online retailers here in the states, does nothing to lessen my opinion of Gawith Hoggarth.

What we have here is several different GH offerings all in one tasty blend. There’s a solid base provided by the Kendal Dark. I suspect there’s a dash of Kendal Kentucky. Enough Kendal Gold to keep everyone playing nice. And maybe one more thing in there. I’m not sure. I can definitely detect the dark and gold.

Anyway, whatever it is, it works. For me, it works best in smaller bowls. The way I smoke, with larger bowls of this particular blend, everything tends to become murky after the halfway point.

In a smaller bowl, like the more petite system pipes, everything remains much more pleasant and interesting start to finish. Although I do find that, as things progress, the darker, bolder varietals tend to become dominant. Maybe a little too dominant for me.

So this blend gets a solid three stars from this reviewer. But, for my own purposes, I think I’d prefer blending my own version of this... probably going a good bit heavier on the gold, for the sake of a more pleasant latter portion of every bowl.

This looks like cigarette tobacco. It smells like cigarette tobacco. It's neither. Its a wonderful mix of Virginia's and Dark Fired's. It smokes smooth and rich. Not as rich as their ropes but don't expect it to be a light tobacco based on it's appearance. It packs the Vitamin N so caution if you are sensitive to that. Good on its own, this also makes a great tobacco for mixing into blends that need a tobacco boost. People have said it burns fast. It's the SR-71 Blackbird of tobacco, gone before you know it.

For virginia this tobacco is not very sweet, instead it tastes flat, like a drugstore tobacco of lesser quality. Kendal's Mixed is one of my least favorite from Gawith & Hoggarth. The flavor is straight tobacco, that I do like, but the shag cut is "roll your own" tobacco and the taste comes through as such. This offering would have been much better had it been a plug like Triple Play.

This tobacco is better than a 2 star blend, but falls short of Gawith & Hoggarts usual 4 star status. I can comfortably give this 3 stars and recommend it to friends who are Gawith & Hoggarth fans.

I'm not sure what makes this Mixed, but I suspect I'd like the components more than this blend. Kendal Kentucky is a favorite, as is Dark Flake (and shag and thick cut). This is a good tobacco, reasonably interesting flavor, easy to keep lit due to the shag cut, requires careful packing to ensure a reasonable burn rate. I like it, but don't love it. Worth trying if you like other GH tobaccos but are looking for something a bit more straightforward.