Rattray Wallace Flake

The grassy/hay-like, tart and tangy citrusy, lightly tangy dark fruity, woody, earthy Virginias also sport hints of floralness and bread as they take the lead over the obvious earthy, woody, nutty, lightly molasses sweet and spicy, toasty burley. The plum topping mildly tones down the tobacco, and weakens slightly in the last quarter of the experience. The plum is not quite as rich as it is in University Flake. The strength and taste levels fall a tad short of medium. The nic-hit is mild to medium. Won’t bite or get harsh, and has no rough edges. Burns cool, clean, and slightly slow with a fairly consistent flavor. Leaves little dampness in the bowl, and requires some relights. Has a lightly lingering, pleasant after taste, and slightly stronger room note. Can be an all day smoke.

-JimInks

Beautiful dark flake mottled with lighter elements.

Tin note: plum, but not overly so. May be a casing. If a topping done very lightly.

A flake more in the English tradition (think Capstan, Four Square, perhaps) than in the Danish.

Flavorful, enjoyable, bordering on the stout, it rubs out well, burns slowly and well, providing a good medium (noticeable) dose of nicotine.

No big surprises in flavor. The plum is attractive, not overwhelming, but present. This is a good combination of burley nuttiness and the complexity offered by a balanced blend of Virginias with qualities including depth, sweetness and a touch of tanginess. It doesn't bite.

While it is a very serviceable smoke and a head above many flakes out there, it will probably remain an occasional smoke for this smoker, a welcome change of pace. Nice to see a new flake of this quality appear!

A solid smoke , refreshing and satisfying, this virginia/burley flake is sure to win a following! It's a fine addition to the flakes currently on the market.

Recommended!

Rattray - Wallace Flake.

These are dark flakes with a lot of small light flecks throughout. I note how a few others point out that their flakes hydration is too much but my flakes are of a superb amount. The smell coming from them has a detectable fruit aroma to it but it isn't a strong 'aromatic' one by any means. When I rub the flakes out I have to use a little extra pressure, they aren't ridiculously hard but the aren't the easiest to prepare.

The first good point with the smoking of this is getting it ignited, I often as not use my jet lighter for flake blends but Wallace Flake only needs a touch of my regular lighter. The flavour of Wallace Flake is very similar to Peterson University Flake, the Burley and Virginia both take an equal share of the taste with a very subtle plum addition in the background. The burn is a consistent one that gives off a medium temperature smoke that is of a construction that's not too thick nor thin and gives no bite. The nicotine amount suits me perfectly, I would say it's again the same as University Flake. The room note is quite good in the fact it isn't too much but I can't notice any plum in it really.

I was excited when I noticed this one as I adore University Flake and Wallace Flake has definitely met my expectations! To be succinct, if you like University' then you will enjoy this. Four stars.

Mostly dark flakes in a nifty presentation flat tin, said flakes being infinitely foldable, which is how I preferred it. Tin nose of rich tobacco with the topping being very noticeable. This is said to be Peterson's University Flake with a different blender. I always thought UF had a blueberry topping but this claims to be plum. Whatever... figuring out artificial flavorings is hardly a talent of mine.

Some interesting differences between this and UF. First of all, the flakes are purtier here whereas the UF flakes were pretty ragged. Second, this one seems to have less burley and more Virginia whereas UF was burleyburleyburley... and oh yeah, a little Virginia. Taste wise this was smoother but seemed to carry the plum flavoring longer thru the bowl. In other words, this is more heavily flavored. Which is ok, because I think the plum sauce is this one's selling point. You can find unflavored VaBurs all over but how many plum flavored ones are there? This was a sweet flake due to the apparent higher VA concentration as well as the more robust flavoring, which stayed with me thru the entire bowl. But it also had a nice underlying richness, if not as potent in the nicotine department as UF. As happens often, if this is supposed to be a match, another visit to the drawing board is in order. But on its own, it's a sweet flavored mostly VA flake that will appeal to those who like flavoring but prefer a choicer batch of leaf than the average goopy aromatic. A nice once in awhile smoke for me, and I would imagine a tin would last me a year! But well worth a shot if the thought of blueberry tobacco doesn't make you cringe.

I have been smoking University Flake on and off for years, ever since the old tin art and the old blender (Murray's ?).

Now, unless I bought a tin of the current production UF and Wallace Flake, and did a side by side, I could not tell you exactly if these are now the same blend or not.

First of all strength, nicotine, is less than the UF of old, of this I'm sure, but this is still a tobacco with underlying backbone and decent relaxation capability.

Second, Wallace Flake, or WF, is even smoother, slightly sweeter,and the top note a bit more persistent and more pleasing than my memory of UF. If I had to guess, I'd agree with the reviewer who thought there was more VA in WF than UF.

Either way this is a great semi-sweet smoke, utterly bite free, and I am very sensitive to various forms of bite from many blends.

Easy to rub out, and easy to smoke, as long as it isn't packed too tightly, as the rubbed out flake is still very dense and long lasting.

This is still the best blend to load in your pipe at the end of the day when you don't want any pipe related drama, as all the flavors here are rounded and smooth smooth smooth.

Being a newbie returnee to pipe smoking perhaps precludes me from giving a qualified review of this tobacco, but here's my take.

I was steered towards this when another choice was unavailable. Its my first experience of a flake, but pleasing in the ease with which it rubbed out. I found it stronger than other tobaccos I've been using, but also very dependant on the pipe used. Some suggest filling the pipe by folding the flakes in a "Z" and pushing them down in the bowl - that method gave me the strongest smoke, no doubt the preference of some?

I found the nicotine hit a bit full on with an unfiltered small bowl pipe, but much more to my liking with a 9mm filter in my large bowl Zettervig, which smoothed the (to me) rough edge and, and enabled me to discern a mild though pleasing background note of plum.

I would perhaps revisit it but at present wouldn't hurry back in preference to say a black cavendish. To me this one isn't so much for newbies as seasoned smokers who like a bigger hitting flake. For that reason I won't allow my inexperience to get in the way of giving it a "fair" 3 out of 4.

Nice to find a new-ish flake out there. Tin note is hay like and very minute sweetness. The flakes are dense, moist and very dark. I find that the "plum cake" is very faint. This stuff smokes nice and cool in a small chambered pipe. Ash is pale grey. It is mellow and easily French inhaled and is subtle in its sweetness. A beautiful flake definitely worth a try.

This is a comparison of Wallace Flake (produced by K&K) and University Flake (formerly K&K, then Mac Baren and now produced by STG).

After my first tin of University Flake diddn't last very long, I hopped on my road bike and made a neat little journey to Peter Heinrichs Chateau Henri to stock up on it. I bought UF when I was looking for blends in the style of Peterson's 3Ps (Perfect Plug), and was very pleased by University Flake. Somehow they were run out of University Flake and deep inside myself I felt happy, because I wanted to compare UF to Wallace Flake anyways, kinda like fate. So I grabbed a tin of Wallace Flake and rode home, excited for what would await me.

I did read a lot of reviews about University vs. Wallace Flake in forehand and most people seemed to agree that Wallace is a tad sweeter and less nutty-earthy than University. Opening the (compared to UFs tin design) rather boring, yet classy designed tin (which is now round) of Wallace I was pleasantly surprised:

Wallace Flake looks exactly the same as University Flake. Just as UF the neat flake slices are sticking to eachother and are hard to separate. "Must be exactly the same weed" I thought, before I dipped my nose into the tin and noticed that Wallace Flake has a slightly different and more natural flavoring to it than UF.

Whilst UF flavoring is reminding me exactly of condoms (sounds very odd, I know, but its smells very plesant!) we have here in Germany and is rather artificially (yet pleasantly) somewhat plum-ish, Wallace Flakes flavoring actually smells of plums. It seems as if K&K has tweaked or changed the flavoring a bit - for good as I think! Wallace wins the "tin-note/flavoring battle".

Already on first light I noticed that Wallace Flake is more on the citrusy-sweet, Virginia-forward side, whilst University is more full-bodied, nutty-earthy and Burley-forward. Wallace Flake offers the said citrusy-sweet, grassy and hay-ish Virginia aromas and is underscored by the mildly nutty and molasses Burley. With UF it's just the opposite. I perceive Wallace's flavoring as more mild than the one of University. It offers sweet plums and some other (blue-?)berries, whilst UFs flavoring is more "dark" in character. Yet the flavoring is a bit more present in Walllace than in University. The "taste-battle" is clearly a draw to me. Both offer a very delightful smoke, Wallace being more "bright" and University more "dark" in character.

Wallace Flakes strenght is rather medium, almost close to mild, unlike University Flakes strenght, which I settled for as "medium to strong" (medium for experienced smoker, strong for new pipe smokers and/or pipe smokers who prefer mild blends.

I was hoping to identify one of the two as "much better", so I wouldn't have to keep a stock of both at hand - but after having smoked both I'm setting up two jars (which I only do for blends that I always keep in stock for my daily rotation), one for University and one for Wallace Flake, because personally I wouldn't wanna miss out on one of them. UF is more full-bodied, strong in Burley. WF is a tad more mellow-sweet, dominated by Virginias. Both are top-notch "old english style" blends, that are (besides Erinmore & 3Ps) unlike anything else on the market and I rank them very high in my "go-to" blends stash.

3-stars, as I prefer the University Flake incarnation!

Considered on its own, this is a very serviceable dark VaBur, with a topping that's between 'very mild' and 'mild', really just enough to make it interesting. The flakes are well-made and easy to tear into strips and fold (my preferred method when possible). Compared to University Flake, this tin at least was easier to light and seemed a bit sweeter without the topping being any more noticeable (at least to me) and a touch less N (but still a solid medium).

This is in fact Peterson's University Flake under a new label. Rattrays produce a lot of Peterson stuff now according to (hopefully) the old recipes. I sincerely hope it's not gonna be "new masters, new rules" like what has happened so many blends in the past.