Radfords Scottish Blend

Tried this today for the first time. I'm currently on my fifth bowl.

I'm surprised at the negatuve reviews below.

First off, the the baccy was moist, soft and springy in the pouch, as it was in the bowl, with a mild whisky aroma.

Lights easily, burns steadily. needs relight halfway down. Very mild and pleasant to smoke. Nice aroma as you're puffing, very nice room aroma after you've finished. No bite whatsoever for me. Highly satisfying. On the downside, it has finished a tad too fast most times so far, but I'll experiment with how I pack the bowl.

It's got to be too early for a definitive review, but I'll be buying this baccy again for sure, and am very much looking forward to going through the rest of this pouch.

Well, this tobacco is very good for learning all the bad sides of the hobby. Thanks to it, I've discovered: tongue bite and ghost (briar and even meerschaum). The taste is not so bad (for me) but that is not enough to compensate for the downsides. Better to mix with burley to decrease the heat and avoid tongue bite (1/2 - 1/2)

Radfords - Old Scotch.

My initial impressions of this from the first few puffs were quite simple: what a mess. Sadly for Old Scotch, I didn't change my mind after smoking it for awhile.

This is the reason why the term 'tongue bite' was invented; from beginning to end it properly lacerates my tongue.

The flavour? Not good: clumsy, sticky, messy, and false; although the falseness is strong it's slightly ambiguous as to what additive it comes from, whisky, rum, maple etc. To add insult to injury it leaves an incredibly strong aftertaste that's reminiscent of glue. Zero out of ten for that!

It burns hot and has a rank room note....need I go on?

Simple; not recommended.

A Black Cavendish, Burley and Virginia mixture, heavily cased, painfully mild and overwhelmingly aromatic. Not even Davidoff?s Scottish Mixture is as pungent and enervating as Old Scotch. Lose ribbon cut, contrasting in colour, the tobacco packs easily and lights almost before you apply any lighting device to it. If anything, a peculiarity of Radfords? blends is that their casing techniques do not produce syrupy or goopy tobaccos, but the aroma in some of them can be very aggresive. In the pouch, Old Scotch comes relatively dry, and airing is only recommended as a palliative to the extreme whiskey-with-sugar aroma.

In my experience, the mildness of this tobacco virtually smoulders the palate and mercilessly assails the taste buds. The high contents of sugar makes this tobacco burn very quickly and hot. After half a bowl of OS it took me almost a day to recognise again any other flavour. The dense aroma remains in the pipe for quite some time, and only a couple of bowls of something like Gawith?s Commonwealth Mixture can neutralise the briar. Unlike other Radfords, this one has virtually no tobacco taste and if you are able to finish a bowl, you will desperately be looking for a glass of cold water to wash down the after taste!

This is a perfect example of the dreaded yet omnipresent gas station blends you can get everywhere where i live. Sooner or in rare occasions later you *will* stumble over it, fall for its homey pouch design and comforting promise of scotch, because what could go wrong, right? And you will instantly regret your decision as one usually does when buying a gas station blend.

The pouch note is of alcohol, some very slight whiskey and something i would say is some molasse or syrup.

The cut is a "wild cut" which is common in Pöschl blends and basically looks like "everything tossed together". Tips, strands of leaf, stems, coarse pieces, ribbons ... you name it. But packing and lighting are easy and the blend burns down willingly. And sadly that's it with this blends good qualities.

The blend burns really fast, really hot and with plenty of tongue bite.

Taste is lightly sweet and you can make out the whiskey in it, although only lightly as well. The smell is very nice if you like whiskey flavoured blends. The aroma wears of after about half the bowl and no tobacco taste will be there to compensate for the missing flavour. You will be left with bland hot air in conjunction with a bad aftertaste, which is an achievement of sorts too i'm certain.

Its blends like these that are responsible for both, gas station blends as well as Pöschl's bad reputation. I do *not* recommend this blend to anyone, for biting your tongue, burning way too hot and offering only a dull and slightly artificial taste experience if that at all.

I'm not an aromatic fan, unless it's scented plugs and flakes, but had this tobacco in a blind tasting as a "guess the blend" competition. Needless to say, never having had the stuff before I didn't win, but it made for an interesting smoking experience. It's something I never would have tried otherwise, and I smoked it very slowly and thoughtfully, picking my brains for any aromatic I smoked many years ago that it might resemble.

The tobacco is supplied quite dry, in a mixed cut with ribbon, large irregular pieces and granules. It's mostly bright leaf with a smattering of brown and black. The aroma in the bag is a melange of nondescript alcohol, sugar (maple?) and vanilla. It lights with remarkable ease, and burns fairly quickly, with a risk of bite when overpuffed. The flavour is extremely mild, sweet and nondescript. It's not unlike Clan, but milder and less tasty. My wife likes the smell. Why does she always like the smell of tobaccos that I don't really fancy?

All in all, not bad, it's not sticky or wet, and doesn't steam the tongue like the humectant soaked Cavendish blends, but not exciting and not something I'd buy.

It's not a syrupy aromatic, but the casing tastes very artificial although tolerable. I don't get any tongue bite from it smoking at my regular pace. It does go well with a glass of scotch. Not the worst aromatic I've tried, but definetly not the best.

Too much bite, too much flavoring, too little dimension. Only useful to spice up some rope tobaccos here from Brazil...