Rattray Hal O' the Wynd

Hal O the Wind: Crack O the can is exquisite. Room note is nice, providing you allow a flow through. 1st light is wonderful. 2nd light is pure soft sweet VA. Flavor is overall good VA. This is a first for me to crack a can; love what I smell; light it up and have the flavor nearly the same as the first impression I get from the fresh, raw, unsmoked note. This is a good morning smoke, with black coffee. I like it best with good strong black iced coffee in the summertime.

The flavor is at first, nutty wood; flowery with the scent of apricot and fresh cut Honduran mahogany. I used to mill wood, so you must allow me olfactory license.

It is easily prepared with very little drying time. It breaks up and stuffs evenly. Lights quickly; stays lite, but burns warm. The flavor stops 2/3 down and leaves a tary dottle, but few blends are perfect.

This is by no means a favorite, but it is very good straight forward red Va with a hint of Parique in the back and has a fair nic kick, that's never overpowering. Give it a shot. It's nice for the price as either a stand alone, or as a MEDIUM blending base to add fullness and mild sweetness.

Lacks the usual tangy edge of other Vas, it has a rounded almost malted caramel like overtone but with absolutely no sweetness that I can sense. Quite strong, I like the fine shag cut and it is not fussy what pipe it wants to be smoked in. Overall, a good Virginia, but I guess I miss the slight sweet edge too much for a four star rating.

I don't find this overly strong or overwhelming. But it is highly flavorful and a delight when you have the time and inclination to relax, set a spell and savor a truly good Virginia. Not tolerant of being rushed, HotW is natural tobacco with nature's sweetness there for the enjoyment. Treat yourself sometime, you know you deserve it.

03/03/2004 I have been moving into some of the heavy hitters in the nicotine rating. That includes Hal O' The Wind and Royal Yacht, quite different tobaccos, aside from nicotine content.

There must be some residual effect from my pack a day Malboro habit back in my 20s (now 30 years ago). But aside from an occasional tight little lump behind and below my sternum, neither of the above two blends has really whalloped me.

I like Hal; I respect Hal, but I don't love Hal. It is a top quality tobacco in every respect. It does all the things that a premium pipe tobacco is supposed to do. It excels.

It is a better quality tobacco than McClelland 2015, which remains my favorite. It just hasn't captivate me. (I am sounding like a woman about to break up with a lover!)

I've been trying Hal and Royal Yacht for about two months now. I enjoy them both. I also have learned the importance of a good nose when enjoying tobacco. When I first tried these tobaccos I had a miserable head cold. No tobacco tasted good. I might has well have been smoking cardboard.

I do enjoy the taste and scent of Hal O' the Wind. It is easy on the tongue and relatively easy on the wallet for a premium tin. It is well worth the investment. I would encourage anyone who likes quality Virginia to try it. It will return the investment with consistent smokig pleasure

This tobacco is almost uniformly light brown, with the occasional lighter or darker shade, the aroma is typical of flaked virginia tobaccos, rich and sweet, and slightly spicy. I rubbed it out to a nice fluff and it was perfect to go right into the pipe

I packed it into my clay tavern pipe as the description on the side of th box said for the finest Virginia weed, and i thought to have it. It packs nicely and lit quickly only having to relight twice. This pipe is about 15 inches long so it is quite different from other pipes, i seemed to have to give it a few draws to get a mouthfull of smoke.

The flavor was rich and slighly sweet reminiciant of almost rum cake of some sort, a bit light in the beginning, but about halfway through it intensified a bit, a very cool smoking blend, which may have been due to the pipe as well. My wife found the smoke to be pleasent, i guess passable would have been a good way to describe it for her.

Overall i really enjoyed this tobacco, it smoked cool with no tongue bit whatsoever, and is a nice relaxing smoke to read a nice book to. I would have to give it a 4.25 out of 5 Excellent smoke.

Appearance: The 50-gram tin that came to my review had no production date, but I'm pretty sure it was released in 2022. The tobacco is an almost one-colour medium brown blend of fine ribbons made by breaking up a very fine flake. Complete absence of dust. The tobacco itslef is of excellent quality. The tobacco was, however, somewhat moist, I had to air dry it for about half an hour.

Flavour: unintense, smooth. Non-fermented dough, overripe but not rotten, small dark plum, walnut partition, a slight hint of cocoa, a little bit of stale hay, literally a crumb of ginger. There is no sense of bright Virginia flavour, and the citrus note is so imperceptible that it is almost has been eclipsed between the woody and plum tones.

Taste: To accept as true the claim that this blend has a bright taste is to deny your familiarity with Gregory Pease's products. Compared to Pease’s blends, Rattray is like cool jazz versus rock concert. For this reason, I describe the flavor as "harmonious, but somewhat muted." A dense woody tone with a smoky note present, earthiness and faintly sweet, slightly astringent plum come together in a bouquet that is quite difficult to separate, with light touches of walnut and allspice (however, the perique quickly loses its spiciness) added to it. As you smoke, the flavor of the tobacco shifts slightly toward the fruity notes, but it never really becomes sweet. Slightly harsh in the beginning, the blend becomes significantly softer towards the middle. The blend is quite demanding on the temp of smoking, and while not trying to bite your tongue, it dramatically loses the rest of the sweetness in the flavor when overheated. The strength of the tobacco is close to average, in very large pipes a slight nicotine hit is possible. Despite this strength, the blend is great at providing nicotine. It burns into a dark gray ash almost completely, leaving some moisture in the pipe. The aftertaste is astringent, woody, and lingering.

The smoke from the tobacco is not thick, but fairly persistent, has a woody smell with the lightest hint of burnt vinyl.

Bottom line: A very high quality blend, the merits of which are density and excellent nicotine provision, despite the moderate strength. On the downside, it was treated with a fair amount of propylene glycol, which literally suffocated all the flavor and taste notes. On the other hand, I would have liked this tobacco much less in full flavor due to the stronger Kentucky. And in its current form... Among my pipes I've found one in which the Kentucky flavor is virtually nonexistent, and I'll be able to enjoy Hal O' The Wynd in the spring when I start smoking Virginia perique blends regularly again. It's certainly hard to classify this blend as one of my favorites, but it's very high quality and doesn't need maturing, unlike the vast majority of American blends. Although, perhaps as it ages it will get the sweetness I need. Who knows?

Somewhat like C&D Small Batch Carolina Red Flake, but smoother! Nice smoke! A pleasant surprise! Somewhat like C&D Small Batch Carolina Red Flake, but smoother! Nice smoke! A pleasant surprise! Somewhat like C&D Small Batch Carolina Red Flake, but smoother! Nice smoke! A pleasant surprise!

Another nice tobacco from Rattrays which was generally thought to be a pure Virginia until a few years ago, whereupon everyone seems to be able to taste the Kentucky and Perique! For me, Hal O The Wynd and Old Gowrie both go in my Virginia pipes, and I don't notice the Perique unless smoked in my Perique pipes which are saturated with the stuff - I think the Perique and Kentucky are added below the level of condiments here, just to tweak the overall effect. It's also worth noting that an old Rattrays blend book stated that this contained nothing but Virginia!

So, what do we have? In the tin we have very well rubbed out, fairly bright Virginia tobacco. The aroma in the tin is "delicate", it doesn't jump out and assail my nostrils. Smells like fairly fresh hay. The tobacco is at a perfect moisture content and packs very easily. Lighting is a breeze with one match, and you're away.

The flavour is initially very mild, the grassy, hay like effect of bright Virginias, with a hint of toasted rice. Its not very sweet, although perhaps the sweetness is suppressed by a slightly astringent effect, like darjeeling tea taken without milk. Later in the bowl a slight citrus sharpness emerges which is quite nice, and some sweetness appears. This tobacco should be smoked very slowly to appreciate it fully, although I must say I've not found it prone to tongue bite.

The strength is good, not formidable but you know its there. It burns to a little dottle, and pipe cleaners come out surprisingly tarry!

Overall, very nice stuff. I'd say these three tobaccos from Rattrays can be put in order from Marlin Flake (very fruity, juicy, dark flake with a hint of Perique) through Old Gowrie (dark, fruity, bready Virginia) to Hal O The Wynd (bright, hay like, unstoved Virginia). I find them all very pleasant, but Marlin Flake is probably my favourite of the lot.

This is a very good blend. Very grassy and yeasty. The aroma is pleasant. This has a little bit of strength, so I would smoke after a light meal. Overall this is a good evening smoke.