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Ok, I'm looking for difference, similarities (aside from price tag) regarding appearance, strength, flavorings (or lack of) and smoking/burning characteristics.
If you reply it would be more helpful if you were familiar with both tobaccos, but isn't necessarily required.
Thanks in advance.
IMO Sam Gawith's St. James Flake is a benchmark VaPer flake. It's a bit moist, but there are no negatives for me.
Gawith & Hoggarth Louisiana Perique Flake has a slight Lakeland scent -- not real cloying, but unmistakeable.
I'm going to do a side-by-side comparison tomorrow, but I wanted to respond briefly tonight so the thread gets a bump.
I look forward to the responses. I've had St. James Flake and really like it, but if G&H has a Lakeland scent, I may have to give it a go. MMMMM. Lakeland....
-Jason
Thanks Cortez, I do appreciate the trouble you're taking. Let me know if there's a way I can return the favor.
I was given a sample of a SG or GH flake, years ago, and didn't care for it because of the scent, or topping, but I can't remember which it was. Could've been either one of these two I'm curious about, or neither. Frankly, I can't remember which tobacconist gave it to me, as I was buying a great deal of tobacco from several places and they all would usually put 1 or 2 unrequested samples in with my purchase before it shipped....either because I was a good customer, or because they wanted me to be an even better customer, maybe both.
Anyway, I remember thinking "GAK!! THIS IS TERRIBLE LIKE SMOKING PERFUME!!" but in the interest of widening my horizons, I want to try some more of the flavored and scented stuff from SG and GH, and try and get used to tobaccos that don't leave the room (or entire house) smelling like a turd, as does the black irish XX. And yes, it really does. It smells like roasting flesh while I'm smoking, and then an hour later the roasting flesh smell goes away and it leaves a very faint, yet distinctive underlying stink of a turd. Any of you jokers don't believe this, let me send you an inch or so of it and you can close yourself in your bedroom and test my honesty 
Mike,
Samuel Gawith St. James Flake, Full Virginia Flake, and Best Brown Flake have no apparent topping - perhaps just a sugar casing. They should all be safe if you want to avoid the "perfumed" blends.
Gawith Hoggarth is the likely culprit if you came across a really heavily scented tobacco.
SG Kendall Cream, Bracken Flake, 1792 Flake, Grousemoor, and a few more have noticeable essences of various kinds on them but I have only tried the 1792 which would be a great place for you to start if you haven't had it yet.
High strength and a really pleasant flavour.
1792, like all the other SG flakes I have tried, is wet -- it requires considerable drying.
1792 has what I feel is a rather liberal dose of toppings which, to me, appears to have been soaked into the tobacco prior to pressing it into flakes. 1792 has whiskey (detectable but subtle), a tiny bit of flowers (lakeland) and Tonquin bean (certainly prevalent) that's sort of fruity (prunes? cherries?)
It was more than a bit over the top for me, but I can see why some people like 1792 -- though I think it would take a while to appreciate this blend and I just didn't want to bother doing so.
YMMV.
if G&H has a Lakeland scent, I may have to give it a go.
Haven't tried the G&H Louisiana Perique Flake, but I've smoked some of the G&H CR Bright Flake and have a pound of that in the cellar -- I detect no Lakeland essence -- in fact, no essence at all in that particular blend.
Roth,
1792 is my definition of an old school aromatic - except for the strength, it has all the characteristics I was hoping to find from a strongly cased tobacco.
You are right that the flavours are completely melded into the blend - I would say that it takes quite a bit of aging to go away...
Ironically I have no idea what tonquin bean smells or tastes like but it was EXACTLY like I imagined. It was almost uncanny when I lit it up for the first time.
I find 1792 to have a strong cocoa element with hints of vanilla and kitchen spices thrown in. There is some sort of muskiness to it as well - I have not encountered anything like it. I can see where one might find a few attributes of whiskey in the blend, particularly sweeter scotch-like tones, but I never thought to describe them that way.
The downsides with 1792 are definitely the moisture/oiliness that makes it hard as hell to burn and the the heavy strength and also a charcoal-like taste that I get upon relights. Harsh and not inviting.
On the whole, I like it as a change of pace. If I had BBF or FVF soaked in tonquin like 1792, though, I'd smoke it all the time. The strength and hassle of keeping it lit is just too much for me to make it a regular option.
Mike I apologize for derailing your thread: I have not had the Louisiana Flake but I hear the Lakeland scent is noticeable and that the perique content is much lowered in comparison to St. James flake...
St. James is a beautiful Virginia Perique blend, however, with a considerable dose of perique and a full complement of rich and sweet flavours. It is the classic figgy and raisiny tobacco with noticeable spice in the background but with a little less grassiness than some other Va/Pers. I love the beautiful sweet mustiness found in this blend, especially - I find it in a lot of VAs but St James and FVF and Escudo are my favourites for this reason. They really got me to love the caramelized smell of burning Virginia tobacco to the point that I even enjoy the fleeting smell of cigarettes around here to some degree! (Even though they don't compare quality or intensity wise, it sends me back in time to a good bowlful of one of my favourite VAs - reminding me of one or more of those "nirvana" smokes and I start to wish I had a pipe handy)
Louisiana Flake has a slight Lakeland taste. I think its due to being processed on the same equipment as everything else. There is a difference in the taste as well, St. James Flake being superior, but I have not smoked any LA Flake in awhile. Oh, and like Simenon says, a lower Perique content.
I just finished a bowl of G&H Louisiana Perique Flake, and the last two paragraphs of simenon's post nails it.
The G&H flake is a good place to start if you want to ease into the world of Lakeland scented tobacco -- not cloying, but it has easily detectable soapy and floral elements. Now and then during the smoke I was reminded of Choward's Violet mints (if you're familiar with that.)
I think there is a reason why the GH blends have remained available throughout the run on Samuel Gawith products that has been happening for the past few years!
While they may be good blends in and of themselves, they are acquired tastes.
Samuel Gawith Virginia flakes on the other hand (with St. James near the front of the pack) are just uniformly excellent and much easier to appreciate.
The GH tobaccos, like those Violet mints, are very polarizing and you'll probably find more people who will dislike them on the basis of their floral flavours alone...
+1 Simenon.
It would be interesting to see what the opinion would be if you could get some of their flakes without that Lakeland essence.
That would be nice but I reckon they'd be sold out within minutes of arrival in a doppelganger effect of the Samuel Gawith blends. I guess they just wouldn't be Gawith Hoggarth anymore without all of that "perfume"! 
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