I love England. When you think of all of their achievements, it’s hard to limit the list. After all, they took the lead through two world wars. Their country gave birth to our country (oh sure, we had to fight them for it but that was just sibling rivalry and we’ve largely remained family through the squabbles). They also gave birth to Shakespeare, arguably the greatest author of all time. British comedy is extraordinary. They led in the industrial revolution, democracy, law, expansion, colonization, etc. Did they rest on their laurels? Nope, because as if all that wasn’t enough, they reached down deep and created a Kate Beckinsale so exemplary she hasn’t been rivaled yet.
For all that, they’re also an odd little country at times. For example, they keep their royalty around. They don’t do much beyond the humanitarian, but it’s cool they honor their heritage. They have a Lake District that technically only has one lake. Apparently, they couldn’t think of anything else noteworthy enough in the vicinity to nickname the district after. In that lake district, where no tobacco is grown, they have 2 of the oldest houses in the tobacco manufacturing business (technically though, they are one house now). If you think about it, that’s sort of like Alaska becoming the epicenter of suntan lotion production. Anyways, one of those companies is Gawith, Hoggarth & Co. which was founded in 1792. If you go to their website:
HOME | Gawithhoggarth - http://www.gawithhoggarth.co.uk/ you’ll only see “New Website Coming Soon”. It’s been “coming soon” for years. I guess when you’ve been in business for over 200 years, you think there is no need to rush. You must go elsewhere to discover they make a variety of tobaccos in mixtures, flakes and ropes.
One of those mixtures is Dark Bird’s Eye. Tobacco Reviews says
“This is a combination of dark-fired whole leaf Virginias and mid-rib fine cut Kentucky leaf rolled and sliced to make 'bird's eyes'.” Huh? I’m not sure where they got that. When you open the bag, there are no birds’ eyes. You open the bag and wonder if you’ve opened a bag of tobacco or if they accidentally vacuum packed an old rats nest or mattress stuffing. As I said, there is nothing resembling a birds eye in the bag. I know, I’ve seen plenty of them. We have a large front window where a variety of birds such as finches, cardinals and robins inexplicably commit suicide with some regularity. Their eyes don’t look anything like this tobacco. Apparently, the same guy who was charged with nicknaming the Lake District was charged with naming this blend.
What’s in the bag is a knotted, jumbled, chaotic mass of shag tobaccos. It’s a shag mixture. I like shag mixtures. They are normally easy to pack and stay lit well. Not so with this horrible tobacco. It’s very tightly wound. More tightly wound than a middle aged suburban caucasian social activist. You know the type, whose moral indignation is so elevated, they can create diamonds from charcoal just by placing it in their butt cheeks for a while. Stick your hand in the bag you you’ll find its wet. Like their sister company, Samuel Gawith, GH&Co is known for their wet tobacco. Apparently, they feel they can do their part to slow global warming by storing half of the polar ice caps in their tobacco. God bless them for trying! So with all that water in there, it means you have to dry it or its like trying to light an Olympic swimming pool on fire. Thank goodness, England doesn’t allow them to use humectants. That means that unlike some American tobaccos which can be left on the floor of Death Valley for month and still be wet, this tobacco actually will dry. How long and how much depends on you. Me, I take a softball sized fistful out of the bag and microwave it for 30 seconds and then mix it around to dispel the steam. After that, I put the dried part in a tobacco pouch.
When you sniff it, It has an earthy, tobacco, hayish smell to it.
Jimkinks review of it says
“The sweet, deep, rich earthy, woody, fermented tangy dark fruit from the Virginias, and nutty, lightly woody, earthy, spicy, floral, herbal, vegetative, dry and lightly sour Kentucky will fill your senses.” Jim’s sense of taste and smell are much more highly refined than mine. He’s like a Great White shark and can sniff out what’s in a tobacco from 2 miles away under water, so trust him. They say this is made from Virginia’s and Dark Fired Kentucky. I’d like to point out that it’s made from Virginia’s not grown in Virginia and Kentucky’s not grown in Kentucky. Or anywhere near the USA. They are mostly grown in Malawi. As a capitalist, I appreciate their cost cutting (come on now, we all know coffee taste better when brewed with the bitter tears of a poor coffee farmer!) but at nearly $60 a pound, I’d like them to at least pretend they have exclusive, costly varietals carefully grown hydroponically in Evian water pools in exotic locals tended to by virgins, not discount tobacco from 3rd world countries whose next largest global export is malaria. I’m taking a blind jab at Malawi since I really don’t know much about the place, but if GH&Co tobaccos are any indicator, elephant manure makes a terrific fertilizer for horrible tobacco.
After it's dried, you must pack this tobacco and that's where this being a jumbled mess gets complicated. Normally I just stick a pipe into the bag and use the one finger scoop method to pack my pipe. But every strand in the bag is connected to every other strand in the bag so you end up having to pull them apart like Indiana Jones peeling off spider webs in the Raiders of the Lost Ark opening scene. Pack it tighter than you think you should. If you don’t, you’ll light it and this horrible tobacco will go up like a barn fire. As you light up this horrible tobacco you’ll get a deep, rich flavor that is tobacco based. No Vanilla. No Chocolate. No Nougat. They didn’t spill any of grandma’s perfume on this one. It’s just earthy tobacco. Satisfying tobacco that doesn’t dance through a multi layered menagerie of flavors. It pretty much starts and stays in one place from the top of the bowl to the bottom. Oh, and nicotine, lots of it. Which reminds me, check with your doctor first if you have heart problems before smoking this. And possibly wear Depends to mitigate not making it to the bathroom in time if you are nic sensitive. I tried to get my dog to smoke a few puffs. He’s a German Shepherd and a fairly hearty one at that. He took a few puffs, then ran around the yard like he was a 3 year old on a sugar rush for 45 mins. Then he laid down and hasn’t gotten back up. That was last Thursday. It burns clean and clear all the way to the bottom of the bowl with little to no moisture.
This isn’t a tobacco for everyone. Only for those that want a punch in the mouth with earthy flavor and nicotine. So do I recommend this horrible tobacco? Hell no. Not because you shouldn’t try it but because they don’t release a lot of it and some of you have proven you can’t be trusted not to hoard tobacco and then price gouge your fellow pipe smokers. So, leave this one alone and go inflate the price of Captain Black Grape.
