Tobacco: Gawith, Hoggarth & Co. Bosun Cut Plug

Pipe: A Lakeland's tainted cobb

Prequel: My brother decided to give me the rest of his Bosun Plug because it didn't sit well with him. So in keeping with my recent GH&Co reviews, I decided I would light this one up tonight and do a quick initial/dry run review.

Tin Note: Very interesting scent. There is definitely a hint of Lakeland soapy/floral but much more of a strong tobacco scent as well. The only thing I can compare it too would be a Padron Maduro Anny 64 dipped in some rose/lavender topping

The Smoke: When I received this tobacco, it was already prepped and prepared by my brother into a rubbed-out-flake consistency. It was a little dry for my tastes, but not crispy. It lighted up no problem and burned down into a light grey ash. Thick strong smoke that puffed out in bellows.

Flavors: The first thing that hit me from the initial light was clove, as in almost clove cigarette taste. Something I was not expecting at all. After I got over the clove flavor, I noticed a nice toasty flue-cured VA flavor mixed with the light floral notes that make up a lot of the GH&Co lakeland topped blends. Sadly, moving on into the half way point of the bowl, a lot of those nice spicy VA notes seemed to disappear to me and were taken over by the essence and clove flavors. The final third constituted much of the same overall flavors....less toasty VA and more lakeland floral and clove notes.

Conclusion: This is only my first run with Bosun Cut, so I don't want to jump to conclusions, but overall I am a little let down on the flavor profiles. From the start, I was happy with the mixtures of clove, strong spicy VA flavors, and the essence adding just the right amount of sweetness to pull it all together. Moving onward though, the tobacco seemed to lose a lot of the tasty tobacco flavors and just tasted kind of bland and one dimensional; however, the lack of complexity can't change the fact that the quality of the tobacco overall is outstanding. You can tell once again that GH&Co care a lot in their production processes. Another thing to note is the overall nicotine punch that this plug brings. It is what I would personally consider on the strong side. The major thing that comes to mind for me regarding all these aspects (great quality tobacco, strong but not complex flavor, and vitamin N hit) is that it would make a great blending tobacco or something to keep on hand to add some spice to some other blends that may be lacking in the N or flavor departments.