Modern American pipe smokers are a spoiled lot. We have leisure aplenty to savor delicate flavors from our exquisitely carved briar pipes.
Enjoying lakeland tobacco requires an entirely different mindset. A very rural, English, pre-industrial mindset.
When Gawith, Hoggarth, & Co. formulated
Ennerdale Flake, it was for an English farmer who was much like Tolkien's hobbits. Nothing fancy. Just something suitable for a guy whose daily life and work were dominated by the scents of sheep and horses and the occasional dairy cow. Thus a strong, floral-scented smoke was welcome comfort for a guy who had a lot more on his mind and hands than just his pipe. And as he only had a couple of cheap pipes to carry him through his work week, he didn't give a thought to "ghosting."
https://www.tobaccoreviews.com/blend/56 ... dale-flake
Condor was also strongly floral scented. Boasts of being Britain's most popular pipe tobacco.
https://www.tobaccoreviews.com/blend/11 ... bbed-green
Gawith, Hoggarth, & Co.
Kendal Flake
https://www.tobaccoreviews.com/blend/56 ... ndal-flake
And
St. Bruno, which is much milder scented than Condor or Ennerdale. Definitely my favorite of the genre.
https://www.tobaccoreviews.com/blend/12 ... runo-flake
Other venerable tobacco blends tackle the same problem with a different approach. For example, Samuel Gawith
1792 Flake skips the bar soap perfume in favor of tonquin bean (vanilla bean's pot-head cousin). This won't ghost your pipe..... more like a zombie invasion.
https://www.tobaccoreviews.com/blend/10 ... 1792-flake
As a modern American, go ahead and try these -- just for the adventure. And the ironic thrill of knowing that you're doing it wrong.
But there's a lot more to the Lake District tobaccos than over-the-top scented blends.
Samuel Gawith
Best Brown Flake is an excellent virginia blend -- sweet, nutty, and (most astoundingly) no bite at all. No added topping. This is one you just have to try. Munkey recommended this to CPS back in 2008, and everyone loved it who has ever tried it.
https://www.tobaccoreviews.com/blend/10 ... rown-flake
A weird phenomenon: Several guys report that this tobacco has no flavor at first. Half a bowl, maybe a whole bowl of nothing. Then it kicks in. I've had this experience coming back to other virginia tobaccos, as I tend to smoke around a lot. Just sayin'.
Samuel Gawith
Firedance Flake is Best Brown with a blackberry topping. Not goopy like an American burley blend with a lot of propylene glycol "for freshness." Very English, but not as alien as something like Ennerdale.
https://www.tobaccoreviews.com/blend/19 ... ance-flake
A_Morley was very fond of Samuel Gawith
Grousemoor.
https://www.tobaccoreviews.com/blend/10 ... grousemoor
And just for fun, let's remember Rusty and his beloved
Erinmore Flake -- even though it was originally Irish, and most adamantly never English.
https://www.tobaccoreviews.com/blend/11 ... more-flake