2006 went up in flames today. It took about two gradual hours. Three grocery bags worth of tightly stacked bills, receipts and other hard copy records whose time had come. So ensconced in front of the fireplace with one stick of fir from the woodpile, three bags full and a full bent narrow but tall pipe filled til firm with Gawith Brown Bogey... it was burn baby burn. Darn near cooked my eyebrows off.
The Brown Bogey was dependable as always. It lit, burned and behaved well taking relight after relight as I paused to toss successive short stacks of bank paper into the carefully managed blaze. Cut from the twist with a supremely sharp pocket knife into thin coins then rubbed and allowed to dry a bit, it is always very workable. It's a little better well dried but does fine if just halfway there. Today's bowl had the characteristic dark fired sass but the drawn out session and many relights let it stay very cool and sweet. I was surprised that the DGT worked as well as it did. It wanted to kick my butt. But the numerous pauses kept me in the game, just ahead of the curve. So all in all it was a fine session.
There are very likely other Gawith blends that are as universally accepted as fine...but I don't think they pull very far past the Happy Bogey in terms of appeal. If you like Lakeland blends one road is toward the potent florals and the other is toward the brown and darker unscented plugs, flakes, ropes, twists, pigtails and the like. For me Brown Bogey seems to occupy that Goldilocks zone... it's just right.
The Brown Bogey was dependable as always. It lit, burned and behaved well taking relight after relight as I paused to toss successive short stacks of bank paper into the carefully managed blaze. Cut from the twist with a supremely sharp pocket knife into thin coins then rubbed and allowed to dry a bit, it is always very workable. It's a little better well dried but does fine if just halfway there. Today's bowl had the characteristic dark fired sass but the drawn out session and many relights let it stay very cool and sweet. I was surprised that the DGT worked as well as it did. It wanted to kick my butt. But the numerous pauses kept me in the game, just ahead of the curve. So all in all it was a fine session.
There are very likely other Gawith blends that are as universally accepted as fine...but I don't think they pull very far past the Happy Bogey in terms of appeal. If you like Lakeland blends one road is toward the potent florals and the other is toward the brown and darker unscented plugs, flakes, ropes, twists, pigtails and the like. For me Brown Bogey seems to occupy that Goldilocks zone... it's just right.
