Today's confection, boys and girls, is one I've had my eye on quite literally for years. I've even had it in my cart on several occasions, but never pulled the trigger. Why? Simple. It was always replaced by some known and more desired option.
It's what Gawith now calls "Red Style" and the guys at Gawith say "Red and Orange grades of Virginia and Burley with a little casing make this Red a great replacement for Amphora. The light, sweet fruity tastes can be found throughout the whole bowl. For a tobacco this light there is no bite. A sweet fruity smoke with a scent that is pleasant for people around you."
In the pouch the aroma is restrained, not potent. Indeed almost all Gawith tat are known Lakelands easily have twice the pouch aroma punch of this one...and it is totally different from the florals and soaps of the garden variety Lakeland. The cut is what I would call crushed ribbon. The look is a tricolor, mostly blond and medium brown with a small Dark Brown component. I detect no Cavendish here, it appears to be all VA though there's purported to be some Burley.
One reviewer sez: "This really has some nice flavors going. The Virginias come through clearly. Can only pick up a touch of Burley. Must be a very small amount. Has a mild fruity note plus a little Lakeland floral. Very pleasant smoke which I find myself enjoying more each time I smoke it. Rock solid three stars.Mild to medium in body. Medium in taste. Flavoring is mild to medium. Burns very well.
EDIT: Forgot to add that mine is labeled "Red Style". Description is "The first idea of GH was to do a replacement for Amphora Red in the U.K. The Pipe Club of London as well as other Pipesmoker Clubs tested it and found it very similar. This is an Air Cured blend of Burleys and Virginias." No doubt this is the same blend."
Another: "The smell this gives off is lovely, it has a pleasant fruity touch to it without smelling heavily cased. It arrives with a good quantity of moisture allowing smoking to proceed straight away. The flavouring from this is slightly heavier than the aroma whilst un-lit lead me to believe. It doesn't taste sticky or gloopy but the casings are quite noticeable with ease. The two tobaccos are evenly weighted, both slightly less pre-eminent than the toppings. One of the better areas with Red is tongue bite, no matter what it doesn't bite me. I find the nicotine light with Red, to notice it big inhalations are a requisite. I can smoke a bowl of Red with it only needing a small amount of re-lights whilst throughout the temperature of the smoke doesn't become too warm and at the end of a bowl all that remains is grey ash. The room note is a very light one...".
Me? I smoked mine in my old CAO "Sherlock & Watson" meer. While it didn't come wet at all it wanted the occasional relight to keep a decent smolder going. I think some drying is in order here as it wanted to burn warm...a bit moreso than I prefer. It smelled oh so light to me with very little notice from the aromatics. I think I detected the Burley on occasion, but it's very back. What I got was a rather one dimensional mid range VA profile. Not very exciting for a Gawith of good repute. And not really having any familiarity with Amphora Red I can't comment on how similar this might be. My Pug didn't complain about the room note, but he's very polite. I paired it with a Dutch Bros. double shot White Chocolate Mocha with Almond flavoring...coffee bliss from a local drive through. Here, the bottom half does much better than the top...better burn, better VA flavors, better all around. If I was scoring these things, which I'm not, this would get a 'good' for the medium VA's and a 'meh' for the aromatics. My new Mecca, The Country Squire, does better than this by a fair margin. Just sayin'. But that's just one bowl.
