Rattray's Stirling Flake Pipe Tobacco

Beautiful as always! And you people always have it in stock, and send it right away! I can always count on you!

I really love robust thick slabs of tobacco. It makes me dream of Stonehaven days gone by.

This tobacco is one that I get excited just thinking about! Between this and Wallace Flake, I could set forever!

This is the strongest tobacco I've ever smoked, as far as nicotine punch. It perceived it to be about 20% stronger than Royal Yacht, which is saying something. The flavor is good, no nonsense. But as others have said, I have to agree that Stirling Flake is best enjoyed on a full stomach.

Very earthy and woody, with just a little Virginia sweetness. Smoke it slow or it gets a little bitter. Not for the nicotine sensitive!

Big fan of blends that are dark fired tobacco forward. This ranks right up there in the top in pleasing my palate.

This is a fine tobacco, in my opinion. All I expected from a flake. Bold, full flavor.

I ordered a couple of tins of this tobacco when Peterson Irish Flake was out of stock. It came recommended to me as a close match to IF. Very good. Full-flavored yet smooth. What I need to do is compare the two tobaccos side by side. But I will purchase this flake again, even when Pete's IF is back in stock.

I had been trying to obtain this for some time. After discovering TPC was one of the only official vendors of K&K tobaccos, I quickly subscribed to receive a restocking notification. I missed my chance the first time, as I yet did not know how fast K&K products sell out. I don't understand why such a limited product would be discounted, yet it was. I normally smoke full-body cigars, but I have begun dabbling in pipe smoking due to the significantly lower cost. A decent pipe costs less than a decent humidor as well. Anyhow, I was surprised to discover just how mild even "strong" pipe tobacco was. So I looked for the absolute strongest, and from reputable manufacturers, and I discovered that K&K was the manufacturer of many legendary blends. They had recently been renamed, and here we are, me facing the legend and lighting up. Upon first opening, you are met with a tidy paper package. Unraveling it reveals a tidy stack of very moist flake. From my experience with their Hal O' the Wynd, they like to go a bit heavy on glycerin, which to my rather a novice opinion seems like a completely unnecessary additive. I tried smoking folding the flake and stuffing it straight out of the tin without drying, and it was a mess of relights. One observer commented that pipe smokers actually like their tobacco to go out constantly so that they have something to fiddle with. So for my second attempt, I did the fold and stuff only after drying the selected flakes out until dry to the touch. Now it smoked perfectly. As I now near the end of the tin as I've been smoking this regularly for a few weeks, I feel confident in knowing this tobacco The taste is mellow, yet feels full in the mouth. There is no harshness whatsoever, even when I abused the tobacco and burned it too hot. There's simply no way to coax a noxious smoke out of this herb. What a brilliant job they've done. The taste is mostly of some fire-cured variety, I know not enough to identify what woods were used, but I did not get that "campfire in my mouth" feeling, like smoking some other fire-cured tobaccos. While the taste is nothing to get too excited about, at least to my palate, it is completely inoffensive. In terms of strength, I was looking for a tobacco that would satisfy me with a single bowl, and this delivers. While I did finish two bowls in succession a few times, I was getting quite light-headed halfway through the second. This is tobacco best suited for a single, quick bowl, as we don't all have the time nor desire to have a pipe in our mouth the entire day. This tobacco also lends itself to smoking fast, as it produces minimal gurgling and no tongue bite whatsoever, no matter what I did. You do have to puff fairly often as it has more of a tendency to go out than others, but you can keep puffing often and keep it going as you fiddle with the herb with your tamper.