3 of 3 Items
3 of 3 Items
War Horse is another rescued brand, saved from fading into history by The Standard Tobacco Company of Pennsylvania. War Horse is a powerhouse tobacco, and it needs to be respected to be enjoyed. Each of the blends is incredibly strong and can throw you for a look if you are not careful. To understand the reason for the strength, you should understand the history of War Horse.
Thomas Gallaher founded the Gallaher Group in 1857 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Only 17 years old, he received a £200 loan from his parents to start the business, and it was there that he first created and sold Irish blends of pipe tobacco. However, it would not be the last.
The company was able to grow very quickly. Just six years later, in 1863, it moved to Belfast, Northern Ireland, in order to build a factory large enough to meet the supply. That factory was finished in 1881 and employed 600 people. Two more factories were later built around the United Kingdom, as the Gallaher Group became one of the largest tobacco manufacturers in the world.
Gallagher produced a number of potent tobaccos, though they followed the trends and became more well known for their cigarettes, an item that was becoming far more popular as the years progressed. Although cigarettes were the popular product, pipe tobaccos like War Horse were still produced, to decent success.
Gallagher would be a constant presence at his company, only leaving a few months before his death in 1927. He turned the £200 loan into an estate that was valued at £503,954 at his death. In today's money, that is £32,376,244.76, a massive success for what started as a small business.
In the 1960s, the Gallaher Group started seeing a downturn in business, with factories closing starting in 1988 with the Belfast one. By 2007, Gallaher was purchased by Japan tobacco, seeing an end to the pipe tobacco arm of the company.
Instead of letting this powerful and robust tobacco disappear forever, Standard Tobacco acquired the recipes and rights to War Horse. This is a tobacco you should try if you are looking for something with a punch. Just treat it with respect.