Ah, Escudo… I love and hate this blend. If I can get it to smoke properly, I love it - tangy, peppery, sweet. But about half the time, this blend gives me nothing but trouble. It tends to clump up on me and form a solid mass at the bottom of the pipe. I’ve been doing this for 15 years or so now - I’m well past the “packing a pipe and keeping it lit” phase - and this is the only tobacco that gives me grief. It’s not even the spun cut coins - I can go to town on some Luxury Bullseye Flake all day long. I don’t know, this one’s my nemesis… my tasty, tasty nemesis.
But man, when it smokes right? Heavenly.
Much more on this later, but I just got a VERY generous care package from fireandoil which contained some beautiful medallions of Escudo. My review will come later on my next bowl. Believe it or not, up until tonight I had not yet properly enjoyed this spectacular tobacco. I probably should have rubbed it out just a bit more (1.5 flakes gave me more than an hour of smoking), but I can say that my first real experience with it was wonderful and memorable, even in what is certainly ‘heavy English’ weather.
