The King Street Emporium

Bothy Flake

Virginia

A bothy is a small unlocked shelter left open for hikers and travelers crossing the Scottish Highlands, stocked with basic provisions on the understanding that whoever uses them restocks what they take. They are communal by design, built on the assumption that strangers will look after each other in remote places. The Kearvaig Bothy sits on Scotland's northern shore, one of the most isolated stretches of coastline in the British Isles, and in 2012 a group of pipe smokers formed the Kearvaig Pipe Club there. Samuel Gawith blended Bothy Flake specifically for that club, and the tobacco reflects where it came from. The blend is a pressed Virginia flake with a small portion of Latakia, dark and moist out of the tin, topped with Highland malt whisky rather than the fruit and vanilla toppings more common to the Lakeland aromatic tradition. The Latakia runs at a low percentage, enough to add weight and a faint smokiness without pulling the blend toward English territory, while the Virginia provides the foundation and the whisky ties the character of the whole thing to the landscape that inspired it. It is a blend that rewards a little drying time before the bowl and a patient cadence once lit.