Mac Baren HH Acadian Perique review

[RJpuffs]

This is a brand new offering from our tongue nibbling Danish friends at MacBaren. I went looking for their "official" description on the MacB site, but there is no mention of this blend! Oh well, lifting the text from smokingpipes instead:

This blend includes Virginias, Burleys, Original Cavendish, Dark Fired Kentucky, Orientals and, of course, a fair amount of Acadian Perique. The HH Acadian Perique has no top flavor at all which means that you will only enjoy the tobacco taste. When smoked, you will experience no tongue bite and this blend will smoke to the bottom, leaving only grey ashes. It is a rich, flavorful and very satisfying smoke.

I got a sizable (rather, huge) sample from SlowT. This blend has literally everything in it besides the kitchen sink, and no latakia, thank heavens (can't taste any, though tobaccoreviews claims it does have lat).

Its not bad. A smooth smoke - no bite at all from this puppy! Thats a first from MacB, for me. Consistency is loose cut, you can see the many mish mashed component leaf bits in the mix. My sample was dried to perfection, probably due to the prior owner and its time in snail mail transit. Filled perfectly, lit like a champ.

A cool and easy burn. Flavor, ah, here is where one hears the complaints about this blend. Its "too" complex, if such a thing is possible. I find it is predominantly an Oriental blend - with some perique and other stuff. Its not a VaPer, its not a BurPer. That would make for a new classification - lets call it an "OrPer".

The orientals are a bit overwhelming. If one likes their flavor, you're gonna love this blend. If you hate izmir and other oriental leaf - pass this one over. The orientals take over from the get go - the burley and cavendish rise and ebb, giving good texture and complexity to the smoke. The VAs are either absent, or squashed by the cavendish. That would be my only complaint about this blend, the lack of VAs and their sweetness. Cavendish is fine as an additive to cool down VAs, but it seems they cheated here and just loaded up the cav to get rid of the tongue bite (it did work, so...).

I found myself pushing the puffs real hard, it brought out the perique - and it didn't roast my tongue! Hard puffing seems to work on this blend, it keeps the oriental roughness down and the perique takes over - with all the rest of the orchestra chirping in the background (cav/burley/etc). Burnt down to a fine white/gray ash, not too soggy either, just the usual one or two pipe cleaner swabs that I'm accustomed to (and that was in a Peterson drool-dog).

Not bad. Not great. But good. I wonder how age will treat this animal, the absence (lack) of VAs leads me to guess that it will get even more "oriental-ly" with time, that may be a bad thing. Still, I may put down a tin or dozen to try again after a year or few.

[dmkerr]

Good review!

I got a big sample from Scott as well. I've smoked 4 bowls of it and I'm going to cellar the rest for a time. I would not call it too complex but I would call it a mish-mash of flavors that don't always go well together. It seems to be for those folks who like a lot of different tastes at once... or, if I may, those who like to mix peanut butter, scrambled eggs and ice cream together. All good stuff; not so good mixed in a stew.

Hats off to Mac Baren for their ingenuity. I'm just not sure it was overly successful.