Mixing It Up With Mac Baren
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Kevin Godbee - Oct 1, 2013
- 5 min read
E. Roberts
What do you do if you’re a world-class tobacco blender with thirty-five or so different tobaccos just sitting around? If you’re Jørgen Halberg, then you create Mixture – Scottish Blend, (née Scottish Mixture), one of Mac Baren’s flagship products since 1958. Further, what do you do if you’re a tobacco reviewer tasked with enumerating the range of flavors in said tobacco? You smoke a lot of it. A LOT. Not that it was too much trouble, mind you—I’m willing to make that sacrifice for my readers.
Regular visitors to the magazine will note that I’ve been focused on the Mac Baren line of offerings for some time now, since the spring months. The change of seasons in the northeast seems to be a particularly fitting time for their blends; perhaps the right balance of cooler temperatures and slight humidity are ideal, the climate of their Danish provenance, so to speak. My first taste of this tobacco was actually almost two years ago, at a pipe club meeting, and I noted that it was, "quite good…bright tin note, hint of white grape, but mainly leathery tobacco sweetness…worth getting a tin to look into." There are a lot of tobaccos out there to smoke, obviously, so it’s no surprise that it took some time for me to revisit this blend. Timing is everything, and as autumn descends I find the perfect companion in this Mixture. While classed as an aromatic blend, it is quite subtly so—while there is a definite topping, it serves to elucidate the tobacco’s natural sweetness and lend structure to the whole, rather than the more forward American-style notion of aromatics.
The taste testing laboratory.
Opening a fresh tin (just under one year old) reveals again that hint of white grape, as well as notes of honeycomb and the faintest whisper of the maple sugar that defines Mac Baren’s special Cavendish. After some time resting in the tin, further subtleties of milk chocolate, woody notes, and a mineral freshness are sensed. All of these top notes are cradled well by a hearty, very earthy, tobacco baseline of decidedly leathery character. Visually, the claim of more than thirty-five constituent leaves is easy to reconcile; here we have beautifully variegated broken flakes of pressed Virginias and burleys ranging from brightest lemon to chocolaty brown, mahogany ribbons of loose Virginia, smaller granulated bits of burley and deep black flecks of Cavendish, all well-packed and at perfect moisture in the 100-gram tin. The tin art is simple and clean in keeping with the rest of the Mac Baren line’s revamped branding: a white field with a burgundy border and lettering, hinting at the placid nature of the smoke.
Packed to the brim, and at the perfect moisture for smoking.
Pipe smoking is all about slowing down, relaxing, and taking time to engage fully in the experience, and Mixture is an ideal pace setter. The sweetness of the smoke comes through lightly, and if chased too eagerly may tend to bite—a tendency easily obviated by proper cadence. Slow and mindful sipping rewards the smoker with a drifting interplay of flavors that really exhibit the nuance of balancing so many different leaves so deftly. From the charring light’s Virginia tang of hay and nutty, peppery burley, it quickly settles into an undulating, orchestral composition of sweetness and earth. Sharp notes are counterpointed with heavier, creamier notes, pointing to a good variety of burley in the blend. The unmistakable chocolaty pecan and walnut notes of lighter burley give way to the heartier wood and leathery saltiness of dark-fired leaf, even as the brighter citrus and hay of Virginia compete for center stage. There is a certain dry edge to be felt from what I believe to be African or perhaps Indian varietals of the Virginia, with notes of turmeric and nutmeg, which are in turn balanced with the moist sweetness of the special Cavendish lending butterscotch and honey to harmonize.
The room note is equally gracious and nuanced, with more of the sweet and spicy notes coming through, which make for a real crowd pleaser. When enjoyed in the company of friends, descriptors such as "classy", "delicious", and "warm and soothing" were noted, and unsolicited. Mixture produces a good amount of smoke to share with those around you, and lingers on wool sport coats as a decidedly masculine perfume. Best packed a bit loosely, the broken flake serves to regulate a cool and slow easy burn down to a dry ash with few relights. When finished, the palate holds on to the sweeter flavors, and adds a slight mineral water aftertaste that does not fatigue, lending itself to repeated bowls to accompany one’s contemplative moments.
1, 2, 3…35!
Yet another praise to sing of Mixture’s extraordinary balance is its chameleon-like character in regard to drink pairings. Being a tea lover, I was amazed at its ability to meld with and accentuate a variety of teas, from a sweet blueberry matcha to more rustic Monkey Picked Tieguanyin, to a Moonlight White Tips with decided honeysuckle notes, to a basic Earl Grey. It evinced equally sure footing with adult beverages, finding a clear voice with white wines such as the Matthiasson White Napa Valley 2011, a standout pairing. Wine is often a difficult drink to pair with tobacco, tending to overwhelm the palate and degrade the finer notes of a smoke. Mixture proved up to the task, admirably. Moving on to headier spirits proved no trouble as well, allowing Mixture to flex its palate when paired with gin and tonics in a personal farewell to summer. Hendrick’s and Bombay Sapphire are old standbys, and thanks to the forum members here I’ve discovered Fever Tree tonic, which amplifies the herbaceous and medicinal flavors spectacularly.
Finally, Scotch whisky was a natural choice to see if it would pair with a "Scottish" mixture. I won’t get into what makes a "Scottish" blend as pertains to tobacco—that warrants exhaustive research and offers no clear conclusions—but I will elect that if you come across a bottle of Balvenie PortWood Aged 21, you would do well to add Mac Baren’s Mixture to the table for a complete (and nearly religious) experience. Lighter, delicate Scotches sing well with this blend; eschew the peaty malts for floral and grassy ones. A simple Glenlivet 12 with two ice cubes is a perfect jumping-off point for such an exercise. Feel free to add your own beverage pairings in the comments section—I just ordered a sleeve of Mixture to add to the cellar.
More Info on the Mac Baren Website
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
Well there’s nothing like a touch of the plague to usher in the changing season. Leaving the airport just when the first advertisements for all things pumpkin spice began to appear—lattes, muffins, shampoos, trash bags, and myriad other concoctions—so, too, my ability to breathe freely disappeared. The unfortunate side effect of losing one’s sense of taste and smell for weeks is the utter inability to enjoy tobacco. Not that I consider myself an expert on anything but my own tastes, but be forewarned that this review was made with mildly impugned sensory equipment. Just when a comforting pipe was most needed, its comfort was denied. Be that as it may, the road to recovery found me limping along on one lung this past month, trying to wrest the particulars of two blends on offer from Sutliff: the latest 175th Anniversary blend, Silver Quarter, as well as their spooky seasonal Maple Shadows II. Silver Quarter is a new style on offer from Sutliff, their first coin-cut blend. Naturally a Virginia-Perique, it is enhanced with a traditional core of black Cavendish. In the tin it holds much promise, with a lightly bready and very woody, if ever-so-slightly sour, aroma. After some time acclimating to air, the bouquet softens further and offers hints of the burley with some chocolaty notes wafting through the more dominant dry grassy aspect. The tin art is of a coin-style bas-relief bust, presumably of a founding Sutliff brother, à la The Old Boss On the reverse of the tin we find the blend’s description: Reflecting on Sutliffs 175 years of tobacco excellence, we came across a brand that embodies true value, SILVER QUARTER. This name pays homage to Sutliffs roots, the legacy of two brothers who popularized pipe smoking in the burgeoning mining society of San Francisco. We celebrate this heritage with a coin cut composed of the finest African Virginias, complemented by a core of Perique and Black Cavendish. The tin notes are, forgive the pun, on the nose for a good VaPer blend: mild tart sweetness peeking out from behind dried hay and slight chocolate undertones, with a lightly tannic finish of weathered oak. It is always a joy to prepare a coin cut, my preference being to put a few in my palm and vigorously warm my hands together to fully break them apart. These well-formed discs pack and light easily, and smoke with little prodding to the end of the bowl. For technical points it scores well—it smokes light, and it’s easy to tend the ember. While it gets sharp after a few quick bowls, pacing should be heeded to easily smoke down to the heel without inviting bite. Of the flavor, though, I am left a bit wanting. There are tart and high notes aplenty, but very little of the lemony citrus I would anticipate, as well as scant midtones; they tend more toward the red wine-vinegary and sour. The flavors are muted, also, lacking the sweetness and piquancy of other marques—the small measure of Perique tickles the nose now and again with peppery hints, and there is a smidge of a deeper sweetness to be found in the Cavendish from puff to puff, but overall it lacks some dynamism. The Virginias, to my palate, come off a bit on the dry side, and here they dominate the blend. The aftertaste and mouthfeel are neutral, again evincing more of the dry, woody, tartly tannic end of the spectrum. The blend has plenty of polish, but not enough depth or richness (*yet) to make it a standout. Here, comparisons are inevitable: Luxury Bullseye Flake has more sweetness, both from its Virginia as well as its Cavendish, and a better finish; Davidoff is similar but with a pronounced umami that is absent here; as for Escudo, I haven’t had any fresh tins lately so it would be unfair to compare. While it rates as a solid, fairly mild smoke, particularly to lovers of the genre, it does not surprise with any exceptional flavors. To be fair, all the boxes have been checked for the blend to benefit from some real aging, and it would be worth checking in on this after a couple of years sealed away. I’ve set half my tin aside to sample again in a month or two, in case I’m merely suffering from the lingering effects of parosmia, and will amend this review in that case. Maple Shadows II, on the other hand, made up for the weeks of sniffling and sneezing I’d endured. Offered in a full 8 ounce tin with delightfully spooky Halloween art, it’s (hopefully) enough to last through the season. Somehow I had missed this last year, so it’s a real pleasure to get some in my candy bucket this year. As the chilling winds of autumn draw eerie prattle from contorted, deciduous limbs, we find ourselves possessed by the spirit of the season. Bewitched by a dissonant charm, we’ve created Maple Shadows. In a season that is defined by the unlikely harmony of treats and frights, we’ve joined the enchanting sweetness of maple with the earthy spice of Dark Fired Kentucky for a smoking experience that captures the senses with an otherworldly fusion of flavor. This may be the best aromatic blend Sutliff’s ever made—and they make a ton of them. First off, it’s not overbearing in the least—quite the opposite, it is also one of the more restrained aromatics they’ve ever made, with a clear but very light topping that melds oh-so-well with their choice Kentucky added to the mix. Opening the tin, the sweet maple is up front and center, but so too is the must of fallen leaves, bready pie crusts, and a crackling fire in the hearth—a perfect invocation of Herbstdüfte in a can. Packing best in an open and capacious bowl, the flavoring is subtle, and recedes to the background while puffing. With a sweet coffee or tea to accompany, the aftertaste of the maple is reinvigorated on the palate […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 632. Our featured guest on tonight’s show is the host of the Pipe & Tamper Podcast, Mike Murphy. Brian and Mike will have an extended chat revolving around the days before, during and after the Las Vegas International Pipe Show. We will hear about their travels to the show and the anxiety of Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida at the same time while running a show and not knowing if your house is going to be there when you get home. In the end, the show went great and our homes survived, although many others in Florida were not so lucky. We’ll have clips from the show, and shoutouts to other podcasts and vlogs that were broadcasting from the pipe show.
Nice review. I don’t smoke a lot of this blend, but I always enjoy it when I do.
Good review. I love this blend, always in my rotation. I find it goes very well with Jack Daniels Honey on the rocks.
Nothing wrong with inviting Gentleman Jack to the table, batdemon! Basil Hayden is practically my neighbor…
Wonderful review as always. This is a lovely, complex tobacco and if I could smoke all day, this would be a natural choice. Keep those reviews comin’!
About 20 years ago we had a local store called “Mom’s Cigars”. Mom had a barrel of old dried out pouches of MacBaren tobaccos for sale for 50 cents each. Being near broke at the time I started smoking whatever was in the barrel, eventually buying most of it. There were several mixtures, but primarily Scottish. I didn’t like it at first, but for 50 cents, I got to like it. Very much so, in fact. When all the discount pouches were gone I started buying fresh cans of it. They weren’t as good as the dried out pouches, but weren’t bad. I didn’t taste any of the interesting flavors mentioned in the review, but found it to be a good solid all around blend.
Nice job, Bill.
This is one of my favorite late afternoon smokes. I think the review is dead on, and have paired this tobacco with tea and later in the evening, spirits. As a new pipe smoker I am anxious to see how cellaring this mixture from bulk buys will enhance the experience.
Another descriptive and entertaining review that makes my mouth water just reading the article. I do have some Balvenie Portwood and will make it a point to pair MacBaren’s Mixture with a dram this evening. If only more smokers would take the time to relax and not smoke so vigorously with MacBaren’s Blends there would be fewer puffers saying that they suffer tongue bite. I’ve always enjoyed MacBaren’s blends and they will always be a staple in my rotation. Thanks for another great review and needless to say the photography entices one to light up right now.
That Balvenie Portwood is something special, isn’t it Andy? As to the oft-cited tongue bite, I think it’s an issue that can be obviated by taking care to neutralize one’s palate before smoking, and by sticking with the blends and smoking the same one over a period of a few days to allow the palate to calibrate to their particular house style of casing, namely the maple sugar mixture mentioned in company literature. Approach them thoughtfully if you’re not a regular aro or Mac Baren smoker, and you will be rewarded handsomely.
Just received this blend for Christmas. I’m new to pipe smoking and have only enjoyed aromatics so far. Well this blend just took me worlds deeper into understanding and appreciating complex and rich tobaccos! I think it’s bringing me to enjoy English blends down the road! Thanks for the awesome review!! Pipe on!!