McLelland Replacement

[tg51]

Who is your selected blender for replacing our beloved McLelland Virginia blends? C&D is a go to for Burley, GLP for English/Latakia etc. But who is the powerhouse for Virginia now that the throne has been vacated?

 

[lightmybriar]

I’m a primarily Virginia smoker, and while others have found some relief with some other sources (a lot of them done by Sutliff), I have just resigned myself to the fact that there isn’t anything currently out there that fills the void for me. There is a blend by Rattray’s that has a pleasant similarity to a few McClelland tobaccos I loved. At the risk of making an already hard-to-get tobacco even harder to get, I will hint that the blend is dark, and rather fragrant.

 

[tfdickson]

I smoke mostly VA's and VaPers and McC made up something like half of what I smoked prior to their closing. I've tried just about everything under the sun since then and there is nothing close to a replacement for their VA blends with one possible exception. The exception is Watch City Simply Red as a replacement for Red Cake 5100. It's not always available because it sells out so quickly but as long as I can buy Simply Red by the pound here and there I'll never be chasing 5100.

In my year-long tasting binge following McC's closing I did find several that I don't consider replacements but I do enjoy quite a bit and have added them to my cellar:

• Mac Baren HH Pure VA
• Watch City 558 and Old Dominion (VaPers)
• Watch City Red & Black
• Capstan Blue
• Sutliff Dunhill Elizabethan Match (VaPer)

SG's flakes have also long been favorites of mine and availability seems to be getting better. Full VA Flake, St James Flake, Sam's Flake, and Kendal Cream are all excellent.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

There is no blender who does what McClellands was doing, or even comes close. I just select Virginias from other blenders. whatever they have to offer. This is where we were before McClellands came along.

As for looking for someone with a blend close to what McClellands did... I am repulsed by the attempts to copy them.

 

[lawdawg]

Samuel Gawith

Still smoking that old Christmas Cheer around the holidays each year. If I could go back and buy more, I would, but I'm preaching to the choir on that one, I'm sure.

 

[lawdawg]

There is no blender who does what McClellands was doing, or even comes close. I just select Virginias from other blenders. whatever they have to offer. This is where we were before McClellands came along.

As for looking for someone with a blend close to what McClellands did... I am repulsed by the attempts to copy them.

+1

It might just be a matter of semantics, but the attempt to "replace" something that's gone is just kind of sad, impossible, and fruitless. Kind of like the washed up high school football star Uncle Rico in the movie Napoleon Dynamite... "Back in '82..." Still plenty of good, but different, stuff out there to enjoy.

 

[sandollars]

Did anyone buy their recipes? Did they keep them in hopes they will someday re-emerge? How will the FDA Nazis impact the value of the intellectual property (recipes)?

 

[lawdawg]

Did anyone buy their recipes? Did they keep them in hopes they will someday re-emerge? How will the FDA Nazis impact the value of the intellectual property (recipes)?

It's not just about their "recipes" but about their specific processes. Without the McClellands themselves supervising the process and in essence passing their business on to someone else, there's not going to be any re-emergence of McClelland tobaccos. If the McClellands wanted to do it that way, they would have sold their business, or at least transitionted it to someone else, instead of closing up shop.

In summary, they gone.

 

[jeff540]

It's not just recipes, but material suppliers and aging.

I found several Esoterica blends to fill the void left by my favorite McClellands. Are they matches? Not by any means, but I enjoy them just as well. Stonehaven, Brighton, Kingsbridge, Woodbridge, and Dunbar to be specific.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Did anyone buy their recipes?

The beauty of what McClellands was doing was processing Virginias in new and original ways. They weren't merely mixing a few things and adding a sauce to it like so many "tobacconists" today do. They were making new processes to cook and turn carbs to sugars and ferment the tobaccos. Sutliff just added vinegar to a blend in an attempt to make something close, and it was sadder than an Uncle Rico.
Why doesn't someone else step up to the plate and start trying some new processes? Russ was doing some experimenting with mark Ryan, and I like what he was getting by fermenting the Virginias in perique barrels... so maybe someone else will try out some new techniques at some point. But, the number one thing that will stifle this is that Virginias are being flue cured by corporations for the most part now. It would even be hard to find a private grower that doesn't use a commercial flue cure. So, getting your hands on some raw Virginias to try new processes on would be tough.

 

[alaskanpiper]

It might just be a matter of semantics, but the attempt to "replace" something that's gone is just kind of sad, impossible, and fruitless. Kind of like the washed up high school football star Uncle Rico in the movie Napoleon Dynamite... "Back in '82..." Still plenty of good, but different, stuff out there to enjoy.

Bad Example. Former Coug and current Jags QB Gardner Minshew II is clearly Uncle Rico reincarnated.

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

McClelland's Virginias were unique. However, there are a host of other Virginia blends I enjoy as much or more.

F&T CVF, CVP, Blackjack, Special Brown Flake and Vintage
Capstan Blue and Gold Flake
Wessex Campaign Brigade Dark Flake and Red Va Flake
Orlik Golden Sliced
Astley's No 44 and 104
Aylesbury Classic Flake
Dan Tobacco Hamborger Veermaster & Patriot Flake
Mac Baren HH Pure Virginia
Vauen No 14 Virginia Flake
GLP Union Square
Samuel Gawith FVF and BBF
Watch City Simply Red and Rhythm & Blues
LJ Peretti Boston Slices and RCTR
C&D Carolina Red Va Flake, Opening Night and Yorktown
HU Tobacco Haymaker and Sunset

If you can't find something you like among that selection, you probably don't like Va Tobacco. Even if McClelland were still producing tobacco, I would cellar deep on all of those blends listed.

 

[sablebrush52]

McClelland did their own thing and before and after McClelland, other blenders, like Samuel Gawith, Germain's, and Gawith and Hoggarth did their own thing.

It's just a matter of what spin on Virginia you enjoy smoking. Besides the above mentioned blending houses, I'd recommend HU, which is blended by K&K, as is Rattray's and a number of other labels. You'll have to order HU from Germany, but if you like full flavored Virginias they're a worthwhile option.
Bijou, Carolina Red, and Yorktown from C&D are worth a look as well.
Watch City SImply Red is no 5100, but it doesn't need to be. It's a most enjoyable blend on its own. For something a little closer to 5100, try Sutliff 515RC-1, which was developed to impart some of the McClelland matured red tang to blends when used as a blending tobacco. 5100 was a blending tobacco, and something of a snooze on its own.

 

[peregrinus]

The McClelland lines are already drifting into legend. The loss is not only their own lines, but also many retail house and specialty runs, as well as a number of lines they tinned for several independent blenders.
Before eBay dampened sales there was so much McClelland product available on site I sometimes wondered how many people actually smoked it versus trading it. Even now under the mercurial ban in effect on eBay there are normally dozens of tins for sale. Compared to the price of a box of decent cigars, or even a carton of cigarettes, $60.00-70.00 for a tin of Christmas Cheer, while arguably painfully high, many not be so outrageous and prices can only go up in the foreseeable future.
Grab a few of these while you can from Pipestud or another reseller to treat yourself on occasion.

 

[sandollars]

But as Hoosier and Sable and others have pointed out, there are plenty of great Va's out there that are just as good, not the same but as good or better available right now.

I suspect there's a bit of Van Gogh Syndrome that surrounds McClelland: Good impressionist Artist when alive but a must-have for your collection after his death..

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I suspect there's a bit of Van Gogh Syndrome that surrounds McClelland: Good impressionist Artist when alive but a must-have for your collection after his death..

This is absolutely what happened. When Virginias would come up, a few of us would sing the praises of 5100's bready flavor... and we would get shouted down by the FVF fanatics. Then, after the announcement, everyone started weeping over their loss... after years of putting down that fermented tin note of McClelland's blends.

Eh, same thing when an actor or musician dies, everyone immediately becomes their greatest fan.

 

[Chasing Embers]

No need for replacement here.

 

[lightmybriar]

McClelland was always my favorite for Virginias, but they left the scene only a year or so into my pipe adventure, and I knew nothing of what “cellaring” was. I was just of the habit of restocking a tin when my current tin emptied. I embarrassingly admit for all your entertainment that I used to think when you guys spoke of “cellars” and “cellaring” that you all actually had an entire subterranean room of your home filled wall to wall with tobacco. Well...actually some of you guys do, but that wasn’t an option for me at the time so I figured I was just not a pipe smoker to that extent yet, haha!

If I could just have one more tin (I only ever had one!) of Beacon Extra to enjoy, I could die a content pipe smoker. Maybe one day!

 

[lightmybriar]

I do see now that I misunderstood the question at hand, though, which is NOT “what’s a good McClelland match?” The very valid question in the OP is “Now that McClelland is no more, what are the best Virginias available out there?” And so far there are some great answers here!

 

[alaskanpiper]

No need for replacement here

You post this picture all the time.............and yet I never tire of seeing it...... ???