Got an Odd Old Tin of Highlander Today

I usually check my tin dates if there are any, and I received a first-batch Yenidje Highlander as a back-order fulfillment. I am cracking it open tonight to see how it smokes. Hopefully the Latakia is not skunked or too faded. Why am I getting a first-batch tin? Do people buy new stuff and then return their old stock to the retailer to stay fresh? That's pretty dubious if so. My other theory is that the stuff has been on back-order and the retailer is just selling what they can get from the distributor, who happened to find old tins and is sending them out, which is what it is, if so.

:puffpipe:

McClelland goes "blend:batch:year" as far as I know. The ink on the label is faded, lol. I got '14s the first time that I ordered over the winter, then '16s when I ordered again this summer, then some of that order ended up going on back order, and some came in and they were '16's too, and then this came in, and I still have a couple more on back order, so retailer supply does seem to be an issue.
Hopefully it's a treat, I am reallllly curious to see how it smokes.

Just to avoid any confusion with the tin date, the batch resets every year as far as I know, so it is the first batch of '07, and I don't think it was made before '07. Maybe some was tinned up at the tail-end of '06 but I can't find anything before 06/07 about it being for sale on the internet, so who knows.
This could go either way. In either case, I probably don't want any more aged tins, but I am interested to see how 10 year old Highlander tastes.

Usually I like to let a freshly-cracked tin "set up" for a couple weeks in the jar and maybe even burp it a few times before I smoke it, but I have a bowl packed already. It's very hot and humid and it got a Fred Hanna oven-bake in the mail truck on the way over, that I can tell you. Since it's so humid I needed to spread my bowl-pack out on a paper plate and nuke it for 8 seconds, flip it around until it cooled and then nuke it again for 6 more seconds. The VA in the tin note is much stronger and aged than the new stuff, and the Latakia is detectable but it takes a long, shallow breath to pick it up. The Lat is fairly light in the tin note of new stuff, but the newer VAs are obviously not as strongly odored either. I'm going to go outside and burn it down and see how it tastes.

chasingembers
Enjoy! That stuff is great with only a couple of years on it. You have gold!

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The '14 is my "reference" tin I guess, and is what I am familiar with, and is really good. It feels like it's been a couple of weeks since I smoked it last, and oddly enough I had decided that it was going to be the evening smoke right before the '07 tin showed up.
The '07 smoked differently. First impression is that it is not better or even as good as the the '14, but I will let it "balance out" in the jar for a couple weeks, airing it out for a few seconds every couple of days. I think that doing this helps the flavors for some reason by letting the tobaccos out-gas their tin-gasses (or something), and so it tastes better. Also the humidity was wicked last night, and I know it's not helping any flavors, but no excuses. The '07s VA tang was large and in charge initially, way bigger than the '14, and it was overshadowing the thin and slightly bitter sweetness of the Yenidje which I can normally pick out early-on in a bowl of the the '14. I usually notice a banana-bread flavor early on in the '14 which was missing. I did get an occasional hit of cinnamon, sometimes a light caramel sweetness throughout the '09 bowl, but the VA was mostly tangy and the most noticeable flavor early on, though it did calm down in intensity later on. The initial room-note smoke did not have much Latakia essence to it like the '14, more like a sweet & smokey VA. The Latakias in the older blend are definitely falling off a bit, they are not as distinct or complex in flavor as the fresher blend. I started to get a charred firewood flavor and room-note from them about a quarter way into it. At this point, in between those two flavors was mainly a baby-powder type thing going on, which seemed a little different than the '14. This combo pretty much went on until the end for the most part. I think the Lats are a little flat and that's not going to change, but really the VA tang seemed to be running wild especially early on in the bowl, so the jar-balancing thing might help there a bit.
Also what I did last night was crack open a '16 tin and I smoked a bowl of that in a different-but-similar pipe to see how that compared. The '16 smoked much more like the '14 that I am already familiar with, although it was also pretty VA-McClelland tangy since I just opened it, although no-where near as tangy as the '07. I could pick up the thin, lightly sweet Yenidje and the incense and wine of the Latakias early on no problem. The '16 room-note and jacket note was more incense-like right away compared to the '07, and the tongue-lacquer was more tasty and complex than the '07. Basically it seemed pretty similar to the '14 that I am used to.
Maybe tonight I will get around to smoking that bowl of '14 that I was planning on in the first place, and I think I'll smoke it more regularly over the next couple of weeks until the two newly-opened tins have "balanced out" in the jars and I can compare everything again. :puffpipe: