Similarity or Inexperience?

Maybe try some other brands in 1 ounce quantities from different families of blends, like

English, aromatic, and a mild burley like Lanes Burley Without Bite. You should be able to

taste the difference between a set of three like that. I haven't smoked many Mac Baren blends,

but Golden Danish and Navy Mixture (if I recall the names of the blends correctly) didn't taste

alike to me. If you are very new to pipe smoking, it may take a while to realize the differences

between blends. Welcome to Forums.

I also got a free sample of McBarren Modern Virginia, but I have yet to try it. Maybe tomorrow I will open it up, and give it a try, and will let you know.

Modern Virginia...what does that mean?

Modern Virginia...what does that mean?

Click to expand...

It's probably just a marketing thing. I know that in Europe they sell a product called Cube directed at a new gerneration of pipe smokers, kind of like the "Not your father's Oldsmobile" campaign from the eighties.
http://globalservants.org/connect/blog/165-not-your-fathers-oldsmobile
Let's hope McBaren isn't going down the same road!

I think a Modern Virginian is James Dury with a beard on a single speed bike drinking a butternut half-caff decaff butternut Frappuccino :lol:

In my opinion, some of Mac Baren's Va heavy blends have very subtle differences, but definitely detectable.

I've not yet tried Modern Virginia though, so I can't speak to its flavor profile.

For the most part though, I find their blends to be very different from each other.

The ones that I find to be the most similar to each other are their coins, such as Roll Cake, Dark Twist and Latakia Blend (which has hardly any Latakia in it, and is very hard to detect).

Mac Baren makes up a very big part of my cellar/rotation.

I usually have the following on hand, and can definitely detect differences among them;
HH Acadian

HH Old Dark Fired

HH Vintage Syrian

HH Latakia Flake

HH Highland

Burley London

Roll Cake

Virginia Flake

Dark Twist

Vanilla Cream Flake

Navy Flake

Mixture Flake

Latakia Blend

Plum Cake

Golden Extra (some in the cellar, but I've yet to try it)

Virginia No. 1 (not tried that one either)

Bronze Cube (I don't have any at the moment, but it's good stuff)

7 Seas Black (also in the cellar, but yet to try)

Modern Virginian, ugg, and they added a bunch of burley to it. This drives me nuts. I have absolutely no problem with burleys, but if you mix them into the blend, call them a mixture or something other than a Virginia. They do this with several blends, especially their Matured Virginia, which barely has any Virginia in it.
It may be fantastic stuff, but if the name tells me one thing and I taste another, my brain says "fail." Whereas, if it was called a mix, or blend, or Snoopy and Peanuts, then my taste buds can't disagree if there is no frame of reference.