Mac Baren’s Next Move
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Kevin Godbee - Dec 10, 2014
- 4 min read
E. Roberts
Well the days keep getting shorter, and the nights keep getting colder…and we’re getting older, too. Winter is well and truly here, and so is some new tobacco, just arrived in the post: Mac Baren’s Dark Twist, as well as a sample pouch of Modern Virginia Loose Cut. With so much more evening time to enjoy each day, a suitable companion for the pipe is a must. Mac Baren, as always, obliges handily with their wares, both old and new.
Dark Twist is one of Mac Baren’s stable of truly classic blends developed in the 1950s and 60s (’55, to be exact), a few of which have been reviewed here at PipesMagazine.com—see our write-ups of Mixture Scottish Blend, Roll Cake, and the erstwhile Burley London Blend. In fact, it’s becoming somewhat of a Christmas tradition to review Mac Baren tobaccos—last year we indulged in some Navy Flake at holiday time, which reminds me it’s time to crack open another tin of that blend after this review.
Well played, Mac Baren. Well played.
Mac Baren has an unbelievable stockpile of tobaccos and equipment, and the blending knowledge of several generations of tobacconists to put it together like nobody else can. One of the few manufacturers able to produce coin tobaccos, Dark Twist is a shining example of the genre. From the company literature explaining the process:
Whole leaves are used as wrapper for the rope and the inlay is divided into two groups.
The first group contains 100% pure Virginia tobaccos, meaning that the whole leaves are used as wrapper leaves and the leaves with small imperfections are used as the inlay.
The second group contains whole Virginia leaves as wrapper and Dark Fired Kentucky as inlay, meaning you see the dark tobacco in the centre and the brighter Virginias around it.
After the tobaccos have been spun into ropes it is stored for weeks and then cut into small coins. The blend of Dark Twist is broken down as follows. For every 2 coins of Virginia tobacco there is 1 coin with a centre of Dark Fired Kentucky.
Control the center.
Coin cut, spun cut, roll cake, or round flake—no matter how you slice it, it’s my favorite presentation for a tobacco. The process derives from the Age of Discovery, when sailors would wrap their precious tobacco leaves up tightly in sailcloth, perhaps spiced with a bit of rum, in order to preserve it for long hauls between ports. The physical pressure would crush the cell walls and allow the tobaccos to meld their flavors agreeably, and time would work its magic in mellowing the leaf comfortably. The process is mechanized now, of course, but the effect is the same—brilliant tobacco in an appealing, tactile format.
It’s all about tempo.
This blend is all about richness of flavor. The Virginias tend toward the dryish, woody notes typical of African strains, while the Dark Fired Kentucky lends additional earthy bass to the mix as well as some strength. Topped off with the Mac Baren signature of maple sugar, the whole becomes much more than the sum of its parts. Very lightly sweet and rather mild in the tin, a bit more aroma can be coaxed out of the leaf when breaking up the coins. It’s quite enjoyable to fine-tune the mixture of one’s smoke from bowl to bowl by separating out the coins: selecting only Virginia coins for one sitting offers a sharp, snappy smoke that tingles on the palate; sorting out several Dark Fired centers and packing a large, deep bowl leads to a hearty, meditative session wherein the reviewer’s eyelids begin to sweat from the nicotine. The overall palate and profile is like a red velvet cake, if that red velvet cake were made of leather and dried hay and old wood.
It’s your move now.
A new contender.
A newcomer to the Mac Baren lineup, Modern Virginia has leapt to the top of my "to be cellared" list. PipesMagazine.com broke the news here in October of its release, and to facilitate introduction to the market Mac Baren has produced 20-gram sample packets, which retailers can include with orders. Billed as Virginia sourced from two continents and blended with a bit of burley and Mac Baren’s Modern Cavendish, topped with a light fruit note, this is a worthy addition to the brand’s pantheon. The loose cut is basically a shag tobacco, faintly sweet in the pouch. It’s easily one of the best small-pipe blends I’ve encountered, perfect for a quick, flavorful smoke. While technically an aromatic blend owing to the topping, don’t be misled into thinking this is of the more confectionary styles of aro. In true Mac Baren form, the flavor of the tobacco itself is primary, with the gossamer-thin veil of topping laid ever so lightly over the profile. For the smoker it is a delicious, natural tasting blend, and for bystanders the room note carries the faint hint of sweetness amicably. I look forward to reviewing fully both the loose cut and flake varieties of this new concoction in the coming months. Well done, Mac Baren, and thank you for the holiday gift.
A perfect shag for small pipes.
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowl’s surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the work’s been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once I’d cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but it’s how I roll. If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. 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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! 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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.
Mac Baren Blends are many of my favorites.
Mac Baren Blends are many of my favorites.
Over the last few years,I’ve been going through a lot of their blends, including a pound of Vintage Syrian, one of my faves. I got a 2nd tin of the Solent Mixture, and I’m looking forward to cracking a tin of Old Dark Fired within the next half year. I should try Dark Twist too, but currently I’m working my way through a tin of Acadian Perique
Mac Baren certainly occupies its own category in my book, for all its blends and in particular the flakes. I still mourn the loss of Burley London Blend, yet perhaps it’s partly because of the knowledge that the pounds I have squirreled away are the last of it that amplifies the enjoyment…or not; I really loved that tobacco. If it wasn’t for all their other blends being as good as they are, I might hold a grudge against Mac B.
Happy Holidays!
What a beautiful story of photographs, they add an amber warmth to the entire article.
MacBaren and a Nice Kaywoodie Bulldog, now that’s a picture that will make me reach for both. Great article as always Bill and MacBaren has always been a favorite in my stable of tobaccos. One overlooked blend “Club Blend” is one fine mellow and mild blend that can be smoked all day. The spun/twist tobaccos are amazing and many will improve over a few years of ageing. Lucky you, stocking up on the discontinued London Burley Blend. Glad you had the foresight to do that. Keep up the fine articles they are what makes pipesmagazine the best site on the net.
I admire your gift for turning a phrase. Nice piece of writing and sharing of the experience.
Dang! I always forget to mention how much I appreciate the illustrations that accompany the copy.
Thanks for a great piece Bill – as always. It’s brutal coincidence that the two blends you describe so enticingly are two that I nixed from my last order in favour of two more tins of H&H Viprati! The topping on the Modern Virginia concerns me a bit, but the Dark Twist sounds superb. Both will definitely make the cut on my next order!
Andy
Just an excellent review with great photos. Well done Bill!!
Non sequitur but… if you’re up for a game of chess, I’m “BeerZombie” on Chess.com!
We love non sequesters around here, Beer! I’ll have to dig around for my password to that account; I know it’s around here somewhere….
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I had another taste of Modern Virginia at the NY Pipe Show, and it still hit that spot between an aromatic and a ‘straight’ blend. Looking forward to my order of a few tins. Don’t worry Andy, they’ll make more 😀
LOL – thank God for that! I bought some Dark Twist in Berlin and it’s fast become a staple; once I sorted out my cadence to avoid tongue bite, the flavour and aroma are superb. Modern Virginia is yet to come, but I’m looking forward to it!