Coyote: hope you don't mind me correcting you, but MacBaren has manufactured the Amphoras for a number of years. They bought them outright in the Spring of 2015, and intended from the start to bring them back to the USA. They had also planned to market the Whiskey version here, but the FDA ruling may have changed their minds on that. I'm not certain on that point, but they changed their minds about it a few months ago.
I had smoked the Brown from the 1977 until 1982, when it disappeared from my local outlets, though I know it and the Red were still being sold in our country until at least the early 1990s. I much preferred the Brown to the Red, which I had smoked a few pouches of first. Off and on from 2010 until last year, I managed to get quite a number of pouches of both from overseas, and they were very much as I remembered them, with a few differences: a higher sweetness level being one of them. One of the differences in what's sold here now is the higher moisture level, but I find drying them out some beneficial to making them taste more like what I used to smoke. I still prefer the Brown to the Red, still have a few pouches of the stash I bought before the USA release, which I think are pretty close to older versions, and MacBaren has not changed the composition of the blends since they started producing them.
Did MacBaren change them in any way since that date? It's possible they may have tweaked them somehow, but I don't know that for sure, and am uncertain. The most I think they would have done is make a very minor change... or maybe the sources for the tobaccos are different, which would cause a change? A friend who smoked the Brown until the early 1990s couldn't tell any differences between the new version and the last time he had smoked them. You may have a better palate than he does as you have noticed differences. Was there a time lag between the time you had been smoking it and when you tried what is available now?
