Charatan introduces Dunhill blends

[ssjones]

https://www.gqtobaccos.com/pipe-tobacco/charatan-1992-pipe-tobacco-50g-tin-dunhill-965-mixture/
The 1992 sounds interesting. All the other My Mixture 965 matches lack the Brown Cavendish component, but 1992 has it.

 

[sablebrush52]

I honestly didn't think they still tinned tobacco.

They don't. It's just a name tacked onto a tin.

McConnell is making all the Dunhill blends including flake. Look at the HU website under McConnell Heritage Blends.

Except that the blends being offered aren't the same as the Dunhill branded STG blends. The K&K version of Navy Rolls has a black Cavendish center, which Navy Rolls did not have. Regarding these, last I heard, K&K had been forced to stop distribution due to a suit filed by BAT. So if you want to pick up these clones, now one among several clones of the Dunhill branded STG blends, you might want to make haste.
Give it a few more weeks. There should be even more clones, Dunhillesque versions of Mixture 79 and Dan Tobacco's Holly's Non Plus Ultra.
It you really, actually, want to get close to something Dunhill, try Sutliff's Elizabethan Match, or Peter Heinrich's Curly Block. Pretty close to the Murray's product, which is the original clone.

 

[mso489]

sable, ha-ha, "the original clone" -- yes, that's where we're at. Pleasingly wacky. Something to ponder while we puff. I'm sure we all look forward to that Dunhill/Mixture 79 blend.

 

[warren]

Clones? The term promises a sameness. i think "wannabes" is closer to what is being produced. Clone might be applicable to the Dunhill labeled blends of 80's. They had an eerie similarity to the blends of the 60's which had similarities to, I presume, various Dunhill blends from earlier times. The tastes morph over time as the base ingredients subtly change. I'm sure none of the Dunhill blends I've smoked. while similar, were really only distant cousins to the original of the early 1900's.
I am not saying the "wannabes" are not grand tasting blends. I'm sure many will be happy with some of them. I hope to be. Every successful blend has, by necessity, found a few palates it satisfies.

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

Evidently STG either sold or licensed the blends to K&K

Source for that?
From what I have read, K & K appears to have been on a project of its own. But as is the usual practice in this industry, transparency to the end consumer is not of any great importance. It does seem that the K & K project is dead (the Heritage Blends appear to have been dropped from their website), though who killed it is not so clear to me. Both the recipe owner (STG) and the trademark owner (Richemont? BAT?) would appear to me to have independent grounds to contest K & K's marketing of these blends. But I have not been able to find any link to any litigation or reliable report of same except forum scuttlebutt. A letter from a law firm might be all it took. Compared to the 3 names I mentioned above, K&K is a small fish, and small fish in an industry dominated by giant multinational companies know how to swim away.
If I had any tins of the K & K Heritage Blends, I would hang on to them, sealed or empty. They might be real collectibles.

 

[bradical]

This video might shed some additional insight into what's going with the Dunhill blends: Pipe Club of London February 2019 Meet
The video starts at 20:51 where the Tor executive introduces himself and begins explaining the situation.

 

[sablebrush52]

Thanks for the video! Pretty interesting. The Charatan blends are clones made by a German Blender and not from any pre-existing recipe.

Both the recipe owner (STG)

Source for that yourself. Assuming that BAT supplied recipes to STG for making these dratted blends why would they give up control and ownership of them?
As for my source regarding the issues with McConnell, which apparently are over as people report that the McConnell Heritage versions are available for purchase, he's in the trade and prefers not to be named.
In any event, a recipe is only a starting point. Different crops, sources, pipelines, factories, processing, etc, make for different results. Any recipe has be be rejiggered based on the palate of the blender and his crash dummies, to arrive at a successful clone.
Enjoy your clones of clones of clones of clones.