To my mind, you can basically split English/Balkan blends into two camps: sweet or savory. Sweet blends include Maltese Falcon, Odyssey, Larry's Blend, Plum Pudding, and quite a few others. The savory ones include things like Westminster, Nightcap, Quiet Nights, Squadron Leader….and Charing Cross.
When I light up a bowl of this I think of olives, charcoal, eggplant, red wine, and any number of earthy flavors and aromas. Although latakia is one of the primary flavors, it never really dominates the smoke and the virginias barely even whisper. Instead, the focus seems to be on the orientals. This provides a tremendous amount of complexity, enough in fact to make it one of the most complex blends I've ever sampled. So complex, even, that it tastes somewhat off-balance to me, although I'm sure it turned out exactly as Pease wanted it. This is a very nice blend, but it's not my cup of tea -- I prefer my latakia mixtures to have a lot more sweetness.
Also, for what it's worth, Charing Cross is probably the closest thing on the market today to the original Balkan Sobranie White.
A couple of years ago, an acquaintance of mine on one of the many pipe-related internet sites sent out generous samples of Balkan Sobranie from the early 1970s. In return for this generous gift, he wanted us to also sample Charing Cross and then compare the two. He had concluded, after many years and many experiments, that CC was the closest thing to the original BS available. Although we recognized there would be difficulties making comparisons to a blend that had aged for nearly two generations, we all pretty much agreed that CC was almost eerily similar to the venerable BS. So, if you are wanting to get a sense of what that legendary product was like, then have a go at Charing Cross.
So, in light of that revelation, why don't I award this one four stars? As I said, it might well be a dead ringer for the old BS but that observation only serves to reinforce my belief that BS wasn't really all it's cracked up to be. I suppose that if I had been smoking in 1971 and BS was the only mixture of its type on the market, then I might well have considered it to be some kind of earthly nirvana. As it stands today, however, I greatly prefer Odyssey, Maltese Falcon, Magnum Opus, and several other mixtures to both Charing Cross and Balkan Sobranie (for the record, I've tried several other more recent vintages and have been even less impressed).
So, for me at least, this is a three star blend. The quality of the leaf and the skill that went into it probably warrant four stars if you are fond of this type of latakia blend, but it's not one I plan on ever buying again.
When I light up a bowl of this I think of olives, charcoal, eggplant, red wine, and any number of earthy flavors and aromas. Although latakia is one of the primary flavors, it never really dominates the smoke and the virginias barely even whisper. Instead, the focus seems to be on the orientals. This provides a tremendous amount of complexity, enough in fact to make it one of the most complex blends I've ever sampled. So complex, even, that it tastes somewhat off-balance to me, although I'm sure it turned out exactly as Pease wanted it. This is a very nice blend, but it's not my cup of tea -- I prefer my latakia mixtures to have a lot more sweetness.
Also, for what it's worth, Charing Cross is probably the closest thing on the market today to the original Balkan Sobranie White.
A couple of years ago, an acquaintance of mine on one of the many pipe-related internet sites sent out generous samples of Balkan Sobranie from the early 1970s. In return for this generous gift, he wanted us to also sample Charing Cross and then compare the two. He had concluded, after many years and many experiments, that CC was the closest thing to the original BS available. Although we recognized there would be difficulties making comparisons to a blend that had aged for nearly two generations, we all pretty much agreed that CC was almost eerily similar to the venerable BS. So, if you are wanting to get a sense of what that legendary product was like, then have a go at Charing Cross.
So, in light of that revelation, why don't I award this one four stars? As I said, it might well be a dead ringer for the old BS but that observation only serves to reinforce my belief that BS wasn't really all it's cracked up to be. I suppose that if I had been smoking in 1971 and BS was the only mixture of its type on the market, then I might well have considered it to be some kind of earthly nirvana. As it stands today, however, I greatly prefer Odyssey, Maltese Falcon, Magnum Opus, and several other mixtures to both Charing Cross and Balkan Sobranie (for the record, I've tried several other more recent vintages and have been even less impressed).
So, for me at least, this is a three star blend. The quality of the leaf and the skill that went into it probably warrant four stars if you are fond of this type of latakia blend, but it's not one I plan on ever buying again.
