Sorry, that wasn’t necessarily directed towards you, I meant it more as a joke about McClelland destroying all of their equipment (which I seriously doubt is true at all).
Equivilant blends to Frog Morton Cellar?
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No apology needed. If they did, I would understand. They poured many years and a lot of love into that company. Then again, lots of myth and legend revolving around tobacco in recent years.
Yes, unfortunately Shortcut to Mushrooms has been discontinued; the base tobaccos are no longer available. A new JFH blend called Bombadil replaced it; not a straight match for Shortcut, but an enjoyable English crossover.
The Frog Morton series was a unique series, because McClelland was a unique company, especially (imo) when it came to their Virginias. [a moment of silence]
They didn't destroy all of their equipment. They sold most of it, to C&D I believe. But they had a few proprietary gadgets that they dismantled, according to a source who was able to tell me when they were shipping what, days before they shipped, so the source was well connected with what was going on.
The visual FX houses I worked for did the same thing before selling off equipment to another VFX house.
A magician doesn't reveal his secrets.
We keep trying to tell people if your looking for McClelland tobacco there aren't any because it can't be done. Missouri Meerschaum makes a blend called American Patriot that will kind of remind you of Frog Morton Cellar but even it is a 70% match.
The issue is that end users, like me, are essentially ignorant about the levels of processing that create a particular flavor profile. They tend to assume on some level that Virginia is Virginia, Burley is Burley, Latakia is Latakia and that all you need is "the" recipe.
They are ignorant about how leaf varies from one place to another dependent on soil, water and climate. They are ignorant about how the leaf is harvested, from where on the plant it is picked and how that affects the flavors that will develop as the leaf is further processed. They are ignorant that the labor intensive hand picking method of harvesting which ensured homogeneity in the quality of what was harvested has largely given way to machine harvesting which results in a more mixed harvest, but which is more cost effective and necessary since the ending of farm subsidies. They know nothing about the further processing, flavoring, and aging of tobacco. They just assume on some level, that anyone can throw together some components and match a very exactingly made product like McClelland made. You might just as well attempt to build a rocket ship out of a book of matches.
And they're suckers for every con artist who claims he's created a McClelland match. Because that's all it is, a con aimed at raking in some money from McClelland mourners. So let me conclude in this gentle way. It's over. There are not, and will never be, any matches to McClelland blends, only middling approximations at best. Neither the leaf, nor the processing is available. Get over it and go find something else to enjoy, because there's plenty of great and unique stuff out there that isn't ersatz something else.
EXACTLY!
If you really want FMC you can have it. You just have to pay the price it is going for these days. The question is; is it worth it to you. To some people it is. I really like McClelland 5100. I saw a jar of it yesterday and they were asking $750 (ebay). It's not worth that to me. Plenty of other things to smoke. Is it worth it to you?
@sable Jesse, why dismantle tools instead of sharing the secret knowledge with the next generation of blenders? Perhaps they could have kept the McClelland name and sold the recipes? I refuse to believe that all leaf available now is not good enough to make their 100 or so blends. Yes, we could have lost a few signature blends but not the entire catalog !!
Cheers,
Chris :puffpipe:
Cheers,
Chris :puffpipe:
Probably to keep the new blenders from tinkering and bastardizing something they had built from the ground up.
Mike sure thought so. In the end his opinion turned out some amazing product.
Hi Chris,
Duane hit the nail on the head. The McNeils did not want their work adulterated by someone else.
Think about it. They could have sold the business intact. They could have brought in and trained a successor. Instead they decided to retire. McClelland wasn't yours, or mine, or anyone else's. It was the product of the McNeil's personal passion and vision and when the time came to call it a day, that's what they did.
And the other part of all of this is processing. By all reports they were very exacting, very detailed, perhaps a bit obsessive, in their processing. Large commercial outfits aren't going to duplicate that. All that careful process went into creating blends that were distinctively McClelland.
But not everyone thought McClelland's blends were all great. A lot of people did not like them, or liked very few of them. McClelland's aesthetic wasn't everyone's aesthetic.
Before the closure McClelland didn't get a lot of bandwidth here. Christmas Cheer and the Frogs and an occasional mention of Dark Star was about it. Then came the closing which was followed by much wailing, rending of sackcloth, and beatification. Boo hoo.
Moreover, the pending closure was just about the worst kept secret in the pipe world. McClelland tried to help their loyal customers by quietly giving them advance notice so they could stock up before the speculators, pathological hoarders and other forms of predators swooped in. That went on for months before the closure was officially announced.
But going back to process, it's the processing that makes McClelland, well, McClelland. And that's why no one is going to be making an equivalent. Nobody knows how to do that.
The frog has croaked.
Received a pkg of "Kings Frog Morton" two days ago and have shared same with a few friends familiar with McClelland's wonderful product.
We all agree its not the same, but that's all right. We are enjoying King's iteration of this blend and in doing so we're celebrating and fondly remembering McClellands.
All good, moving on. :D
We all agree its not the same, but that's all right. We are enjoying King's iteration of this blend and in doing so we're celebrating and fondly remembering McClellands.
All good, moving on. :D
@embers and @sable both of you make sense, but the heart wants what the heart wants !! I heard of a recipe called Frog Morton’s Ghost.
Cheers,
Chris :puffpipe:
Cheers,
Chris :puffpipe:
You do realize that when Woody Allen said this, it was in response to the furor over the revelation that he had been playing hide the salami with his foster daughter. Sometimes what the heart wants isn't necessarily mentally healthy.
There's no shortage of the real thing out in the wild. McClelland made literally tons of it. All you have to do is pay the scaplers.
And there will always be a huckster ready to fleece the suckers. Such is life.
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