Before they closed, when they were readily available and inexpensive, I quit smoking anything but McClelland for over a year. So I'd say it was that good. Pre hype machine it was the only company I would buy tobacco from.
Open McClelland Question
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from my experience it's less that a blend is so so good and more that it so agrees with me and my tastes. Even more so then other luxury type consumables. Hell one of my all time favorites is five brothers and it's about as basic as you can go and not raved about all that much. But it always is enjoyable and I never get a bad smoke from it.
The thing is if you like something and no one else makes an acceptable replacement, and then they stop making the original then the person who still has some can list what price they want. Because there aren't really any other options.
I have a half dozen CC and some Anniversary (2 of the years) and a few other tins ,that's enough for me, never tried a lot of their catalog numbers and I'm fine with that, there are too many other good tobaccos out there that are cheap and easy to acquire large quantities of that i don't need to go chasing after things that are going for a premium, as they say ignorance is bliss!
The first Mcclelland I tried was an aromatic which was Penmans Choice. I'm not a big aromatic fan but missing the Mcclelland deadline by a few months I was just ecstatic about trying a Mcclelland blend. It is actually a great aromatic with a flavor I havnt had so I was happy with it. Now I have a few blends and I can honestly say, they were great at what they did. But I only find it interesting at such high prices for fun years such as my daughters birth years CCs, and anniversary from my anniversary year. Other then that I can skip on it till I'm good and ready to pay exorbitant amounts for tins.
Like the rest of us tenderfeet, it isn’t easy being green!
Late to the party, and figuring it was worth a little extra, I’ve got a good little “cellar” of CC, 40th, and a couple others. The Deep Hollow I came by a few months ago has proven to be worth every penny, um, dollar. The others are pretty darn good and I enjoy them sparingly.
They were a great combination of excellent, readily available and fairly priced.
Probably 75% of my rotation while they were in business. Their Grand Orientals series was a favorite and I’ve encountered nothing since to match it and probably won’t.
Definitely not just hype and nostalgic musings.
Probably 75% of my rotation while they were in business. Their Grand Orientals series was a favorite and I’ve encountered nothing since to match it and probably won’t.
Definitely not just hype and nostalgic musings.
So what second rate, garbage blends have you been forced into smoking since their demise?
I've only ever smoked 1 clay pipe of McClelland; I was given a pipeful at Nottingham pipe show. Can't remember which one it was...
McClelland didn't really close. It's just pretending it did. It now sells exclusively through Pipestud who has an unending supply of Christmas Cheer and at exorbitant process. It's genius marketing.
Not your's, but the ones that featured posters insisting it just a matter of buy the "recipe" books and anyone could whip up a McClelland blend, crossed with posts from people with an unreal leveis of entitlement, making statements that the McCNeills "owed it" to them to keep the blends available, whoever made them with whatever contents, as long as it said McClelland on the label.
Not garbage at all. It just fit my taste preferences to a T.
I enjoyed most of the blends from McClelland that I tried. I loved Christmas Cheer, The Frogs, 3 Oaks Syrian (a doubly extinct blend), 2010, 2015, 5125, Royal Cajun Ebony, and several others. I wish I'd cellered them more deeply, but I still have some tins socked away.
Like Syrian Latakia, there will never again be McClelland blends. And that is a little sad, but ok. There are still many (many many) exquisite blends for pipe smokers to partake in.
Like Syrian Latakia, there will never again be McClelland blends. And that is a little sad, but ok. There are still many (many many) exquisite blends for pipe smokers to partake in.
Not sure how good they were, but they were my favorites and I bought a LOT of them for about 15 years.
Then I sold a lot of it and it paid for about 3/4 of my Silverado Z71 4x4.
Still have enough till the end of days.
Good stuff, but gone for good.
Then I sold a lot of it and it paid for about 3/4 of my Silverado Z71 4x4.
Still have enough till the end of days.
Good stuff, but gone for good.
I believe McClelland tobacco to be objectively excellent. You may not like a blend or even any of their blends but that doesn’t change the fact that most of the tobaccos they made and especially their Virginia’s are objectively excellent. I don’t like Adele’s voice and I don’t like her music, but she is objectively a good singer and I recognize that. The toil and care and obsession that the McNeills put into their blends created something excellent. You may not like what they made, but what they made was excellent.
What I am REALLY looking forward to is every single old McClellands tin getting smoked up and finished so I can really go to town with smug descriptives of how amazing the good old days were, when everyone lived next door to a pipe shop and you could scoop your pipe into the barrel of red cake on your way past the front door every morning.
What I remember most about the pre-McClelland demise was the continual bashing of the Vinegar/Ketchup topping on this forum and all the other pipe related forums. You all know who they were because we heard it ad nauseam. As Sable said mostly the bulk blends were preferred including the aromatics especially Nut n Honey, Danish Vanilla and Triple Cherry. And of course Christmas Cheer was always a big deal. It only went into Esoterica stratosphere after the demise. I lucked out and just happen to have quite a bit of it because I really like it.
It really is pounded into us on the forum (and we even had a blender from Lane come talk to our pipe club that told us the same)... that blending was just a matter of buying some tobacco , weighing it out, and mixing them together. Voila, you have a blend. Maybe spray some shit on it too. And the fact that some blenders believe this too is probably why Mike and Mary didn't want to hand over rights to blends.
How many times has a corporation bought something out that sells well, and then start simplifying the process to make it for cheaper to sell higher. I won't name names, but one blending house did jus spray some vinegar on some tobacco and then made the name similar to try to replace RedCake. And, people who have never tried McC's actually thought this was similar.
And cooking is just a matter of buying some food and not burning it.
While factually true that explanation leaves out so much. And that's one thing I've learned is everything is always more complicated then that.... There is always another angle to consider or ignore that makes a difference in the thing you are doing.
And what's horrible is from my experience the guys they send out to have these talks are so many times the guy that married the owners daughter and they have to find some way to keep the nepotism going while making sure they don't actually do (ruin) any work. And yes they're usually such idiots that they think you're a wizard when you ask them about marrying the CEOs daughter.