Were their tobaccos really that good or it just another case of unobtaninum makes people nuts?
Open McClelland Question
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Is the color blue really the best color in the world? Is 75F the best temperature for the home year round?
There is no correct answer for this. Many hated them, many loved them. I loved them. But…
1. Yes and No.
2. Yes
Depends on what you're looking for. My favorites from McClelland were their matured Red Virginias, which were pungent. Sutliff came close with their 2020 Cringle Flake. Every other brand can go pound sand.
I liked some of their other Virginia's, found still others to be a bore. Didn't care much for their Orientals. except for a few of their Grand Orientals.
Oddly enough, much of their best output was with their bulk blends, like 2010, 2015, 2035, 5100, and so on. People prize those bulks above a lot of "premium" tinned blends.
Like other quality blenders, they developed a "house" style for the flavors of their blends. There's no mistaking a McClelland Virginia for any other. If you liked what they did there were few contenders, and if you didn't, there was a world of other choices.
Closing up certainly didn't hurt their standing. There's nothing like absence to make the heart grow screwier. The wailing of tears, gnashing of teeth, and rending of sackcloth has largely stopped while the gouging has continued.
Thankfully the number of idiotic "why didn't they sell" or "why can't someone just buy the recipes and make more McClelland" threads have subsided, if not altogether died out.
2. Yes
Depends on what you're looking for. My favorites from McClelland were their matured Red Virginias, which were pungent. Sutliff came close with their 2020 Cringle Flake. Every other brand can go pound sand.
I liked some of their other Virginia's, found still others to be a bore. Didn't care much for their Orientals. except for a few of their Grand Orientals.
Oddly enough, much of their best output was with their bulk blends, like 2010, 2015, 2035, 5100, and so on. People prize those bulks above a lot of "premium" tinned blends.
Like other quality blenders, they developed a "house" style for the flavors of their blends. There's no mistaking a McClelland Virginia for any other. If you liked what they did there were few contenders, and if you didn't, there was a world of other choices.
Closing up certainly didn't hurt their standing. There's nothing like absence to make the heart grow screwier. The wailing of tears, gnashing of teeth, and rending of sackcloth has largely stopped while the gouging has continued.
Thankfully the number of idiotic "why didn't they sell" or "why can't someone just buy the recipes and make more McClelland" threads have subsided, if not altogether died out.
being relatively new to the pipe world I never had a chance to try any of them and I see them going for insane prices so I am just wondering
Dark Star and Yenidje Highlander are two of the greatest blends I’ve ever smoked. I also loved Anniversary and almost the entire Frog Morton series (apart from Bayou; too sensitive to perique).
I smoked their blends for more than two decades before they disappeared, so their absence now has nothing whatsoever to do with my appreciation of them.
I came to pipe smoking just as they had re-released Three Nuns, which was nothing like the original, not even the same tobacco types. I never had the opportunity to try the original, and yeh, for a brief moment, I was like... "crap." So, I bought a tin of the shitty mouth scorching new stuff, smoked three bowls of it, and threw it away. Then the longing to try the original just sort of faded away.
One day Sutliff will go under and old men will set around and pine for Molto Dolce, and you can see how many men ever would admit publicly that they like that aromatic by seeing how it is never mentioned.
My favorite McC's were RedCake (I refuse to call it by it's stupid catalog number), Deep Hollow, British Woods, Guillotine Slices, and Tawney Flake. Luckily, I ended up with a good variety of them in my cellar. Just not as deeply cellared as I would have preferred.
They have some legendary blends but so do many others. The price has gone up because the supply has gone down. The higher prices lead people to believe there must be something special about it. Well, in many people's eyes it is something special for various reasons.
If captain black went out of manufacturer its value would also go up on the secondary market. Maybe there was die hard captain black smokers and now they're willing to pay a premium. And with higher prices, people start to wonder what the fuss is about and they too are to willing pay a premium to satisfy their curiosity. And so the cycle repeats.
If captain black went out of manufacturer its value would also go up on the secondary market. Maybe there was die hard captain black smokers and now they're willing to pay a premium. And with higher prices, people start to wonder what the fuss is about and they too are to willing pay a premium to satisfy their curiosity. And so the cycle repeats.
The question is kind of a difficult one to answer because of its ambiguous nature. Yes, they were extremely good but not for everybody. No tobaccos is. You can buy some of Steve Fallons website every week. Be prepared to pay 5-15 times the original price.
Honestly, I never thought much of their English blends. I smoked them here and there because I wanted to change my pace and because they were readily available in shops or wherever. As for their virginia blends, there were a few that I thought were special, but many of them were just average. The quality was always there, even when I didn't think highly of a blend. Two of their bulk virginias were my daily drivers, and one of those was what I smoked 85+% of the time. And I preferred them new with no age. I happen to like earthy, grassy, hay notes. The first thing to disappear when aging were those notes. I keep saying that though. I really don't like the idea that we sell to new smokers that aging is mandatory and/or that aging results in superiority. The only certainty in aging that we should be telling new smokers is that: aging = change. That's it. Aging guarantees change. Aging does not guarantee better. Aging is certainly great for business. It gets people to buy buy buy. To be candid, I don't like this aspect of things.
I think they were really THAT good!
The Red Cake 5100, Anniversary, Black Woods Flake, McCranie's Red Ribbon (1983) are some of my favorites of all time. Nothing comes close to their red virginias.
I wish I had more Red Cake. I would have bought enough to smoke it every day of my life.
The Red Cake 5100, Anniversary, Black Woods Flake, McCranie's Red Ribbon (1983) are some of my favorites of all time. Nothing comes close to their red virginias.
I wish I had more Red Cake. I would have bought enough to smoke it every day of my life.
I liked their Virginia blends better than any others, no contest. At one time, I bought 5100 in 5 lb bags, used to smoke it in big ole Castello Collection Free Hands. Some of their other blends, not so much. With that said, I also remember when you could find all the McClelland and Esoterica you could buy sitting on the shelves of most B&M's. Scarcity has certainly increased the legend of both brands.
Their aromatics were mediocre. The red Virginias were wholly unique IMO but could be polarizing. The only blend that really knocked me out was one I understand they made for Ashton: Celebrated Sovereign. Other than the equally departed Bohemian Scandal, that was my favorite Lat blend.
I did like several of their aromatics, because you couldn't taste the aromatic shit sprayed on them. I find aromatics that actually taste like whatever food junk they're named after to be failures. I want to taste the tobacco, while everyone smells the food stuff. Win/win
The McC folks, a married couple, had highly refined and artful blending talents. To understate their artistry is churlish. They were excruciatingly attentive to sourcing tobaccos for their blends, and had an exquisite sense of finding the golden proportions for a particular blend.
There are other highly skilled blenders in the business today that deserve equal respect. Their skills and proclivities are not the same as the McC couple, but they provide equally excellent blends of their own. Not every McC blend was a masterpiece, and of course, different pipe smokers found various blends their best.
Frog Morton Cellar was a favorite of mine. I still have a couple of their blends unopened, to savor in the future. When they're gone, they're gone.
There are other highly skilled blenders in the business today that deserve equal respect. Their skills and proclivities are not the same as the McC couple, but they provide equally excellent blends of their own. Not every McC blend was a masterpiece, and of course, different pipe smokers found various blends their best.
Frog Morton Cellar was a favorite of mine. I still have a couple of their blends unopened, to savor in the future. When they're gone, they're gone.
But why didn't they sell? And why can't someone just buy the recipes and make more McClelland?
There's a shop in Zurich which has a shelf full of McClelland, pity is none of the flagships are left, the owner told me they were gone long ago.
There's a shop in Zurich which has a shelf full of McClelland, pity is none of the flagships are left, the owner told me they were gone long ago.
I remember when PBR was a great beer. They changed it and l switched to Bud. Cant say l lost any sleep over it. Key was my choice of snus for years now its gone and I go with Copenhagen. I saw outrageous prices for tins of McClelland and while taste is subjective it wasnt near worth the asking prices l saw. There are too many good blends out there to worry about a few that are gone.
Damn, you must be like way over 100 years old.
I knew lost of people who drank PBR, but I've never heard anyone ever say that it was good.Bar bottle Blue was great. There was a reason for the blue ribbon.Damn, you must be like way over 100 years old.
