Blend of the Week #28: Presbyterian Mixture
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I've got a long history with Presbyterian Mixture. It was the second blend I ever smoked when I picked up a pipe some years back (the first being Cult Blood Red Moon) and I remember being shocked and overwhelmed by the flavor potency of what I later learned were the Oriental tobaccos in the mix. I had no idea how to properly smoke a pipe at the time or sip it slow to prevent tongue bite, and I remember spending much of my first week as a pipe smoker walking around with the taste of Presbyterian Mixture quite literally seared into my sore burnt tongue; so everything I ate or drank for days on end tasted like Presbyterian Mixture.
Needless to say I wasn't terribly inclined to smoke it again after that experience, so it was a couple years before I looped back around to give Presbyterian another try. During the interim I had smoked probably a dozen other English blends, and it wasn't until I came back to Presbyterian Mixture with a more informed palate and the knowledge of how to properly smoke a pipe that I was able to appreciate just how fantastic this blend really is.
Starting off as per usual with the tin note and appearance, the aroma from the tin is a wonderfully spicy incense scent courtesy of the Orientals with just a touch of sweetness from the Virginias and a little hint of that distinctive campfire smokiness from the Latakia. The tobacco comes in an exceptionally chunky coarse cut that you don't see too often, but as we'll later find out the cut really does work to this blend's advantage! There has been some debate over the years as to whether Presbyterian Mixture contains Latakia or not, but as you can hopefully see from all the little black bits in the picture above the current incarnation of Presbyterian most definitely has Latakia in it; and a fair amount of it too!
Jumping into the flavor and smoking experience, any blend can be an all day smoke if you like it enough and have the nicotine tolerance for it, but of all the English blends I've ever smoked I find Presbyterian Mixture best suited to the task. It's extraordinarily smooth and gentle on the mouth and sinuses, and the flavors of the tobaccos at play never become so strong as to distract from whatever you're doing or wear on the palate. Yet, there's also a great deal of variety and interest to the flavor profile making it hard to get bored of. The backbone of the blend is some toasty, bready, naturally sweet stoved Virginias that are very mellow and lack the acidity or citrus notes of unstoved Virginias, while the incense and clove spiced buttery Orientals keep the flavor from becoming flat and the wee little bit of Latakia brings a campfire smokey note that only shows up every now and then to accentuate the spice of the Orientals; and never becomes acrid or unpleasant tasting.
This is a very Oriental forward English blend, the most Oriental forward I've ever smoked in fact, but the rough and chunky cut allows for great flavor separation so you'll still get a very good taste of the Virginias and the Latakia when the burning ember reaches a big chunk of one of them. There's a lot of variety to taste here and the overall flavor profile never becomes homogeneous like it can in with finer cut English blends where the Virginia, Oriental, and Latakia flavors can all muddy together and become difficult to taste individually.
Presbyterian smokes smooth and tasty whether you puff it fast or sip it slow and doesn't particularly care about your smoking cadence, though the Virginias may nip at the roof of your mouth or tongue a touch if you start puffing too aggressively. A lot of English blends tend to muddy in flavor as the bowl goes down, especially once you get past the halfway point, developing a flavor somewhere between burnt coffee and the smell of road tar baking in the summer sun; which some may enjoy but personally I find abhorrent. Presbyterian Mixture, on the other hand, retains it's starting flavor all the way down to the bottom of the bowl and has a pleasantly spicy and clean finish; bringing forward it's incense notes but never turning muddy or unpleasant tasting.
The burn mechanics are solid, with Presbyterian smoking perfectly well straight from the tin or jar with no dry time required, needing few relights, and leaving little to no moisture left behind in the bowl. The nicotine content is square in the middle of medium, which was surprising to me since I usually find English blends to be at the upper end of mild or the very lowest end of medium. It's nothing to be afraid of if you're someone with a low tolerance for Vitamin N though, it's not going to overwhelm you even if you smoke a large pipeful, but you'll certainly notice it by the time the smoke is done.
As far as the room note goes, as I was sitting out on a park bench this afternoon smoking Presbyterian while I finished writing up this review I had a total of 5 people walk by and tell me how good it smelled. Two of them further remarked that it reminded them of church incense, so I'd say Presbyterian Mixture is an aptly named blend! The room note also got the thumbs up from every member of my household and was roundly approved for indoor smoking, which was a first for an English blend, but this is definitely one that you should have no concerns about enjoying in the company of others.
For the remainder of the review I'd like to take a little time to compare Presbyterian Mixture to another popular Oriental forward English blend: Peterson (formerly Dunhill) Early Morning Pipe. In some ways they're quite similar blends that will likely appeal to the same sort of pipe smokers, as in if you like one of them then you'll probably like the other, but there are some significant differences between the two that are worth touching on.
The first and most obvious difference is that Early Morning Pipe contains quite a bit more Latakia than Presbyterian Mixture, enough that the campfire element is a constant flavor note throughout the bowl whereas with Presbyterian the campfire flavor from the Latakia comes and goes throughout the smoke, but there are a few other differences as well. The Virginias in EMP are bright, citrusy, and sharp on the palate, but with Presbyterian the Virginias and bready, toasty, mildly sweet, and have a soft gentle mouth feel on account of their stoving. Lastly, the Orientals that are the star of the show in both blends have a different character as well. In EMP the Orientals do offer a little incense note, but they mainly contribute a slightly tart sour flavor to the blend, whereas with Presbyterian the Orientals pack a lot more incense spiciness with an additional clove note and a soft buttery flavor; and none of the sourness found in EMP's Orientals.
The distinct flavor styles of Early Morning Pipe and Presbyterian Mixture also carry over into their retrohales, frequently giving EMP a peppery zing through the sinuses when retrohaled, whereas with Presbyterian the retrohale is smooth as silk on the sinuses and I'm fairly sure you could retrohale it all day long with little to no sinus discomfort. Lastly, the thinner ribbon cut of Early Morning Pipe also allows the flavors of the individual tobaccos to merge and homogenize more than with the thick chunky coarse cut tobacco in Presbyterian; which does allow for some flavor symbiosis but for the most part the Virginia, Oriental, and Latakia flavors remain separate and distinct on the palate.
Overall I'd say Early Morning Pipe is a blend with a bright and lively character designed to invigorate the palate with a variety of sharp punchy flavors, while Presbyterian Mixture has a soft and mellow character with just enough spice to keep the flavors from becoming dull while still retaining it's gentle "all day smoke" characteristics.
Wrapping up the review with my personal thoughts and verdict on Presbyterian Mixture, I'll admit that I am probably one of the pickiest pipe smokers you'll ever meet when it comes to blends. If there is something to complain about with a blend, anything at all, I will find it and I will most assuredly complain about it. That said, I really have no complaints about Presbyterian Mixture. For my taste in tobaccos this is about as perfect as any blend can get, a flawless 5 out 5 stars if I was the sort to rate blends in that way. I've been smoking it 2 to 3 times a day every day for a week and haven't grown even the slightest bit tired of it or perturbed by any aspect of the blend, and that's about the highest praise I could give any tobacco.
I do already have an Oriental forward English blend on my keeper shelf though, the aforementioned Peterson Early Morning Pipe, and do I really need two Balkan style blends in my rotation? Probably not, but I really love them both and Presbyterian is a definite two thumbs up keeper for me! Maybe someday when I finish going through all the blends I need to properly try out and review I can revisit my keeper list and whittle it down a bit, but for now Presbyterian Mixture is joining the ranks of Early Morning Pipe on my keeper shelf; and I doubt it's going to be leaving anytime soon.
