Which Are the Most Incenselike Blends? ⚗️⛪🪔🥢💭

[rakovsky]

I love the smell of church incense. Lemony Frankincense and the oily pine sap smells of Myrrh and Styrax Benzoin are three of the most common ingredients in church incense. By comparison, the South and East Asian traditions often use Nag Champa and sandalwood.

I smoked 9 blends out of about 30 blends that reviewers desribe as incenselike. Some blends literally include a major incense ingredient. Anothery category reminded me a lot of incense, a third category has a borderline faint incense smell, and the rest don't remind me of incense.

Indonesian "Kelembak Kemenyan" means Rhubarb Styrax Benzoin. Indonesian "Sintren" brand cigarettes use it. I could smell the myrrh-like Styrax in it.

HU Moroccan Bazaar's description on Tobacco Reviews says:

Various Virginias as ribbon cut and ready rubbed flakes, as well as a hint of black cavendish are on one side flavored with the spicy flavors of pepper, cinnamon, anise, incense, clove blossoms, coriander and on the other side with the sweet notes of the Orient, such as ginger, jasmine, honey and figs.

Esoterica Margate reminded me very much of incense because of its heavy oily consistency and body. Its flavor however reminded me more of cologne, like Ralph Lauren's "Chaps."

Grousemoor Plug's smoke seemed to have a little Nag Champa or sandalwood side.

Kramer's Fr. Dempsey was made for a Roman Catholic priest. It includes a faint light note that gives me the idea of incense that has lavender in a R.C. mass. The resemblance to incense is weak enough that I could be imagining the similarity.

Maltese Falcon includes ginger. It has a faint oily note that I can't tell for sure whether to describe as incense-like.

A friend told me that Maltese Falcon smells more like incense than GLP Westminster does. I haven't tried Westminster, but some say it's like incense. Its cover art shows Westminster Abbey.

Peterson's Nightcap, My Mixture 965, Ennerdale, Boswell's Northwoods, C & D's Star of the East, and GLP Gaslight did not particularly smell like incense to me.

Other blends that reviewers describe as incense-like and that I haven't tried are:

1. McClelland's 3 Oaks Syrian
2. McClelland's Orient 996
3. Kopp's Fox’s Provost Mixture
4. HH Magnum Opus
5. S.G. Cannon Plug
6. S.G. RB Plug
7. G. H. & co.'s Balkan Blend
8. Sutliff's Bengal Slices
9. Sutliff's Holiday Pipe Mixture
10. A & C Petersen's Caledonian Melange No. 499
11. Dan Tobacco's Liberty
12. GLP Samarra
13. GLP Horizons
14. Peretti’s Oriental 40
15. Peretti's Royal
16. Gladora Tobacco's Pesse Canoe Latakia 40

Have you tried blends that you found to be like incense?

 

[Mrs. Pickles]

I appreciate the amount of thought you’ve put into this.

It’s interesting that smokers don’t appear to think of unflavored tobacco as being incense-like. Your list illustrates that the “incense” descriptor is used for blends that have:

1. A flavoring or group of flavorings are used in actual incense.

and/or

2. Latakia with the terpy tarry scents from mastic and pine smoke.

If there are innate flavors from tobacco that contribute to an impression of incense, I think they’re coming from the lovely sour and animal smell of oriental tobacco. An English blend with a heavy, natural oriental presence in combination of with its Latakia sort of reminds me of the resinous and barnyard qualities of Oud.

From my own experience, I’d add Peretti’s Tashkent to the list, but Oriental #40 is probably even more incense like in that way.

Also, if you can still get a hold of some Holiday Pipe Mixture somehow, @Joe H associates it with some of the most beautiful descriptions of incense in old churches and old violins in this extraordinary thread, here: Two Nuns and a Seminarian :: Pipe Tobacco Discussion - https://pipesmagazine.com/forums/threads/two-nuns-and-a-seminarian.106600/post-37103604

Looking forward to trying some of the others on your list sometime.

 

[Sigmund]

I dont think Gladora fits in that league. It has only a little lat and of course oriental. Is has flavor but its a subtle smoke.

 

[BriaronBoerum]

To my relatively inexperienced palette, Pirate Kake, with its copious amount of Latakia, definitely has an incense note. SPC Plum Pudding and Arango Balkan Supreme also come to mind. Have you considered ordering samples of straight Latakia and Oriental leaf to try on their own? That way you might be able to isolate more of the notes you're looking for.

 

[rakovsky]

Nota Bene:
Mrs. Pickles on "Ogden's St. Julien's" thread wrote:

For St. Julien, the "incense" quality was a combination of woody, floral and powdery smells. Somewhere between the floral aspects of frankincense and powdery sandalwood.

I hadn't included it in my list in the opening post.

 

[dozicusmaximus]

I can't really say myself. But I was camping and puffing on Tuggle Hall when one of my buddies walked up and asked where the incense smell was coming from.

 

[Dave760]

The most incense-like blend I knew of was SG RB Plug, sadly now out of production. But that was more "Grateful Dead concert" than "church" incense.

 

[rakovsky]

I appreciate the amount of thought you’ve put into this.

It’s interesting that smokers don’t appear to think of unflavored tobacco as being incense-like. Your list illustrates that the “incense” descriptor is used for blends that have:

1. A flavoring or group of flavorings are used in actual incense.

and/or

2. Latakia with the terpy tarry scents from mastic and pine smoke.

If there are innate flavors from tobacco that contribute to an impression of incense, I think they’re coming from the lovely sour and animal smell of oriental tobacco. An English blend with a heavy, natural oriental presence in combination of with its Latakia sort of reminds me of the resinous and barnyard qualities of Oud.

From my own experience, I’d add Peretti’s Tashkent to the list, but Oriental #40 is probably even more incense like in that way.

Also, if you can still get a hold of some Holiday Pipe Mixture somehow, @Joe H associates it with some of the most beautiful descriptions of incense in old churches and old violins in this extraordinary thread, here: Two Nuns and a Seminarian :: Pipe Tobacco Discussion - https://pipesmagazine.com/forums/threads/two-nuns-and-a-seminarian.106600/post-37103604

Looking forward to trying some of the others on your list sometime.

Mrs. Pickles,
There are a couple threads already on Pipes Magazine Forum where pipers say certain blends, especially some in my list, are incenselike. But the threads don't really get into the issues of how incenselike they are or of ranking some as more incenselike than others.

Flavoring is certainly a way to make blends incenselike because you can literally add incense resins to a blend like "Sintren" cigarettes have.

Typically blends have Burley, VA, or Perique, or use Oriental with Latakia. You can write off Burley, VA, and maybe Perique as varieties likely too simple to be incenselike. Supposing that the Mediterranean wood processing were to make some Latakias incenselike, I wouldn't exclude out of hand that some Orientals like some Izmirs had a similar smell.

Since terebinth resin and mastic resin are theorized to be classic incense materials going back to ancient times in the Mediterranean, it would make sense that they could relate to "terpy tarry scents from mastic and pine smoke" in Latakia's processing.

A tricky spot there could be that terebinth or pineish incense resin per se would be much more full in its essence than a leaf smoked with wood that contained that resin in unknown amounts. Another issue is that I don't know how close terebinth resin, which might not often be used in incense in real life today, smells to myrrh resin, which is a typical base in incense.

To use an analogy, suppose that you smoke bacon using maplewood. I don't know how close that would make the smell from frying that bacon be to maple syrup. In the grocery store, we have maple bacon with a maple syrup taste, but it literally has maple syrup slathered on it.

Another issue is that some people might misperceive incense as what is in fact a charcoal smell, because charcoal is a common base for burning incense. For me, My Mixture 965 had a charcoal smell, but not particularly an incense one.

The sourness and animal side of Latakia that you mentioned doesn't remind me of incense. Latakia for me seems bitter and earthy, rather than sour. But maybe I am misperceiving it and in fact it is sour. In contrast, Katerini seems more "sour" the way that I imagine Katerini to be.

So I understand you correctly: Oud is a cologne that smells like wood and tobacco.

A couple people recommend Tashkent as incenselike, but I recall reviewers saying that some other blends are more incenselike. I think Samarra on my list might have been one of those.

Based on what I've read, out of those I haven't tried, 3 Oaks is what reviewers seem to most often strongly commend as incenselike. After that, Magnum Opus seems the next most common strongly recommended blend. Beyond that, a couple like Holiday Mixture might be a lot like incense but I didn't notice them as especially commonly mentioned.

The only ones I tried (and I tried over 1/3 in my list ) that I can solidly commend as incenselike are Margate and Sintren, whereas Moroccan Bazaar has Incense but I haven't tried it.

 

[Joe H]

Thanks @rakovsky and all of the other contributors to this very interesting thread. This sort of content really makes this site one of the most enjoyably and informative places I visit. Great info!

 

[rakovsky]

To my relatively inexperienced palette, Pirate Kake, with its copious amount of Latakia, definitely has an incense note. SPC Plum Pudding and Arango Balkan Supreme also come to mind. Have you considered ordering samples of straight Latakia and Oriental leaf to try on their own? That way you might be able to isolate more of the notes you're looking for.

Out of the three blends you named above, I only had Plum Pudding. It was the Bourbon Barrel variety, but I don't think that would make a big difference as far as incense smells would be concerned. Plum Pudding BB smelled like a normal English Latakia blend, which means it has a barnstall hay note for me. It might have had a little plum-like note, and the blend reminded me of old bourbon barrels too.

I didn't have Balkan Supreme, but had Balkan Sasieni and it smelled like GLP Gaslight, which smells like old leather, but not incense for me, although Gaslight has been named as incenselike.

I had Sutliff's pure Latakia and it smelled like musty wood barrels, a horse's old wood barnstall, overripe hay. This is because when tobacco and hay break down, they both produce a chemical called silage.

About 1/3 of English or Latakia blends have that smell to me, and Plum Pudding has it faintly too. I don't know if all pipers perceive that smell in the same way.

Another 1/3 have an old leather smell like Balkan Sasieni and Gaslight do. A friend had two bags of pure Latakia. One had the barnstall smell for him, whereas the second bag was from a different company and smelled milder, not like a barnstall. He didn't mention incense, but maybe it was like old leather.

The other Latakia blends that I have smoked like My Mixture 965 had Latakia faint enough that I didn't get a strong smell from it, at least in the musty musky way that I do from those other Latakias.

I go to an EO liturgy with church incense practically every Sunday, and did today. So incense is a smell I love, but it's also something specific for me that I want to be careful about- not to imagine an incense smell nor dismiss a real one. When I smoked Plum Pudding BB, I had just left coffee hour after a service with incense. I didn't even know that Plum Pudding could be considered incenselike, and I didn't find it that way when I smoked it. It was a good quality blend though. I had a nice walk for a half mile with it.

Bearing in mind what Mrs. Pickles said, it could be that an incense note is inherent in Latakia if that Latakia is processed with smoke from resin-containing/producing wood like terebinth wood. But it could also be that the smell from that resin that burning the Latakia re-emits is minimal enough that it's practically unnoticeable, at least for me.

 

[rakovsky]

I can't really say myself. But I was camping and puffing on Tuggle Hall when one of my buddies walked up and asked where the incense smell was coming from.

It could be that the pipe smoke was different enough from other tobaccos he had smelled like cigarettes, and different enough from other smoke smells he recognized like campfire wood, that maybe he expected it to be like incense. Since you were outside camping, I expect that he was more likely thinking of East Asian Wood.

People unfamiliar with pipe tobacco can be really thrown off and confused by it. I say that myself as someone who himself has been getting deep into exploring blends for the last two years. One time I smoked a 50 50 mix of Cpt Black Dark Cavendish and a barnstall English B&M house blend outside a Vietnamese-run salon. One of the workers was smoking a cigarette. My mix's smell profile was so unfamiliar to him that he wasn't sure if what I was smoking was legal. I explained English blends well enough that it made sense to him.

 

[rakovsky]

A couple other blends that reviewers describe as incenselike and that I have not tried are:

1. KBV's The Oriental Affair
2. GLP Ashbury
3. GLP Lagonda
4. Comoy's Double English

 

[The Benedictine]

HH Magnum Opus (now just HH Magnum) is very incense like. I prefer the smell of English tobaccos and think they have an incense-like smell.

 

[BriaronBoerum]

Out of the three blends you named above, I only had Plum Pudding. It was the Bourbon Barrel variety, but I don't think that would make a big difference as far as incense smells would be concerned. Plum Pudding BB smelled like a normal English Latakia blend, which means it has a barnstall hay note for me. It might have had a little plum-like note, and the blend reminded me of old bourbon barrels too.

I didn't have Balkan Supreme, but had Balkan Sasieni and it smelled like GLP Gaslight, which smells like old leather, but not incense for me, although Gaslight has been named as incenselike.

I had Sutliff's pure Latakia and it smelled like musty wood barrels, a horse's old wood barnstall, overripe hay. This is because when tobacco and hay break down, they both produce a chemical called silage.

About 1/3 of English or Latakia blends have that smell to me, and Plum Pudding has it faintly too. I don't know if all pipers perceive that smell in the same way.

Another 1/3 have an old leather smell like Balkan Sasieni and Gaslight do. A friend had two bags of pure Latakia. One had the barnstall smell for him, whereas the second bag was from a different company and smelled milder, not like a barnstall. He didn't mention incense, but maybe it was like old leather.

The other Latakia blends that I have smoked like My Mixture 965 had Latakia faint enough that I didn't get a strong smell from it, at least in the musty musky way that I do from those other Latakias.

I go to an EO liturgy with church incense practically every Sunday, and did today. So incense is a smell I love, but it's also something specific for me that I want to be careful about- not to imagine an incense smell nor dismiss a real one. When I smoked Plum Pudding BB, I had just left coffee hour after a service with incense. I didn't even know that Plum Pudding could be considered incenselike, and I didn't find it that way when I smoked it. It was a good quality blend though. I had a nice walk for a half mile with it.

Bearing in mind what Mrs. Pickles said, it could be that an incense note is inherent in Latakia if that Latakia is processed with smoke from resin-containing/producing wood like terebinth wood. But it could also be that the smell from that resin that burning the Latakia re-emits is minimal enough that it's practically unnoticeable, at least for me.

Ok, just so I'm clear in understanding you, are we talking the tin note of the blend, or the scents and tastes we perceive when smoking? I definitely get a barnyard/hay smell from VaPers or English blends with Perique in them when I open the tin or bag. For example, I just opened a sample of WCC's Ahab's Comfort, and the barnyard smell hit me right away. But lighting up, I also definitely got a resin note that I associate with incense (my best friend in grade school was EO, so I get what you're referencing!). And I've also smelled that incense note when smoking the other blends I mentioned. Of course, smell being subjective, I can't say everyone's going to have the same experience! To me, Plum Pudding has a strong barbeque element when smoking it, but I still think that I picked up something incense like in there in the few times I've smoked it.

I think Mrs. Pickles may be right that the incense smell from Latakia comes from the conifer woods and anacardiaceae species like mastic and terebinth that are used to smoke it. But tobacco leaf itself has a lot of different potential fragrant compounds, which the curing process may also bring out, so maybe you're both right?

 

[rakovsky]

HH Magnum Opus (now just HH Magnum) is very incense like. I prefer the smell of English tobaccos and think they have an incense-like smell.

Thanks for writing.
Have you had Margate? I get the impression that Margate's topping or casing is like incense or what I could call "Raph Lauren cologne-smelling smoke/incense."

Having read reviews but not having tried Magnum Opus, I wonder if Magnum Opus would be incenselike in the same aromatic style (but maybe not cologne in flavor).

 

[The Benedictine]

Thanks for writing.
Have you had Margate? I get the impression that Margate's topping or casing is like incense or what I could call "Raph Lauren cologne-smelling smoke/incense."

Having read reviews but not having tried Magnum Opus, I wonder if Magnum Opus would be incenselike in the same aromatic style (but maybe not cologne in flavor).

I have not had the pleasure of trying Margate.

 

[VDL_Piper]

FWIW when ever I smoke Early Morning Pipe the better half always comments on the incense note, I get very little in the smoke but the room note must carry that smell.

 

[rakovsky]

Eeaders unfamiliar with church incense's actual smell can smell it at any Eastern Orthodox Sunday morning liturgy. I imagine it as heavier than Roman Catholic style incense, but I could just be imagining it. Major cities in the US and Canada typically have at least one Orthodox church. Catholic Churches and some Anglican and Lutheran ones use incense on holidays.

My Mixture 965 reminds me of the moment when my priest when I was a teenager lit the charcoal in the censer near me. So more specifically I get a charcoal smell from it. I like M.M. 965, and when I say that a blend doesn't smell like incense, I don't mean that I don't like the blend.

Fr. Dempsey includes a delicate lavender smell to my perception like how I imagine R.C. incense. But for all I know I am just imagining R.C. incense or Fr. Dempsey having delicate floral notes.

Church incense commonly relies on Frankincense and Myrrh, and their use is probably related to the three Magis' gifts (gold, frankincense, and myrrh) in the Nativity story. One of the main church incense companies is named Three Kings.

By comparison, I am familiar with South/East Asian style cones and incense sticks from getting them as a teenager at a mall in the 1990's. They are pretty cheap and simple to use: you just put them on a plate or stick their end in a hole and light them directly. They have a soft type of wood smell, maybe like sandalwood and faintly like cloves.

 

[fightnhampster]

C&D Seersucker and Dreams of Kadath

 

[PaulRVA]

These two stand out for me.

Gawith Hoggarth Bosun Cut Plug and / or Bosun Plug
(Virginia, Dark Fired)
*Clove & Floral

G L Pease Regents Flake as I find it unique as well and it fits the criteria.
(Virginia, Perique, Orientals)
*Fig & Spice