Dear Paul,
Some reviewers told me that they considered Bosun Plug to be one of the most quintessential pipe blends in general.
May I ask if you've had some blends in the OP, and if so, how these two blends would compare to them?
Which Are the Most Incenselike Blends? ⚗️⛪🪔🥢💭
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Some reviewers told me that they considered Bosun Plug to be one of the most quintessential pipe blends in general.
May I ask if you've had some blends in the OP, and if so, how these two blends would compare to them?
Starrynight,
I can think of particular EO and Roman Catholic parishes with carpets.
Out of interest, I tried whole leaf or unadulterated cut leaf samples of izmir, Sutliff's Latakia, Katerini, Samsun, Perique, and N. Rustica. It gave me a good sense of what each variety's scent profile is like. None of the samples I would characterize as incenselike.
I recall Presbyterian being described as similar to Westminster.
Mrs. Pickles,
I made a master list with short descriptions of the smells of all blends that I tried here:
I wrote for Katerini: "Sweet, classic tobacco tin note, maybe distantly like Camel cigarettes. The smoke was one of the most delicate and faint that I've had. Not stinky, but has a sour taste near the beginning, as a piper friend confirmed."
Olkofri,
It's neat that you love the smell of incense. From the description of MB Vanilla cream, I would expect it to have a yummy vanilla cream smell like vanilla fudge.
That makes me wonder how you would find it to be like incense, since I find vanilla to be different enough from incense. But not having it, I can't judge. I can see that the "creamy" side of MB Vanilla Cream could have the same thick oily smell.Have you had any other blends in my list in the OP?
Friend Cosmic Folklore,
I meant to ask about incenselike pipe blends in general, not specifically aromatics or another particular genre.
I wanted something like church incense. But you are right that sometimes when reviewers mention an "incense" smell they mean incense sticks.
I overlooked Ashbury when I made my list in the OP, and included it with a few others in a follow-up in Message #12.
Would you say that Penzance's incense side is about as strong as Ashbury's or is there another blend in the OP that you would compare it to?
Subjective but, Presbyterian is completely different than Westminster.
I’m sitting on two tins that I will try and age for a couple more years (not too long).
I don’t remember as much sourness in Westminster as Presbyterian.
I did revisit Penzance and looked for incense and indeed there is something there… I know you got your hands on some Margate, but any luck on Penzance? Where are you located?
Dozicus Maximus,
Do you think that if you smoke in your garage, you would be able to smell the room note just from being in the garage while you smoke?
You could do an experiment where you leave the garage and walk back in to see if it's different than your smoke smell.
Personally I haven't noticed a difference between smoke smell and room note, to the extent that I can separate the smoke's smell from the taste it leaves in my mouth.
Dunhill and Peterson have done a great job in making high quality iconic blends, and this is one thing that would keep me coming back to them. Besides that, Orientals have a "deep" quality for me that I like, and the Latakias have been faint enough that they didn't bother me at all in Standard Mixture and My Mix 965. I sent a friend who was into trying Englishes a sample of Standard Mixture and he said that it was too bitter for him. I don't know what happened- maybe it got bitter after sitting in my little plastic sample bag for a month.
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Pypke,
Would GLP Quiet Nights be like Peterson's Nightcap?
Fr. Dempsey and Maltese Falcon both comparably reminded me of incense: In both, the potential incense smell was faint enough that I wasn't sure if I was imagining it.
The incense part of Fr. Dempsey was its delicate light lavendarlike or purple flower type of smell.
Since it's so faint even for me, I can't confidently make a strong argument that it's there. Tobacco can have a natural grape/prune purple fruit smell, and some people describe some Oriental notes as "floral." Maybe this combination is what makes me think of purple lavendar flower incense.
Lavendar Incense
@ohin3 wrote on another thread, "I don't know about Anglican incense but catholics use a combination of 2 parts frankincense, 1 part myrrh and 1 part French lavender." (pipesmagazine.com/forums/threads/esoterica-margate.16582)
Maltese Falcon uses ginger root spice that gives it a special smell, kind of an earthy root type of a spicey smell like super strong ginger tea or Bold Ginger Ale. I don't know of ginger being a common church incense ingredient. But clove smoke is woody, spicey, strong, and can be in the church incense genre to a secondary degree.
If I separate out the ginger smell of Maltese Falcon, then it was the faintly oily part of the blend that reminded me of incense.
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Dear Lukas,
Thanks for writing back and suggesting Penzance.
Cosmic Folklore had talked about Penzance yesterday morning.
People describe Penzance often enough as incenselike that I am adding it to my own list of reported incenselike blends to try.
Margate's quality that reminds me of incense is its texture. You made a good point when you said that incense-like involves taste and texture. Church incense basically relies on gum drop resins.
Burning resins makes a thick, heavy, oily smoke.
Margate's smoke was very oily, thick like Ralph Lauren Chaps cologne.
Both because of the blend's flavor and because the smoke was a little hotter on the tongue than from untopped Englishes, it felt like this oilyness came from its casing or topping.Chaps' cologne's smell is wood "chypre." One product description said that lavendar was a top note too.
Wikipedia's article on "Chypre" says:
Labdanum (Cistus ladanifer) has been a common Mediterranean incense ingredient since ancient times. Lavendar is sometimes used in church incense.
However, I didn't find the smell of Margate to be specifically like an incense blend that I've smelled, like the pine smell of myrrh.
Wishing you the best.
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I never got Penzance, Starrynight.
Is there a blend in my list in the OP that you would compare it to?
How strong is the incense smell in Penzance for you?
On a scale of 0 to 5 for resemblance to incense, I would put Sintren at a 5 because it literally has Styrax and I can smell it.
I would put Margate as a 3 because I don't know of it having incense, and the flavor was different (cologne). But the thick oilyness and the cologne smell reminded me enough of incense that I would give Margate a 3.
I would put Maltese Falcon and Fr. Dempsey at a 1 because the incense quality is faint enough that I don't know if I'm imagining it.
I would give GLP Gaslight a 0. It just smelled like old leathery Squadron Leader. I don't mean to be dismissive: Based on Mrs. Pickles' article, it probably got chemicals from the Mastic-roasting process common to incense resins. I just can't say that it carried over noticeably into making Gaslight smell like incense to me.
I'm in South Carolina.
I cannot speak to the newest versions of Penzance, but I have had some of the more recent stuff within the last couple of years, and it was not nearly as good as when I first stocked up over ten years ago. So, I hesitated to mention it, but it is worth noting that the older version that I am most familiar with was the first that I realized had that incense like flavor. The newer Penzance is still good, by all means, but just didn't have as much of that kaleidoscope of flavors that it used to. But, IMO, it is still in the top ten latakia blends for me.
Balkans that focus hard on the Orientals but also has that huge dose of latakia are all going to have hints of that aroma that you are looking for. But, not everything labeled Balkans are going to be really be Balkans. I have seen some listed with just Virginia and Latakia call themself Balkans as well.
Out of the blends you’ve tried in the OP I’ve had them all and have them in the cellar currently. The only exception being Boswells Northwoods.
Out of the blends in the OP you haven’t tried that are listed I’ve only smoked Grousemoor Dans Liberty, Bengal Slices and Peretti Royal.
Bosun Cut Plug is a love hate type of blend. You’ll hear it described as Granny’s Underwear Drawer, Soapy
and other things.
I like Lakeland Blends however and consider Bosun to be my favorite of them. It’s heavy on natural clove and geranium flavor and produces a unique room note as well.
As far as comparison between Bosun and other blends I haven’t stumbled across any that are even close to me as it stands out even against the other Lakelands.
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No. I enjoy them both, and for me they are different. Again, being evocative of church incense is not the same as being "like" church incense.
Church incense has frankincense for sure. Sometimes "just" frankincense. Lavender is a maybe, but not guaranteed to be in there no matter what you quoted from some old post. I've never seen lavender in Church incense. Never smelled lavender at Church. Incense may have minor amounts of other ingredients but its main component is frankincense.
Father Dempsey blend is nothing like incense. Someone got it into their heads that because Father Dempsey was a priest that he just couldn't get enough of Church incense that he had to smoke it. They reasoned that his favorite blend was like Church incense. Stories like these are just silly. Smoking Church incense would suck.
I'd back off on studiously sticking to reviews and descriptions of blends. These aren't engineering specs or some sort of scientific assay. They are just opinions.
Yeh, I would say that in all of the notes of incense that I have gotten from Balkans, I wouldn't have been able to pick out Frankincense or myrrh as an exact aroma. Actually, I wouldn't know a myrrh or Frankincense smell by name.
It is like when someone asks about the cedar smell in some cigars. Guys will start over-analyzing the question, which leads me to wonder if some guys just can't smell or sense the same things.
Or when I get hints of grapefruit in a resiling wine, and my wife doesn't.
These hints, subtle tastes, and such are not obvious slaps in the face with an aroma. They are what we say they are, hints, traces, etc... One note in a hardstruck chord. One of many ways to get a G major chord on a guitar is to strike a G, B, and D at the same time. Overall, the G sound is what prevails, but if you use a subtle ear, you can hear hints of the B and D.
Some would argue that the guitar part in Led Zepplin's Kashmir is the hardest for anyone to remake exactly, but because the bass and guitar are hard locked together in making the sounds. Some will argue that there is no bass in those riffs, and some will hear it plain as day. You just have to get yourself tuned in. I'm not sure how one can assist someone else in tasting these notes, other than to tell them to practice tasting, and use your imagination to lock in on specific notes. Then we give them names like incense, grapefruit, etc... just whatever is the closest to compare the notes to.
It is like when someone asks about the cedar smell in some cigars. Guys will start over-analyzing the question, which leads me to wonder if some guys just can't smell or sense the same things.
Or when I get hints of grapefruit in a resiling wine, and my wife doesn't.
These hints, subtle tastes, and such are not obvious slaps in the face with an aroma. They are what we say they are, hints, traces, etc... One note in a hardstruck chord. One of many ways to get a G major chord on a guitar is to strike a G, B, and D at the same time. Overall, the G sound is what prevails, but if you use a subtle ear, you can hear hints of the B and D.
Some would argue that the guitar part in Led Zepplin's Kashmir is the hardest for anyone to remake exactly, but because the bass and guitar are hard locked together in making the sounds. Some will argue that there is no bass in those riffs, and some will hear it plain as day. You just have to get yourself tuned in. I'm not sure how one can assist someone else in tasting these notes, other than to tell them to practice tasting, and use your imagination to lock in on specific notes. Then we give them names like incense, grapefruit, etc... just whatever is the closest to compare the notes to.
The only one I have tried from his list is Maltese Falcon. It and most of the others seem Latakia heavy and I have stayed clear of Latakia for the past few years. Seersucker and Kadath are unlike any other blends I have smoked and seem incense like in their flavor but do not contain any Latakia.Thanks for writing, Fightnhampster.
C & D has a lot of neat-themed names, like "Byzantium". However fitting it would be, Byzantium doesn't come up as one of the especially incenselike blends.
May I ask if you have tried some other blends in my list in the OP?
If so, how would C & D's two blends Seersucker and Dreams of Kadath compare to them?
Cosmic Folkore, @starrynight and @lukasstrifeson
May I please ask:
Is Esoterica Penzance like Esoterica Margate but with a brandy, cognac, or similar liqueur flavor?
Now I am recalling that someone told me about their similarity, and I counted Penzance as therefore being a step less incenselike than Margate as a result of that difference.
I like Margate also, but I don't find them to be very similar. There could be a heavy casing in Penzance, but the tobacco is so strong that I don't detect it at all. I'm usually pretty good at picking up on casings.
I think you are thinking of Pembroke:
A luxury English blend (Margate) is married with fine French cognac. This outstanding mixture is a "match made in heaven." Rich taste with character to match. A symphony of delicate aromas and elegant flavors.
At least one reviewer commented - Moreover, when smoked Pembroke does have Margate's unique alluring evergreen fragrance & incense-like quality.
I like Pembroke but I don’t really get an incense like quality from it.
Ok, That makes sense. I vaguely recall that Esoterica made another blend like Margate and called something like Penzance or Pembroke, but with a liquor flavor added, so I wasn't interested in trying the other brand. It makes sense that the same company would take the base recipe for a blend and change something to make a second blend. Thanks for clearing that up.
Paul,
I found Northwoods to be like Ennerdale, but thicker, with stronger flavoring. Northwoods had a great sweet flowery dank wood tin note that reminded me of a northern woods like in the US north or Canada.
To my senses, Ennerdale and Northwoods' smoke had an acrid clean white bar soap smell like when I wash my face. A lot of pipe smokers don't get that smell perception, including two who smoked my batch in a room with me. It was not a bad smell but not good for me either. I guess it's like people whose taste senses find cilantro to be especially bad and bitter. If you didn't find Ennerdale like that, you shouldn't find Northwoods like that either.
Maybe I wasn't very clear in the OP, but I smoked Grousemoor and it reminded me maybe of Nag Champa and sandalwood after a friend described it that way to me.
A blend with a women's perfume smell - in case that's what you meant - to my palatte was Germain's #7. It had a rose tin note and partial smoke flavoring that I thought was fine.
My sample of 1970's to 1980's Soviet "Kapitanskiy" had a rose or geranium tin note that was fine, and used non-Latakia VA Oriental leaf. I made a thread about it in the Tobacco Reviews section.