Mac Baren Classic Amber

Delightful sweet caramel aroma, sweet and very creamy Cream Caramel flavor with hint of Vanilla in the background, Mac Baren uses here the same excellent Virginia tobacco already present in their Vanilla Cream loose cut, however I find the casing is very similar to that one used in their Original Choice.

This is a first class Creamy Caramel blend.

This is a wonderful smelling tobacco, and smells exactly as advertised, and produces as lovely room note. However, after trying this in a few pipes, both Cobs and Briars, with different sized bowls, it's an aromatic that doesn't meet expectation of its aroma, and like most aromatics, leaves you under a spell of "aroma deception".

The tobaccos, aside from the added flavouring, does not come through at all. No virginias, no burley, no cavendish. You're going to be smoking hot air, with a hint of toffee vanilla if lucky. This flavouring, however, may shine through a little more if you experiment with using a smaller pipe, and exhaling constantly through the nose. This is a fast-burning tobacco. It's easy to get tongue bite, because at times you will get that lovely flavour come through, and desperately try to get it back again throughout the bowl, so be careful.

I'm sure there are better aromatics out there, where the quality of the tobacco comes first, and the added-on flavouring second. Unfortunately, this is all about the vanilla toffee flavouring, that will leave you experimenting to get the most, if anything out of it. Once you get halfway through the bowl, you'll have to fight off tongue bite and be left with something that's pretty much finished with.

2 out of a 4 stars for me. I'd rather smell this for half an hour that smoke it.

One of those tobaccos with an amazing pouch aroma. Sweet toffee vanilla makes you want to eat it rather than smoke it.

However, (and lets face it we all expected this) in common with so many promising opening bouquets this doesn't come through in the smoke.

No, after the first light the taste just.........dies. Thereafter it tastes like any other cheap tobacco, strong, bitey and harsh.

As I tapped out the last of the bowl, I thought to myself what a nice room note......

Highly recommended brand from Mac Baren's! Burns well, made for slow, slow, slow, deeeeeeep puffing! Keeps the taste in the mouth for at least 2 hours after the bowl is done! Keeps the aroma until 80% of the bowl is smoked without being altered! One of the few tobaccos from Mac Baren's to actually encourage the smoker to keep on going till there is nothing left in the bowl but ash! Many times this far I immediately filled another bowl to continue the voluptuous experience! Cheers to that and made it my new favorite! Tip: When you buy a tin, open it for an hour or so, then close it and let it be for a month before smoking again! Gains in taste, strength and aroma! Enjoy it everyone!

Mac Baren - Classic Amber.

One of my first reviews that I thought needed re-typing!

The blends appearance is quite coarse, with a higher proportion of brown to black tobacco. The few tins I've had have only been a touch too damp, and the smell from the tin could be summed up with the word Devine.

To me, the smoke tastes reminiscent of Werther's Original butter candies, with a touch of vanilla. A bowl burns well, giving a cool smoke, leaving a white ash. As a bowl is smoked the sweetness seems to become heavier, making it more appropriate for aro' only folks! It goes from mild to medium, to steadfast medium to strong after halfway. Despite it becoming weightier with added flavours it still doesn't bite me throughout a bowl.

The nicotine's just above mild, and the room-note's sublime: butterscotch!

This isn't exactly my usual thing, but it deserves full marks for its genre!

Highly recommended.

Well, I fully endorse other reviewers who say this one is in the middle between VCLC and OC.

A well behaved mild aromatic, which can be easily an all day smoke for the smoker who knows very well how to manage the Mac's. In fact, the best results with tobaccos of this kind is obtained by a smouldering pipe. Every attempt to get more flavour by rushing the smoke will fail into the bloody hot thing and scorched palate.

This is the limit of this tobacco, and the reason why I cannot go further the "somewhat recommended" rating.

All the Best to All

Having been smoking pipes and a variety of English and aromatic tobaccos for over 6 years now, I'm not exactly a newbie. Unfortunately Vanilla Toffee Cream Loose Cut isn't a very pleasurable smoke. It is better than their Vanilla Cream Loose Cut, but not by much. I can actually taste the toffee flavor, which is nice. Room note is also nice. Smells like an old fashioned sweets shop... but the wonderful aroma fades fairly quickly and leaves behind a slight cigarettish smell. And oh my it's a harsh tobacco. This stuff slowly roasts my mouth... regardless of drying time, packing technique, or smoking cadence. I cannot tolerate smoking this more than one bowl per day. This is a really disappointing tobacco, considering how wonderful their Seven Seas line is. If it didn't burn my mouth so badly, this tobacco would deserve a 3-4 star rating. Unfortunately it does burn due to it's harshness. Not recommended- not even for veteran smokers (unless you have a leather tongue). Go with Mac Baren's smooth and tasty Seven Seas line instead.

I would actually classify this as a weaker (taste-wise) version of the 7 Seas Regular Blend.

The vanilla takes the centre stage here also but is not quite as creamy, perhaps mellowed down by the fudge a bit. Support from the burley and virginia is a bit uninspiring. An essentially light smoke that burns well and easy.

A vanilla blend that goes easy enough on the vanilla to be somewhat enjoyable to me, but still unlikely to buy again, especially if other MacBarens are available.

I was given a sample of this with a pipe I purchased from ebay. It smells too good to be true. It really does! Boy, what a lovely pouch note. The tobacco is very dry in the pouch unfortunately and can be a bit of a pain to pack. The taste is very nice indeed and the room note is great when it's lit. I was really enjoying this aromatic and then......ouch. Tongue bite from hell. Really bad like chemical burns. I left it for a day or two to rehydrate in a jar and tried it again, just sipping slowly, and things were better but still bitey. I get the feeling this is not a great blend of tobacco's and is heavily topped to disguise the fact. Another downside is the smell in the room the next day. It really is strong and pungent and very unpleasant. I do smoke it from time to time, mainly when out walking, and it has calmed in the jar but it could be so much better. Shame.

The pouch aroma is extremely lovely after vanilla rounded up with some very delectable toffee notes in the background. It is one of those blends where you find yourself sniffing the pouch a lot more often than would seem healthy for a grown adult.

Packing is more or less easy once you realized how deceptive this blend is volume wise. Meaning you need way less tobacco to fill your bowl than first impression would lead you to. Lighting takes some matches but then it burns very smooth, cool and even. It lends itself to both: deep slow puffs as well as just very slight, light puffs.

It has a very clear tendency to nip your tongue. It is not a full fledged tongue burn but still a lot more than i would care for in any blend.

During the first half of the pouch the aroma is as advertised: vanilla with a capital "v" and shortly before the amber dies some faint yet very nice toffee notes. This is not a toffee blend. It also is not the Vanilla Loose Cut quality of vanilla flavour but some inferior version of it. After half the bowl the aroma gets less and less and the last third of the bowl can be tossed out as nothing will happen anymore. No flavouring, certainly no tobacco flavour, but hot air instead.

After half the pouch the toffee flavour is gone, it just wears off and will leave you just with the vanilla. What little toffee flavour you still can make out is stuck to the pouch and not to the tobacco. Which is why i believe the toffee is just some sprayed on topping rather than part of the actual flavouring.

Aftertaste is very nice and sweet, no complains in this department. The room note is just what non smokers would think pipe tobacco has to smell, in other words: pleasant.

So do i recommend this blend? Nah, why bother? There are better toffee blends out there and certainly a lot better vanilla blends, even from the same maker. It is one of those useless releases no one really understands. A vanilla toffee blend that mainly tastes like vanilla and after the second half of the pouch loses what little toffee was there to begin with? Again, why bother? That and the tongue nip earns it a honest two star rating.