Rattray - Brown Clunee pipe tobacco reviews

Review

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Reviewed By:	Date:	Strength:	Flavoring:	Taste:	Room Note:	Recommendation:
Showing reviews 1 through 20 of 40 reviews of this tobacco NEXT >
Duke	05/04/2010	Medium	Medium	Medium	Very Pleasant
On Sunday I fretted over what I may smoke for my morning hike. See, on Saturday I smoked, all day, Brown Clunee in a Vollmer & Nilsson Apple with delight. When the BC is dry to my liking in this light-weight, open-draw pipe I enjoyed what is nothing less than pure tobacco pleasure. I know that Sunday is a day of rest but not for the BC and V&N. I again hit a cadence, a rhythm, with this tobacco and pipe much like yesterday. The afternoon brought a round golf with more BC in the V&N. The evening included a lecture and more of the same tobacco pleasure. Brown Clunee is a fine blend that I can smoke all day. A blend of Virginian, Perique and Burly (Ky) in varying degrees. The flavor strengthens throughout the bowl and never fatigues my palate. The side stream and room note have a sweet spicy note that pleases me. And it has enough nicotine to satisfy. I certainly enjoy the other Rattray Virginians; Brown Clunee just works best for and with me- day in and day out.
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bryantm3	02/20/2010	Mild to Medium	None detected	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
I tried this tobacco after hearing a little bit about its namesake. Brown Clunee was named in 1952, after Rosemary Clooney had a torrid love affair with Sidney Poitier, resulting in a child being born that would be George Clooney's half brother in 1948. His name was Samuel L. Jackson. Charles Rattray, being Sidney Poitier's cousin, and one of the only ones privy to the truth about his and Miss Clooney's love child, jokingly called the young Samuel Jackson the only 'Brown Clooney'. This eventually led Mr. Rattray to name his tobacco after Jackson in 1952, changing the name slightly to avoid suspicion, to 'Brown Clunee'. Unfortunately, I have to say that when Charles Rattray first blended Brown Clunee, he must not have had an inkling of a notion of what Samuel L. Jackson would be like as an adult. His hardline acting style, often associated with tough heroes or cold-hearted villans, is not found here at all. Instead, Brown Clunee is a mild tobacco that offers little taste unless coaxed along. When right out of the tin, this tobacco smokes best, with a mild golden Virginia taste that eventually evolves into a citrus taste, with a mild taste of orange peel or lemon juice slowly grazing over the tongue. When smoked slowly and deliberately, this will last the entire bowl and be very enjoyable. However, when the tobacco is dried out, it loses this interesting citrus taste and becomes a quite boring, bland tobacco. Because of its difficulty to coax flavour, this blend can only deserve 3/5 stars, or 2 stars. Needless to say, if Charles Rattray had seen into the future, he would've made 'Brown Clunee' a nicotine-heavy, dark dark virginia blend with plenty of punch as a tribute to Jackson, but alas, hindsight is always 20/20.
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dogwood	12/18/2009	Mild	Extremely Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
I tried BC as an alternative to Hal of the Wynd which is one of my favorites but sometimes has too much nicotine for me. BC is a little bit spicier and less sweet than Hal. BC is very good but lacks the same sweet balanced complexity of Hal. It is an excellent example of a brown flake. 3.5 stars.
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DK	08/03/2009	Mild to Medium	Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
Brown Clunee was the first straight virginia I ever smoked - waaaay back around 1984 or so. It was good enough then that I began smoking straight virginias almost exclusively, and it has a special place in my heart as a result. After years of smoking other, more developed virginias and Vapers, this one is best reminisced about rather than smoked. I found its sweet/sour taste offputting and bland in comparison to its stablemates Hal O' The Wynd, Marlin Flake and Old Gowrie, as well as other blends from different blending houses. Aging does not seem to serve this blend well, either, as a 14 year old version added a bit of of a soapy taste - kind of like sucking on a dryer sheet. I am mixing this with straight perique to see if I can spice it up a bit and tame that sourness. Not recommended for my own smoking but somewhat recommended for those who like a very mild smoke and one that has no pretensions of depth or complexity. Good for those starting out on virginias as a teaser to show them what lies ahead.
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Steden	07/22/2009	Mild to Medium	Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable
Opening the tin B.C. has the tipical smell of Va: dried fruits and dried Medicago Sativa, it smoke easy with a smooth flavour, the taste is naturally sweet with a slight bitter note that probably derives from Ky leaf. I can't detect any Perique as K&K declear on official website. Nothing bad about this blend but.... for me is boring.
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eamonclever	06/25/2009	Medium	Extremely Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
I´m used to take it with me when going to the pitch. I load a large bent bowl and off we go. There is no hurry and so I sit there for nearly two hours puffing my pipe and enjoying myself. What else should I ask for? I still have it with me when I´m travelling although I only have one pipe reserved for this tobacco.I smoked it more often before I got to know Gawiths brown flakes. Easy to use, good taste, unprecious simply good but not my top notch at the moment. Might change again. Good quality tobacco, good starter for virginia lovers, to get to know the secrets of slow smoking, because it is a bit sweeter than the other big Rattrays.
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Captain	05/13/2009	Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium	Pleasant to Tolerable
Rattray's Brown Clunee is a sweet and mild Virginia presented in a broken flake. If you are looking for a big nicotine hit, such as delivered by its stronger brother Hal O' The Wynd, look elsewhere. This may have some honey added but I wouldn't swear to it. I can't really taste anything artificial so it doesn't really matter. Now manufactured in Germany, I find this little changed from when Rattray actually manufactured this in the late sixties. Some have remarked that this may be a "starter" Virginia and that may be true; but I have stayed with it all these years. If you have the luxury of an well aged tin of this flavorful treat then you will have truly found your reward. This is in my Golden Circle and remains a delight.
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strongirish	01/30/2009	Mild to Medium	Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
I am normally a burley fan but I was given some of this blend in a trade. I also tend to be a fast smoker but this morning I was in no hurry, I brought out my rusticated bent Italian pipe that is on of my best pipes and I don't smoke it daily as it is a real showpiece. But I knew it was dry and had no shadow in it. So I filled the bowl, sat out in the gorgeous day we are having an along with tea, I spent two hours savoring this blend. All I can say is WOW! It is a virginia so I made sure and sipped it slowly and it gave me a mellow, sweet, delicious smoke and really made my morning. It was great with black tea. It had the fresh cut hay aroma, and it had a lot of flavor so I never wanted to puff fast at all. I could see this could be a tonque biter, but it never did for me and I smoked a very large bowl of it at one sitting, burning all the way down to a fine white ash. I will want more of this one and that is saying a lot for me. Simply put, it was not complex but was delicious and I am already wanting to return to it for more. Three star because I had to relight several times. Really should be a three and a half.
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BriarChef	07/19/2008	Mild to Medium	None detected	Medium	Pleasant
Quality Virginia, I tend to smoke this before lunch. Sometimes I smoke it FOR lunch. To me this Rattray isn't as complex as others and could be described accurately as monodimensional. I find it builds a bit more nicotine towards the end of the smoke than Old Gowrie. Do Clunees come in other colors than Brown? What the hell is a Clunee? For that matter, what the hell is a "Gowrie"? Let's all lobby Rattray for some nice young Gowrie.
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Tobacco Saves Lives	09/28/2007	Medium to Strong	Extremely Mild	Medium to Full	Pleasant to Tolerable
I am rewriting my review as I have decided this is the best of what I keep. It starts ot clean, fresh, light and slowly reveals itself one layer at a time. It progresses to a spicey VA like a stoved, aged variety. In a large pipe it will progress furthur to compete with the likes of Dark Star. It is not difficult, or fickle, opening the tin has little effects on the taste, The 'Proffessor sates it best on www.pipes.priss.org, or is it www.priss.pipes.org? ah, heres what he wrote and be sure to check out his site, there's a man who has smoked quite a bit!! Brown Clunee BROWN CLUNEE Body: 6/10 Nicotine Strength: 7/10 Flavour Depth: 8/10 Flavour?sweetness: 6/10 Flavour?fruitiness: 4/10 Flavour?floweriness: 3/10 Flavour?smokiness: 2/10 Flavour?mustiness: 2/10 Flavour?nuttiness: 1/10 Bite: 6/10 Room Aroma: Sweet-musty This comes as dark, reddish-brown, broken flake with a few nearly black patches. Much of it has been pulled-apart to the point that you might think of it as ribbon-cut rather than as broken flake. The scent in the tin is a complex mélange of light and rich. I smell some of that sour, wine-like aroma that many aged red Virginias offer, notes of cinnamon and spice, and the faintly sweet and grassy wafting of a flowering meadow. As I light up, my nose says that some of the sidestream smoke smells simply like good, clean, no-frills tobacco. It comes off as fresh-tasting and a little sharp, but as quite neutral. Nothing is jumping out to wow me?yet. Hmmm... a nice, light, natural sweetness is definitely attracting my attention though. Very subtle... I do like this. After another five or ten minutes of gentle puffing, I'm finding this almost as spicy as it is sweet. The spiciness whispers to me that puffing with any amount of vigour would be an error, so I puff onward carefully, but deliberately. Another ten minutes or so and it seems spicier than sweet. In fact, I'd now say that this is downright rich-tasting, though I could not have said that at first. Somewhere around the half-way mark, I start to taste the flavour equivalent of that complex range of scents that I smelled in the tin. This didn't strike me as a strong tobacco at first, but I've suddenly attained that wonderful zone of relaxation that only pipe smoking can provide. What a fine evolution to complex flavour this has been! In the lower depths of the bowl, the flavour is unexpectedly dense and a little woodsy even. It's much smoother as well, though it still has a distinct drying effect on the palate. Puffed as slow as possible, it keeps improving. Brown Clunee occupies a special place for me. I love its taste and it has provided a few of the most memorable smokes I've ever had. I like it enough to have carried it in my pouch from time to time, but it never satisfies as well as when I sit down at home to properly appreciate the singular experience it offers. It burns well to a fine, light-grey ash, but the broken-flake cut keeps it from burning hot. If you're not used to smoking Virginias, you might find that this bites (I can't smoke this too often), but it's such a rewarding tobacco that it's well worth exploring. Smoking this leaves an aroma that is fairly plain and a little sweet and musty. '01 Ps: As this is really drying on the palate-it is fantastic with tea. It is 'the lemon' in my tea so to speak.
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jmartindale	09/16/2007	Mild	None detected	Mild	Tolerable
I think the Rattray family of blends are among the best on the market today because they are largely subtle and require some technical expertise on the smoker's part to extract their greatness. It's fun and fairly easy to find the sweet spot of each Rattray blend and as a group, they all burn remarkably well - they definitely burn better than most of the popular boutique blends that are often reviewed on this site and that's an important attribute to consider if you are a beginning pipe smoker. Brown Clunee is a mild, ready rubbed VA flake that's easy on the tongue and perfect for anyone seeking a mild, easy burning, all natural VA blend. I let it dry out before I smoke it - I take a large clump out of the tin and spread it out to dry for at least a day - after that, it's perfect. You can either rub it out further or just load the thick strands right in your pipe - either way works great. BC has superb burning qualities (after the dry out period) so be careful to puff slowly, although personally, it's never bit me even after some moderately agressive puffing. This is not a complex blend, but it is a great blend - perfect for the warmer summer months. Within the genre of mild VA blends, Brown Clunee easily earns Four stars.
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gnossos	06/11/2007	Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Mild to Medium	Very Pleasant
Delicious, delicious blend. I don't think it's as tasteless as people are making it out to be. This has a good deal of flavor, though yes, it is somewhat one-dimensional. But what a dimension! I love this stuff at any time of day. Brown Clunee, Old Gowrie, and Hal o' the Wynd are blends I will always have on hand. I reach for them more than anything else. This tobacco is like Hal o' the Wynd in flavor, but with the mellowness of Old Gowrie.
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Skando	03/29/2007	Mild to Medium	None detected	Medium	Pleasant
What a marvellous tobacco! This is a really pleasant all-day smoke, never tiring, naturally sweet (I smell prevalently prunes), cool, round and creamy, with hints of pepperiness here and there. No kind of bite to the tongue, it caresses my palate and is a true pleasure to the nose. Extremely easy to fill into the pipe, which remains always fresh, and leaves a medium grey dry ash. I agree that it comes quite moist, so I left the 100grms can unsealed for almost a month, now it's ready for my daily use. A lighter cousin of HOTW, which I'm prepared to visit soon. Highly recommended!
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SopwithCamel	12/05/2006	Mild	Extremely Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
The sample I tried was a bit moist, but it packed easily and lit very well. It had no hint of tongue bite, but I puff pretty gently. The flavor of this tobacco is mild,sweet, and smooth, yet it has a hint of spice in the background. This grows a bit stronger near the bottom of the bowl. This is excellent tobacco, and I recommend it highly. I get so many different taste impressions from this tobacco, it is amazing. Raisins, nuts, licorice, and of course, sweet Virginia. If you take your time and go slowly, they will reveal themselves to you. My favorite mild Virginia. I like to smoke this in a large Canadian billiard. This allows the flavor to intensify. Simply scrumptious. All the Rattrays lose a star from me, as they are all far too wet, and the tins have a surprisingly small amount in them. I love the flavor, but value wise, they are lacking.
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Maimonides	10/26/2006	Medium	Extremely Mild	Medium to Full	Pleasant
SPICY, STEAK SAUCE Fantastic Virginia, starts mild and easy- builds to a rich almost spicy sweet. Deserves a home in your cellar. Almost meaty spicyness,smooth.Cant smoke it daily.
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jdsmoke	08/07/2006	Mild	Very Mild	Mild	Pleasant to Tolerable
A little sweeter and yeastier than Old Gowerie or HOTW.. Overall a very good tobacco, but I miss the sharper flavors of the other Rattray virginias.
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tonyg	08/01/2006	Mild to Medium	Extremely Mild	Mild	Pleasant
I'm very surprised at the one star ratings given by the knowledgeable reviewers listed here. Perhaps they experience what happenned to me. I packed Brown Clunee into a favorite VA pipe and found what can best be described as "unremarkable." I experienced the same results with two other pipes. And then...I found a smoke equal to Rattray's Hol o' the Wind, Marlin Flake and Old Gowrie. This one deserves your attention if you like Virginia's.
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Prospero	07/28/2006	Medium	None detected	Medium	Pleasant
Herbs, grass, spices, butterscotch notes. Hints of flowers and toffee. Try this with Cragganmore 12.
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D'Jullius	05/28/2006	Mild	Very Mild	Mild to Medium	Pleasant
A sweet that evolves through the bowl to a strong spicy VA. A good pick.
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Lochinvar	01/17/2006	Mild	None detected	Mild	Pleasant
Rattray's Virginias are very unique, to me anyway, very much unlike anything you will find from McClelland, Astley or the Lake District crowd. They are very fresh, vibrant and, if mishandled, harsh. Of the line this is the least in strength and character and fills in the notch of the everyday all day Virginia. I often fill a bowl with this if I am walking, hunting or working and cant pay proper attention to a more subtle blend. All in all a fine blend for general use, it Accountants Mixtur, and Virginia Woods are some of my favorite outdoor tobaccos.
Showing reviews 1 through 20 of 40 reviews of this tobacco NEXT >