Not sure if this comes in roll cake form in the tin but it was mostly rubbed out in my sample bag. The bag aroma was of latakia with a mild sweet scent. The flavor was one of superb balance, with each constituent tobacco contributing to the whole without calling attention to themselves. There was a smoky-sweet undertone, with the Syrian latakia lending its kind of winey flavor. The virginia tasted citrusy with the rum cavendish rounding everything out. This is a nice crossover blend and could be enjoyed by latakiaphiles as well as aromatic lovers, not to mention those who love a good virginia. Balanced and harmonious, this is a fine representation of Mac Barens art. In my opinion, Mac Baren produces one classic blend (symphony) and a few other good blends, with a lot of non-distinguished, so-so blends in between. This one definitely falls into the "good" category and is not far from classic. If you like some spicy smokiness with your sweetness, give this one a spin. Makes my occasional rotation for now and may make regular rotation once I spend more time with it.

The Solent is the most perfect crossover blend for EM and Danish natural aromatics, and perfect for the summer season.

The citrusy-smoky flavour, complemented by the perfect touch of rhum is something very inviting and refreshing. I can recognize the particular quality of the Latakia Mac Baren, the same of the HH Vintage Syrian. It smokes absolutely cool and unbiting, no matter how enthusiasticly you draw, but reveals all the best of its range by the slowest sipping.

Something one-of-a-kind, and to me a perfect masterpiece.

The word Solent sounds an awful lot like solitude doesn't it? Though it means nothing of the sort. "The Solent is a stretch of sea separating the Isle of Wight from the mainland of England." A stretch of sea that seperates one from England. I can imagine (correctly or not I do not know) that Mac Baren chose the name The Solent Mixture because this blend is almost English, yet there is something separating it from being so. It's a wonderful blend of Virginia, Cavendish and Latakia. The tin aroma is delightfully smokey, yet not overwhelmingly so. There is a hint of that wonderful smell, yet it's hidden or perhaps interwoven with the sweet telling smell of Virginia's which play off of the cavendish oh so well. Everything comes together into one mouthwatering scent which begs to be packed in a pipe and enjoyed in a state of relaxation.

It's not a complex blend. Not one that leaves you guessing which leaf takes the lead and who takes a seat in the back. It's a blend in which everything comes together as one, yet each making it's own merit known. To me this is the perfect after work smoke. After a stressful day when it seems nothing came together for one common good, this blend shines through. The smoke brings memories of the old wood burning stove in my grandfathers shop, the smell of a sweet liqour and oddly enough every so often the faint taste of lavender. Not in a Lakeland blend sort of way, but in a nice calming sense.

While this is a Mac Baren blend, I have yet to get the slightest hint of tongue bite. If you're looking for a light Virginia with a touch of latakia that won't offend your better half, yet you can smoke for your own manly enjoyment this is it. I've smoked three tins of this so far and each pipeful sends me to the same relaxed mindset and somehow hits each spot that need's a hitting.

As I said, no tongue bite and burns to a nice dry gray ash. As a plus it's available in 16oz. bulk for a good price. Check it out, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

This is from my review on SF and CPS.

This blend is much stronger than MB "Mixture," and certainly stronger than and drug store brands. I get more of a nicotine kick out of it than a lot of other brands, but not too much- its just more, not bad. But it is delicious. Dark, full bodied, smokey, tingly, touch of spiciness, but not bitter, or overpowering. Its also a dry smoke- not a lot of burbling or moisture in my bowl. I really like this stuff. The flavor is pleasing, engages my whole palate, fills my mouth (and the room!) with billows of intoxicating, exotic-smelling smoke.

I usually smoke 3 different bowls in a row: I start out with something mild, then step up to medium (a virginia or a Vanilla-flavored?), then end with something stronger (usually MB Mixture), once my palate is more involved. This is often the last thing I smoke.

Going by the tin description, I had expected more Latakia. On the other hand, what I got is beautiful in its own right: Not a straight English, but I'd say a crossover English and Schottish blend that somehow happens to work out just fine.

The tin aroma is very much English, with Latakia in the foreground. The blend contains mostly bright yellow tobacco that I identify as VA, with some BC and Latakia in there, and maybe a gentle topping of rum adding some sweetness. The taste is actually very much that of a traditional English blend, though not as strong: VA sweetness meets Latakia toast, with some pepper being supplied by (Kentucky- based) Cavendish.

My tobacconist told me that he could not sell this blend if he gave it away. If he ever stocks it again, he will have at least one customer: this is a very nice crossover English/VA/Kentucky blend that I do appreciate. I would compare it to the likes of Rattray's Accountant's Blend or Ilsted's No. 88, though those have their own characteristics -- but it's just as good. Let me put it this way: if I were short of tobacco and had this blend as a buying option, I would not hesitate to buy it.

Well when I opened the tin of The Solent I was blown away! Also sceptical, because more often than not, the tin aroma and taste just don't match. This one did.

The Solent is extremely easy to smoke. Don't even have to think about how...just puff away! It will leave a very small and dry dottle at the bottom. So not only is it an amazingly tasting smoke, it is also by far the best smoking tabac in the whole Mac Baren range.

The taste? How does gold taste like? Well because of the Syrian Latakia, the amount of 15% is just right. It is a little fuller than it's Cyprian counterpart, but not as dry tasting. Apparently 9 diferent Virginias make up 75% of the mix, and leaves the rest to Cavendish and Burley. The interesting thing here is the Burley used, which I believe must be the Godfather of Burleys - very full and dry! Again, amazing!

To end it all, tobacco is presumeably sprayed with some kind of rum after blending. And that's what's gonna satisfy the sweet tooth of all sailors. Note: Not sweet as in aromatic baccy sweet - this IS a tobacco for the manly man of men.

Ohoy! There's not a downside to this tobacco, although ones mouth and palate must be trained for Syrian and heavy Burley, before this can be enjoyed. Or else it will dehydrate you within the first twenty minutes of smoking.

I smoke one bowl of The Solent a day, and I always crave it at bedtime. This is my nightcap, for sure.

This is quite silly, of course, and I realised my mistake very recently, when I ran out of my "favourite" tobaccos, and had to look into the local Mac Baren offerings. What a pleasant surprise!

In the Solent I found a buried treasure. On opening the tin, I was transported to another world, a world of rich, heavy, almost velvety textures. Like some of the reviewers before me, it is difficult to actually define whether this is an English or an aromatic, or both, or neither. I would personally favour the English label, though, since the Solent reminded me of Esoterica's Penzance in the way an English can be "cooked" in a way to bring out its more sugary contents. It also reminded me of Davidoff's English Mixture but in a stronger incarnation, and also of a crossing between Dunhill's Nightcap and 965.

The aroma and taste are surprisingly the same as what you expect after sniffing the tin's contents, and remain consistent almost to the very end of the bowl; the tobacco is easy to pack, easy to smoke, needing very few relights; the notorious Mac Baren tongue bite was totally absent, even on strong puffing, and the room aroma was very acceptable. No goo, and the ashes were, in English fashion, dry-white with little sticking content.

This is a tobacco which is very multi-dimensional, with intriguingly-rich undertones. Very satiating but at the same time so "tasty" you find yourself disappointed when it is over and run screaming for more!

But, this Solent Mixture doesn't know what it wants to be. It tastes like a classic Mac Baren with a hint of English... and it disappoints slightly as both.

Latakia content is very noticeable and enough to tease your appetite, but not enough to sarisfy it. And where are the Orientals?

It is sweet, nutty, slightly smoky. But also slightly ashy, and undistiguished. Granted, the leaf quality is great as usual, and it burns wonderfully, cool and slow.

So, it is a pleasant tobacco, without specific faults or unpleasant traits. If I were given tins of it for free, I'd be glad to smoke them. Not having the advantage of smoking for free, and having to pay for my tobacco, I prefer to keep two separate kinds of tobaccos: some great Mac Barens without Latakia (Navy Mixture, Mixture Flake, Stockton... and even some of their great aromatics like Cube) AND some other more distinctive English-style tobaccos (like many of GLPease's wonderful offerings, or Butera's Pelican). Personally I enjoy the variations much more, rather than smoking only a single tobacco like Solent which tries to encompass all styles.

But, I'll repeat it again, it's far from a bad blend: actually, if you like only a touch of Latakia, it's hard to find something better than this.

So I picked up my father the other day and took the old man for a ride to a newly opened tobacco shop a few towns over which I had spied, closed, on a nightime search for an elusive Sushi Buffet which my girlfriend had heard about. We arrived at the storefront and walked in, and were immediately impressed; large store, quite a few nice pipes in glass cases, a couple of baskets and a nice selection of Kaywoodie and Medico pipes on cards (I know, I know...but I like smoking cheap pipes- Yes I have a couple of "good" pipes including a massive antique meershaum that I couldn't replace for under $300, and I tend not to smoke them). They had a decent selection of tinned tobacco, but all were horribly overpriced (like almost $20 for a 100g tin of Virginia No.1) Their other offerings were similarly priced, and honestly, although they had the usual Gawith and Hoggard, Mcclelland, Petersen and Dunhill stuff, that was about it. Not even a can of Dark Twist, which is what I was hoping to pick up, having gotten slightly low over the past few weeks. My father ruminated through the tobaccos, later making his way to the humidor, I perused through the cheap pipes, eventually finding a nice natural finish Medico Varsity in a Prince shape. I bought it for less than $20, he picked up a fistful of Romeo and Julieta Reserva Reals and we departed...off to our favorite tobacconist which was only about ten miles fown the road.

These guys do it right. They have a modest collection of cigars ensconsed in wall mounted humidors, but the whole back of the narrow shop is dedicated to pipe tobacco. They don't even have a great selection of pipes, and thats fine by me, but their tobacco stock is amazing. Amazing for the fact that they have almost everything that anyone would want to smoke from all of the respective "good brands" and their inventory is constantly ecpanding. I never leave there without at least finding two tind of stuff that I have heard/read about but have never seen before.

So, I walked over to find my Dark Twist and was confronted with a MacBarens tin that caught my eye- "The Solent Mixture". Hmmm...haven't I seen this name on tobaccoreviews.com? Possibly, but I can't quite remember what it is supposed to be like. "English Mixture", Interesting...Cavendish, Virginia and Latakia...sounds a little like Plumkcake (which I love). Ok then...

So I brought it home...along with a packet of "Brindleys Mixture" (which I haven't tried). Had to work overnight the next day and wound up letting the tin sit unopened on my dining room table. Returned from an rough overnight and popped the tin open while sitting at the table.

Wow! What an aroma! Similar to the wonderful aroma one gets from a tin of plumcake but better...citrus and spice mixed with the assertive yet mellow smokiness of latakia. Yellow flaked of tobacco mixed with farker flecks in a compacted ribbon cut lay compressed in the can. I take another a deep draught of the aroma. It smells great, and I am tempted to pack up a bowl and smoke some of it right then and there, but I tink twice about it, and I trundle off to bed to sleep off my previous 30 hour shift. Awakening later in the evening that day, I eat my meal and sit down and ponder the can.

Surely I would have bought this if I had seen it, indeed, I have plowed through most of the macbarens lineup over the years and have honestly enjoyed them al (except for the disgusting ones). The can opens again, once again, that fantastic aroma. The yellow tobacco that was so noticable when I first broke the seal had oxidized slightly during the preceeding twelve hours, and was now more of an ochre color. I loaded up a nicely broken in Half bent and lit up.

Hmmm, a bit like plumcake but much more Latakia. A bit of citrus and a noticable lack of burleyish nuttiness.Some rummy,figgy, honeyish casing, again like Plumcake, but stonger and somehow deeper. Cavendish, but that nice discreet danish cavendish, almost like a Sail Green with its slight licorice and freshly cut oak notes.As the bowl gets goingm I start tasting the grassy, lemony virginias coming through and my tongue tingles slightly, but then again, I'm puffing away. I slow down (not much) and the whole bown shifts gears like clunking a car into fifth gear on the highway. The players come together like singers in a choir in shrieking harmony, like a great chord has been struck. The three tobaccos hit different parts of your mouth simultaneously and the casing wafts softly through the nose in a wonderful way. For about 20 minutes I;m in heaven, keeping up a good puffing cadence, almost completely ignoring the television program I was watching, instead concentrating on this hitherto neverbefore experienced sensation of experienceing an ultimate blend. Slowly, the cavendish and lataka burnt out, leaving only the virginia, now somewhat stoved and peculiarly winey in character for another ten minutes before it ended. I tapped the pipe out leaving a black flecked grey ash and the tiniest bit of blackened dottle in the ahstray. I pondered the can once again, marvelling.

This is by far the best of the MacBaren blends, in my opinion. I love their roll cake tobaccos, but this is better due to it's totality, this is what I always imagine Plumcake is when I haven't smoked it for a while. Hell, this is what Plumcake should be. I can't believe I haven't tried this sooner.

I happen to be one who doesn't believe in the concept of limiting ones self to having one tobacco as an "all day smoke', but over the past few days I have had no urge to smoke anything else.

This is wonderful...I just can't wait until the tine I just ordered arrive.

Highest recommendation.

UPDATE 1/15/09: Still real good, but to be honest, it loses quite a bit of it's charm after being opened for a few weeks once all of the flavor sublimates out into the air. I smoked through almost two tins of this almost exclusively and then switched over to something else...when I returned to the partial tin a month or so later it was a different thing altogether (or maybe I had changed?)

Still is more flavorful than plumcake even after the dry out. Probably best to open a tin and share generously to smoke quickly so that you will always have a fresh tin around. I wonder if the bulk stuff packed into small sealed jars would work to preserve it. Still enjoyable,and definately one of my top three or four MacBarens, but definately not a daily smoke for me at the moment. Probably will not downgrade based on the experience of the fresh tin, but subtract a star if older than 6-8 weeks.

Not an every day blend for me, but it has a well deserved spot in the tin department.

3/4