Seattle Pipe Club Mississippi River Special Reserve

The fermented red Virginia is tangy, dark fruit sweet with plenty of earth, wood, bread, light sugar, and a smidgeon of barbecue flavor as it forms the base of the blend. The stoved Virginias have a fermented sugary dark fruitiness, bread, earth and wood. It almost competes with the red for attention. The rare flue cured Virginia provides a little grass vegetation, bread, light floralness, spice, and some tart and tangy citrus in the background. The perique offers some spice with raisin, plum and fig notes, and is a little more than a condimental addition. The Orientals are woody, earthy, dry, lightly spicy, herbal, vegetative, floral, with a mild sourness, and plays just above the threshold of the Latakia. The incense-like Cyprian Latakia adds a sweet smoky, musty, earthy, floral woodiness. The strength is medium. The taste is a step past that mark. The nic-hit is a step below the strength level. There’s no chance of bite or harshness present. Has a few light rough edges. It’s presented in an easily broken apart krumble kake. The tobacco is a little moist, but I did not feel the need to dry it. I recommend not totally rubbing it out. I broke off small pieces and dropped them into the bowl. Burns a mite slow, cool and clean with a very consistent, complex, deeply rich and creamy smooth, smoky sweet, floral, spicy taste to the finish. Requires some relights, and leaves just a little moisture in the bowl. Has a very pleasant, lingering after taste with a stronger room note. It’s almost an all day smoke for a beginner, and can be one for the experienced smoker.

In comparison to the regular Mississippi River, I find this to be a little smoother and richer in flavor. Its sweetness has a mildly more fermented character than does the regular MR. The addition of the flue cured Virginia adds a pinch of extra complexity. I find the spice content to be a hair higher as well. Well balanced, you’ll notice virtually all of the inherent aspects of the tobaccos in every puff.

-JimInks

Thanks to a very talented pipe maker, whom sent me a sample of this fine tobacco along with one of his great pipes.

This tobacco is similar in many ways to M.R. regular, but it actually doesn't have the 'issue' i discovered with the 'lightness' of flavor. The flavor seems more prominent. The sweetness is more bold, the oriental spice/herbal flavors are more intricate and pronounced, and the smooth smokey and incense like flavors of the latakia are stronger as well. Quite a nice blend and definitely is a 'step-up' from Mississippi River, though that is is a great tobacco in it's own right.

The few pieces of cake that I received were extremely easy to crumble into fine shag tobacco and looked mostly brown with flecks of dark gold and black mixed in. The smell, as another reviewer has mentioned, reminds me of a McClelland VA blend. The smell is sweet & sour with a bit of earth, pungent, and some sweet fruit flavors.

This tobacco is so easy to prepare and load. Easy to light and stays lit with light but firm tamping.

It tastes like a typically sweet red VA blend, bready, a bit sour, dark chocolate tones, dark fruit, and woodsy. The smoke also has hints of the normal incense spice from the orientals, but just lightly, and just a tiny touch of campfire from the latakia. The perique is very mild, but discernible in the dark fruit tones.

Seattle Pipe Club - Mississippi River Special Reserve.

I'm in love!

Unlike it's counterpart, Mississippi River regular, Special Reserve doesn't arrive as a partially broken kake, but as one plug of tobacco. It's almost a dichotomy of a plug and kake: a firm plug that can be rubbed by hand. Once it had been rubbed out I saw it has perfect hydration; for me, I like a blend to be a little bit moist.

The moment I took my first puff I thought it a special smoke. I still feel the same now! A Lat-Bomb this is not. A lustrous, smooth, refined, smoke it is. Accompanying the smoky Latakia are the Orientals and Virginia, both amalgamating together to form a rustical, woody, almost rural flavour. The Perique's present, but more fruity than spicy, and not as heavily included as the others. Mechanically we have a winner here: fairly slow, burns without a hitch, gives a cool smoke, all delivered without a bite.

Nicotine: suits me, just below medium. Room-note: quite nice.

Mississippi River Special Reserve? I've no hesitation in giving this four stars:

Highly recommended.

I was happy to be the recipient of a good sample of this and was able to smoke it concurrently with the regular Mississippi River as I had an open tin in rotation at the time.

The first thing I thought of when tasting MRSR is that it seemed to be richer than MR. It is funny that the tin description says just that. MR is a great tasting blend in its own right, but the Special Reserve is better.

When I smoke either of the blends I feel the magic is really in the Virginia base. It is sweet and "citrusy" The Lat, Or and Per is condimental and all are also detectable. The oriental may be a little stronger then the other two. I am not sure whether the proportions of any of those condiments changed with the special reserve or if the change is limited to the Virginia, but the taste is deeper and earthier yet still sweet. It would not surprise me if the perique is kicked up a notch or two and the Oriental down some in the special reserve. At least that is how it strikes my palate.

MR is nearly a four star blend (I am still working my way through my first tin of this one), so it goes without saying this is a four star blend to my taster.

Coconut, toffee, sweet Virginia, nutty, and slight camp fire. Best after out of the jar for a few weeks and ful lo y dried out.... at least for me. After some age, and dry time, could be a replacement for penzance dare I say. When I first opened the tin, I didnt like it as much. I'm now smoking it after about 5 months of the tin being open and it has changed.

Summary: another Scottish blend that achieves the "garbage plate" effect but no particular flavor.

These blends remind me of postmodern novels. They start with a worship of Dunhill "My Mixture 965," then take it in an American direction by piling in more Burley and larger doses of bright Virginia and intermediate Virginia shades (orange, maybe Maryland). Then they press it together. Like the postmodern novel, the more high concepts you throw at a book, the more it becomes like having a committee write it, and you end up with a simple conclusion at the end of a rambling but varied and pluralistic discourse. Similarly, this blend starts out promising until you realize that you are smoking an Oriental rug knitted of random tobaccos, at which point you simply pick up some "My Mixture 965" or "Red Rapparee" instead.

I resisted the allure of SPC for a long time. I had a sample of some regular Plum Pudding early in my pipe smoking life and was underwhelmed, severely. That, plus the relatively hefty price tag and what felt like, to me, overhyping and marketing, made me wait years before giving whole tins a shot.

Well, I'm sorry I waited so long. This review is based on a brand new tin of freshly restocked provenance, so I can't imagine it's had too much longer in the tin than how SPC (Sutliff) ships it. A subtle, but important, note imo. There are too many blends on the market that are "great, in 3 to 5 years". This is great upon receipt. Nothing tastes young or edgy to me. Nothing tastes like it needs time to marry.

If you're looking for heavy lat, or frankly even to really notice it's there at all, you won't be impressed with this blend. It smokes like a slightly smokier and earthier VaOrPer. The lat is barely discernible to me and I am *heavily* into straight VAs and VaPers, so would be rather sensitive to the dark leaf.

Others have hit the high points of the tasting notes, but I'll make a few observations. It is very heavy on the VA and Orientals. Perique is clearly present if you go digging at all. Lat, I've commented on. *However*, as others have said the beauty of this blend is in its balance. When properly dried (just about crispy) and smoked ultra slowly with the breath method it presents with a tremendously subtle melange of nuanced flavors which work in harmony.

If you smoke it without drying right out of the tin, there is a fairly strong vinegar note. Dried it is still present, but very distant. I imagine, based on my past experience with blends which use vinegar, that this will dissipate with time in the jar and the normal "decanting" process of opening and closing said jar. Alternatively, I've found vinegar heavy blends tend to subsume the acidity into the tobacco with 6m to 1y in mylar.

I have a feeling this will age truly magnificently based on the fresh product and its base components. Those of you looking for an ultra light lat (don't read that as this being a "light" blend, it's not) blend with massive flavor potential, I would pony up the cash for a tin of this extremely high quality tobacco. And yes, the brownie form looks and smells good enough to eat. It's also the closest I've seen to a US production blend come to a EU plug. It is a very solid mass which, if it used whole leaf instead of ribbon/cut, would be EU plug dense. Impressive all the way around.

Highly Recommended.

Lovely sweet bready red virginias are the main thing I taste, reminds me just a bit of good aged 5100. Plummy fruitiness and sour tang come in from the perique and orientals. The latakia is barely perceptible, perhaps adding a chocolatey smokiness in the finish. The plug is very attractive and easy to work with. A very high quality blend!

I've given this tobacco a lot of thought and now that I've reached the end of this plug, I have a pretty good idea how I feel about it. My last bowl nailed it for me.

This is a really good and unique tobacco very similar to the cake Mississippi River. I love it's unique flavor that stands alone in my cellar. I can find myself craving it's natural complex flavors that other reviews have done a much better job than I could in describing. But this tobacco has one serious flaw, in my opinion, that's a deal killer for me. It's the plug.

How do I describe my displeasure of how this tobacco is presented? It's like a beautiful Italian car that has lines only the Italians can produce, an engine sound that races your heart, leather interior that flairs your nostrils, but can leave you stranded on an empty road in the middle of the night.

This tobacco is one of the worst burning tobaccos I've ever smoked. I've tried it in most of my pipes, trying any shape with the hope it will burn better than previous bowls. But, no such luck.

I have studied this tobacco with keen interest in the hopes of breaking it's code. I decided the problem is the plug. The tobacco leaves are cut into small pieces, laid flat in many layers, and pressed at incredible pressures to produce a solid plug. So far, so good. However, when the plug is cut or broken apart by hand, it produces a pile of extremely flat leaves very similar to fish food.

Packing this fish food tobacco into the pipe produces a very tightly packed bowl that does not allow air to flow between leaves. No matter how loosely I pack the bowl, the rigid flat leaves naturally fall horizontally in the bowl, each leaf on top of the other. Every other cut of tobacco from crumble cake to ribbon cut, even ready rub, leaves room for air to flow around the tobacco. But not this one.

The result is a great tasting tobacco that must be relit every other puff on the pipe. Just keep the lighter in your hand and prepare to relight every time you place the pipe in your mouth.

As much as I like this tobacco for it's flavor, the regular Mississippi Mud is very similar without all the hassle. The Reserve would have been a home run if it were presented as a crumble cake.

As with Italian and British cars, I'm done with this plug and need something a little more reliable.

First, a bowl of this lasts a tremendously long time! Slow burning, high volumes of thick smoke. Yes, the Virginia’s used in this blend are very good. The Perique sits solidly in the background melding nicely with the Turkish tobacco. I would prefer more orientals and Latakia in this blend, but as it is it’s a smooth blend. This was a Christmas gift and wouldn’t be a blend I would choose to buy. The room note is pleasant. The flavor doesn’t evolve enough for me and stays even throughout the bowl.