Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) Mick McQuaid Plug

A cute little chunk of rock hard goodness, with a cute graphic on the foil wrapper. Heavy machinery will come in handy when preparing this nicely flavored and scented tobacco for the pipe. If you use a coffee grinder, be sure to clean thoroughly in the off chance it is used for its intended purpose. McQuaid flavored coffee is not suitable as a beverage. According to my wife.

Some drying time after processing lessens the scent and helps with the lighting and smoking.

I prefer tobacco flavored tobacco in all its glories, but make a rare exception for this little gem. Burns slowly and consistently even when pulverized. By mid-bowl the flavor and scent are mere background players and a rich, sweet and relaxing experience is just around the corner. The finish is wonderful but DGT may have to come into play to keep the fire burning. Perfect for after dinner.

If you have a knife (or maybe a chainsaw) capable of cutting through this plug you will be rewarded with a very cool smoke with just enough flavouring to make it different from other similar offerings. This is a very typical UK/Irish plug type tobacco that your grandfather and his before him would have relished. A real olde worlde plug for the very experienced pipe smoker who appreciates the amount of preparation required to get this ready for the pipe. I've tried various methods of preparation including just stripping it off the plug by hand, and all of them result in the same pleasurable smoke, after several minutes of breaking it up. I can tell you that my present Swiss Army knife will simply not slice through it, and that is my only complaint about this tobacco. If you can get it into small enough bits to fit into the bowl of your pipe it's still worth trying, but make sure you have a lot of big matches and/or gas for your lighter.

This is a tough one to review, sometimes you like a tobacco so much you end up just shouting off about great it is without actually giving any details about it.

When you open the foil wrapper the first thing you notice is the slight aroma of almonds/marzipan, which is very yummy. Like all plugs this tobacco takes some effort to prepare, I slice off a 1-2mm thick slice of the end of the plug, going across the plug. I then rub it out until it all the lumpy bits are gone. I have noticed that it does not take well to not being prepared properly, if it is too coarse (lumpy bits) or too fine (like thread) then tongue bite will result.

If prepared properly it ligths easily. The first 1/3 of the bowl has the flavour of a good smooth virginia, nothing too exciting, but very pleasant non the less. The 2/3 of the bowl, brings in a slight sweetness too the proceedings, nothing too strong just a pleasant background sweetness, not unlike the sweetness that comes through in Dunhill 965. The last 3rd of the bowl is amazing, the almond starts to come through, but it is complementary to the virginia and it does not come to the fore. Its hard to describe, but the level of sweetness and flavour is just perfect, its like marzipan flavoured smoke, hmmmmmm! It is also one of the smoothest tobaccos I have ever tried.

The strength is somewhere in the middle regions, in a small to medium sized bowl, this tobaccos is perfect. In a large bowl I find it can be a bit too much. Tongue bit is non existant if puffed slowly. The resulting ash is quite coarse and it takes more than a few relights, but thats par for the course as far as plugs go.

This is a very big favourite of mine and I would reccomend to everyone as a "try it at least once" type of tobacco.

Wow! This was a pleasure to smoke. I bought a pouch of this shortly after it was announced that they were stopping production on it. I was actually shopping for snuff on Mr. Snuff and noticed this and a few other items no longer produced. So I snatched up one of each.

To start with, I despise plugs. They are a PITA IMO. This plug was not easy to slice, but like I do with all plugs, I just went to town on it and sliced the entire block into flakes immediately. I then cube up the end that is to thin to slice. I found this plug to be just as difficult to slice as any other that I have had.

The good part about this is that it tasted so wonderful that it actually made the work worthwhile. This is sweet. Sweet Virginia and a sweet topping that accentuates the Virginia flavor. I find it very citrus sweet, slightly fruity, but not very nutty. I find the burley is more felt than tasted as the blend has a substantial amount of body and will not leave you lacking for nicotine. It is not easy to light up, but once you get it there, it stays lit pretty well.

I wish I had picked up more of this one as the pouch was smoked up very quickly. If you can find any of this still out there, I highly recommend it.

I've been wanting to try this for quite some time now and have finally secured a sealed 50g standard sized pouch containing a plug. It's not wrapped in a foil packet like some of the pictures on various internet sites. Opening the pouch revealed a dense plug of tobacco similar in color and tactile qualities to Peterson's 3P's. The pouch aroma was decidedly more fruity than 3P's. Concentrating on the said presence of almond, I could smell that - but faintly. Otherwise, had I not known about the almond, I would just say fruity like jam preserves. Preparation was very similar to 3P's and the thinnly sliced flakes of MMcQ looked identical to 3P's. Now, 3P's is one of my top 5 favorites - love the stuff. These two plugs are not the same taste-wise at all. Also, MMcQ is Virginia forward, where 3P's has more of a Burley presence. Mick McQuaid is also a bit sweeter in taste and in side-stream aroma than 3P's and gives off a fantastic room note. Its Virginia aftertaste reminds me much of Orlik's Golden Sliced. It also had a spice-like presence - not just the typical Va spice, perhaps aniseed? It smoked great right out of the pack. It didn't burn hot, bite, or gurgle at all. A very enjoyable smoke. Due to its non-availability in the USA, 3P's will remain my smoke of choice with this type of plug and still a top favorite with me. A solid recommended if you can get some, but with 3P's on board, the lack of MMcQ's availability doesn't bother me much.

UPDATE: 9-20-13 If you want to elevate this to a 4 star smoke, see my 9-20-13 update for Peterson's Perfect Plug.

Another excellent example of rich plug cut maturd virginia tobacco. This tobacco ages well and offers a very rich, somewhat complex taste and aroma.

Preparing this and all plug tobaccos is a part of the wonderful art and science of pipe smoking and gives the smoker the control necessary to enhance the experience of this tobacco.

I do not dry this before smoking other than a few minutes after loading the bowl. Cut and crumble as you like, depending on what characteristics you desire.

I smoke this in a group 4/5 straight billiard.

...a pipe is to be savored...

I bout some of this from a tobacconist near me around May/June 2006, & put the unopened silver foil package in an empty MMC square cut tin, stuck it in a draw & promptly forgot about it. Whilst tidying my flat, I stumbled across it over a year later, & decided that it had prbably matured enough. At that point I was not aware what a gem I had come across. I opened the tin, ripped the foil & greeted by a heavely dried fruit/christmas pudding/cherry brandy scent. Slicing off some uneven plugs, I rubbed them out & left the material to dry for about half an hour. I should point out at this time that I did not find the tobacco that difficult to slice, although the plug is very dense & firm, the knife went through it quite easily, but it is an almost unused swiss army knife, so maybe it was just super-sharp. After the allotted drying time, the scent had slightly subsided with the moisture level, & I decided the time was right to load up my little straight 'tester' pipe (a £10 stonehaven, bought - if memory serves - on the same trip to the tobacconist when I bought this tobacco). This pipe has a small/medium bowl, which I feel is big enough for this tobacco. Firing it up, I was bowled over by the sumblime beauty of this tobacco - Robust, yet delicate - light, yet heavy - complex, yet simple. This may seem nonsensical, but there are no words that that can adequately describe the other-worldy quality & nature of this tobacco. There is a delightful fruity/nutty/brandy element complementing, but never overpowing the superb tobaccos, the complementary nature of this flavouring & the brilliance of the way it works elevates this tobacco above the norm. Unlike a number of the previous reviews I found this tobacco to have a clearly 'Strong' nicotine content (& I've recently been smoking pigtails!) Maybe this is due to the time 'cellared', I don't know. I should point out at this time, that I have never previously smoked a tobacco that has been cellared for this long before, which is maybe why I am so enamoured of it. The romm note is heavenly (no-one could be offended by it), & the plumes of smoke delightful. I found, strangely it seems, that it didn't need a lot of relights, but the smoke did take a long time to finish (about 2 hours) but this means I will only smoke it when I have the time to savour it, so is no bad thing. It burnt well all the way down, with only a tiny, tiny bit of dottle, which seems to be a bit of the tobacco that I hadn't fully rubbed out, so is probably my fault & not the fault of the tobacco. Sorry about the length of the review, but I cannot sing the praises of this tobacco enough. It is undoubtedly the best I have ever smoked, so my review can really be summed up thus:

This tobbacco can be decribed in terms of it's room note, burning qualities, taste, appearance & everything else as . . . 'beautiful'.

This is a magnificent tobacco! The plug is hard as rock, dark brown, and smells rich, with a slight nutty, brandy aroma. Interestingly, in the UK, this is pure tobacco, no casings or additives at all.

Great fun to prepare, but make sure your knife is SHARP! Slice off flakes of any thickness you like and then rub them, roll them or just cram them in, or you could shave off little curls and just drop them into the pipe.

It lights with ease, particularly if you put some really fine cut stuff on top, and the flavour leaps out straight away, rich, full, a hint of sweetness, thoroughly satisfying. It smokes slow, really slow if youve cut it thick, doesnt bite, doesnt dribble, doesnt get too hot... Lovely stuff. The aroma is as full as the flavour, but does not seem to offend people as much as the smell of St Bruno can, its just rather strong. Yields satisfying clouds of blue smoke, excellent for smoke rings!

Fortunately for me, this plug is available in the two tobacconists nearest where I live, is seems to be a popular smoke around here. And for good reason!

This was a fun tobacco. Nice smell from the 'block', carved it into flakes and it was rather nice. Fruity, to me middling strength and a lovely aroma. It won't become my favourite pipe tobacco, but it is certainly not at all bad.