Mac Baren Presbyterian Mixture

This blend has a simple flavor profile reminiscent of Peterson’s Early Morning Pipe. It’s been around for almost 100 years and is very approachable especially for those who want a very mild, low Latakia English blend. However I don’t find it interesting. None of the nuance or complexity I seek in a great pipe tobacco. Its TR rating suggests I’m not alone in my assessment. Nothing off here — nothing wrong. I can easily imagine people seeing PM as their go to daily blend. I think it’s a competent and classic blend. I’ll give it 3 stars. As always blends do not exist on their own. We’d like them to but we compare this to that. I like this more than EMP but not as well as Magnum Opus, White Knight, Westminster or Abingdon all of which I experience as mild also.

Perhaps it’s my unrefined pallet, but I totally thought this was Latakia forward.

Great blend, and I felt there was a great level of smokiness. However, I keep getting told the Latakia is so little, it shouldn’t come through like that. I don’t know, I guess. But I can say, this is a nice, Smokey blend. Reminds me a bit of Blackhouse, bust has its own flavor on the palate. Nice quality smoke for sure!

It took me a while to get acquired to the taste of Latakia. Presbytarian mixture did the trick for me. Bought a tin out of curiosity and was pleasently surprised with the mellow sweet taste spiced up with the Latakia.

I'm not sure there's much I can add to the chorus of voices talking about Presbyterian. It's been around a long time and has a lot of fans.

What I love about this blend, as someone who often can't taste perique, is that I get loads of perique in this blend. Smoky, some pleasant sour notes and spicy. It's a mild and complex blend that I'd recommend for anyone who wants to try an English or is looking for something new.

I don't smoke many english blends, but when I do, this is one I reach for.

Typical latakia of fresh tobacco. Nothing strong, but whole aroma was about it. Sometimes notes of mellow cocoa maybe. Burns well, few relights needed. Taste is light without too much sweetness. Sometimes you feel like there is no tobacco in the bowl. But afterwards you are surprised with mellow creamy smoke.

I can’t say if Stanley Baldwin or his Presbyterian brethren would recognise this blend today but I thought I should try some.

I’m steadily working my way through the OTC blends, searching for nirvana and initially this was going to filed away as “too heavy on the Latakia” of which I am not a huge fan. Strange to say but I don’t find “smoky” tobaccos to be that nice which is an odd thing to say of something that is designed to be smoked and therefore will, by essence, become “smoky”.

Anyway, I digress.

The pouch note was smoky with a side order of plums and cherries - I can see why people have likened the scent to bonfires and Christmas pudding. First bowl I was not impressed in the slightest but this doesn’t surprise me because of the bonfire qualities it possesses in spades.

I jarred this up and left it. Interestingly, the tobacco in the pouch came as a compacted brick which I managed to transfer, in one lump, into the jar; I’m not sure if this added to what happened next but I suspect it did. I left it for 5 or 6 months at the back of the cellar and got on with smoking the other blends I enjoy. After a bit I decided to give the jar a sniff and see what was occurring and by crikey, the beast had changed!

The smokiness was very much still in attendance but the fruitiness had now over taken it. I tried a bowl, it was lovely - I would almost go so far as to say “refreshing” if that makes any sense?

The wife won’t let me smoke it in the house because “you smell like an old man!” Which is handy because that is the smell I am going for - I am tempted to go around the house with an old grease can and randomly grease hinges and anything else I can find to add to this heady scented brew but I fear she might start removing body parts if I do so out to the shed I go.

If you like a smoky smoke, you should like this. If you don’t, leave it a bit and let it work some alchemy in a jar. All in all - recommended.

First note: Planta produces two different kinds of this mixture. One for the international market in a 50g tin, and one for the German market in a 100g (due to the specific taste profile in Germany as a "active charcole filter country").

This is a short review of the German market version (100g tin).

Description by Planta: "Extraordinarily soft blend of finest US Virginia grades and a number of selected Latakia leaf tips. Ideal mixture also for beginners with English tobaccos."

The mixture has a noticible casing (not sure, what exactly) and as well as a fruity topping.

The taste is sweet with some Latakia in the background. The casing surely trys to mellow the blend. Smoked with an active charcole filter, it is mellow, mild and sweet smoke, but without much depth, a bit boring, to be honest. Smoked without a filter, it has some complexity, and the sweetness has some interestig sourish notes, which changes to a more darker and almost dried fruit aroma during the smoke, with much more noticible Latakia in the background all the time. Sadly at the same time it is less mellow, likes to bite the tounge a bit, and also tends to burn a bit hot, if one is not careful.

But none the less, this blend grew on me and I keep coming back. It definitely benefits and improves if it has some month to age, and it gets better if it has time to dry out a bit, slowly over time in the tin.

So I'd put this is the category of a basic, "meat and potatoes" blend. What I mean by that is there aren't too many "smells or bells" to the blend -- and if we are to continue the ecclesiastical metaphor, I suppose in that regard the naming is apt!

Tin note was quite nice. Some describe it as farm like, and I suppose that's true in the sense of it having a kind of hay note to it. I didn't detect much of the Latakia in it.

Taste wise, it is difficult to describe what is going on. A very slight smokiness from the Latakia, but nothing too significant.

Not a bad blend, but neither an outstanding one. Unpretentious and straightforward.

UPDATE 06/28/2017:

So I came back to this blend after a long while and I'm going to revise what I said. I'm not sure if it was simply my inexperience with orientals when I first tried the blend or if t a bit of aging helped bring it out, but when I tried it again recently my reaction was, "wow! this has a real nice flavour from the orientals."

So I'm going to rescind somewhat on my "meat and potatoes" description, which I would usually apply to a latakia blend and say its meat and potatoes but with a noticeable oriental condiment that makes it quite flavourful and delightful with slight but appealing sour notes. I'm upgrading this to 3 out of 4 stars.

Ironically I gave away most of this tin away but now I'm thinking I need to pick up another tin or two.

This blend got a lot of history behind it, including three of four different manufacturers in three countries.

I won't sing hymns to it. The disappearingly mild Virginia-Oriental blend sprinkled with a whiff of Latakia is far from being a favourite of mine (I like strong and dark tobaccos, which this one obviously doesn't belong to). But trying to assess the Presbyterian in a way unbiased by my personal preferences I may well understand why so many good Christians swear by it. It's a mellow fragrant blend of an undisputed quality and a noble character, which smells pleasantly in the tin and tastes smoothly in the pipe.

A unique phenomenon about this blend is the famous split of thoughts in regard of presence of Latakia in it. I firmly believe and faithfully witness that Latakia is truly and undoubtedly present here (materially, albeit almost invisibly), while many, as I can see from the reviews, sadly persist in their heretical believe that Latakia's presence in this mixture should be interpreted rather in a symbolical and not literal sense.

Although me personally don't care much about this tobacco, I acknowledge that its admirers show a sign of a good taste in their choice of this blend. Anyway, any pipe smoker must try this blend, even if not for more than for education. Because the fearfully and wonderfully made Presbyterian Mixture is a legend of the pipester world .

That's what Mr. Calamiti, an ultraconservative Catholic and an admirer of super-strong tobaccos, has respectfully got to say about this leafy embodiment of Protestant class and moderation. God bless us, the faithful smokers, whatever's our choice.