McClelland Blending Perique

Tried one small bowl, and survived. It's not meant to smoked straight, of course. As a blender, it's very good, giving you the spice (a bit of it), and deep raisin, fig and date sweetness you want from perique, though it's not plumy like the kind used by several other companies such as Hearth&Home. When experimenting, remember that it's easier to add than to subtract from whatever mixture you are designing, so start with less than you think you'll want to use, and work your way up as your flavor profile indicates. In my opinion, it's the best way to discover what percentage works and which doesn't.

-JimInks

I use this regularly to boost McClelland's #5100 Red Cake. Red Cake is a pleasant smoke that offers a straight, natural sweet Va. flavor, but is one dimensional. I mix ten pinches of Red Cake to one pinch of McClelland's blending Perique in an old McClelland tin and give it a good shake. The ribbon cut of both tobaccos marries well and produces an even blend. The end product is a unique and excellent smoke, just enough sweet Va. and just enough Perique tang. Paddy.

Good for blending and very strong so little is needed. Like Sir Thomas Beecham once siad “Try everything once except folk dancing and incest.” so i put some in a pipe and got an education on Perique. Some days later my tongue is starting to heal but i now know what Perique tastes like.

I've called up McClelland directly to ask them about the source of this tobacco. It is indeed manufactured in St. James Parish, LA by a family there. But there's not enough of the genuine perique leaf grown locally to meet demand so only a portion is used in the actual product. The rest, oddly enough, is brought into St. James from other areas. McClelland says the resulting blend is as close to the original as possible, and has performed very well.

My calls to Nichols & Brown, LLC, the outfit that rescued the last true perique farmer a few years ago, have brought up a disconnected signal. They were based in NOLA and I dont know if they survived. This throws into question whether there is any true Lousiana perique at all anymore.

But in the mean time, I can't knock McClelland's product. It's perhaps as close as you can get now.

While Percy Martin does still grow and supply perique, his entire production goes to the company making American Spirit cigarettes for their use. However, there is another SJP perique producer.

According to "Pipes and Tobaccos" magazine, there is a company (owned by Coley Ryan) producing 100% St. James Parish perique in limited supply. The limited supply of SJP for the open market requires combining the real deal with Green River burley processed ala perique. These two are blended into what is called perique today, in most cases.

Not sure if anyone is using 100% SJP perique, but several blenders say they are using SJP perique in their blends (meaning, there's some SJP perique in their blends, but not strictly SJP).

As for using MBP, try adding a few strands to a bowlful, smoke it and then smoke the blend again without the perique. Increase the perique and repeat. Such a process will help one learn to taste the leaf and even help you tell when a blender is using it, but not listing it as an ingredient.

For many, the magic of perique is in it's "there but not there" apparitional character, not in its flavor domination or fully constituting the blend. But when it comes to taste, to each his own.

Bought it out of curiosity at a time when I knew very little about Perique. Opening the tin you are greeted by pitch black ribbons. I wouldn’t say sticky but they are very moist. Tin note is pungent but elusive, very difficult to pin down. It seems tar-like [swamp gas and] combined with a mushroomy smell with something sweeter: licorice, molasses, bitter chocolate and possibly oatmeal biscuits. After drying a small sample the smell of mushrooms is much clearer and more dominant. Some reviewers mention the shitake kind. I am not sure about that, but shitake are known to smell “shrimplike” or even “vaginal” which is close to what I get…

Now I HAD to smoke a bit by itself. I took my small Petersen pipe and loaded it. I used the dried bit because directly out of the tin it wouldn’t even light. First puff… Ok, it’s strong. And what is more, it is a very strong smoke without much flavor, smoky is the best description I can come up with. It is felt almost tactilely leaving a burning sensation on the tip of the tongue and especially on the nose akin to what you get when you eat very hot chili peppers. Yes, it’s actually experienced as a form of PAIN… After a few puffs it produces hiccups. Happily my Petersen is very small… So, on its own it’s not pleasant to smoke and I did not detect many aromas. It would have been nice to smoke something mushroomy, but the tin note does not translate to the smoke. What can I make of the experiment of having it alone, what does Perique contribute to a blend. It obviously must add strength but what about aromas? Is it smokiness?

I tried to add some to a few tobaccos I feel confident I know, just a little bit to see what becomes of them.

I started playing with no.24 McClelland’s Virginia flake. I rubbed it and added a small amount (around 10%) of the black fermented leaf. What did I get? It became smokier, more charcoal-like. On the one hand it toned down the sweetness of the Virginia and the elusive note of the Drama leaf no.24 contains, is eclipsed. I also get a bitter note after the first half of the bowl. Surprisingly I find it has enhanced its burning qualities. Maybe I added more than I should, but the addition of the Perique masked some of the qualities of no.24 which I so much like. It was not a bad smoke but I won’t use it again with no.24. Next I tried a healthy dose of Perique around 30% with a mix of one third each Basma, Smyrna and bright Virginia, a mix which I do at home and also know well. Now this blend has some high aromatic notes from the Virginia and Basma and lower sweeter notes from the Smyrna, it is mild and without much body. The addition of Perique to this blend I think cut – without obliterating - both the highs and lows, added weight, strength and a dark smoky aroma. Do I like my mix with Perique? Yes, it’s not bad, it makes it bolder and since this is a smoke I usually have early in the day, the addition of Perique might make it potent enough for use at later hours.

I’ m not going to bore you further with my experiments, I’m just going to say that if you enjoy micro-blending, having a tin of pure perique is a must. I haven’t tried other pure Periques, so I cannot compare McClelland’s to any other. Yet, as a general observation it added smokiness to all the tobaccos I used it in and a black peppery tactile tingling sensation as well. It also reduced tongue bite in some burleys. It affects burning qualities. But overall for me it’s not easy to imagine the result as sometimes the fact contradicted my intuitions. Happy that I bought it once but it’s not as indispensable to my ‘microblends’ as my precious oriental leafs…

I dont know how else to rate this than 3-4 stars-I have worked a 2 oz. tin for months now, mkxing very small ratios to Dunhill flake and/or Solani ABF. This has greatly improved my appreciation of this unique toby.

Kept with a wet disc in mason it keeps well. Dont attempt to smoke it as is....its a great condiment rather than the sandwich.

I just smoked a bowl of a mixture of this Perique mixed with equal parts of Carter Hall and McClelland's blending Latakia. It was a VERY good smoke! I imagine that most would prefer using a much smaller portion of the Perique, but I loved the "zing" of Perique I got with using about 40% Carter Hall with 25% Perique and 35% Latakia. It burned very well, right through the bowl. It was so much better than smoking Carter Hall straight and I can see this mixture being the way that I smoke through the tub of Carter Hall I recently purchased.

This is an excellent tobacco for what it is meant to be used for, which is to be used in very small amounts as an enhancement to other blends. I have tried adding this to several blends with mostly positive results (the negative ones were due to poor judgement on my part). I have yet to ever try this tobacco straight in any of my pipes for fear of both ruining my day, and possibly tainting one of my pipes, but I suspect that at some point my curiosity will get the best of me...