McClelland Captain Cool

This just maybe the best all around aromatic out there today. First of all it is really tough to add mint to any blend and not have it simply take over the blend.....try Frosty Mint to understand. They have done a really excellent job allowing you to enjoy the mint.....ok what they call peppermint without killing the other flavors. There is some nice vanilla and also some caramel and chocolate flavors passing through. Now the peppermint does remain the main player but not distracting from the other flavors that pass through your mouth. The blend burns very easy and surprisingly does not seem to bite much at all. Nicotine is very mild so if you like to inhale this is perfect. Room note as you would expect is mild but you can actually smell a bit of peppermint. This is one of the best aromatics I have tried and will be buying more in the future. As far as Frosty Mint, while it is almost unsmokable it is fantastic as a blender certain blends but just a dab will do ya as it is super strong in mint flavor.

**Just bought another tin today to mix with some very strong Burley i got from C&D that'll make your head spin! This is obviously a play on words to intice Captain Black smokers into trying a better product based on the same recipe. This is more like 1Q but the added menthol or mint really cools it down. Buy this for the room aroma and mix with something strong. On its own there isn't enough flavor or strength..**

McClelland's take on a Captain Black White type blend but using top grade leaf and definitely on a higher tier quality wise. I got a 1Q appearance and cut, Black Cavendish and Virginia Cavendish with a familiar Vanilla / Mint aroma. The aftertaste has a sweet mint finish that makes it very unique. Absolutely the hardest blend to make bite (if it is even possible) and while the bowl might get hot if you blast furnace it, the smoke never heated up enough to bother me and the vanilla / mint topping smoked as cool as ice for me. The only drawback is the lack of Nicotine so I added some 5 Brothers and it was delicious! An excellent newbie tobacco to start as the leaf is high quality, it wont bite and it's aroma is what one thinks of when a pipe is mentioned.

This is an AROMATIC. If you hate aromatic blends, then don't buy this! (And for all of our sakes, PLEASE don't REVIEW this!)

Now, having said that, I give you- my review:

The tin description is apt for this one. This is a MILD, COOL SMOKING blend with subtle hints of vanilla. The tobacco is of above average quality from what I can discern, and I would expect no less from the Masters at McClelland.

Though it feels slightly moist in the hand, the tobacco packs and lights with EASE, and smokes DRY and COOL throughout the bowl. Unlike most aromatics I have tried, this one actually tasted better the farther down the bowl you go, developing into an almost nutty, butterscotch flavor towards the end.

You can puff hard on this and it won't bite you. It will smoke warmer and lose flavor, but it will not bite you. Crazy. The addition of natural mint was a great call. I was leery about any pipe tobacco with any association with Menthol in it. This does NOT have Menthol in it! It does contain a very small amount of natural mint leaves- not enough to make it a mint themed smoke, but a vanilla smoke that smoked COOL.

If you like aromatics, or if you prefer "natural," non-cased tobacco but want a change to something mildly sweet (but not artificial or cloyingly so), then give this a go.

I bought a three dollar Missouri Pride cob pipe just for this tin, and it was a good investment.

***EDIT***

I find myself uncharacteristically smoking bowl after bowl of this blend. I don't really like aromatics that much. Really! Somehow, however, I can't stop smoking this. It is definitely cementing itself as one of my permanent selections.

When I smoked this blend I had a cold but I really enjoyed it because of the mint casing that is in this blend. The mint acted like menthol and really comforted my cold!

Delightful and lives up to its ?cool? name, because cool it is. Almost arctic cool, but I have yet to find a blend that I could not toke up carelessly, puffing indiscriminately and not get some discomfort. It just you?ll have to try hard with Captain Cool or C&D?s Green River Vanilla for that matter.

The mix is about equal parts red-brown to black, smelling like a traditional American Cavendish aromatic, but not feeling as such because Captain Cool is properly humidified and not sticky.

I did not get big flavor when puffing, but a smooth, mild taste with a touch of complexity for indoor, winter puffing. I tried it for the latter. Some natural tobacco flavor does report. I like this better than its Lane competition. Easily an all day blend one could smoke even with an upset stomach.

This burns dry and leaves a very clean pipe. My wife loves the burning aroma and that the house does not smell of burnt socks or cigarettes the day after.

CC has a traditional, American black Cavendish aroma and taste, without the chemical attributes I associate with popular aromatics. Compared to C&D Green River Vanilla, the C&D is similarly pure, but more austere, a little bit stronger in flavor, less complex and tastes more like vanilla when burning.

I do sense a genuine vanilla but little of mint flavor from CC. CC loads easier than C&D due to GRV the latter?s cut and dry texture.

I will buy this again if I cannot get a McClelland bulk equivalent to save some money. However, I do not anticipate that it will dislodge my favorite vanilla Cavendish blend, 191 from P&W. CC and 191 do different things and complement the other.

This is a good example of truth in advertising: a premium aromatic with no bite. The tobaccos appear to be of good quality, the flavoring is artfully applied and the burning qualities are significantly better than many other heavily cased blends. Best of all, it smokes COOL and smooth -- the flavor iteself is far superior to the like of Capt Black, an enticing melange of vanilla and mint.

I keep only a small number of aromatics on hand as I normally prefer strong perique and latakia blends. Oddly enough, over the last couple of years, I've found myself reaching for this more and more often. I now consider this to be one of the only four-star American-style aros I've come across, along with Autumn Evening and Classic Burley Kake. I was pleasantly surprised, to put it mildly.

One of the top-of-the-line aromatics. I love vanilla and one of my standard smokes is MacBaren Vanilla Creme. This is better, I think. Very aromatic in the tin, to the match, it is rather tame. Plenty enough vanilla but not overpowering, and something else. McClelland says it is mint, but I didn't really notice mint so much. There are some nutty undertones in this. All in all a very good smoke with high quality tobacco that you can actually taste. I'll be keeping this in my rotation.

I bought this blend thinking of Captain Black because of the name. Captain Cool is different in strength and flavor - mild and keeps his cool when smoking. Puffing hard doesn't earn you tongue bite like most other aromatics. In fact, I tried hard to make it bite on purpose but couldn't. The flavoring is also quite nice with hints of mint. Some days the flavor is too weak for my tastes, that's when I switch to something like Captain Black or otherwise. Overall a very nice, cool smoke that is quite mild.

Upon opening the tin this stuff looks and smells great. The tobacco is quite colorful. You almost want to pick it up and eat it. Vanilla and caramel are two of my favorite flavors and they are very present here during the smoke. My only complaint would be that the tin seemed to empty very fast. It lasted me only about a day and a half and alas it was all gone. I would compare this to Mac Baren Vanilla Crème However I think the tobacco in this is higher quality . Certainly the opposite end of the spectrum from those big bags of goopy drug store aromatics . There really are very few really good tinned aromatics for those of us who like a little candy once and a while and this is one of the best.