McClelland Frog Morton on the Bayou

I'm halfway through my first tin of FMOTB and already planning my next order. One word comes to mind - DEELISH!!!.. What a great blend. I love Latakia (now). When I was in my twenties I couldn't stand it. Hated everything about it. Now that fifty is screaming it's way into my existence, at a frightening pace, I find it irresistible. Perhaps my tastebuds have matured, or maybe I'm just getting old! I agree with some other reviewers that properly blending Latakia and Perique is no easy feat. The two are strange bedfellows. McClellan got it right. Kudos!! FMOTB will definitely be a regular guest at my house.

This might sound strange, but the two smells that get when I sniff the tin are venison jerky and very light ketchup. Savory but with sweetness and a little vinegar. It sounds off-putting but it works for some reason. The flavor is just the "jerky" and is very smooth in the mouth. Excellent stuff.

I think this is a great medium intensity tobacco. From the can it smelled a bit like barnyard/manure, but it smokes really great and offers an excellent medium strength English style flavour for an ultra relaxing smoke. I would say that it is sort of like a toned-down version of Nightcap, which is an admirable deviation. Plus, the balance of the tobacco blend is near perfect. You can tell that it is primarily a virginian, but non of the other inclusions are really front and centre, which creates an especially nice even-ness to the overall mixture. May be my favourite pipe tobacco at this juncture.

I love this tobacco. I'm primarily an English smoker using Prince Albert as my base. That choice reveals my preference for burley blends and cheap tobacco, but occasionally when I have a bit of coin to spare I crave something that contains a bit of latakia. The balance of latakia mellowed by the addition of perique in this blend makes it ideal for the job. I highly recommend this one. Easily one of my top 5 favorites.

Frog Morton On The Bayou is my all time favorite Balkan style blend - just the right amount of Perique for that spicy / nutty taste and not too much latakia. You can smoke this stuff right down to the bottom of the bowl and get a good dose of that much maligned but much loved drug - nicotine. I find this tobacco pairs up really well to a strong, slightly cooled cup of Ethiopian or Kenyan coffee and of course two fingers of Dewars Signature - neat of course.

So, I'm about halfway through my first tin of many. I'm not gonna lie when I opened the tin the tin the first time I had been smoking some heavy lat bombs for a week or so. It smelled like dirt, not loam, not grass, just dust and dirt. I thought to myself "Josh your a slave to the lady with the yellow fingers. You know without nicotine you turn into the biggest bastard ever. We'll smoke a bowl even if it's mildly palatable you can jar it up and save it for a day when your broke, out of everything else with nicotine in it, and really hard up." Sounds great right? I packed it up into a fresh cob, and it felt a little dryer than I was used too, not like dried out, just dry kinda bland. I stared at it moodily for a minute or two, picked up my zippo and gave it a char light. Those of you who like to mention that the tin note isn't always a good indication of the tobacco can start fist pumping now. Under the flame the flavor and scent of the tobacco blossomed forth. I could really get the earthiness of the per. Suddenly that dirt gave forth life. A rich loamy flavor with, almost mossy notes. It really did remind me of my time in Mississippi. When me and the guys would go out hiking in the swamps. I sat back enjoyed the flavors, as each drag pulled me in a little deeper into the swamps I remembered from tech school. Back to happy days with my little band of wing-men, to crawdad boils and beers out at that little fricking shack of a restaurant. To the girls I knew back then, crazy swamp raised girls. Girls who's momma married a soldier, cause us soldiers were such good men. Back to bar fights, with my buddies to back me up. Back to that short period in time where I was in the best shape of my life,I was old enough to drink, and I still didn't have any real responsibilities, just had to show up to class. In an MM legend it gives me about forty five minutes to an hour to enjoy those memories. I'm getting the packing and breathing right now so it doesn't need more than maybe one relight. It does leave a bit of dottle but that seems to be more the pipes fault as everything leaves some dottle in that one. The stem is just a hair high, and I've been to busy to sit down and fix it. It smokes like a dream out of my Boswell and leaves a not but fine dust to sit in my ashtray till I get around to making up some mud to fix a few high stems. Frog Morton "On the Bayou"? Yeah it's earned a spot on my TAD list I'm gonna need to keep a nice stock of it.

This is the first English/Balkan Blend that I have smoked. I chanced across a tin from 'O3 thinking that it might be a good way to break into Latakia mixtures, and I wasn't disappointed.

I've since smoked about 4 oz of this mixture of different ages, the '03 is the best, but I really think that another 10 years of aging will possibly make it even better. The flavors are married so well, that the only thing that seems to stand out with sharp prominence is the virginia, which still has a bit of high, sharp notes, even after 10 years of aging.

The tin smells to me just like Levi Garrett Tobacco that I used to chew. Woody, Tobacco-y, smoky and sweet.

The initial smoke was awesome. Great flavors like smoked pemmican, sweet citrus, sage, sandalwood and bitters were all present. Not so much like BBQ to me, but the smoky Latakia was definitely present. I'm not well versed enough to talk about the perique, but there were some notes of black pepper and chili in this as well. I saved some of this '03 back, its going to be hard not to smoke it. This is definitely a permanent addition to my cellar, and something I'll keep in rotation for the years to come. Amazing work from the Blenders at McClelland.

My friend recommended this blend and despite its funny name I was pleasantly surprised how good it is. It is carefully balanced and gives easy and full smoking experience at any time of day. Oriental and Turkish tobaccos are strong but soft. McClelland made one very satisfying blend? so I have to try other Frog Morton blends.

All I can say about this stuff is WOW! This is the first Frog Morton blend I've ever tried, and it is absolutely incredible. This stuff was excellent from the moment I opened the can till I reached the end of the first bowl. It never got too hot, and the variety of flavors kept on coming throughout the bowl. I'd never smoked Perique before, and found it quite interesting, but in this blend it isn't overpowering at all. If this stuff wasn't so pricey, I could almost recommend this as an all day smoke, but my wallet would rat me out to the little woman for sure. Now I gotta try the other Froggie blends.

3/24/08 As an added question about this wonderful tobacco, I was wondering if there is a McClelland bulk version of any of the Frog Morton series?