McClelland Honeydew

When I opened the tin I thought hmmm....doesn't smell that great, a little sour, but once I lit up....WOW! Very nice! Very light and mild. Slight melony fruity taste, just a little bit of sweetness. My first broken flake tobacco. It smoked very cool. I'm so motivated to try more flakes, this was a perfect transition. I recommend giving this a try, it won't disappoint!

i was very disappointed by this having high expectations as a result of the pre-introduction marketing. the blend was certainly decent with no real draw backs other than maybe a little tongue bite that was manageable with controlled smoking but it just didn't deliver a lot of flavor to me. i don't know what the honeydew was supposed to add (i don't even know what it is) but whatever it was, i missed it.

Appearance: A nice medium thickness broken flake, mostly medium in color.

Aroma: There is a noticeable but not overpowering top note, on top of some nice sweet Virginia aroma. The characteristic McC vinegar was missing, thankfully.

Packing: It packed nicely as-is into medium to large bowls, needed to be rubbed out for small bowls.

Lighting: About average in ease of lighting.

Initial flavor: Just as it smells, this is a mild/medium Va, with a subtle added top note. I can?t identify the addition, but it tastes right for the blend. No noticeable heat when smoked at normal rates.

Mid-bowl: Very pleasant flavor of VA., very light aromatic. No complexity or layering, making it a good all-day smoke, but not a nightcap. Cool and well behaved at all times.

Finish: No surprises, burned down to ashes in a dry pipe.

Summary: For me, a good warm weather morning and afternoon smoke. Don?t let the slight aromatic quality keep you away from this one. For me, the hit of the 221b series. BTW, many people will enjoy the aroma, always a plus for a sometimes Latakia smoker like me.

A partially rubbed/broken Virginia flake that provided a mild, vaguely sweet smoke. The addition of molasses (which is what defines a "honeydew" tobacco, not honey) added richness to the aroma rather than syrup to the bowl. This is a pleasant, mild blend that some might consider *too* mild but which can provide a simple change of pace from more complex blends.

One note: Over the course of 20 pipefuls (1 tin) I never experienced the bite that some others have mentioned. For me, this was always an extremely mild smoke.

Note to Guyrox: Holmes is never mentioned as smoking Honeydew. He is simply shown a container of the tobacco as a clue in one of the stories. The stuff Holmes usually did smoke is pretty distressing.(g)

My review is based on a three year old tin. This is an attractive pipe-weed, with a wide gamut of brown hues. The inviting tin aroma had some of the characteristic McClelland vinegar-ketchup, which I have come to embrace. It's usually a promise of good things to come in the smoke.

The coarse cut gets one to pondering just how to prepare this pipe-weed for the bowl. I have found the slightest bit of rubbing out works best. Too much, and the heat uncomfortably increases. With a good char, this blend burns evenly and with minimal relighting.

The sweetness is relatively noticable from first puff, decreasing somewhat by midbowl. Mind that this is not the black Cavendish style of sweetness, but a much lighter and more natural touch. Still, it is aromatic, with honey overtones. Fanciers of straight Virginias may well find this cloying, as I did. The bottom third of the bowl is the most satisfying.

Alas, this pipe-weed is a hot and biting experience, if not given attention at all times. A few thoughtless draws, and you'll be nursing your tongue. This is what I find to be Honeydew's undoing. There is insufficient reward for the trouble required. I am forced to slow my puffing down to levels I find annoying.

I'm setting this tin aside in hopes its bite will diminish over time. I wonder if I shall even finish it. I certainly will not be acquiring more.

What a nice surprise!

I feared this tobacco might be too artificially sweet or goopy, but it's not. I usually love McClelland's virginia flakes, but I didn't like the idea of this one to be some sort of aromatic. I was wrong, as the honeydew flavoring perfectly complements the leaf.

In the tin, the usual McC vinegar smell is very subdued compared to some of their other offerings. The impression is of honey, good fermented tobacco, hay, dried plums. Mouthwatering!

So far I have only smoked this tobacco by slightly rubbing out the flakes (not completely, mind you) and it was extremely enjoyable. Sweet and tasty from the charring light to the very bottom of the bowl. No off-notes, no bitterness, no harshness, no wetness, no tonguebite. Pure pleasure. Yes, it IS on the very sweet side, but it's not a "fake" sweetness like the one you get from heavily cased aromatics (which BTW tend to have a sweet perfume but little taste, usually).

Of course it's not a perfect tobacco: tastiness and sweetness come at the expense of complexity. There is not much flavour development: it's simply honeyish and nutty from beginning to start. But I'm not complaining, as it's quite a unique flavor for me. It's probably the only very sweet tobacco I can endure.

Give it a try: you will love it or hate it because of that pronounced honeyish sweetness. I sure loved it.

I would concur with most of the reviews presented about McClelland's Honeydew. My additional observations are as follows.

I had decided to buy a tin and to try it, based on my reminiscense of Gallaher's Rich Dark Honeydew. However, it was so long ago that I smoked the Gallaher's flake that I cannot remember how it was. I guess that the nature of Gallaher's Honeydew is not really relevant to the discussion at hand. On to my experiences with McClelland Honeydew!

On opening the tin, ketchup, what ketchup? Many people seem to get put off unneccessarily by some characteristic scent from McClelland's fermentation, I believe. get over it and enjoy the tobacco IMHO! Rather, I found the tin aroma to be pleasant, with a charactreistic fermented Virginia scent. In addition, it smoked as sweet as it smelled out of the tin, which was dated 2005.

I smoked this flake several times already and found that it burned well, either fully rubbed out and loaded into the bowl, or folded and stuffed into the pipe. A medium-sized bowl full lasted about an hour with modest relighting. Smoking it slowly brought out the subtlties that delighted me greatly, once again due to te Virginia content. It is true that this is a tobacco to be enjoyed by smoking slowly.

Each time I smoked it, near the end, the flavour got a bit stronger, but still very pleasant and sweet, without any souring whatsoever. Also, I noticed some components that I would describe as being very similar to a burley coming out into the spotlight. However, this could be the nuttiness of the apparently high grade of Virginias used in this blend IMHO. Near the end of the bowl, in all cases, the dottle that remained was very small and dry, if there was one at all, and not at all syrupy or pipe-fowling.

All in all a wonderfully successful blend by McClelland. Next time, I will try it out in my Peterson's large Kinsale, with a deerstalker cap on my head, for added effect! But seriously, I believe that I have found a new flake to love.

shakenbake

Honeydew is McClelland's third installment within the 221B series and is aptly described by the blender as being a subtly sweet, fragrant flake tobacco in the Irish tradition.

The aroma of this blend upon opening is light and is reminiscent of sweet biscuit cookies with brown sugar and molasses-like undertones. It is very pleasant indeed. Honeydew is a Virginia dominated tobacco blend with a slight topping that is most likely honey. The color of Honeydew is a handsome caramel/brown with hints of golden/yellow showing through.

Honeydew possesses a coarse broken flake cut and the blend rubs out without much effort. Honeydew is slightly moist but can be easily brought to the correct moisture level with some drying.

McClelland?s Honeydew lights well and has the ability to burn to the bottom of the pipe bowl. The blend?s light room note is similar to the aroma of baking bread and is quite agreeable.

Honeydew has a mild to medium taste that is flavorful yet not overbearing like many heavy-handed aromatics. While the Honeydew pipe blend does possess an aromatic sweetness, it also has a true bright tobacco leaf taste as well. Honeydew can bite, but slow and steady draws greatly minimize this bite and helps yield the best flavors the blend has to offer.

McClelland?s Honeydew is not necessarily an aromatic blend but rather a Virgina tobacco that happens to have some beneficial characteristics of an aromatic tobacco blend. A great blend to smoke during breakfast time.

This one caught me completely by surprise. I am not a fan of aromatics in general, but when a friend offered me a tin curiosity got the better of me.

I like the cut, color and smell of the leaf in the can. The semi-rubbed leaf has a wonderful color and looks quite rich, and the smell is earthy and fragrant. The topping is very lightly detectable, but not at all unpleasant. A little on the moist side, but nothing that a day or so of drying out won't cure. So far, so good.

Upon lighting, the taste and aroma is that of a good Virginia plus the slight fruity addition of the topping. Contrary to my expectations, I find that the topping adds some depth to the blend. The tobacco is easy to light and tends to stay lit even when moving about. The flavor stays fairly consistant throughout the bowl; slightly stronger and less sweetness towards the finish.

I started by fully rubbing out the coarse cut leaf, and I still do occasionally for a smoother smoke. But now I mostly pack the leaf as it comes out of the can or only slightly rubbed. I think that it smokes a bit better sweeter and holds a light better this way. This is a wonderful blend to smoke while up and about. I often light up Honeydew while tending to the Barbeque or walking the dogs.

This blend has changed my (formerly) solid resistance to aromatics. No, I'm not going to give Blue Note another try, but I do enjoy this mild Virginia blend.