Mac Baren Honey & Chocolate

Oh.......not so good. Name sounds 😋 yummy but sorry not a winner here. Tin note was awesome and man was I looking forward to a yummy smoke. Light right up and first couple of sips were heaven......and then woah! This terrible ash taste interfered with the sweet honey flavor and it was awful. I felt like I had licked an ash tray. I could not even finish the bowl. I tried again about a week later after airing out. Same thing happened again. I don't know what happened with this blend but I threw it away, I would not even trade or share with a friend. Frankly never done that before. Now this could have been a bad tin but it is a moot point since it is no longer in production.....hum did they know something?

This is probably one of the most "aromatic" aromatics that I have ever put in a pipe. It is certainly an acquired taste, and I honestly can't decide if I like it or not. I scored a tin of this from a friend of mine who gave me a ton of sample tins to try. Upon opening the tin, there is no mistaking the aroma: pure honey and chocolate, just like the label says. It's a fine cut of tobacco though, and I found it odd when packing a bowl. It turns a 3-step packing method into a 4 or 5-step method. It lit easily for me, probably due to the age. The taste, from top to bottom, is pure honey and chocolate. I honestly didn't taste a bit of tobacco in it, and thought perhaps that I might have accidentally packed some sort of confectionery in my pipe. It smoked cool though. About mid-way through the bowl I noticed that I had gained 15 pounds...this stuff is SWEET. It is almost TOO sweet for me, and I love sweet aromatics! Nevertheless, I enjoyed it, but in a strange way...much like I would enjoy eating a nice ice cream sundae for breakfast. If you can find a tin of this stuff around, get it - if for nothing else other than novelty. If you have a sweet tooth and love chocolate, then you've just found your tobacco.

I just realized I never reviewed this blend. I ended up giving the tin away to a fellow forum friend who liked it after I had about four or five bowls from the tin. I purchased this mostly because it was available at a B & M and I had heard they stopped making it. I remember my first smoke as I snuck away to by it at a B & M that was near the hospital where my wife was getting a minor procedure done.

I had along my John Barrett rockcob to test it out. (Great pipe for trying out tobacco btw) The chocolate immediately overwhelmed me. I couldn't finish the bowl. While the topping did calm down a little, it was just odd to my tastes. There was a glimpse of some underlying leaf giving the blend some body, so if the topping was a little more agreeable, I probably would have liked this one.

I think for me, chocolate and honey belong more in desert than in tobacco. It was my first go at a chocolate flavored blend, so I am not sure whether it is the use of the chocolate topping in this particular blend, or if I am averse to any chocolate topping. Time will tell as I will likely try more in the future.

I may revisit this review, but likely will not as the accuracy to detail will matter less as the last tins of it are consumed.

This is another one of the so called blends that's no longer I n production, but every tobacconist I asked says it is in production ?? Anyway this to me tastes like Scottish Mixture with dark chocolate, and that's not a bad thing. It lacks the latakia spice and sweet hay quality of the Virginia's unlike Mixture. It is softer and sweeter but not sugar sweet, more like semi sweet bakers chocolate sweet. All in all its pretty Good blend. It isn't exact as far as blend goes compared to Scottish, there's a lot more black cav in this blend. But for an aro it's cool and not cloying. This is good if you want something a bit different, aromatic that's not syrupy. Mac Baren has the aromatics down. If you like Mixture, mix Modern, you'll like this as well. Just darker in flavor than the prior two.

Note this blend and others like it stay cool if you slow down just a little. You can't smoke these like a straight burley or an English. At a moderate pace this stays cool. I think a lot of good aros get a bum rap because they aren't smoked properly. Yes some you have to be gingerly with, but this isn't one of them.

Honey & Chocolate was strong and I didn't like the taste. But some friends of mine like it. Best Wishes Happy Pipey 🙂 ) ) Good luck

This blend burnt hot, but did stay lit and smoke for an exceptionally long time.

The taste they give to this ruined it for me though, Overwhelming, and all in all just bad.

There was some light at the end of the tunnel with the plain tobacco taste, but it came back to bite in the end.

Semi-sweet chocolate aroma and flavor highlight an excellent base tobacco. This flavor is more prominent initially, but continues through the bowl in the background. Post exhale, this same flavor remains on the tongue and palate. The cavendish provides a bit more complexity and depth than Symphony. A very good, 3+ blend.

A Great Smoke. A great Taste. And it smells as good in the can as it does in the pipe.

When you open the tin, it smells good, something like dark chocolate. However, after a couple of smokes, I found it very unpleasant. Not only I had tongue bite after smoking, but also My throat was irritated. I had to mix it with Mac Baren gold blend to smoke it. In nutshell, it was a flash in the pan.