4noggins Britt's Balkan

I definately have a sensitive palate especially concerning tobacco pH, beit cigars or pipes.

This blend is a tad too alkaline for my liking; numbing the palate akin to baccy bite. Although it remains somewhat smokable I'm certain not tasting the full spectrum of this blend. Apart from that the bag aroma is very good, packs and burns very well. Alas I cannot recommend it since the combustion expereince is not enjoyable. This bag will be yet another donation to the baccy library at our local clubs haunt where I'm sure others will gladly partake and enjoy.

If you take a Caol Ila and add Coke, you can't keep calling it Caol Ila... You should call it Cola Ila ...

Here, IMHO, it's more or less the same story... Very good tobacco, a good flavoring (indeed, not overwhelming) easy to lit and easy to smoke... but i can't call it a Balkan blend, let alone call it a true balkan.

Again, i would give 3 stars to this blend if the vanilla was not so present or if Rich Gottlieb called it Britt's Balkanilla 🙂

All that said, if you like SG Perfection and stuff like that, you'll enjoy 4noggins offer, as well.

Based on the other reviews I have to wonder whether what I received had been poorly blended. What I got to smoke did not have a hint of vanilla, it reeked of vanilla. What little sweetness there was to the VA. was overwhelmed by the flavor additive. There was no apparent spicy, incense qualities to what ever Turkish and Oriental tobaccos in the blend. To call what I got a Balkan is a misnomer. I tried cutting it 1 part Britt's to 4 parts Stokkebye Balkan Supreme and it still reeked of vanilla. This was an aromatic not a Balkan. I'm not sure why a Balkan should need any additional flavors added anyway.

A typical Balkan blend with some vanilla topping. Kind of ironic but the melt in wonderfully. The negative side is not the vanilla topping; it's the mild flavor that bothers me.

This is interesting mix that should be treated with all due respect because of its strength. I recommend giving this one a test run.

I really enjoy the room note of this tobacco and my wife likes it too, but I have to agree with the review from Punchy farther down - the pain to pleasure ratio for me with this blend is too far out of balance. I've tried in multiple pipes, varying degrees of drying out, drawing very carefully, and still consistently get a bite from this blend. This one's not for me.

Too much vanilla! Smells like a Balkan blend with a vanilla topping/casing. Upon first light, my initial impression...too much vanilla flavoring. Other than that...not bad. The flavoring hangs in there throughout the entire bowl. I was hoping the vanilla taste would subside and leave a more Balkan-like flavor in the smoke.

Well, FWIW & IMHO, just a tiny pinch of vanilla might have worked better. Excessive amounts of vanilla flavoring doesn't work well in this Balkan. I decided to sample this because the description stated a "slight hint" of vanilla. That "slight hint" was overwhelming to me. It could have been a very good Balkan but instead, this is simply an above average aromatic. 2.4 stars.

If you are less sensitive to additives and humectants than I, the basic blend here is enjoyable in a sort of uncritical way. Probably three-star territory for most. But I can’t get past the truly odd flavor here that has nothing to do with any natural tobacco tastes (as an avid blender I’ve done my share of processing natural leaf).

As we all know, there is more than one type of humectant permissible for use in pipe tobacco – propandiol, propylene glycol, triethylene - and additives may legally account for up to 2.4% of weight by volume. I’ve noted in a couple of other reviews a soapy taste, especially during lights. This is more of a baby powder taste, and if you ever breathed it in when over powdering your slippers, you know the distinctive taste and how much effort it is to get it out of your mouth and sinuses. No, I haven’t used any in years, so that’s not the issue here, but one never forgets that taste.

As I said, the basic recipe here, with a little spritz of vanilla, seems perfectly acceptable for a slightly sweeter style Balkan. Honestly, the vanilla is so light that it only registers as a slight sweetness, especially on the retrohale. The only method I found where I could get through a whole bowl of this was a rather extreme solution: using the chalk and charcoal method in a meerschaum pipe. Most experienced pipers will know this trick to make a non-filtered pipe act more like a filtered pipe, using a little piece of chalk on the bottom of the bowl, and sprinkling the charcoal bits out of a 9mm filter. In this case I had to use two filters worth to clean up the taste enough to derive some enjoyment. And no, my taste buds aren’t off, because I did a little side-by-side comparison with Arango Balkan Supreme and C&D Super Balkan – both enjoyable.

Final point, which is kind of disheartening: some of the best blends on my Top Ten are from boutique blenders who mix in small batches. But some of the worst experiences I’ve had are also from the small blenders. This is because only the large-scale manufacturers like Mac Baren and Kohlhase Kopp have the resources to maintain a fairly strict quality control. To sample every blending component before it is used. So I’m always wondering when I give a negative review if maybe the batch I received had a little too much spray, or that some ingredient didn’t get measured correctly. Maybe that explains the positive reviews elsewhere. But it also makes me wonder why hardly any other reviewers ever mention this issue, that there is an assumed confidence that what they tasted ten years ago remains unerringly the same to this day. As I said: disheartening.