Dan Tobacco Bill Bailey's Balkan Blend

Tin note of smoky, mildly tart, and sweet ripe fruit. The black, brown and dark brown ribbons are relatively dry, no prep needed. Burns moderately with a few relights. The strength is medium to strong and nic is mild to medium. No flavoring detected. Taste is full and consistent, with notes of smokey, wood, very spicy, tangy lemon grass, earth, floral, dry musty herbal, leather, mild spiced Rasin bread, mild bitter plums, a slightly sweet nutty background note, and a peppery retro. Latakia barely edges out the Orientals for the lead, the Virginias and Perique are strong supporters. Kentucky is filling in when needed. Room note is tolerable to strong, and aftertaste is great.

Dan Tobacco Bill Bailey’s Balkan Blend - The Latakia is 40 pct so it is always there but the Orientals are right there and they tasty . Just barely enough sweetness . This blend is more smokey and nutty really . The Turkish - Orientals have very little savory sour notes . It is quite smooth and the dark fired Kentucky is a nice addition . This is an old tin from 2004 and it may have Syrian Latakia. Reminds me of Vintage Syrian but more Oriental forward and not as sweet . An easy going smooth smoke . I would buy again and would like to compare to a fresh tin . Solid 3

Bill Bailey’s Balkan Blend is a very tasty and full, smoky-sweet Balkan experience. I am rather sensitive when it comes to strength, but this one is creamy and smooth.

The taste starts out smoky with the Latakia dominating, then Orientals and Perique start to come through more and more. I wasn’t able to taste Kentucky directly, but it sure plays a role in developing more body as you go along.

Overall it feels more like an American than European interpretation of a Balkan Blend to me. Downsides are in fact aftertaste and room note, therefore only somewhat recommended.

A bit of a muddled combination at first, that delivers a medium to full body and strength. Floral notes move in and out as you work through the bowl, with a hint of Ennerdale-type bergamot now and again. Very complex, even when sipped. Goes surprisingly well with Bigelow Constant Comment Green Tea. Fullness and complexity intensify upon retrohale. A woody, resinous flavor pokes it head out at mid-bowl. Intriguing combinations of flavors, including a chocolate note at times. Amazing what can be delivered from a plant leaf! Burns clean and easy. Enjoyable when moderately packed in a small-bowled Willmer Lightweight. 4* uniqueness.

So I popped a tin of Bill Baily's Balkan Blend, very dry in the tin. Not so dry it cant be smoked, actually probably the perfect level for a Balkan, just never had a tin come so dry that it was at the perfect level for this type of mixture. Tin aroma was not as strongly of latakia as I expected, a little musty from the Orientals. This tobacco packed well and lit readily. My first sensation was a little mouth bite, not so much from heat, but more from the agents in the tobacco...perhaps the Kentucky? Perique? The bowl settled down some and though I could not detect as much latakia in the tin aroma, I certainly could in the smoke....WOW...LAT BOMB! The description of this blend is 40% latakia and now I believe it. I had to control myself from smoking too quickly, but no worries, I was forced to slow down since this is some strong stuff and my stomach was getting a little upset. I slowed down for the second half of the bowl, after the first part of the bowl tasting mostly of latakia and perique. I detect little in the way of Orientals, save some mild floral and musty flavor toward the end of the bowl. When inspecting the aroma, my nose stings and sinuses produce a little fluid, I blow my nose and continue. The last part of this bowl seems to be more of the same, Lat and Per, the Virginias are supporting the smoke, I'm sure, but not in any salient manner.

I finish the bowl and though I am a little nauseated, I feel very "full" from this strong smoke. I think this blend is too Latakia loaded for me and the "pinch" of perique (yeah right)made it less than enjoyable. All in all I'm glad I tried this, but this will be finding a home with a friend of mine who has a greater constitution for tobacco like this.

At the price this tobacco is sold in Italy (it costs as much as Balkan Sobranie!) it had better be good... Dan Tobacco usually makes good stuff, so my expectations were high: well, this won't become one of my favorites, but it is fine nevertheless. It is not a typical balkan blend, as it contains some unusual ingredients for the genre: kentucky and perique!!! It must be said that these two are present in little quantities (when I first smoked it I was unaware of their presence, until I read the composition on this page), so the effect is very subdued and lets the latakia prevail. As many other balkans, this is a very heavy and bitter latakia-laden mixture: it definitely has a lot of taste, but lacks in roundedness and variation. While it is a good smoke, it has some subtle notes that are not in the right place: probably the earthiness of the kentucky, and most particularly the high metallic touches of perique. A heavier dose of Virginia would have made a deeper, subtler blend. As it is, I find it a bit too "dry" (not as opposed to "wet", but as opposed to "sweet") and with some harsh edges. Not the mouth-watering and complex Sobranie, by far, though it is an interesting (and well burning) alternative approach to the world of balkans. I might have given this blend three stars, but the fierce competition makes the comparison inevitable... Worth a try, but it will hardly become a favorite.

EDIT June 2005: I tried another tin, and I enjoyed it much better! This tin seems rounder, with less heavy notes and more sweetness. Less kentucky earthiness, still some Perique metallic tickling, but overall a very tasty and enjoyable blend. It has some weak moments in the second half of the bowl, but this time it was much more complex, rich and interesting. Not simply a full latakia sledgehammer. Hey, it is almost as good as some legendary GLPease Balkans! Definitely worth smoking!

EDIT April 2013: Returning to this blend once in a while. Still not bad, still one of the few strong Latakia blends remaining in Europe. Still too much Kentucky (which should NEVER belong in a blend called "Balkan"), still a bit unsubtle and not very elegant. But certainly tasty and much better than many other fake Balkans...

Latakia overkill. Not much subtlety here. The latakia used is a very smoky variety. The tobacco packed and burned well. I recommend this only to those that love their latakia stong and smoky. Curiously, I found this to be a good mixing tobacco because of its smoky quality. I put a pinch of this into several different blends that needed a little oomph and found it worked well for that. I had a tin of Old Ironsides on hand as I was smoking this tin and found it to be more satisfying as strong latakia slices go.

Not a typical Balkan in that the Virginias are well into the background and the Latakia quite dominant. For me the lack of more sweet Virginias is what holds this back from four stars. Still, for a robust and woodsy style Latakia blend with a good dose of Kentucky, this is a solid 3 star blend. The Kentucky is seemingly on the lighter style (firing times can range substantially depending on what the manufacturer orders), though I do get a slight cigar-like note from it, unless Dan snuck in a small amount of Soukham. I also get some nice nutty toasted sunflower seed from the Turkish variety used, and this seems to harmonize well with the underlying Burley nutty character.

I won’t be buying any more, and I’m not sure I would recommend this to someone who likes a more traditional Balkan style. But if you are open to the idea of beefier style Lat blend this is well worth exploring. I’d say the concept is well executed. My tin had about three years on it and I went through in a short time during the cold months, so maybe I like it more than I thought!

I smoked this blend when it came out; whenever that was. After my first tin, I slowed down to occasional smoking and, finally, it disappeared out of my rotation. I haven't smoked Bill Bailey's Balkan Blend since. This tin was acquired in a buyout from another pipe smoker circa 2016 and he said he had it for four or five years. I remembered this blend as a strong and spicy English that was a chore to smoke compared to other English blends I was smoking at the time; all bristling with pepperiness and dense and very strong. I remembered correctly, as, this is the most dense and strong blend I've opened in more than a year. The tin was sealed rather weakly and opened easily. The aroma was overwhelming from the battle that was going on between the Latakia, the Perique and the Orientals all trying to be number one; and, there in the back row, was the Kentucky going "me too, me too" The tobacco was almost smokable right out of the tin and I gave my first smoke about an hour of air out time. I don't want the reader to misunderstand; this is a very good Balkan blend and I enjoyed it - to a point. The top halves were very spicy and tongue prickly at first before settling down. The bottom halves smoked more in a normal expectancy way, but, still dense and strong. My complaint about this blend is rather odd, in that, its a lot to handle and I immediately thought about ways to tame it down. Blending with less strong blends that have little to no Latakia or Perique is the solution. I found a 50-50 mix with Hearth and Home's AJ's VaPer to be about as good as it gets. I don't say this very often, but, being this much to handle keeps BBBB from four star status and I give it three and recommend it to all smokers as quite an experience.