Hearth & Home Magnum Opus

Well deserving of its name, the Magnum Opus offers a base of sweet grassy and hay-like flavour of the Virginia, with sweet Latakia-woodiness. It is smokey, but not aggressively so - the orientals offers a creamy butteriness to the blend, with the Perique peeking through some delicious peppery spiciness. Masterfully blended, it is somewhat similar to G.L. Pease’s Abingdon, albeit less fruity.

I wonder why it took me so long to get to the hearth and home blends ? Lack of knowledge. I love the sweet bright yellow Virginias and they play well with the fine orientals including yenidje ! The latakia is top notch and the perique adds spice to an already spicy blend from the orientals ! This is my kind of balkan right here ! Oriental forward smokey and spicy and sweet combination. I love it . 4 stars . Russ is the man .

Magnum Opus is an excellent everyday English blend. The tobacco is a fairly coarse ribbon cut and the tin note is fairly mild with notes of earth and spice.

The dominant flavor throughout the bowl is black pepper and earth to a lesser extent. There’s a lighter note of grassiness and a bit of smokiness and cedar.

Overall Magnum Opus is a world class blend that I’d pick as an everyday smoke over nearly any other blend I’ve tried so far. I was also given a sample of some 4 year aged Magnum Opus and I can safely say that it gets better with age.

Yum. 'nuf said. I'll get much more of thisl Nice smooth, balanced flavor. Remains very cool, regardless of how stressed I'm puffing it. I'd highly recommend this for someone wanting to get into non-aromatics and towards an English blend. I don't mean to over-simplify the taste. I think it's all around delicious!

One of the roundest and most succesful of a genre known by many names: crossover english, americanized english (ha!), English plus, kitchen sink blend, etc. Not my favorite type of blend, maybe because they often miss the mark for me, with a few notable exceptions. Magnum opus is firmly in that category, along with Potlatch, And So to Bed, Artisan blend, and Bengal Slices. The exceptions are testaments to the skill of the blender. However, when not so skillfully done, blends such as this can easily become muddled, heavy, confused, and unharmonius. There is none of that here. Magnum Opus presents a unified flavor profile that is well integrated. It is Latakia driven, with much barbecue-ey sweetness and tang. The oriental component is blissful, the trademark yenidje soda flavor evident, which i love. I dont remember being as impressed with this previously as i am now, so perhaps a year or so aging has brought something out in it. Equally possible is that my tastes have changed or my memory isnt what it could be. What i know for sure is that this is a 4 star blend, very reminiscent of Bengal Slices flavoring, but much better, softer, and with the added benefit of those beautiful orientals, and a whisper of the plummy sort of perique. My tin is quite dry now, and smokes beautifully. Sipped slowly in a cob it is magical when i draw some outside air into each breath. If pushed it becomes bitter. All the more reason to take it slowly and enjoy. This is what Frog Morton seeks to be, but doesnt achieve. A sweet, round, fragrant and rich latakia mixture.

Wonderfully smooth and strong! This blend is quintessential English blend tobacco. Magnum Opus does what many other English blends try and fail to do: provide a full bodied, but smooth and delicious smoke.

This one reminds me of McClelland Samovar with more spice/edge and nicotine. Beautifully smoky aroma in the tin that translates well into the smoke. Anyone who enjoys a campfire should appreciate the room note. I actually like this one a little better than Russ' White Knight. This one's in the regular rotation with Samovar, Viprati, Syrian Star, and Rich Virginia Ribbon.

I smoke this almost every Sunday. I put room note as pleasant to tolerable, because, for an English tobacco it smells nice even to a non smoker.

One of the many things I like about this tobacco is when smoked through a well pipe (all I smoke), after a full 45 minute smoke there is 0 moisture in the bowl. It smokes very dry, thus creating a non-burned mouth.

There is a perfect balance of latikiah and Virginia. What can I say, just smoke it and give it the 4 stars it deserves.

When I saw the ingredients, I thought the virginia leaf would not do it for me because I am more for burley, but I was wrong. I have smoked a few pipes so far and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I am finding it heavier on the orientals than the Latakia, and the Virginia is quite nice and grassy. Apparently, Russ Oulette created this mixture when Balkan Sobranie was discontinued because he enjoyed this blend with a bit of a perique, but I can barely notice it, or maybe I need to smoke a few more bowls. As for the orientals, I heard Russ Oulette himself saying that the yenidje leaf it contains is sourced from Mark Ryan (Daughters & Ryan). All and all this is a nice well rounded and balanced Balkan blend and can be smoked every day. 4 stars.