McClelland Blue Mountain/Balkan Blue

I held a can of this back for 5 years and just bought a new one to compare what aging might do to this blend. The new was very good. The 5 year can was great. Both are a great buy for your tobacco dollar if your taste leans in the non-aro direction. That said, a great mellow and smooth blend for aro smokers looking to dabble on the not so sweet side. I like many aro's and enjoy them but the blends that are Balkan forward (if there is such a thing) and burley forward are my meat and potatoes. While realizing taste is subjective, I feel the new tin is Frog Morton vacationing for two weeks at a sea side Balkan resort while the 5 year tin is Mr. Froggy winning the lotto, retired and living at said Balkan sea side resort. For you newbies or new McClelland's smokers; here is what everyone else knows - McClelland's tins are McClelland's tins; vinegar smell when you open the tin, leans to the moist side and needs some some playing with on the drying and packing side when you first smoke their blends. The quality of their tobaccos and the care of their blending skills will earn your respect. Will you like all their blends? I doubt it but again, that is because taste is subjective. This one has no bite. For me, pack it medium in a large bowl, and no relights. Will the Mrs. like the smell of this as much as your aros? Err, no but it is not too bad and some wives have even been known to get to where they appreciate the aroma. My Angel Wife really likes this one when we sit outside. She says that is because while she loves the smell of a campfire, she still does not want me to build one in the middle of the living room. This could be an every day smoke if it came in 8 ounce or 14 ounce pound tins. I think the slow maturing in an open tin would serve this blend well. Just MHO.

Leaf: A medium ribbon cut, very dark with a small smattering of lighter browns here and there. Good moisture out of the tin.

Tin Aroma: The tin note is beautiful on this blend, it is rich, smokey, sweet, the spiciness and sharpness of the orientals is very noticeable too. There is a slight McC vinegar note hanging around but it doesn't interfere with the aroma. It gave the impression for me that there was a good dose of latakia waiting to greet me when I lit it up. A very appetising offering.

Taste: With the first light the Latakia smokiness is there, it is only a little camp-firey though and a little sweeter than I find most lat flavour. The Vinegar from the aroma is there as well, but it seemed to fade out as the smoke went on. The Latakia moved to the rear and the orientals came forward with the Va's in tow, the sweetness developed and the orientals carried a lovely spiciness. It is a very fresh, and 'quality' tasting tobacco. and was very well balanced between the elements. The smoke is exceedingly smooth, retrohale has no chance of burning the nose, the tongue is safe from bite too. I French inhaled regularly and re-inhaled the smoke up my nose before retrohaling, it was super smooth and flavourful. At this point, about halfway, I was still very impressed with this blend. After this, I am not sure why, but I kind of started to lose interest in it, it felt a little one dimensional, personally I found it just wasn't complex enough, or bold enough, almost as if this blend could kick it up a few more notches in the flavour department but felt like playing it safe instead. Towards the end of the bowl I seemed to regularly find a developing sourness, not the kind I sometimes look for,but a slightly soapy or almost chemical/preservative taste I could never quite put my finger on. It was never enough to turn me off, or ruin the bowl, but it just didn't make me light up inside like a really fantastic blend does when it just gets it right.The time I spent pondering over this taste detracted from my enjoyment when it finally hit. I honestly don't know whether it is just me, just my tin, or just the way they intended it to be and it's just not for me. This is where it became hard to judge and review, it is in NO WAY AT ALL a bad blend, on the contrary I enjoyed every bowl and finished my tin very quickly, and I would buy another one if I came across it. I just didn't find that it rocked my world like I expected it to. I did find it tasted a bit better after some time in the Mason Jar, so next time around I will jar up a whole tin and leave it for a few months before I crack into it. Smokeability No complaints here, packs, lights, and burns like a dream. Great moisture from the tin, it always burnt down to white ash for me and stayed cool and dry.

Summary: This is not easy for me. This was a GOOD smoke, but I didn't find it Great, which I think is what I was expecting. As I said in my earlier quick review, it doesn't do anything wrong, it just doesn't get something right, and I can't pinpoint what it is. It is no fuss to pack and smoke, the nic was gentle for me, it was simple enough to be an all day smoke. It is well balanced and smooth, but in my opinion it could be bolder and richer, and more complex. I still feel it was playing it safe. It just felt flat. I will definitely get another tin, and I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, but it won't be knocking anything out of my current rotation. It is definitely worth a try,and I am sure others find it more amazing than I did, it may just be that rare blend that doesn't agree with me. With such a wonderful Aroma, it just didn't deliver the flavour I thought it was promising, it was like smelling a wonderful stout, pouring a glass and taking a sip, and tasting light beer.

The smell in the can/jar is somewhat chocolaty. out in the open you can smell more of the latakia, lots of dark leaf mixed with some yellow, i can see casing on the leaf when i look at it through a magnifying glass. The taste is sweet with the oriental up front pretty much through the whole bowl. I wish there was a little more complexity to this experience, the one sided role the orientals play had me longing for a little more something else. It wasn't all oriental like a pure oriental blend there was some balance to back off the pure strength of the oriental leaf to make it smooth and sweet but that's all you get through the entire bowl. i might mix this with some 3 oaks syrian i have to see what happens. The sweetness nice at first but i would say this is not an all day smoke. i might also try mixing it with some black house. on a scale from 1 - 10 i would rate this as a good solid 7 Edit 2/9/2017 i should have come back to revisit my review. i love this blend and really now that i have learned more about tobaccos its not the oriental that is giving off that subtle flower note its something else. I have moved on to a blend thats very close to this only better, hearths white knight. try it

If I was a lover of Latakia, this would be a favorite. The smokey Cyprian weed dominates every part of this experience. The Virginia is almost completely obscured, and the fine Orientals are reduced to a supporting role for the Latakia.

The tin note is heavenly. Even if I choose another blend for my pipe, I will open the can of Blue Mountain just to get a little glimpse, a whiff, of the eternal. If only it smoked just like it smells!

Slow puffing and a churchwarden stem help to cool the smoke and soften the bite. And it does bite!

If you are in the mood for Latakia, you can't beat this blend.

Regarding room note: My lovely and articulate wife has requested that I never smoke this again. "It smells like burning shit," she says. Fortunately for me, she adores the smells of Blackwoods Flake and Presbyterian Mixture. I will save Blue Mountain for when she is out of town.

I purchased Blue Mountain as a portal blend. Having never smoked Balkan Sobranie 759, yet hearing that it was Mike McNeil's intention to approximate a 20 year aged tin of 759, I could not resist trying it.

If a blender could approximate an aged blend with a fresh blend, and the target blend was widely smoked somewhat recently (hence, a large pool of smokers available to judge the effort), then the implications for future blending experiments are tantalizing. Hence, why I think Blue Mt. is a portal blend (along with Black House).

The result? I probably will not bust the bank buying up BS 759 to smoke BY THE MEASURE OF BLUE MT. Will I smoke Blue Mt. regularly? Most likely, I will smoke it occasionally. It does not sing with Oriental leaf like Legends, Wilderness and Samovar from the same blender- and personal favorites. The Latakia is too dominate for me even in pipes where the non-Latakia Oriental leaf is more pronounced (i.e., wide chambers and stacks). In more typical billiard, Dublin, bulldog pipes, Blue Mt. is more monodimensional, tasting mainly of Latakia and an occasional, pleasant sweetness.

This is a smooth blend, low in nicotine, with a pleasingly pungent room note. Contrast with the similarly Latakia-heavy Bombay Extra. The latter is brash and packs a much heavier nicotine hit. Both are cased, but the added flavoring is nondescript in each.

Smoky and sweet at the same time, I got a new car smell kind of taste. This is not a bad thing, very smoky but not at all overwhelming. I liked and I will cellar several tins for aging, but I do not plan to purchase any more for immediate consumption. This was just too sweet for my Latakia fix and too one dimensional for my English fix. I haven't smoked 759 but I cannot imagine that it was this sweet, I expected much more oriental flavor. Even with all these faults I still kind of like it, hopefully it gets more interesting with time.

Appearance is a dark brown rough ribbon with lighter strands. Tin smells of light sweet smoke. Tastes lightly sweet and smoky with mineral notes.

I have never smoked 759, and so I am reviewing Blue Mountain on its own merits. This is very nice indeed. Sweet, smoky, and mineral like, especially iodine as found in in Penzance or Skiff.

[Note: yes, iodine, most certainly not ammonia.]

It is definitely toward the milder side of mild to medium in strength, but nicely "middle" in flavour. I find Blue Mountain very pleasant, and recommend this far above something like Three Oaks.

Reminiscent of the Frog Morton blends, but much better -- more balanced, more flavor, and about the same strength/gentleness. Slight floral aroma upon light and a few minutes into it, but eventually fades.

The tin note on this is amazing and beats White Knight for me by a hair, but in the flavour department it falls a little short in comparison when smoked. The comparisons to Hearth and Home Blackhouse and White Knight are obvious enough, so there's not much for me to add to the reviews other than to say I prefer Russ's blends in general. Excellent blend nonetheless and surprisingly mild, (which could be seen as an asset, or a detriment, depending on your taste. When I first smoked this I found myself inhaling it like a cigarette with ease. Dangerous!) I could sit and smell this tin all day while smoking White Knight or Red Rapp.