J. F. Germain & Son Balkan Sobranie

I smoked Balkan Sobranie, (usually from the white tin), pipe tobacco almost exclusively from 1966 to around 1980, until I stopped smoking entirely for about 10 years. I had been a cigarette and pipe smoker for many years prior to that. I never went back to cigarettes but took up the pipe again in the 90s and did obtain some of the 90s version of Sobranie in plastic pouches that I had sent to me from England until it was discontinued. The 1960s-80 version had a very long ribbon cut yellow-orange tobacco which jumped up out of the vacuum packed tin to greet you when you popped the top. There were also darker fragments of coarse cut brown to black fragments in the mixture. That tobacco had a taste and aroma, which was unique and to me has never been duplicated by anything I smoked since. The 1990s version was coarse cut and had a similar taste and smell but the burning characteristics were quite different and not particularly appealing to my taste. I still have a single pouch of it left but dried out. The fact that it is still there says a lot about my disappointment with it when compared to the 1960s version which I smoked through medical residency training in NYC. Now this new stuff is said to be "Made under licence in the British Isles from a recipe which reflects the excellent qualities of this famous pipe tobacco from years gone by" and Imported by: Arango Cigar Co. I received a 50 G tin of it from Cup o Joes on 3-1-2012. I opened it this morning with great anticipation after giving it 5 months to settle down, hoping to have a great treat... Forgettaboutit!! It is a quite moist mixture of light ribbon cut yellow tan stuff, coarser cut brown leaf and the black stuff which looks like and tastes like latakia when chewed. There is no bright orange- yellow tobacco as in the 1960s version and the ribbons are much, much shorter than the 1960s. I took out enough to fill a Danish Navigator pipe, a delicate very light briar in which I smoke only Balkans . The first pipe load was allowed to dry for 1/2 hour in an air conditioned room. The pipe was packed and I retired to the outside covered deck to enjoy a morning smoke on a nice padded rocker. I lit up and in a short time my taste buds were assaulted with an overwhelming spicy topping of ?cloves, cinnamon?, eugenol? It had all of the characteristics of Pease's Samarra and Caravan which I keep around but smoke only twice a year to remind me of how much I hate them. But this spice assault was much more intense than the Pease mixtures. I don't know if they made a mixing mistake at the factory and I just got a bad batch, but if they actually paid for a license to make this stuff, they didn't get the right info or didn't mix it correctly. In the evening I dried out some more for 1 1/2 hours to see if some of that flavoring would disappear. It was still moister than I would expect, suggesting that PEG had been added as a moisturizer. I stuffed a Barling post-transition bent, which is my best smoking pipe for Balkans, and lit up. Arrrgggh!! Even worse than before. I am not sure that I can even smoke this twice a year. I will have to dilute it with some unflavored burley to render it bearable to smoke. They tell me that orientals can be "spicy". I smoked Sobranie for years and never thought that it was "spicy". No way this intense spice flavor can be natural tobacco flavor. More likely this is an attempt to boost the flavor of a tobacco that has weak natural flavor and that effort is overdone. So what to smoke if I would like to have a vision of the old Balkan Sobranie while I am puffing? I have settled on Balkan Sasieni, aged for as long as I can stand it and touched up with some McClelland Yenije Highlander. The Sasieni has been good when aged 3-4 years. Or straight Sam Gawith's Squadron Leader as an exemplary Balkan for my taste buds. I have some Bill Bailey's Balkan around which I smoke here and there and have smoked McClelland Syrian Full Balkan without regret. Synjeco's Sodalit from Schurch Tobaccos was recommended somewhere in a Sobranie discussion so I had some sent from Switzerland. It is an interesting old tobacco with a generous nicotine jolt, but does not remind me of Sobranie at all. The Balkans that are heavy in latakia and weak in orientals soon have me smoking English mixtures e.g. Penzance, Margate and Solani White as a better choice. I still wistfully get the Sobranie urge which will never again be properly satisfied, I guess 🙂 I am smoking more and more Virginias these days on a regular basis, as they had been readily available but now even they are getting hard to locate.