D & R Tobacco Ramback Balkan

(2.64)
An exquisite combination of premium Balkan Oriental and Balkan Virginia sun-cured tobaccos, exceptional Yenice (Yenidje) and Basma tobaccos, and the finest Virginia flue-cured tobaccos. A smooth tasting pipe blend with a flavorful and characteristic Oriental finish. Enjoy a perfect balance of exotic and familiar smoking sensations. Exceptional Quality, Out of the Ordinary Tobaccos.

Details

Brand D & R Tobacco
Series Ramback
Blended By Mark Ryan
Manufactured By Daughters & Ryan
Blend Type Oriental
Contents Oriental/Turkish, Virginia
Flavoring
Cut Ribbon
Packaging 40 grams tin, 3.5 ounce tub, 16 ounce bag
Country United States
Production No longer in production

Profile

Strength
Mild
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Extremely Mild -> Overwhelming
Flavoring
None Detected
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
None Detected -> Extra Strong
Room Note
Pleasant
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Unnoticeable -> Overwhelming
Taste
Mild
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Extremely Mild (Flat) -> Overwhelming

Average Rating

2.64 / 4
4

4

3

3

Reviews

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Displaying 1 - 10 of 14 Reviews
Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Aug 11, 2015 Very Mild None Detected Mild to Medium Pleasant
After my initial disappointment with Ramback Regular being unable to stay lit no matter how dry I got it, I decided to give D&R another chance. Got this blend in a 2oz bulk sampler bag from Pipes and Cigars. First thing I noticed was it was bone dry. I put a water pillow in the bag with it so that it will rehydrate the blend to a proper humidity. I loaded this into a paper pipe (lol) straight up, mixed with no other blends. The Oriental Virginia's are the most upfront in both the bag smell as well as the initial taste of the blend. They are bright and lemony but not strong at all. There are a wonderful amalgam of flavors when retrohaling / exhaling from the nose. The lemony brightness fades to the background but is still apparent and the exotic spice flavors of all the different Orientals come into play. I can for certain pick out both Izmir and Basma varieties of leaf as well as the Balkan region Virginia. The smoke that it produces gives almost no lung hit should you wish to inhale, it is the lightest of the light. The room note is very pleasant to my nose. It is a very nice and mellow smell with an exotic spice that even my anti tobacco friends say is pleasant and noticeably different. Overall I enjoy Ramback Balkan immensely but it needs to be blended with something stronger for maximum smoking enjoyment.
Pipe Used: Vera Cruz Elegante Paper Pipe
PurchasedFrom: Pipes&Cigars
Age When Smoked: 25
10 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jul 27, 2017 Mild None Detected Mild Pleasant to Tolerable
This Oriental dominated blend includes sun cured Balkan Oriental and Balkan Virginia, along with yenidje, basma and flue cured Virginias. The various Orientals provide a lot of earth and wood, vegetation, some sour floralness, herbal dryness, a light buttery sweetness, and a pinch of salt, spice and mustiness. I also observe a slight “unflavored soda”note from the yenidje. The tart and tangy citrusy, grassy, bready, floral, sugary, slightly acidic, flue cured Virginias are mostly present to add some smoothness to the experience as they aren’t very noticeable in any other capacity besides being in the background. The strength, taste and nicotine levels are mild. No chance of bite or harshness. As with most D&R products, the tobacco is dry, so it burns a little quickly, though cool and clean. Has a very consistent flavor from start to finish with a pleasant, light after taste, though it does suffer from lack of depth. The room note is a tad stronger. Leaves almost no dampness in the bowl, and requires few relights. An all day smoke that would make a decent mixer.

-JimInks
9 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Mar 29, 2015 Very Mild Extremely Mild Mild Tolerable
4th and final gifted sample of about an ounce. Light brown in color and I suppose I'd call it a ribbon cut but with all the stems and weird shaped chunks in there, it was hard to tell. I'd call it a cut so ugly, it makes C&D look good. Came dry as a bone, but no problem there! Nice, rich oriental bag aroma.

Musky incense flavor that was very light but very noticeable. I did not catch any actual Virginia sweetness or tang in the flavor - this seemed all oriental to me. That was not an issue except this showed me that an all-oriental blend is not really my thing. The flavor was wispy and nicotine addicts should definitely look elsewhere. It struck me as a condimental blend being asked to do too much on its own. No complexity whatsoever. I did some small experiments with blending but didn't have enough of this on hand to really do much. But this strikes me as something I might like to play with further - just wish it didn't have all those stems and odd chunks. Worth a shot to get a good feel for what orientals taste like and what they bring to a blend.
7 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Mar 24, 2015 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild to Medium Pleasant to Tolerable
I never knew that tobacco could get this dry. This is just downright funky. Tastes pretty good though. Some really nice Oriental flavors with a bit of sweetness. Not much else. This may have been a solid 3 star blend at one time, but not in the condition it's in. Maybe that's why it's offered to us dirt cheap.

Mild to medium in body and flavor. Burns cooler than I would have thought.
Pipe Used: MM Country Gentleman, MM Mark Twain
PurchasedFrom: pipesandcigars.com
Age When Smoked: fresh??? bulk
7 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Oct 02, 2014 Extremely Mild None Detected Mild to Medium Very Pleasant
Oriental tobaccos are a weird breed of blends. Usually they are introduced into a blend to add complexity and balance out various blend components. Ramback Balkan is a blend where almost the entire blend is orientals from the Balkan region.

I highly recommend this blend for 3 reasons:

1. If you are learning about how various oriental tobaccos taste, this blend is fantastic. All the orientals are present and discernible, so the Yenice, Basma, and Balkan Virginias are great.

2. The flavor is very light, in fact so light you might miss it. You need a pipe designated to orientals. Spend some time with this blend. Particularly notice how the flavor and the smell interact beautifully. The "room note" is bright and citrusy, almost crispy with a note of damp woods. The flavor changes as you smoke it but it's complex flavor is best described as what the woods smell like early in the morning, in the fall, after a light dew or rain.

3. Because this blend comes more dry than most tobaccos, I've found that if you moisten it before smoking it you will enjoy the extra moisture. I've actually discovered that the extra moisture brings out more of the flavor and leaves behind less of the bite.

If you can still find this I tobacco, please buy some and try it out!
Pipe Used: Sasieni Mayfair Bulldog
PurchasedFrom: Indian River Tobacco Traders
Age When Smoked: 32
6 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Sep 19, 2020 Mild to Medium None Detected Mild to Medium Tolerable
D & R Tobacco - Ramback Balkan.

LOL, I find the same old issue I do with many/most blends from D & R; it burns hot and fast! But I concur with my pal Gentleman Zombie, the taste isn't too bad.

Back to the start: a slightly coarse ribbon, light and medium brown, BONE DRY. Even beforehand this gave me the inclination of a poor smoke, mechanically.

Without giving a huge list of descriptions I'll start by saying this is an Oriental-forward blend. Sour, sharp, and a touch herbaceous. The Virginias are riding shotgun. They offer a subtle backing, but I can't identify much of the archetypal grass, hay, etc. So, the flavour's quite nice, but the heat, speed and bite reduce this to, IMO, an abysmal smoke.

Nicotine: maybe medium. Room-note: not good.

Ramback Balkan? As you may extrapolate, I'm not a fan. One star:

Not recommended.
Pipe Used: Ismail Baglan meerschaum
PurchasedFrom: Smokingpipes.com
Age When Smoked: New
5 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Mar 06, 2016 Medium Mild Medium Pleasant
I bought a few bags for the cellar. I mix this with some "Old Dark Fired" and other tobaccos to get tastes from yesterday. '70s. Good memories.
Pipe Used: Savinelli "Punto Oro" -Stanwell bulldog
PurchasedFrom: Pipes & Cigars
Age When Smoked: About two years.
4 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Mar 16, 2015 Mild None Detected Mild Pleasant to Tolerable
What can I say? I wanted to like this tobacco blend. Wanted it to show case the orientals but alas, it fails on all levels. I cannot recommend it. It should be marketed as an oriental not a Balkan, although there is no law that states a Balkan must have lat. I think lat. would help this one here but it is not in this blend. So for what it is worth. As an oriental it also falls well short. I can pick out the Basam and Samsun? I did not find the Yenidge in it at all. I also doubt that unless one had experience with these varieties that they could be found. If one were looking for a showcase blend I would point you to McClelland's orientals. Nothing here is worth returning for a second sample. One review below noted that it would be a good RYO, and I would agree with that but I have not traveled that road in more than 2 decades now and have no desire to return to it.
Age When Smoked: 2 months
4 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jun 20, 2014 Mild None Detected Mild Pleasant
Hmmm... a synonym for pipe is “tube”. Tubes made of thin paper could be considered pipes, I suppose. OK then, this is pipe tobacco, likely to be sold near bags of other pipe tobacco, on racks above boxes of empty paper pipes. That style of pipe frequently is scented with menthol and is intended for one use only. As long as they are referred to as pipes when filled with pipe tobacco such as this, with special pipe filling machines, the foaming-mouth regulations and taxes for c****ettes don't apply, at least until politicians get fed up with this silly name game and do away with exemptions intended (fairly or unfairly) for bowl pipe tobacco once and for all. Then it's cellar time.

Yes, Ramback is a roll your own (actually stuff your own if a pipe filling machine is used) product. In all fairness, D&R refers to it as “dual purpose” tobacco, and I believe they are being honest in doing so. One can and should try this in a pipe.

Appearance: as far as I can tell, the only readily discernible difference between this and conventional bowl tobacco is the cut. It is wider and shorter than shag, what some call bugler cut, likely named after another dual purpose tobacco of considerable history. In the standard cello rack-hung bag, it is bunny soft, moderately moist (potting soil), raisin scented (no, not bunny raisins) and fun to bury your fingers in. It is an unremarkable mix of light to medium browns. Many people believe Balkan tobacco should contain latakia (I'll refer the gentle reader to other sources for that tempest-in-a-bowl), but there is none in this mixture. Some think turkish tobacco smells, well, farm-like. This doesn't. It smells like products sold in paper pipes that shall not be named. I like it.

Taste: my first impression was paper pipes. Specifically Ramses brand, possibly Camel. Once 25% in, it becomes more briar pipe-like. Unfortunately, it tends to be monochromatic and never quite achieves notability. There is little to no sweetness, nor any ashy taste. I had hoped for fragrant, cedary, aromatic notes, but the few that are there don't provide what I sought. I am a fan of McClelland Blending Oriental, q.v., but this isn't it. If you're looking for a cheap version of what most of us call a balkan blend, this isn't it either. At mid-bowl to the bottom, it is at its (limited) best, and most enjoyed inhaled through the nose when it leaves the mouth. Room note is at its best at this point. I mention this because this blend seems unique in that room note improves as the bowl progresses.

Pros: it remains mild and bite free. Unlike many finely cut tobaccos, it is forgiving of loading density and does not burn hot. I've smoked it in large and tiny bowls with similar results. There are no humectants, no flavorings, just simple tobacco taste. It is economical in 14 oz. bags.

Cons: too simple. Many would consider its low nicotine a con.

For a RYO bulk, it's probably far better than most, though admittedly, I've not tried many others. It deserves to be called a dual purpose product. I recommend this as a blender. I like it mixed with Mac Baren Virginia No. 1 and with Skandanavik Regular.

Update: I'm adding a star. This improves in a deep bowl and is becoming my go to summer smoke. Really nice mild blend.
Pipe Used: clay, small and large bowl briar, cob
PurchasedFrom: Pipes & Cigars
Age When Smoked: fresh
4 people found this review helpful.
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Reviewed By Date Rating Strength Flavoring Taste Room Note
Jan 05, 2020 Mild None Detected Medium Pleasant
My favourite base component for blending. Ramback Balkan is a pure, unadulterated blend of high quality tobaccos and also a truly gorgeous MYO tobacco that in my opinion is probably the best in the world, if not at least the best oriental blend in a tube by a country mile. It also works brilliantly as a blending component for pipes. Smooth, very light on the throat but rich in flavour. Woody, earthy, rooty, creamy, a touch of sweetness and citrus and just a faint peppery tingle. The sun-grown Balkan Virginia and Yenidje really add a lot to this blend compared with other orientals.

The only trouble is that the cutting of this fine ribbon is a complete mess. They are saving money, given the expensive nature of these high quality tobaccos, but it's still a real shame. It is mostly a fine ribbon but is absolutely full of huge sticks, clumps, uncut large chunks of leaves and a lot of the stuff that's even cut properly is still folded up and condensed making little hard lumps and twigs that need to be very carefully unfurled into individual strands. This is less of an issue in the pipe, but for tubes it's a nightmare. It truly shows just how much I adore this tobacco that I put myself through hours of preparing a tub of this for blending and tubing. They quite clearly do not unfurl and de-stem all the leaves for this blend prior to cutting and mixing. Honestly, I would volunteer to do that job myself if it meant getting a proper cut of Ramback Balkan with no stems in it. I mean, honestly, stick an extra dollar on the price if necessary, I'd gladly pay a little extra for a proper cut. An ever so slightly finer cut on this as well would really enhance the richness of flavour and not in any way detract from the pipe experience.

I blend this for tubes with a little Ramback Turkish and Penhooker. Adding a little extra Yenidje and some Katerini (from the Blender's Bench range - now unfortunately discontinued) has made for the finest cigarettes I think I'll ever be able to make.
Pipe Used: Peterson Ashford and also tubes
PurchasedFrom: Daughters & Ryan
3 people found this review helpful.
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