Mac Baren Rum & Maple

I had smoked many a pouch this a few years ago when I was still learning how to smoke a pipe and formulating my preferences and I remember liking it but not being overly enthused secondary to it's "blandness" compared to some of the other tobaccos I was smoking then it sort of "dropped off the radar" and I wasn't able to find it in any of my local stores. I then moved onto other things and trod softly in the world of the virginias, made the leap to perique and fell in love with a black lady named Latakia...

However, I was browsing through a tobacconist a few towns over who had several packages on the shelf and I picked up two of them on a whim and tossed them onto the "drugstore pile" for later evaluation. My father happened to be over tonight and noticed one of the packages sitting in my tobacco nook and marvelled at it for a minute...turns out good old Blend #53 was his favorite pipeweed during WWII when he served as a merchant mariner in the pacific. He stopped smoking a pipe shortly after the war was over and re-started again in the late 70's at which time he moved on to "bigger and better" things. Of course, I broke it open, dad hauled out his big Grabow and we lit up.

To be candid, I took a two year long hiatus from pipesmoking from which I am emerging after a change in career/living arrangement etc. It's a wonderful experience to re-experience all of the tastes emerging from the tobaccos that I've had stashed away for all this time, but what is equally as interesting is that the break has enabled me to pinpoint more clearly my likes and dislikes in a way I wasn't able to when "in the jungle" of sampling and smoking many different types and styles of tobacco during a given week.

I've realized that I love the "American burley drugstore blends" even more than I thought I had before, and Rum and Maple turned out to be excellent on my second trip around. Only a slight hint of flavoring, mostly noticed as aroma when opening the pouch, the tobacco gravity filled the small Kaywoodie prince I had chosen (burleys smoke best out of a narrow bowl that is more tall than wide)and tamped with ease.The tobacco was at the perfect humidity and seemed to be mostly a cube type cut with a few stringy pieces thrown in, all golden brown to umber in color. Lighting was easy and positive, and the first couple of puffs contain a wonderfully light, "boozy" perfume that is more smelled than tasted. No hint of maple was apparent to me, but there is a discreet rummy note throughout which complements well the creamy nutty aroma of burley. From there, the tobacco burns well, and when smoked lightly gets neither wet, hot nor "bitey" though it does burn quicker than one might expect. As is characteristic with these types of tobacco, it got a bit "brash" towards the last 1/4 bowl at which point I usually do the dump. Burleys seem to be so low in natural sugar that they don't stove in the bottom of the bowl as do virginias and most of the casing dissipates during the preceeding 3/4 of the bowl making the ending harsh. At $2.50/pouch I feel that this is a worthwhile sacrifice.

I smoked two bowls of this tonight, and the now opened pouch will ride in my pocket tomorrow for further evaluation.If I like these two pouches as much as I did the smoke I had tonight I'll be purchasing a tin of this (also stocked by this same tobacconist) sometime soon. My father stated that after almost 60 years he really couldn't recall how similar it was to what he used to smoke back then (he's a confirmed McClelland man these days), but he liked it well enough and packed himself another big bowl "for the morning" before he left.

Could this be the proverbial "all day smoke"? Possibly, it's light, inexpensive and easy enough with a decent bit of nicotine, but I suspect that this will take a place in my "drugstore" rotation along with Middletons Cherry Blend, Revelation, Prince Albert, Hickory and Granger all of which I find myself leaning towards during this second incarnation as a pipesmoker.

Recommended, if you can find it...

UPDATE 1/15/09: Hickory is all but gone--a sad loss of a peculiarly american flavored burley. Now it's getting harder and harder for me to find this stuff and I fear that it's next on the list. I hadn't smoked it in probably a year so I opened a fresh pouch the other day and loaded a nice deep billiard and went for a drive. Still nice, still that whisping nuance of maple through most of the bowl. It's amazing how once you get onto a real burley kick that you start really noticing the delicacy of the flavors in these blends. Still reccommended.