Mac Baren Cherry Ambrosia

Mac Baren - Cherry Ambrosia.

The market seems saturated with cherry aromatics, so I can't say this one filled me with fervor! The blend itself has a great aroma, fairly potent but not entirely "honest"; to me it seems a little reminiscent of candy floss/cotton candy but that isn't necessarily a bad point! The first plus is for the moisture: a great amount where it is ready to go from the opening.

Lighting this one is an exorbitantly easy task: catching ignition with a very short run with the flame. Once lit I can ascertain an opinion of the blend in question. Again, as I found the aroma, it has a certain candy floss attribution to it, not a malevolent quality just a touch disparaging after a while. To be fair, the tobacco flavours are present but the topping is that "full on" it masks them a little. Sadly (for me) this one bites quite autocratically, so I have to be gentle with my sips. For me, this instantly conjures up the image of being at the fairground eating candy floss/ cotton candy!

Nicotine: mild to medium. Room-note: pleasant.

This one, I find to be very quirky, but I really couldn't smoke it regularly as after a while the quirkiness becomes too incongruous!

Two stars.

I kinda knew that this would most probably be a cherry aromatic when I picked this up, despite the name ("Red Ambrosia") not being allowed to explicitly mention cherry anymore.

Unfortunately, this is clearly one of the weaker MacBaren aromatics. There doesn't seem to be much wrong with the underlying tobacco mixture which is mostly dark browns from the burley sprinkled with light orient and black cavendish and overall produces a full tasty smoke (albeit with some tongue bite) but the cherry casing is vile, not a smooth background effect as I'd like it to be but more like... Perfumed. It's disappointing even in the company of other cherry aromatics, and I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy this mixture more without any casing at all.

Most probably not going to buy again. Not offensive enough to not make the 2-star, but only just. If I want something like this, I'll probably go for Borkum Riff Ruby.

I have taken a hiatus from buying tobacco (needing to cut down), but I do have a few tins in the cellar I have yet to smoke and review; this was one of those.

The initial tin opening bombards you with a powerful sour cherry funk which dissipates after a few weeks, but never completely goes away. It is a break from the typical sugar bomb or medical smelling Cherry aromatics, but isn't an inviting fruit dish. The cut has nice chunky bits and light moisture (no syrupy topping), taking that extra light to fire up, but the ember roils nicely from there.

Nothing is harsh, and nothing is very exciting in the taste department, it either needs something sweeter or pulled back since the Virginia isn't shining through. Thankfully it doesn't have a chemical aftertaste - it's just boring.

It is hard to argue with the tin value, other than buying bulk, getting 3.5oz for almost the same cost as tins half the size feels good, but isn't life too short to be dicking around with an inferior smoke?

Better than Middletons Cherry Blend or Borkum Riff Cherry Cavendish, but that isn't saying much. Smelled good in the tin but tasted cooked and pale. Not as bad as others have mentioned but definitely not worth the high price. If you want a really good cherry aromatic try Anniversary from Tinder Box.

Disappointed

I guess I had great expectations. As a fan of Mac Baren aromatics, I just couldn't wait to get a bowl of this blend into a briar. INSTANT BITE! However, I am stubborn and like to fiddle with a blend to figure out how to smoke it. Bite, bite and more bite. This blend was single-handedly ruining my pipe smoking experience.

Naturally, I jarred it and put it away for a couple of months and started reading up on it. Low and behold, I wasn't alone in my suffering. Just look at the poor ratings on this stuff.

However, I stumbled upon a recommendation that this blend must be smoked bone dry, packed ever so delicately, and sipped ever so slowly. BINGO! I got it. No, I will never buy this blend again, but I will smoke through the tin until it's gone.

It is not as bad as its reputation, but in my opinion Mac Baren offers much more forgiving aromatics and I simply don't have the patience to fiddle with this blend just to get a so-so taste.

The initial lighting was pleasant with subtle cherry flavor and no big burley blast. I was kind of expecting a burley dominance but this blend is very balanced with the Virginia, Cavendish, and Burley. Balanced but light, very little power or intensity, but that is what it is supposed to be - "A Light Aromatic Pipe Tobacco". It is a pleasant tobacco if you like light aromatic tobaccos; the cherry flavoring does not come off as too brash or medicinal, just mildly sweet and fruity. The Virginia and Cavendish add a touch of complexity to the mix. This tobacco is not what I would call a ribbon cut, but more of a mixed cut: some short ribbon sections but mostly irregular small pieces. It packed easily in a small-medium BBB Sovereign Dublin and smoked a little wet, although not a goopy tobacco. In the first third of the bowl I was tasting the Virginia more but now into the second third of the bowl I am tasting Cavendish more and the Virginia less. In the last third of the bowl, the Burley is making its presence known. This is a good tobacco, but too light for my tastes. To get the body and flavor of smoke that I want, I would have to puff so much as to burn my tongue.

It's been awhile since I've tried this, but I want to clean it from my to-do slate. It's a decent cherry, smells nice and looks like some good tobacco. The cherry isn't overpowering. I've tried two cherry type tobaccos. This one of MacBaren's and another bulk version. The bulk version gummed up a pipe with horrible ghosting I had to get rid of it. The MacBaren cherry didn't tend to do it, but maybe for 2 bowls later. It won't be in my rotation, it's decent, but I'm not a cherry flavored piper and haven't had it for a year or so now. I remember it not biting, smoking smoothly, but just not for me.

First off, I'm not the biggest fan of fruit flavoured tobaccos. This tobacco was just Meh. Not great, not bad. It's actually been a while since I've smoked this, so maybe I will give it a whirl again, but there's really nothing that's drawing me back other than curiosity to see if my tastes have changed.

The tin note I get from this is very nice. You can smell the cherry straight away mixing in nicely with the different tobaccos. Upon lighting, there was a little flavour of cherry but this didn't carry through to the smoke very well in my opinion. I could taste some notes from the burley and virginia but nothing to pronounced. I don't think burley was a good choice to add to this blend as it over-powered some of the more subtle flavours. There was a point about a quarter of a way down the bowl where I really did enjoy it, but about half way down the bowl the dreaded mac bite started to kick in, after that I slowley lost interest. All in all, I think I can see why some avid aromatic smokers would like this, but it left me feeling somewhat indifferent.