Mac Baren Golden Blend

I'm a smoker now since 3 months. I started, as usual for beginners, with several aromatics, but I soon found out, that I get only a chemical taste of what they promise. Trying pure tobaccos with several Virginias, also Blends with Lakatia, I was not so happy. I was close before to stop smoking. Then I found Mac Barens - Golden Blend. Giving the first time fire to the tobacco, I knew at once, thats my new favourite. The mouth was full of smooth and well tasty smoke. Nothing was biting with the first heat. The taste was like toasted walnuts. This natural taste was kept upto the end, because it was really natural. The room note contains also this walnut taste and is very pleasant. The tobacco was easy to smoke upto the bottom without additional firing and does not punish you for a hot pipe (as a beginner does sometimes). This is a great tobacco and I can only recommend to try it. I will have a look to other blends and want also mix up pure tobaccos by my own (such pure tobaccos are offered by e.g. Dan Pipe). But I'm not sure, if another one can win this competiton.

This is another hide and seek blend for me.

A hide and seek blend is a tobacco that every once in a while presents these fantastic flavors, that are really enjoyable, but it seems to come and go. Then I have to spend time slowing down and focusing to find it again. If that great, full round sweetened burley taste was consistent the whole time? This would be a four star tobacco for me.

I have a love hate relationship with burley. For me, burley is all or nothing. I am mostly a Vaper lover, and about 90% of the time, I know if I will like a Virginia blend, just from reading the tin. This is not the case for me when it comes to burley blends. Sometimes I love em, sometimes they are pretty flat for me. This makes trying burley blends exciting, but sometimes leading to disappointment.

This is a nice blend. It is like the gentrified version of Carter Hall (which is a favorite of mine). The taste characteristics between this blend and Carter Hall, are slightly similar. This tobacco is slightly fuller and richer than than CH, but it is also a bit more temperamental. Smoke it slowly and with concentration, and it produces great flavors. Take your eye of the ball however, and it can be a little harsh and lose its pizzazz. Carter Hall requires less supervision.

This comes in a broken flake. The tin note is fantastic. Sweet and Bready. It rubs out easily and behaves well in the pipe. It is good stuff. The topping is a background compliment, not a in your face flavor.

Mac Baren Golden Blend/Extra Review

I was born thirty years after the release of Golden Blend (Extra here in the states). Being a pipe smoker for only just shy of three years I have been fortunate enough to have collected over three hundred different prepared tobaccos. If I was forced to guess in my short time being a pipe smoking, I have been able to try around five hundred different blends. Due to such variety I have never set myself in a specific rotation. I found it unnecessary and a bit silly. I would simply choose what I wanted at that that particular point and time or something I haven’t smoked in a while if I was feeling a bit indecisive. I never understood the reasoning behind smoking the same old stuff when you can always mix things up.

Starting out I was an English smoker. I know most people start as aromatic smokers. I personally never had a taste for them, although I can admit they are nice every now and then to break up the monotony of Latakia forward blends. After trying my hand at blending, disaster struck. I burnt out my palate. I simply couldn’t enjoy Latakia as much as I used to. I am thankful for this partly because I was able create something that I can be proud of. An English blend that I named 2B. But I am really thankful because it forced me into the realm of Virginias . . . and eventually to Burleys.

Fast forward a year or so and my Tobacco Acquisition Disorder caused me to randomly order a tin of Mac Baren’s Golden Extra. The very first time I opened the tin I smelled a bit of vinegar, bread, and a very mild sweetness. My first smoke of the tobacco was in my favorite Kirsten. A first-generation M with a modified valve to accept o-rings, a slightly bent stem with a broken ramrod from a second-generation C, a “Get Bent” adapter made by Doug Bisbee, as well as a Briar bowl made by Mike Brissett. I will never forget that day. It was the day that I genuinely fell in love with a tobacco.

When you smoke Golden Extra you are greeted with that almost herbal note (for lack of a better way to describe it) of the Burley tobaccos. The Virginias are always in the back seat throwing a little sugar on top of the Burley as well as adding some hay and citrus. Every now and then you will get a touch of chocolate from the Burley and/or possible toppings. It is a very straightforward blend unless you have mastered your smoking cadence. If so, then she opens up like a willing virgin on Prom night and will give you the most sublime of smoking pleasures. The Burleys will then offer a bit of nuttiness, earth, and a touch of wood. The Virginias will give a bit bread and grass and possibly even some honey. When you taste those notes from this blend . . . you know you have reached smoking bliss.

As I have previously mentioned, I never once understood the reasoning behind a blend rotation. But I would absolutely scoff at those old men that would come in to my local tobacconist and buy a pound of 1Q, BCA, or Vanilla Custard. I would watch them and wonder what type of simple life they must live that they only smoke the same blend over and over and over again. I now understand that I was a fool and that their wisdom is in their simplicity. I have purchased a couple more tins and three pounds of bulk Golden Extra and told my local tobacconist to keep it stocked. For the past six months I have smoked Golden Extra every single day. I simply cannot stop myself.

Earlier I used an analogy of a virgin on prom night so I will continue that mildly sexist trend with comparing tobaccos to women in general: Sure. It’s nice to get ahold of the most beautiful girl in your area and take her out every once in a while. But she is expensive and not readily available (like some of the blends that we all know and love). But there is that more modest girl around the corner that is always there for you and will never let you down. Rarely bites you and always comforts you when you need her. That girl for me is Golden Extra. And I think I am ready to settle down and enjoy the rest of my life with her.

Thank you Mac Baren for making this fine tobacco. It has not only brought me endless hours of comfort and enjoyment, but also taught me a life lesson or two along the way!

~ Barry

The composition is something like 20% Virginia and 80% Burley. The most intense aromatizant is cocoa, with a little of honey/sugar. It has two 'burning-phases': during the first one, the taste is sweet, with a strong predominant cocoa taste and honey notes; in the second one, it has more body and the taste turns to something nutty and less flavored. It's a good quality tobacco (it let your pipe quite sticky inside), but I like other types of Burley (surely, Rattray's Stirling Flake).

It's a sweet and nutty taste. The sweetness makes me suspect a mild topping but I can not say for certain. I can however certainly say that it burns really hot and wants to bite you. That's too bad since I enjoy the taste, but this sadly is not smokeable.

Golden Blend...one of the regulars.Mild easy to smoke Burley based:The taste is little bit nutty...sometimes you'll get the cocoa flavor too.Personally I get the taste of cocoa when I'm using old MM Diplomat(around 4 years old).Smoked in briars and meers too.The pouch version can be sometimes too dry so smoke the tin stuff if you had to possibility to choose.Perhaps if you're new smoker or aromatics are more your cup of tea the bite might come to visit...I never had a problem on that field.Nice all day tobacco with decent prize tag on it.

Smoked three years aged Golden Blend ana I must say it was marvelous. Stout burley taste had more chocolate taste and slight sweetness came more forward.A quality blend.

I give four stars if smoked in corncob pipe and three in briar pipe.

An oldtimes and simple Burley based tobacco and unusual to be a Mac Baren it is completely unflavoured

Same problem as faced on all Mac Barens for me. Intriguing aroma off the tin but very disappointing experience in the bowl.

Burns quite hot and bites quite a bit too.

For me smoking MBs has become just an exercise for temperature control and just not pleasant.

would not recommend it at all except that i can't give it 0 stars and i think the MB vanilla is even worst

I have now smoked several Mac Baren offerings and will not review them any further since they are extremely not to my liking. If interested in my thoughts about their line of tobaccos then just see my review on Burley London, it pretty much sums up this vapid weed give or take a slight aromatic difference (vanilla, cherry etc...).