Mac Baren Navy Flake

A very smokable burly and cavendish flake. Mildly sweet, cool burning (its best quality in fact) but not very distinctive. I prefer several other Macbaren's to this. My Mixture and Roll Cake and Norwood and even Symphony....i think all have a bit more to recommend them. If you like mild burly with some casing. This is a very popular and much praised flake. I honestly don't quite understand the love this tobacco seems to get. If smoked in a very large bowl...a group 6 or above...the casing with start to coat your tongue. It smells great though....room note is terrific. But its hardly serious stuff IMHO> Still...its a very solid choice as an all day smoke for its class....I guess..

One of the right blends for the first experiences with the Virginias and with the flake cut (easy to pack, easy to smoke). There's a flavour added but it's very good for the first smokes in the morning. 3,0/5 in my personal rating system.

A typical Mac Baren offering, treated with a dose of maple sugar which isn't my favorite treatment. I don't find this overly flavored, but wish I could taste the rum a bit more. It lights and smokes easily out of my tin with no drying time. Burley forward blend here which helps with the cool smooth burn. Being a virginia lover this is lacking in the flavor department for me. I like a nice sweetness which this one doesn't impart. Light in nicotine as well, and I do like a bit in my tobacco. Good for a beginner flake smoker to practice but not for me.

I just tried a tin of this. I'm not thrilled, I must admit. It's all right, and I didn't find that it burnt hot, as some others have complained, though it does burn rather quickly for a flake; but I thought it a bit ordinary and lacking interest and "body." As is so often true, the experience of smoking it doesn't live up to the delicious tin note. Not objectionable, by any means, but ... meh. If you want a tasty cased flake, Erinmore Flake or Peterson's University Flake are much better - more substantial - than this, for more or less the same price. Anything called Navy Flake should have more hair on its chest than this; ought to be the kind of stuff Popeye would smoke.

It's well presented, though, and it doesn't need drying or airing: you can smoke it straight out of that handy little tin (though I see that this has not been everyone's experience). Somewhat recommended, I suppose; but not a tobacco I would queue in the rain for. I'll probably smoke it again when the mood takes me, but normally I like something with a bit more character to it. I'd give it two and a half stars if that were possible.

Update 28 April 2018: I see that the handy little tin has been discontinued, at least in the UK. This is a great pity, I think. There has not been any corresponding reduction in price.

High quality tobacco without a doubt but I don't get much from this mixture. A very slight dry grass & oat like sweetness comes forth on charring light and the honey overtones are noticeable in the aroma. I would never guess that this had any Rum topping whatsoever, obviously MacBaren applied it very lightly. If you are an aggressive puffer, this flake has the potential to fry your tongue. It stays lit pretty well and the smoke has a fairly weighty body to it, but as the bowl progresses it lacks complexity and any favorable flavors fade into an ashy high quality cigarette type taste. A decent enough take on the Navy Flake, but to my taste, nowhere near the best.

This is OK. It's quite a sweet flake, a bit MacB-bitey (ie it has the same sharp edges as Plumcake, Navy, Va No.1), quite one dimensional after a while, but not a bad straight Va (with added sweetness). Nicely presented, handly little tin and not expensive.

Of all the tobaccos in the MacBaren line I have tried, this is the best. It has a very high-quality appearance and presentation. It has the classic Danish aroma and taste which many other Danish tobaccos have, but it is a bit more gutsy due to it's flake format. It's easy to pack, just fold a flake and loosely stuff it in the bowl. The flavor is very nice with the cavendish, Va, and burley seamlessly blended together. It is pretty mono-dimensional, so if you like a dynamic blend, you wouldn't like this, but for idle puffing, it is very satisfying. There are 2 negatives, however, which make this only an occasional smoke for me. First, it can bite at times, though not as much as the other MacBaren products I have tried. Second, while it smells nice while burning, it leaves an after-smoking aroma of a stale ashtray which lingers in the room for an astonishingly long time.

Well, this was a decent smoke, although the tin note promised more than it delivered. It had a surprising amount of spiciness but had a pretty good, sweet taste to it. Good room note.

Edit 7/27/2012: Downgrading my first score by one star. I can't seem to really get into this guy. I really want to. It really smells great in the tin but it tastes so bland and at its best it's an OK smoke. I guess it's just not for me.

As others have remarked, the presentation of the tobacco is wonderful with the foil liner and neatly stacked flakes. The tin smell is one of hay. The room note is okay - you won't get thrown out of the house but you won't get any favorable comments either. It burns a bit hot but it won't bite unless smoked too aggressively. The problem is a lack of flavor. I do like the blend but it is frustrating because it is a bit too bland.