Mac Baren Navy Flake

WOW!!!! This blend completely made me change my perception of burley blends. Although I wasn't overly impressed with Barbary Coast and the drug store varieties are sad to say the least, I buckled under pressure from the fellows at the pipe shop and here I am. Burley is great! After two back to back tins this blend has entered a permanent spot on my top five list of Tobaccos that I cannot do without. This tobacco has the best casing I've tried so far; a honey taste that tastes as real as can be. It doesn't interrupt the tobacco taste at all. This tobacco spurred me to buy some other burley blends just to see if perhaps this one wasn't a fluke. So far I have tried Peterson's University flake, Burley London Blend, and pennington gap, and although they have indeed been fine tobaccos, this one is still the cream of the crop. This is the perfect choice in the Oklahoma summertime and if I was stuck on an island with high temperatures, this may very well be the tobacco I would pick for companionship. This tobacco comes out of the tin at a perfect humidity, and gave me absolutely no bite. I hate to be cliche, but it really is better in a corn cob. Go get some and be prepared for pipe nirvana!!!!! (P.S.- My wife loves the room note!!!)

Never having tried a flake cut tobacco before, I started with this one. Trying different methods of loading the pipe from rubbing to different consistencies to just stuffing it into the pipe whole, I have found the one that works best for me is to simply roll up the flake, bend it in half, and push it into the bowl and pack it lightly. This seems to work well in the pipe I have been smoking it in, a no-name meerschaum-lined bent briar. Flake may be a little confusing at first to those accustomed to loose-leaf tobaccos.

This tobacco definitely smells very nice upon opening the tin. It has a honey-like note to it and somewhat reminds me of the smell of the plug chewing tobaccos I tried years ago. The taste of the tobacco is definitely on the sweeter side. However, it does have a bit of a bite to it at first that slowly subsides over the first few minutes of being smoked. Be careful, though - it very easily leads to burning your tongue if you're not very careful.

It isn't really a bad tobacco, and the packaging allows one to carry a good supply without taking up much space, but it isn't really my favorite. I smoke this when I want something a little sweeter but still has an actual tobacco taste to it.

Update: After trying several other tinned tobaccos, I feel I need to move this down my list. I'm finding I'm liking it less now, and I still can't get over the tongue burn from it (when straight VA tobacco doesn't even do this to me). There's just something about it that I'm finding that I don't particularly like in the taste as well... it may be whatever flavoring that is used.

First review folks so I will keep it simple. This blend is very nice and mellow.I am still developing my palate to pick the flavors of various blends,so I will not attempt to try and explain to you folks what is going on here. That being said,this is my first smoke of any type of Navy blend and is really,really good but again I have nothing to compare it to,so there you have it I may just stick with this as my only Navy simply because I don't know any better.If it's not broke don't try and fix it so to speak. Update 08/19/20 I keep trying this blend in one pipe after another and it just keeps getting better every time a must to try.!!

MacBaren Navy Flake looks perfect in the tin, with those nice wide slices, just perfect for a KKKK sized bowl. That’s kind of where my happiness ends with this tobacco, Navy Flake has no discernible Rum flavor as one might expect from a ‘Navy’ flake, though it does kind of taste like everything but rum. There is a nice grassy Virginia flavor, some Burley toast flavor, a little floral, a little fruit and I got a lot bored. This isn’t so much flavorless, as not flavorful enough in any one direction, I cannot say it’s a poor tobacco, it’s like a generic version of a Navy style flake, the flavor is there, it’s just so toned down and subdued as to be completely forgettable. Try Samuel Gawith’s Navy Flake instead.

Nice is the word for it.

When I packed it, I didn't know it had added flavoring. Only when I looked at the description, I discovered that – and that tells a lot about the tobacco. Usually, added flavor is masking the natural flavor of tobacco, which I particularly like. It always feels to me like adding syrup to wine, because you do not like the taste of it. This is not the case with this tobacco.

In this tobacco, the flavoring simply compliments the tobacco; not masking it, not trying to make the smoker think they're in a vanilla company. Simply adding some flavors that work in the background, unnoticeable.

Burley is the dominant flavor here: grass, hay, a distant chocolate smell. But unlike a classic burley blend, this one won't kick, at all. It's also not a weak-tasting tobacco – it's balanced to perfection. I couldn't put my finger on what the added flavor was. Maybe some flowers, maybe a little mint, maybe some lemon. I was expecting a lot more rum from a navy flake, but I almost couldn’t feel it.

This is ones of the nicest tobaccos I've tried. It's not a hardcore one, not extremely interesting or complicated, but simply nice, well balanced, tasty tobacco. One need some clean old niceness once in a while.

A worthy classic.. whenever you don't know what to smoke: Navy Flake will do the trick! I have a few slices of this jarred in the car for when I'd forget to pack some backy when on tour. It matches any pipe and won't leave a ghost, worst case is it sweetens up your pipe a bit.

The smell from the tin is honey-sweet, citrusy with with gentle tobacc spice to it. Very mild somewhat rum-ish alcohol notes. Navy Flake's appearance is delightful. Golden with bright to dark brown colors dominate its appearance. Perfectly cut flake slices are stacked perfectly in the tin - classic Mac Baren Flake presenation, excellent and intriguing! Smokeable right away, but drying it a bit improves its tastes for me. Very flake-beginner friendly slices.

As soon as this flagship of Navy-Flake tradition is burning, or better sailing you get greeted by rich tobacco taste. Rich, nutty-molasses Burley with mild earthy tone to it. Paired with very lemony, citrusy and somewhat bready VAs. A decent toasted/fermented quality, which I guess is contributed by the Cavendish is ever present and very delightfully rounds the taste.

The "Rum" flavouring is rather unobtrusive and (to me) is only perceptible as a citrus-sour, spicy-sharp aroma. Not too boozy, rather smooth and mild. Good amount of honey-ish sweetness make this an easy, no-frills, but solid as rock All-Day smoke for any situation.

A blend I always keep some ounzes of at hand.

MacB's NF is one the most reviewed blends on TR with over 200 reviews, scores average 3.0, quite reasonable, yet with a roughly equal number of 2.0's and 4.0's evident, so there is evidently a fairly balanced difference of opinion.

Almost everyone comments favorably on the quality of the press and slides which must be seen to be appreciated. Likewise, most reviewers find that NF packs and burns very nicely with what seems to be the standard folding technique (once or twice lengthwise, then once or twice against the grain, roll it a bit, stuff loosely - to allow for expansion - then a bit of a top tamp and have at it). Most like the way it holds a light and burns rather slowly. All seem to agree that this is most assuredly a light, slow sipper (the steady burn helps with this).

All of these positives may account ffor Navy Flake's good 3.0 average review, but now to the con's. Navy Flakes are supposed be topped or lightly cased with rum. Although TR states the blend contains "Alcohol / Liquor, Cinnamon, Honey, Other / Misc, Rum", there just isn't much real rum apparent. Instead, most agree the leading impression is honey with any alcohols/rum not really noted. Strike one.

Although NF is said to be burley forward, with Virginia and what may be a bit of Virginia Cavendish, and despite those who praise its burley, what really seems to happen is that the combination cancels it out. Yes, there are some nice rich and toasty burley moments (particularly on relights) but it quickly retreats back into the blend. The Virginia makes its presence known primarily insofar as sipping technique which must be s-l-o-w, small and paced.

This is a bowl you want to draw out as long as you can. If you do, the alleged MacBaren burn is minimal; if you don't have a glass of coconut milk handy.

As for me when I first experimented with MacB's Navy Flake, it was a disaster tongue and palate-wise. I hadn't yet learned how to sloooow down and sip, a talent da'rum highly recommends. Later on and having learned to slow down, I simply loved this flake but again - this was in comparison to some very aromatic vanilla based cavendish - compared to these the NF featured what seemed to be rich tobaccos.

And again with more experience, that again has changed. I've personally come to appreciate well balanced blends that find what for me is my personal "sweet spot". Balanced enough that no single component dominates, but with enough differentiation that each component can be richly distinguishable. This is where NF now fails again for me.

It's not bad but the components - overlaid with the aforesaid honey - come together so completely that the components cancel one another out. Thus MacBaren's Navy Flake has returned to the level of a pleasant but not especially remarkable blend, not to mention the replacement of Navy rum with honey.

Such is life... add 1/2 point for a 2.5 or a tad more.

Let's get one thing straight here... This is a fantastic tobacco. Upon opening the tin, One can immediately smell honey, then virginia, then burley... The flakes are thin and perfect to be folded (thrice), put in a pipe and smoked. This baccy smokes like a charm... slooooooow, coooooool, steadyyyy... The taste is very nutty, with hints of dried fruits, and an ever so slight alcoholic taste. This will be in my rotation. Absolutely recommended.

I'll join the chorus of those who find this a reliable, enjoyable smoke. It's not especially complicated, it's far from rare, and it's a long way from expensive. But there's really nothing exactly like it either. I've been smoking this pleasant, Burley-based tobacco for several years off and on, but in the last couple, it's become a go-to blend in the heat of summer. And there's a lot of that where I live.

Like all MacBaren flakes, this is beautifully presented — thin(ish) medium brown flakes with fairly low moisture content. Despite the MacBaren website's lessons on folding and stuffing flakes, I usually prefer to rub this out. I know that many seem to have problems with bite from this flake and I suppose I did in the past, too. But I now reserve the entire MacBaren line for filtered pipes, where they really seem to shine. I'd rather not deny myself access to this fine smoke because of bite issues, considering how easy it is to kick those issues to the curb.

Sipped slowly, Navy Flake yields some delightful flavors. Depending on the day and the pipe, I might find a little rum essence, a touch of chocolate, black tea with honey, autumn leaves. Whatever the flavor profile, it's always pleasant. Nicotine sits somewhere between light and medium, which is probably another reason I tend to smoke this most often on hot days.

I doubt Navy Flake will ever sit at the center of my pipe smoking bench, but it's nice to have it flitting about the edges ready to be called in while the stars are all being treated for hyperthermia.