Mac Baren Original Choice

Notes from first two tastings:

Nice packaging. Corrugated cardboard instead of the usual plastifoil. Practical and probably works as advertised, keeping your blend from getting too rubbed out. Like the idea.

Nose aroma: Fruity, sugary, and raisiny. Rumcake-like. Like something baked for Xmas. Luxuriously rich smell, this should go down well with family & friends.

Packs well. Charring light fine. Lights nicely. Outdoors went out a few times in the beginning, not later on. Composition quite dry (the tobacco on review had been unopened on the shelf for about a year).

First puff: Mild, yet there's a lot of tobacco taste in it. Mild, but tasty smoke w/ a lot of air. Like a 6 AM morning haze blended with a light camping smoke. Drier and "fierier" than many MacB's.

Begins with a nice Cavendish note. The nose-feel in the pouch does come through in the smoke. But in a *very* much lighter version. Still good.

Quite early on, taste turns chocolatey, raisiny. Smokes cool, and a lot drier than most aromatics. That said, I did get my tongue bitten, though. This one gets hot quickly if you don't mind your puffing. Pack tight, I'd say.

Halfway through the vanilla tones disappear and the taste develops and darkens a bit. The Cavendish and topping moves to the background, and back of your throat. A more balanced note.

The base tobacco, though mild, is of the usual high MacB grade, and quite agreeable. The aromatics start stronger (ahem, it is still mild), then mellow out to give a alternatively tobacco or aromatic dominated smoke. Which is why I can see it is quite a seller.

I immediately had the image of smoking this say, camping, hunting, fishing or hiking. Outdoors, early in the morning, after the morning coffee or cocoa, by the campfire or so.

(Tested in a Gr. 2 bowl, and the aroma was nice. Better in a small pipe, perhaps?)

Great for that first smoke of the day... in a way "I've found my real Early Morning Pipe" (pun not entirely unintended).

UPDATE: Newly tried this one again, now in the warmth of summer instead of the breeze of approaching winter. Positively surprised! This one's a "summer blend". I also had let it dry out a bit more (and by drying out, I mean it was just left as it is, in the closed pouch, so some air will seep in anyway). Doing that proved to be a good call. The taste and smoking characteristics have improved quite a bit. Room note (cottage porch, actually) was beautiful and favorably commented on. I believe it has lost plenty of its bite potential, a good thing. Good for the occasional, light smoke, and very agreeable.

UPDATE: Recently experienced the beautiful aroma of this one when someone else was smoking. Superbly agreeable. Nice to get to experience the "wife factor" on a baccy that's in my own rotation, too.

DITTO HERMIT 78. This is crap! What a waste of tobacco of any quality. I say this in embarrassment for the Mac Baren company. I'am a fan of several of thier blends (Plumcake, Navy Flake, VA #1) but this is a disgrace. The tobacco mix is a base of black broken cavendish cake with some lighter, blond short strands of leaf. It smells sickeningly sweet in the pouch, very candy/confectionary-like and tastes like cotton candy when smoked. Yes its' true like the pouch says this is mild with out a bite, but so what. What I like about Mac Barens' main line blends is that of thier unique nature of being relatively lightly aromatic and not confectionary, despite thier strength. And thier choice of flavorings like honey, real sweateners and the like. Often times such flavorings are applied just to reinforce the natural flavor like in thier rollcakes. This is such a departure from such traditions and what I expect from them in products. In the product description it says that many test smokers have given thier approval for this, however I could only do so with a gun to my head.

- NOT RECOMMENDED

Well, my search for the perfect aromatic continues... I was given an unopened package of this by a fellow pipe smoker (Hello Randy!) who has decided to only smoke Va/Perique blends. I am desparately trying to find an nice smooth, sweet after-dinner kind of smoke, a dessert smoke, if you will.

This one has an incredibly sweet smell in the container. Almost honey-like. It looks fairly light, with some black tobacco. Mostly ribbon cut. Visually very appealling.

So far, so good.

It was very dry. When I pinched it, nothing stuck together. Perhaps it was too dry.

I smoked the first bowl outside on my walk to work. Initial light gave almost no flavour whatsoever?! That strong scent in the foil package was completely gone in the smoke!

By the halfway mark, little or no change. In fact, by the bottom still nothing had changed, sadly. (sigh)

I decided to smoke the next bowlful inside, hoping that smelling the room note would make some difference. Alas, no such luck. It was as bland inside as out. In fact, it seemed to offer a little tongue-bite too! Maybe I was drawing too hard to find something to sink my teeth in to!?

Will I finish this 50g package? I suppose. Will I enjoy it? Maybe. Will I order more? Probably not.

UPDATE: I tried it again this morning. It seemed a little more flavourful. It seems sitting for a few weeks has helped it out a bit.

One More UPDATE: A little more time has passed, and this tobacco has improved again. Maybe it's just me, but I like this more and more. I'm upgrading from "Might Try Again..." to "I smoke this on occasion"

Appearance: The 100 gram tin of vacuum packed tobacco was released at the end of March 2023 and brought to me from Germany. So the tobacco, in general, can be considered fresh. On the Russian market tobacco came in 40-gram pouches and tall paper jars of 100 grams. Inside was a roughly chopped ribbon of a mixture of four (in my opinion) varieties of tobacco. It was easy to distinguish two kinds of Virginias, a burley and a large amount of Cavendish. Despite the fact that the tin has been open for a month, the tobacco in it has not dried out at all, which indicates that it has a fairly high content of glycerin and propylene glycol.

Flavor: the trio of caramel, vanilla and bisquits from the most powerful topping gives in this composition a real crescendo of synthesized aroma. A little cherry and honey come in a little later, in a secondary role. Behind all this aromatic riot no one can initially recognize a single note of tobacco, though, after a couple of minutes, nutty and woody burley with a barely noticeable cocoa tinge still interferes in this "improvisation on synthesizers", managing to play a couple of notes conceived by the composer of the mixture. The other members of the ensemble, the virginias and cavendish are simply not audible against this background. It's all very much like a high school rock band, with each of the leaders trying to stand out from the others, not counting the one or two boys who just came to play their instruments.

Taste: as you should expect from a good Danish blend with a dense topping, in real life the "band members" behave much more modestly. Some herbal, woody and nutty notes, a touch of bitter chocolate, the taste has light sweetish note of cavendish. Topping, which literally demolished tobacco notes in the smell, in the taste gives only a slight biscuit note, and it quickly fades away. The overall bouquet is simple, familiar, uncomplicated. The strength of the tobacco tends to be minimal. The tobacco is smoked slowly, relatively cool, however, it easily comes to overheat, starting to become bitter just a bit. But even when overheated, it doesn't tend to bite your tongue, and when smoked slowly, it doesn't have harsh notes. The blend burns out into a gray ash with some small lumps and, when smoked slowly, leaves only a drop or two of moisture in the bowl. The aftertaste is faint, woody, slightly sweet.

The smoke is quite abundant, with a sweet and woody odor. Nevertheless, it dissipates easily without giving unpleasant sensations to those around you.

What's the bottom line? Considering that this blend was made for those who are just trying out pipe smoking, I would say that Mac Baren has achieved their goal. The tobacco is still a true best seller, produced and sold in huge quantities. As for experienced pipe smokers, they are likely to pass it by - the strength of the blend is low, and its flavoring can scare off lovers of natural taste. Among my acquaintances there is one who prefers this one to all other blends, and I will easily give him almost a full tin of Original Choice.

The scent upon opening had fruit notes of plum & raisin w/ slight wheat or baked bread undertones. Tobacco had a light moisture content, but had room to dry out some. Packed bowl and let sit for 3 hours (next time will let sit 6 hours for a drier smoke). During the smoke, there were mild flavors of the plum and raisin, mixed with peppery hits mixed with the baked bread/wheat flavor that almost resembled toast with some jam. A light smoke for those venturing into Vapers, but enjoy the slight cavendish sugars. Keep tamper and lighter handy for this one just in case.

I just found this to be alright. It is an aromatic to be sure and came across as a little too light to my palate. With a little more burley presence I think I may have enjoyed it more. The topping does stay through to the end of the bowl and covers up most of the tobacco taste.

The topping, to me, comes across as very caramel and maybe a little chocolate. I won't delve too much into the underlying leaf as it is not readily detectable, but judging by the strength, I feel the cavendish dominates. The blend itself is pretty low maintenance. It packs fine, takes a light great and does not really bite unless pushed.

I think this is two stars to me, but many aro smokers do not seek strength and this may fit that smoker just fine, so with that thought I am adding a third star.

Un tabac aux saveurs de fruits et de cannelle, très sucré, très onctueux; bourrage, allumage et fumage très faciles; à conseiller aux amateurs de tabacs très aromatisé et aux débutants; la fin d'une pipe est un peu décevante car les saveurs partent pour de laisser en bouche qu'une fumée sucrée.

Original Choice is a very good all day smoke. Some hay notes in the Virginia, earthy nutty Burley and that excellent MacBaren Cavendish. The topping is a fruity blend of cherry, and berry with a hint of citrus. Some caramel and vanilla seem to be present as well. Packs, lights and burns in a most excellent manner. Little if no moisture in bowl and presents little dottle. Burns to fine light gray ash due to the quality of leaf. A good choice for the novice as well as the old codgers like myself. Will keep in my rotation. Solid 3 for me

Hmm, I can't describe myself as new smoker rather noob piper. This blend is mild aromatic as described but has nicotine in it, therefore strength medium. I really wouldn´t recommend this as maybe first tobacco blend to begin with because you have to really focus your mind to the flavours added which as described are mild and hardly distinguished, I can get hints of creamy notes, hints of Vanilla maybe but is there some rum or whisky at the background lurking? Taste of this blend is bit airy, cloudy like sensation (therefor, taste mild) which lacks some depth so you start over focusing your mind into toppings and might get disappointed whilst doing so.