Mac Baren Plumcake
(2.88)
A mixture of fully ripe Virginia tobaccos, sliced, cask mellowed burley tobaccos, dark spicy cavendish and just a touch of latakia. To give Plumcake an elegant aroma, the blend has been flavoured with aged Jamaica rum.
NEW TIN DESCRIPTION: Plumcake brings the thoughts back to old times, when the sailors onboard the sailing ships filled their pipe with good, satisfying tobacco and having the scent of tar and saltwater all around them. Bright Virginia tobaccos mixed with burley, a little original Mac Baren cavendish and just a touch of [Cyprian] latakia. On top of this masterly made blend original Jamaica Rum has been added to fulfill the impression. This blend is full bodied and rich, giving you the taste nuances of natural sweetness added with a slight taste of smoke, latakia and the distinctive aroma of sailor rum.
Notes: Introduced in 1957.
As of 01/30/2019, according to Per Georg Jensen of Mac Baren it has "Latakia from Cyprus, it is many years since the Latakia from Syria were used.".
Details
| Brand | Mac Baren |
| Blended By | Harald Halberg |
| Manufactured By | Mac Baren |
| Blend Type | Aromatic |
| Contents | Black Cavendish, Burley, Latakia, Virginia |
| Flavoring | Rum |
| Cut | Ribbon |
| Packaging | 100 grams tin, 50 grams pouch, 16 ounce bag |
| Country | Denmark |
| Production | Currently available |
Profile
Strength
Mild to Medium
Extremely Mild -> Overwhelming
Flavoring
Mild to Medium
None Detected -> Extra Strong
Room Note
Pleasant
Unnoticeable -> Overwhelming
Taste
Medium
Extremely Mild (Flat) -> Overwhelming
Average Rating
|
2.88 / 4
|
Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 27 Reviews
| Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| Jul 09, 2009 | Mild to Medium | Medium | Medium | Pleasant |
UPDATE 4/30/13
Got an ounce from someone who implored me to try an aged version from 2001. While my original review is probably too harsh, the essence of it is correct. Typical Mac Baren rollcake filled with too subtle flavors and what is there is simply too bland to consider. The aroma is nice but the flavor is just too fleeting. Not worth the additional trouble I'm told these blends require to extract something resembling taste.
I also received some Roll Cake from the same year. Can't wait to try it... yeah... really excited about it... lol.
ORIGINAL REVIEW
All aroma, no flavor!
After reading some of the other reviews, I'm wondering if this blend was mismarked in the bag. I got no tongue bite from it at all - of course, I tend to smoke carefully. I got a great room note. I got little to no flavor from this. No spice, no sweetness, no "zing" - just a bunch of hot air. Bad batch?
Occasionally I started to taste something about to happen but as I anticipated some sort of flavor burst, it subsided back into nothingness. This reminds me of my last days as a cigarette smoker years ago - no flavor, just a nicotine hit. Dull, dull, boring, boring, bland, BLAND! Not worth it when there are so many fine blends out there.
Got an ounce from someone who implored me to try an aged version from 2001. While my original review is probably too harsh, the essence of it is correct. Typical Mac Baren rollcake filled with too subtle flavors and what is there is simply too bland to consider. The aroma is nice but the flavor is just too fleeting. Not worth the additional trouble I'm told these blends require to extract something resembling taste.
I also received some Roll Cake from the same year. Can't wait to try it... yeah... really excited about it... lol.
ORIGINAL REVIEW
All aroma, no flavor!
After reading some of the other reviews, I'm wondering if this blend was mismarked in the bag. I got no tongue bite from it at all - of course, I tend to smoke carefully. I got a great room note. I got little to no flavor from this. No spice, no sweetness, no "zing" - just a bunch of hot air. Bad batch?
Occasionally I started to taste something about to happen but as I anticipated some sort of flavor burst, it subsided back into nothingness. This reminds me of my last days as a cigarette smoker years ago - no flavor, just a nicotine hit. Dull, dull, boring, boring, bland, BLAND! Not worth it when there are so many fine blends out there.
| Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 02, 2006 | Extremely Mild | Mild | Extremely Mild (Flat) | Pleasant |
Q: What's good for tongue bite?
A: A bowl of Mac Baren Plumcake!
And if latakia wasn't mentioned in the description above I'd have never guessed it was in this torcher.
This is one of those Mac B flame-thrower blends. Boy, it sounds good and even smells good in the tin. Even with the "plug/stop" method of taking a wad of tobacco out of the tin and jamming it into the bowl of a small pipe doesn't keep this from producing copious amounts of steam.
To each his own, I suppose. Variety makes the world go 'round.
A: A bowl of Mac Baren Plumcake!
And if latakia wasn't mentioned in the description above I'd have never guessed it was in this torcher.
This is one of those Mac B flame-thrower blends. Boy, it sounds good and even smells good in the tin. Even with the "plug/stop" method of taking a wad of tobacco out of the tin and jamming it into the bowl of a small pipe doesn't keep this from producing copious amounts of steam.
To each his own, I suppose. Variety makes the world go 'round.
| Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 17, 2016 | Strong | Medium | Medium to Full | Tolerable |
This tobacco is a beast... I hereby declare it ' king of the biters', I will just make the caveat that I do not know how long the pouch had been languishing in the shop but it was fairly dry, and I do not feel inclined to buy any more of it. It numbs your tongue even with careful sipping and I was inclined to chuck it out after a few bowls. I tried the falcon which can usually make stronger blends behave but after the initial 5 minutes it was on the attack. In the end I resorted to the ' magic inch ' that I have which I reserve for harsher mixtures and it did keep the bite to a minimum and rendered it smokable, but I could discern no sudden burst of flavour or subtle nuances. Definitely not for beginners, it would stop your pipe smoking career in its tracks.
Pipe Used:
falcon,meerschaum,various briars, magic inch
| Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| Mar 02, 2016 | Mild | Extremely Mild | Extremely Mild (Flat) | Pleasant to Tolerable |
There is not much to say about this, I will however say, I am not really impressed.
The taste is flat, flavour is non-existent, the room note is almost pleasant, what more can I say. I won't buy again.
The taste is flat, flavour is non-existent, the room note is almost pleasant, what more can I say. I won't buy again.
Pipe Used:
Many
| Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| Nov 30, 2014 | Mild | Mild to Medium | Extremely Mild (Flat) | Pleasant |
I have tried at least a dozen of the classic line and a couple of the newer lines from this venerable blender. For me they are just slight variations on a light, singularly flavored burley with some slight additions/alterations here and there. This plumcake I found to be the most intriguing and it was my first McB blend. I'm not going to bore you or myself with repetitious reviews which will state essentially the same thing. This blender can be summed up, for my tastes, as producing vapid weed, cased too greatly with sugar, burns warmly/hot and lacks any appreciable depth. One plus is you do get a large tin's worth for a good price, comparably speaking. Apologies, but McB just does not work for me. TLCIWU
| Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 23, 2013 | Medium | Mild | Mild | Tolerable |
A bit disappointed by this. The tin note was, to my poor nose, of black olives. I know, weird. Cut kinda big, so it did not stuff well in my pipe. It lit okay and burned alright, a bit on the hot side. The problem was I was looking for an mild aromatic, you know with a name like plum cake... But found a mediocre Latakia blend. I could not taste any rum, nor much anything else. The room note was nothing to right home about, not disgusting, not pleasant. Did get a little Vitamin N kick. By the number of reviews it looks like quite a few like it, I think I will have to pass on recommending this, and pass on the rest of the tin to another.
| Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| Feb 15, 2013 | Mild | Medium | Extremely Mild (Flat) | Pleasant |
I found this blend to be very hot burning, whether dry or wet, and it was quite tasteless, the aroma was vapid as well. A friend of mine said it smelled good, and as is due course, most aromatics smell nice, but taste badly. I cannot recommend this product.
| Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| Apr 26, 2012 | Very Mild | Medium to Strong | Extremely Mild (Flat) | Pleasant |
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...).
| Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| Jan 30, 2012 | Mild to Medium | None Detected | Extremely Mild (Flat) | Unnoticeable |
As someone who had been & on & off again pipe smoker over the last several years. But have now taken it up full time & placed away my other vices. I had read the tin description on Plumcake for years. For some reason or another this blend really interested me. So, several months back I decided to order up a tin & giver a try. Not so fast! The interest ended upon the 1st smoke of this blend. Not sure exactly what I expected or didn't expect. This just wasn't it. Seen others write about tongue bite. That wasn't it for me. Or, not much of it anyway. Certainly not the room note I expected. I also asked my room note detector, my wife. Who said she couldn't stand that smell." I'll be the 1st to admit I'm an aro guy. If that is what this is or was supposed to be. It isn't. If it isn't I can certainly see why. I'm not exactly sure what it was or was not for me. So I'll just leave it there. Recommended? Nope, not by me.
| Reviewed By | Date | Rating | Strength | Flavoring | Taste | Room Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| Apr 12, 2011 | Medium | Medium to Strong | Medium to Full | Tolerable |
I favor aromatics. I tried this on a recommendation given that it has a "light" addition of Latakia (which provides a very smokey, meat-roasted taste). I've tried other stronger Latakia blends before and found that this tobacco acts as a nice "introduction" to stronger, Latakia blends. I personally, didn't like it. There is an excellent, sweet and heady taste beneath the smokey, burned meat smell and I suspect it would have been a good smoke had the Latakia been omitted. I personally can't recommend this one.
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