Mac Baren Vanilla Cream Loose Cut

Vanilla Cream was a staple in my aromatic rotation for years. I hadn't smoked any for some time, so I purchased a pouch and dug out a Stanwell I had dedicated to this tabac. It's easy to see why so many(smokers and non)enjoy this blend. It is mild, low maintenance and smells like a candle party. It even tastes somewhat like tobacco, but that casing is more determined than a russian olympian...a good party smoke when no-one around you would care for EMP.

MacBarren Vanilla Cream: not a big fan of heavily flavored tobacco, I tend to stick to blond and red virginias; especially not of something titled Vanilla Cream. But on lonely nights in Anchorage, when the bars have all escorted their last determined customers to the door, and the sidewalks have turned ice, I?ve found myself walking home holding my pipe in my coat pocket and looking for something new... I think MacBarren?s web-sight is very informative, and if one can?t fall asleep on those nights, then reading the brief synopsis for each of their blends might help. It is in this manner which I decided to order their Vanilla Cream lose cut. It is made in part of mature virginia, so that was good enough for me. The tin smell is sweet, creamy, beeswax candle like, and you have to pull it away from your nose. Indeed their is strips of virginia inside, and upon lighting the first two matches I caught hint of their familiar aroma. A light creamy vanilla fragrance follows. The nature of the flavor is nutty-creamy. The intensity of the flavor is light to medium, but more on the light side. The sweetness of the flavor is medium-strong. I don?t know much about flavored tobaccos, but compared to my early pipe smoking days with drug-store blends, this blend seems very sophisticated. The smell in the tin is honest to the smoke, only not as strong. The body of Vanilla Cream on my palate is very gentle, but nonetheless their is a biting quality to it. It caught me a bit by surprise. I?m use to a little bite from virginia, but I wasn?t expecting it from Vanilla Cream. It also seems to cling to your mouth a lot more, despite my obsessive compulsive tooth-brushing. Their is no doubt this Cream is a smooth blend. The balance between the body and flavor is like water and ice. The smoke is consistent, not very complex, but I like consistency in a blend, though it does get sour as you approach the dottle. ?You?re pretentious but not the tobacco,? my girl remarked. I was rudely blowing it in her face, but nonetheless she likes the aroma This blend is lose cut, but I hear there is a flake cut Vanilla Cream which might appeal to me better. However it seems to be sold only in Germany. It is a good idea to keep a separate set of pipes for this blend. I?m having a hell of a time getting the vanilla out of my Stanwell.

I generally stay away from tobacco with vanilla flavoring , but I kept seeing this one at a tobacconist shop I frequent and it just stuck in my mind so I went on the site to see what some of my trusted reviewers had to say about it. Well, there’s a guy that’s tested almost 3 thousand tobaccos on this site and he and I usually agree. So thanks Jimlnks for helping me make some purchases that I wouldn’t usually make. If he says it’s a 4 , then it probably is. He gave this one a 3 and I agree and it’s not like I smoke this kind of stuff that often, but this tobacco is a high quality Virginia with enough vanilla to make it interesting. I saw a few reviews that complain that this and other MacBaren blends are automatic scorchers and I don’t get it . I couldn’t get this stuff hot if I wanted to. If you’re a normal smoker, then this one doesn’t bite at all. Burns well and adds no moisture to the bowl. If they made this in a flake , I’d probably give it a 4 . Read the reviewers that have smoked hundreds or thousands of tobacco and leaves the hyperbole at just what it is………Because of it’s low nicotine hit and mild flavor, you can smoke it first thing in the AM and all day without any tongue bit of palate fatigue.

I've been a pipe smoker for over 20 years, and this has been my favorite tobacco for the last five years. A unique vanilla flavored tobacco that isn't so topped or cased that I feel like I'm smoking syrup.

I buy it by the pound, have it dedicated to a Peterson B42, and it always comes at a great moisture level. If you like vanilla aromatics, this is about as good as it gets.

This isn't a complex blend, but sometimes I get a cinnamon or maple flavor.

A great place to start for those who might want to venture into aromatics without feeling like they are going to smoke a blend whose flavoring is going to mask bad tobacco. It's quality leaf, with a quality topping.

I'll admit - Mac Baren Vanilla Cream is my Everest. This was the first tobacco I ever purchased and smoked. This served as a high barrier to entry for me. I had read many great reviews and had seen it was top rated in some places, but I struggled to get anything but tongue bite and ash from it. It wasn't until I smoked Frog Morton's Cellar that I realized how great pipe smoking could be.

Fast forward a few years I now know what I'm doing and can get pleasant smokes from just about everything. It was time to return to vanilla cream.

Opening the tin, as everyone says, the aroma is out of this world. One of the best tin notes out there which sets expectations for the smoke fairly high. After properly drying and loading up I lit up for the first time in about 4 years. Surprisingly there was flavor there - barely. The taste is extraordinarily mild compared to other aromatics such as Boswell's Best. With full focus and great care, I was able to get to the heart of what the vanilla cream experience should be and to be honest, it's just alright. Having had some great vanilla alternatives, the effort to get the best from vanilla cream isn't worth it. Unless you're looking for room note only, I'd recommend looking for other vanilla aromatics. I'll likely give away the rest of the tin. And to come full circle this tobacco isn't bad, it just really isn't for everyone and not at all beginner friendly.

Mac Baren's Vanilla cream loose cut.

This truly is a quality tobacco, and a superb aromatic. The blend comes in two forms, flake and ready rubbed. I'm going to briefly review the ready rubbed version now.

So, as I mentioned, the blend comes in a sort of coarse cut (or broken flake). You can definitely observe the brown virginia ribbons mixed in with black chunks of Cavendish.

The pouch note is extremely VANILLA, it's so potent with a touch of cream to it.

So, the blend packs fairly easy, needs a few lights to get going since it's on the moist side, but once lit it tends to stay lit with little hassle.

Now, the flavor. If you're expecting this to be a goopy and sickly sweet vanilla bomb, think again. The potent vanilla pouch note losely translates into flavor, which is a positive thing in my opinion.

As you puff on, you get that bready quality from the Virginia base in the blend, the sweetness from the Cavendish and the fairly mild and moderately sweet vanilla/cream topping to the smoke.

This is really interesting, since I mostly smoke "serious" and full bodied unflavored blends, this is actually a nice change of pace. And this is coming from someone who doesn't actually enjoy or like vanilla, at all. This blend's use of vanilla is so mild that I actually enjoyed it.

It's sweet, but not overly sweet. It tends to burn hot so puff slow to avoid tongue bite. It's fairly light bodied and mild tasting with little to no nicotine. If you're someone looking for a nice aromatic where you can actually taste the component tobaccos, give this is a try. It's quality leaf, and the topping is applied very carefully and without overdoing it.

The vanilla flavor is subtle and very high quality, the room note is obviously very pleasant.

Interestingly though, halfway through the bowl the vanilla topping seems to tone down very much, allowing the tobacco flavors to shine through. In my experience, smoking this blend slowly, and I mean REALLY slowly, has allowed me to pick up the nuances and complexities of this blend and experience zero tongue bite. I actually picked up some dried fruity kind of note when puffed extremely slow. This is definitely an interesting blend.

As a plus, this tobacco burns down to fine gray ash, no goopiness or any ghosting of the bowl.

All in all, very nice and light sweet and creamy smoke, I give it 3 out of 5. You should definitely give it a try.

Update: After some research, I made sure that this blend actually contains Burleys. Which isn't mentioned on tobacco reviews but is mentioned clearly on the macbarens website. That probably explains the slightly nutty, bold aspect that appears through the smoke and perhaps add a little body to it.

This was such a disappointment - a real nothing tobacco. I cannot taste the vanilla and can barely taste the tobacco itself. A shame - I saw the tin, read its listing in 'best aromatics' articles, found the name enticing, and was really excited to smoke it, particularly having read it tasted like vanilla ice cream. Unless something changes, with drying, it honestly does not. Will not be buying again and may tip this away, just to free up a mason jar.

Later: Have now smoked this a few days more and find it, if anything, even worse. It simply makes a nice smell and tastes of nothing. Please don't think you are going to get some amazing taste/complexity experience from this. I bought a small packet of this, and now it is going to get thrown.

This is a really beautiful tobacco. One that's very foretelling of Mac Baren brand of blends. The note is quite elegant and regal with a light colour and the crest of HH in the top. Upon opening the tin, you're welcomed with a sunshine of light virginias, and a seeded earth black of Cavendish. The tin aroma is reminiscent of fresh bakery at a local patisserie. It is in excellent moisture content out of the tin and I recommend you smoke it as so without drying as it will take away a bit of the flavour and aroma. The tobacco cut is excellent, it's a mix of long ribbons and broken flakes, it backs well and can pack tightly without hindering the draw and it leaves a little bit of nice aroma on your finger tips. Also a dry draw test reveal the flavour profile in a teasing way. Upon first light the ribbons catch a nice kindle, but the flakes require a bit of attention.. But once lit, it stays so, and burns well to a perfect, white ashy bottom with a few to none relights. The body of it is quite medium and the aroma makes me inhale the smoke with my nose to get more of it. And the taste is pretty nice and never overpowering. It gives me hints of Vanilla and some creamy, pastry flavour as if it is a freshly made croissant baked with honey. I thoroughly enjoy it, despite my lesser tendency towards aromatics and I see this making my rotation.

Something went wrong for me with this particular blend, and I cannot pinpoint the reason. It is a bit like examining what went wrong with a relationship where things sounded great and ticked a lot of points on the checklist, but did not pass the test of real life. So here it goes: I am a committed aromatic smoker (check), I like vanilla topping as opposed to say cocoa (check), I like Cavendish and Virginia blends (check). Yet the packet went to the bin after maybe five or so attempts to persevere.

What went wrong? After some time I decided that it was not the ribbon-cut tobacco, not the moisture, not the topping, not the slight bite common to MacBaren aromatics when pushed. The problem was that the combination of mild tobacco and heavy topping simply did not work well for me (despite me being an aro lover). I thought the topping itself was OK, but the tobacco fragrance simply disappeared underneath the vanilla cream. I immediately followed this experience with a new pouch of MB "Scottish Mixture", found it to be well-balanced, subtle, sophisticated and superior in every way, and decided not to return to MB Vanilla Cream. Lesson learned.