McClelland Black Shag

Well, being a fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories I decided to give Black Shag a try. I have had one bowl and neither am love with it or despise it. To me, it will make a nice every now and then bowl....Holmes sent out for a pound of it before hard cases and surely this is what he stuffed in his pipe before solving a "3 pipe problem". This mixture is much milder than what he would have smoked I imagine however.

The first half of the bowl seemed to be burning rather lightly so about midway I applied a new match and noticed a nice change in flavor and smoke thickness. The taste was a bit zesty and had a lemon taste to it almost. There also lingered in my mouth the taste of cardamom for some reason...as if I was enjoying an Arabic coffee in Beirut.

I did find that it made a nice first pipe of the day and that I was able to read my Spurgeon devotional with the utmost concentration. I think this tobacco is a nice smoke for someone who wants to just be lost in thought or a daydream for an hour or so. The pipe I used was a Peterson Rocky Donegal B-10 and the bowl lasted for around an hour. As I said, perhaps my light did not do well the first time because the 2nd light applied halfway caused me to enjoy the last half better.

No bite whatsoever, and that might have been due to the Peterson P-lip. But I was also taking care of the tobacco and sipping it in thoughtful light puffs.

Final thoughts: Not the best ever, but surely not terrible....will finish the tin and perhaps buy another.

Black Schwag. I don't like to give a tobacco one star. I would even give most drug store tobaccos two stars. Except Mixture 79. I wouldn't even review that one. Black Shag has no horrible flavors. It seemed to smoke well at first. But then I found that it was not at all pleasant and not like any McClelland I had smoked, but not in a good way. Harsh taste if you push it, no taste if you don't. I give it two stars only because pipe tobacco appreciation is highly subjective and others might like the blend. The tobaccos in the blend seem to be quality and I might like them if they were blended...differently.

UPDATE: After letting the open tin sit (with the lid on) for about a month, and trying this blend in several different pipes, I've concluded that it smokes best when well-packed and in a smaller pipe. It's not my favorite blend, but given the price I paid for it I'll smoke it until it's gone, or trade it with someone who likes this kind of stuff. I raised my rating to 2 stars.

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I picked up a tin of this just to try something different. It was an expensive mistake, as it was purchased in Michigan, so between the federal, state and local taxes plus the shop's markup it was one of the most expensive tins of tobacco I've ever purchased.

I've tried every method to pack it: loose, tight, air-pocket method, layer method, Frank method. It fought to stay lit every step of the way; it didn't char light and had to be relit constantly, burned unevenly, tunneled down the middle of the bowl almost every time, and gurgled and smoked wet in a pipe that has never had a wet smoke issue. It left a heap of grey/black ash in the ashtray with plenty of blackend chunks of half-burned charcoal-like bits.

It bites back hard if you over-stoke, which you have to to get the wretched stuff to light and stay lit.

About the only positive things I can say is that the room note is pleasant enough and the flavor on the pallete, when not scorched, is sweet and pleasantly tangy, without the usual McCelland "hot ketchup" taste.

I think I'm going to cellar this tin for about a year and then come back to it to see if it improves with age. It was too costly a purchase to either throw away or put into a catch-all "Hoover blend" tin.

I am sure that the black shag Holmes was smoking was definitively stronger than this one. And I cannot presume to compare between his or McClelland's for I am not among Doyle's characters.

Nevertheless, this tobacco is not unpleasant, by all means. But didn't hook me up either. I was expecting a bit more stoved VA than what was contained. There seems to be some oriental beacause I denote a spiciness, almost saltiness to this mixture.

The advantage is that it fills really easy and smokes easier still. The stoved VA is delicious, backed by that little saltiness in the background. Smoked slowly, it definitively has some good taste to it. Being a shag cut, don't push it or it will bite you.

Of the 221 B series, Arcadia remains my favorite. Then this one.

Black Shag is not a strong tobacco by all means, which contradicts the tin description. There is no major nicotine hit like Irish Flake, which spontaneously comes to mind as a good example of a "nicotine hit".

However, the nice lightly sweet and fairly present earthy taste derived from the dark stoved VA, supported by the spiciness of some oriental leaf makes this tobacco really interesting. The taste fully remains in my mouth for the whole time and even after finishing my pipeful but does not consist in an annoying experience, quite the contrary.

Its taste is quite unique. A tobacco does not have to make your head spin or make you sweat to be a good tobacco. It simply has to taste good. And Black Shag does.

However, I was expecting a stronger tobacco. That is the reason why I purchased it. Which impacts negatively on my final assessment

2.5 stars

Well, the best thing I can say about this particular offering from McClelland is that it isn't offensive. There really isn't anything here to make me reach for it again, but I was not put off by it in any way, except for its complete mediocrity. Flavor is decent, strength is negligable, and room aroma is not particularly bad nor pleasant. If tobacco blends were created by government oversight comittees, this would be the end result.

I was not sure what to expect on this one. I like Arcadia fairly well, but as we all know liking one in a series does not make the entire series worth smoking. I would like to make a warning to novice smokers *** be careful *** the cut of this blend (somewhat like cigarette tobacco will burn hot. If you have the discipline and a smallish pipe, read Dunhill group 3 or smaller, this tobacco has some good attributes. There is a slight casing of spice, like cinnamon that is present on match, but what I mostly taste while smoking is a nice warm earthy taste that is not very sweet. I do not know what a newer tin is like on moisture content, but my nine year old tin was drier than most McClelland tobaccos. There was still a vinegar smell but not as strong as most of their blends. I did like my tin a bit better after letting it dry out more, but it was smokable as soon as the tin was open. Over all there are a lot of other VA blends that I like better, and the possibility of third degree burns on my tongue if not careful leads me to go elsewhere for my VA fix.

Probably McClelland's weakest entry in its 221-B series of tobaccos. I presume that it consists predominantly of stoved VA and, if so, McClelland does it better with their MC 5105 Stoved Virginia product. An unremarkable product, at best.

My first couple of bowls of this were most dissapointing. Little taste, infact rather bland all round. Maybe I dumped the bowl out too soon instead of letting it really get going? My last smoke started just the same, and I had to really persuade myself to keep smoking. "Life`s too short to smoke stuff like this" I kept thinking to myself. The pipe was a very deep Comoy Oom Paul. A full 2 inches of bowl depth. Maybe this had something to do with the experience that unfolded. As I smoked away, it eventually hit me that this was actually "sort of o.k" and half an hour into my smoking, I suddenly got it. It was starting to taste sweet and deep and full. Rather like one of the Rattrays virginias like Old Gowrie. The sweetness also reminded me quite a lot of Escudo Navy Flake! After some time I was actually really enjoying this smoke. It does seem to take a long time to manifest itself, but when it does...a delightful sweet smoke will reveal itself to you. Most suited to large pipes with a deep bowl in my opinion. The impatient puffers need not apply. This needs dedication and patience.