McClelland No. 2000 Fragrant Matured Cake

No. 2000 has a pretty strong Lane 1Q flavor that smells nice enough in the bulk bag but doesn't translate very well to a straight Virginia flake. Without some burley to carry the flavor, it is always going to contribute less than a normal aromatic.

They probably had to sauce it fairly heavily to to get that flavor, which turns this stuff into napalm if you even dream of puffing too fast. Maybe this is why crossover English blends work and crossover pure Virginias don't. It just seems like a bad idea in general.

McClelland does a much better job with normal VA broken flake than with this confused crossover, it is best to stick with those.

McClelland 2010 is one of my current favorites, and 2015 takes up no small space in the cellar, and I love good aromatics. So a natural fit, right? Except that this stuff doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up. The aromatic doesn't hold throughout, and the Virginia flavor is lacking.

McClelland 2000 has the same problem that Pease's The Virginia Cream does - it's trying too hard to be everything to everyone. Maybe I'm just not cut out for crossovers.

As a self touted aromatic with a sweet aroma(Their words, not mine),this falls short. Perhaps some time might help it along but I tend to doubt it. To me any aromatic must meet two criteria. It must taste good to me and smell good to others. Blend 2000 doesn't reach either of these. As a crossover blend, it also fails. The Virginias are good leaves but the artifical flavoring keeps them from being reaching their potential. I only bought a two oz sampler and I'm glad I did. Less to throw away after three bowls. I will never buy this again. There are just to many good crossover blends and aromatics to waste time and money on this. Of course, this is just MHO.

This is a pretty flake with no particular purpose for being. It burns slowly and smokes forever but there is nothing to the blend that will make you long for its reappearance. It's simply a well-constructed boring American product. The Boston Pops of tobacco.

I'm sure that under this maple/vanilla casing there is a decent VA flake...It might be "Classic Va" from the same organization. It smells of maple in the bag and smells and tastes of maple and vanilla in the bowl. This blend didn't do it for me.

If you're a fan of the smell of maple/vanilla types of tobaccos, then you may like this. I found it not as offensive as the typically cased cavendish that abounds, but still this is not for me due to a lack of tobacco flavor.