McClelland Deep Hollow

I have to start off by saying that I purchased this product by accident, mistakenly thinking it to be something else. I usually enjoy English blends but went to my local Tobacconist looking to try a straight unflavored Virginia blend. Somehow I ended up with this. On arriving home I popped the top of the can (you wouldn't use the term "tin" for this stuff) and found that I had actually pulled the pin on a live noxious vanilla potpourri grenade. Inside the can I found a darkly colored salad of goopy "tobacco". The sickening aroma emanating from the can was like Captain Black on steroids. I quickly replaced the cover extinguishing the emanating fumes. Later feeling braver I decided that I may as well give it a try. I decided to sacrifice an old, worn, seldom used Jobey once purchased on Ebay for this effort. Upon lighting I was transported in something of a time traveling experience to an earlier unenlightened period of immature drug store blend pipe smoking. The taste was bland, somewhat pleasant, without the slightest hint of tobacco flavor. Soon however the evil gnomes that dwell in this blend became angry and began to pour their boiling kettle of sugar syrup and tar on my unprotected tongue. I quickly terminated smoking and placed the now befouled pipe on the table. This is an experience that I do not intend to repeat.

When people talk about that awful ketchup aroma and flavor that plaques some virginia blend.... they are talking about this blend. When I think of virginia tobacco I think of a sugary sweetness, with the flavor and aroma of hay (in a good way). This blend has none of that. It has acidic qualities to it with almost a vinegar flavor. Deep Hollow is also a tongue biter. A huge letdown from the usually fantastic blenders at McClelland. They make some of the greatest English/Balkin blends on the market but when it comes to virginias they dropped the ball.

You might like this if you smoke aromatics, but I can't stand it. Smokes hot, tastes like chemicals, leaves a goopy mess in your pipe. I left the tobacco spread out on a tray, in a draft, for 3 days. Wasn't any drier than when I first bought it. Smoked a bowl of this every once in a while the past 4 months to see if it would get better, but it didn't.

Don't waste your time with this blend.

Deep Hollow was something of a disappointment. To start with, I detected a slight vanilla like casing, which somehow diminishes the tobacco?s natural flavour. Then, there is a hint of that vinegar smell, present in many McClelland blends.

It was easy to pack, but not that easy to light. Perhaps too much moisture. Once it got going, I never really felt the presence of tobacco flavour at all. It produced a nice room aroma, but it was very frustrating in terms of a good smoke (even by mild standards). I let my pipe rest for a while, relit, but nothing doing. A bland, lacklustre smoke, which I would only recommend to beginners.

Marketers take note: I decided to buy this tobacco by U.S. company McClelland merely because I liked the name. In any event, this is your average looking dark brown, ready-rubbed tobacco consisting of Virginias. A whiff of the can told me that Trevor Talbert's disdain of McClelland blends held true for this one: it smells like tomato soup and is overly moist.

Since I rather like a good Tomato Soup Cake, I chose not to be daunted by its decidedly unpleasant tin aroma. I hiked off into the woods and settled myself into a dark pine grove to light up (and promptly lost the path...stupid trees). Lit, it had a sweet flavour common to Virginia blends and... and... well, whether it was imagined or not, I also thought I could sense a lingering effect of the tomato-tin aroma.

All in all, it burned decently, though the last quarter was far too wet to be smoked?perhaps letting it dry out will help. Although this isn't a bad blend, it's also not particularly great either.