McClelland Grey Havens

This seems to be a love it or hate it kind of blend. I'm in the "love it" camp. It's a light, airy, burley with just a bit of perique.

The tin note is nutty, semi-sweet, and the usual hint of McClelland "twang." It's an attractive cut, with both cube cut burleys and ribbon cut Virginias. Fresh from the tin, I've found it to be at the perfect moisture level for immediate smoking, with no drying time required. I see that this is classified here as an "aromatic," although I can't figure out why. If there's a topping, I can't pick it out in either the tin or in the smoke; I'd call it a classic BurPer with a bit of Virginia that came along for the ride.

This is a very burley-forward blend. It surprises me that I enjoy it as much as I do - while I do appreciate it as something to add body and variety to VA based blends, I don't usually go crazy for predominately burley mixtures. The perique is definitely there, too. It doesn't add much in the way of darkening the flavor, but it certainly adds that bit of spice that registers in the sinuses (in a very pleasing way, at least to me). The Virgina doesn't add a whole lot to the blend, and it seems like it's purpose is probably just to boost the burley forward and give it a platform to stand on. It shines through just the tiniest bit in the last quarter of the bowl, but even then it's rather muted.

There isn't a lot of complexity here, and the smoke is more or less the same throughout the bowl - nutty, straightforward burley with a bit of perique spice. It isn't overwhelmingly flavorful, and I could understand why some reviewers might see this as being bland. If I'm judging this against my usual preferences of Virginias, VaPers, and Latakia blends, I'd agree...but considering for what it is and what it's trying to be, I think it gets the job done.

I think the biggest draw back is that it does like to burn hot. Setting aside the unpleasantness of tongue bite/burn, the higher burning temperature all but obliterates the flavor of the aroma and turns the perique very acrid. The only way to do Grey Havens justice is to make devote time to it, and smoke very cool and very slow.

The blend seems to perform very similarly in both cobs and briars, it might be just a hair nice in a cob - in my experience, cobs usually play very well with burley-based blends, plus it helps just a bit in the effort to keep the burn rate down.

Three stars from me - I see what the blend is trying to do, and I think it goes a long way to doing it. Still, it would benefit if the Virginias were just a little more present and if it didn't require me to spend so much attention on keeping it cool.

From the description it sounded like something I really would enjoy, so I ignored or minimized the negative reviews. I wish I had attended to them with a more open mind. I tried to convince myself that I like this blend, but I just can't do it.

If there's such a thing as a quality, flavorless smoke this is it. This tastes like nothing more than quality steam delicately flavored with something nutty. Everyone loves the scent, so it has that going for it. And it smokes beautifully. Oh, and it's real smooth, too. But so is water.

I made a heroic attempt to finish the tin, but I decided halfway through that I just don't see the point. If you like your cream-of-wheat straight, this might be your blend.

I'm not sure this one will click enough with me to add it to my regular smoking list (i.e. rotation), but it is a quality blend. My tin was sealed from 1999, and on opening it and sticking my nose in, I got a whiff of that McClelland vinegar I so love, but just a whiff. The flavor is really nice, but it doesn't have enough of that McClelland Virginia thing going on, being tempered by Burley and what seems to me to be a light topping of...something. There does seem to be some Perique here, but it is not overpowering, not that I mind overpowering Perique! Actually, this blend only needs a bit more Virginia to be four stars for me. The taste is delightful, the room note is pleasant, and this is a great one for moderately heavy puffing, with little resulting bite. In fact, I would tend to puff a bit harder on this blend than I would with some, because to me it seems perhaps a little too rounded. I could stand more sharpness, or more of a kick. In the few bowls I've had so far, there seems to be a tendency for this blend to not stay lit, even though I have dried out all the bowls I smoked thoroughly before indulging. I'm not sure what's causing this, but it is not a serious issue; I just won't choose this tobacco as an outside or driving blend. I need to add to this review as I finish the tin (if I remember) because there is something to this blend that just might grow on me; I just haven't found that something yet. Right now, it is pleasant but leaves me wanting a fuller flavor. The bowl I am smoking as I type this review has really improved halfway through, so that certain special something may be in there somewhere, when I have more time to "learn" this blend.

3-25-12 Year (more) has passed, and I am really liking it now. It has such a McClelland Virginia quality that I'm not sure if I would even detect the Burley if I didn't know it was there. It is just a nice nutty undertone beneath the moderate McClelland "vinegar," which I love. I will keep this jar out for a little while!

Good balance of burley and perique here - very light on perique and that's the way I like it.

Grey Havens is a dependable smoke that performs well with no bite no matter how you puff.

The extremely light topping burns off quickly and serves only to begin the smoke smoothly and quickly transition to the burley supported by perique. Essentially preventing "perique shock" which many of us (especially me) can get from time to time.

If nightcap is your regular (or similar) this blend was not designed for you, save your time and money and move on.

However, this is not what I consider an aromatic tobacco, it is simply a light burley/perique blend, and might appeal to English as well as aromatic folks looking for something on the edge of their normal taste profiles - at least that's what it does for me.

I liked Grey Havens, a good solid blend that can satisfy but likely won't make you turn flips.

Recommended,

3 stars,

Thanks,

Ethan

Grey Havens is an acceptable mild aromatic. Its blend of burley, VA, and a smidgen of perique is complex enough to interesting throughout the duration of the smoke.

The cut is appropriate - a combination of cube-cut burley and VA ribbon. It is easy to fill and pack, and requires no preparation.

The topping seems to be of a vanilla/fruit variety, is applied with a restrained hand, and does not detract from the base tobaccos. The room note is pleasant without being cloying.

This tobacco will smoke wet and hot. A meerschaum may be the best bet for this weed, as it will alleviate a great deal of the moisture problem. This blend also has a tendancy to nip at the tongue if pushed.

Grey Havens receives decent marks from me as a light aromatic with good tobacco flavor and complexity. However, its tendancy to be "bitey" keeps it from earning a top score.

Update: This is another tobacco that I grew very weary of as time went by. Its mildness grew increasingly annoying, as smoking this blend became too much work for too little satisfaction. The bitey problem never went away, either, further compounding my dissatisfaction. Previous rating: 3 stars, now 1.

I normally smoke VAs but gave this one a try based on my success with other McClelland blends. The tin aroma did not have the distictively vinegar smell of some of their other blends and bordered on pleasant. I found it easy to pack which resulted in an even burn rate without any bite. I sensed and enjoyed the burley and overall taste but could not distingiush their added 'fragrance'. The downfall was the condensation in the bowl. Although moister than I prefer from the tin, even after several days of air drying, I still developed soup in ~ the bottom 1/4 of the bowls. Full bents and varying bowl sizes did not solve my problem. For this reason alone, what might have been an enjoyable tobacco will not be tried again.

A good friend was kind enough to buy me a tin of Grey Havens, not even knowing that McClelland was sadly stopping production. Grey Havens is hard to define, on first taste my impression was that it was trying to do a lot of things at once, and what it does it does pretty well, but in very small quantities. It's a bit sweet, a bit smoky, a bit woodsy... but overall it is not very tasty. Tin note is typical McClelland, the presentation too (chunky, dark, moist pieces of tobacco). It is rather easy to light but hard to keep lit. However, it produces thick clouds of white smoke, and has a creamy, full bodied texture. It becomes much more interesting after the 10 minutes mark, where the virginias develop some sweetness (those Va remind me a lot of Frog Morton and to me feel like they are somehow cavendished). I cannot taste the perique in this and the burley, though apparently the main component, is very mild. This is a blend that can be puffed hard without bite, and just like the Frog, this in turn coaxes out some woodsy-sour aromas which are not unpleasant. If there is indeed a topping added to this blend, it is very subtle and in the same vein as, once more, Frog Morton. Overall, good quality tobacco, but a bit too mild for my tastes right now.

The first few bowls were hot and steamy. Burned my tongue and I was ready to give up, but I don't like to toss tobacco, especially most of a 100g tin.

I let it dry out a fair amount - a day or two with the lid off the tin. Much better!

Mild, like its sister Deep Hollow, but quite enjoyable.

Try a smaller pipe and smoke it slowly.

I really wanted to give Grey Havens a good review. I've been looking at the Craftsbury Series for a while now and as a lover of Tolkien I wanted this to be a great smoke... I've been disappointed thus far. I picked up Grey Havens because of the 3 Craftsbury offerings it contained Perique and in the past I have almost always enjoyed tobaccos that contain Perique. Unfortunately this is not one of them. If I had to describe this tobacco in a word I would probably say, boring... It just doesn't have any flavor to me. I enjoy a mellow smoke but this is honestly almost non-existent in the flavor department which is surprising due to the way the tobacco smells in the can. If I could get just a bit of that flavor while I smoked it I would be happy but unfortunately I get nothing. I've smoked several bowls of this over the last few weeks and it doesn't seem to be getting any better. I might be putting this one in a jar and aging it for a bit to see if it improves the taste but as it stands right now I'm just not impressed with this offering.