McClelland Grey Havens

My tin was 3 years old and, unlike most of the McClelland blends I've smoked, the moisture content on first opening the tin was perfect. I rehydrated some of it and further dried some to see how it performed best, and its best performance was straight out of the tin. Excellent tin aroma! The perique was most noticeable in the tin bouquet, more so than the room note or the flavor.

This blend made me realize why professional tobacco tasters insist on using clay pipes to sample new blends. I found briar pipes completely glossed over the subtleties of this blend. They only seemed to come out when this was smoked in a clay or meerschaum pipe. Interesting. But I could not determine what tobaccos this blend contained smoking it in briar... or I should say that I could not confirm what the tin description said.

I was not overly fond of this tobacco once I got to know it, as I found it too mild and I prefer full flavored blends. But if the concept of perique is exciting to you but you find it too abundant in other blends, this might be one to try. If you enjoy a nice room note but a natural tobacco taste, try this. If you like a polite, refined tobacco that doesn't burn the tongue, this might be one you'll like. I didn't care for it but in a sense it strikes me as an excellent effort by McClellands at creating something different.

I am not a big fan of this blend for the same reason's that the reviewer below likes it. It lacks enough perique to be interesting. I would also like a bit more Virginia in the blend. It needs some dry time, but the cut is easy to pack and the leaf is high quality. I think Burley lover's should give a try to this blend, perique lovers might want to move on.

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.

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.

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.

One time I was playing around with some blending tobacco. I mixed some Burley and Virgnia, then added a little vanilla Cavendish and a dash of perique. After a few months in a mason jar I tried it out. "Eureka," I thought, "I've created the world's most boring tobacco!" Little did I know I had also created Grey Havens.

Okay I'm kidding. This is far better than the bland mess I made. But there are some similarities. Initially it was hard to write a review because this tobacco hardly left an impression.

Its all in there somewhere, sweetness, nuttiness, a whiff of vanilla, I think, and the peppery perique. There's just not enough of it.

Actually I take issue with the perique. With none of the other actors delivering, the perique seems to get too much of the spotlight. I'm more aware of it than I feel I should be.

Someone else mentioned you have to like burley. That may be true. It's possible that burley is just too subtle for me. That may also be why I - contrary to yet another poster -- find the similarly Tolkien-themed Deep Hollow to be much more interesting. But that's what makes this fun -- it's all subjective.

Update: This may be growing on me. I have dedicated a pipe to it for the time being and as it begins to settle in I'm getting some more of the nuances. Also being careful to pack gently and not let it get too hot. I enjoyed my bowl today.

This blend is one of the blends that I love the way it tastes but it usually bites me. If the bite was eliminated from this blend I would smoke this regularly and give it the highest rating. I will not give this the lowest score simply because the flavor is very good. The odd thing about this is it seems to smoke cool even though it bites me pretty bad. Maybe the topping in this does not get along with me. I may try it again later to see if it still gives me the same bite affect.

Usually, when I want to think of "middle earth", I go for "Frog Morton". With a title like "Grey Havens" though, I had to try this one. This is definitely not a hobbit blend, but rather something I could definitely see the Elves smoking.It is a mild herbal blend. The Perique makes itself known close to the bottom of the bowl but in an "Elvish" sort of way, (how did it get here?). All in all, it is a good blend but since it is more "herbal" than I care for, I'll stick to the "Frog". In spite of what I've stated, it does have a decent complexity and does not bite, unless you puff like Smaug.

I got a generous one ounce sample of this from an acquaintance. It was from a 2008 tin, and I smoked it in summer 2014.

This is a little out of my wheelhouse in that I tend to not smoke aromatics, but the base tobacco won me over quite quickly. Like most McClelland tobaccos, there was no nicotine to speak of. The topping seemed to compliment the plummy perique quite well, but rather than simply enhancing the flavors already present, it sometimes overpowered them.

If you like plummy flavors and want a good tobacco base and low nicotine, this blend might be for you.