Rattray Black Mallory

Should be Flavoring: harsh, Taste and Strength: none detected. I hope to God the rest of the Rattrays line are better than this because this is absolutely awful. Tinder dry, flat, harsh and tasteless and absolutely no nicotine to speak of, if you puff hard enough on it you might eventually be rewarded with the flavour of your own cooking toungue. Avoid.

I genuinely enjoyed this blend!It has a wonderful sweeteness to it that really has to be experienced to be appreciated.This is one of the mildest English/Scottish offerings I have ever had.The flavor ,strength,and overall quality of the blend llies somewhere between C&D's "Black Duck" and Dunhill's"Aperitif".This is a solid choice for the Balkan/English afficianado looking for a special treat.The black cavendish lends a sweet note to a rather "sour" and full English.I would recommend this to any one looking for something truly different. 3.5 0f 4 stars. P.S. The room note is actually rather pleasant and might even win you favor with the fairer sex!

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Update 9/14/06

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Another Bomb by Kohlhase and Kopp!

I am something of a lover of english type blends, and I purchased this because it was spoken well of by other lovers of english blends that I have met. In most respects it is a good solid english type tobacco. It has a fair amount of Latakia, a good rich taste, and burns fairly easily. However, it does have one drawback. It seems that no matter how slowly or carefully I smoke it, there is always a noticeable amount of steam in the smoke. This has happened at almost all levels of moisture, until I dried some out completely, and then slowly remosturized it myself over a period of a few weeks. Now, I don't mind fiddling with a tobacco this much, but some folks would be put off by it. However, I seem to be in the minority when it comes to the steam flavor of the blend, as most people I ask about it have never noticed it. Other than that drawback, and an occasional bowl of it refusing to stay lit no matter how carefully it is packed, I enjoy it, and will probably buy more of it in the future, though I don't rush out to buy more whenever a tin gets half empty, like I do with some english type blends.

My local tobacconist (Cigar and Tabac in Overland Park, Ks - a great place!) was out of my beloved Red Rapparee; so I opted for a tin of the Black Mallory. It has been quite a number of years since this concoction graced any of my pipes and I thought it would provide a good enough standby. Sometimes we are disappointed, chagrined, and sadly mistaken. Black Mallory had too much of something, and though the first few smokes were okey dokey, after consuming most of the 100 gram tin it became overbearing and downright bitter. In a mild panic, I thought maybe all my pipes had suddenly turned bitter. Using a different tobacco, Dunhill's Standard, I loaded my beautiful Preben Holm freehanded creation to test out that horrible theory. The night before the Preben Holm had provided a bitter experience with the Black Mallory and I conjectured this would be an extreme test. The first few draws of the Standard Mixture were a little bitter but when it hit the zone the smoke was citrusy sweet and nutty. So I won't be sucking any more Black Mallory because - it sucks.

After a three year hiatus from reviews I return with some notes on this blend. I had forgotten my login info from my previous profile "RebelPipester" and I no longer had the registered e-mail account, so if you want to see my tastes of three years ago please check out that profile.

With that said the tin I own is probably four years old. When I opened it four years ago I was not really impressed with this blend so I put it away to age some. I recently "reconstituted" the blend using deionized water and wish I had read the reviews prior to doing this. Needless to say I'm still not impressed.

I began by smoking this like I would any English/Latakia blend and found a fair amount of tongue bite. In addition, I am in agreement with most of the reviews here, mostly with the two stars or less ratings. I don?t even get a nicotine rush from this blend like I would from most Dunhill blends.

What prompted me to write this is a comment made in comparison to Dunhill?s Standard Medium. This blend isn?t close to the same league as Standard Medium. Black Mallory is harsh, unrefined, dare I say one-dimensional as compared to any Dunhill blend. Heck even Dunhill?s Standard Mild has more punch and MUCH better smoking qualities.

With that said, after reading the other reviews of this blend I can find this tolerable if I take my time to smoke it SLOWLY, I?m in my early 30s (always on the go) and unfortunately usually do not have the time to doctor a pipe as much as this blend requires.

To wrap this up, there are so many quality English/Latakia blends out there it is just a waste of time to buy this blend. If I?m going to offend the olfactory senses of the non-smoking public I?d rather do it with a Dunhill (Standard Series Blends), McCranie?s (Old Syrian), Samuel Gawith (Perfection or Squadron Leader), Cornell & Diehl or McClelland (25th Anniversary or Frog Morton Series) blend.

There are many fine English blends out there. To my taste this just isn't one of them. The flavor is medium latakia with little else to offer. It is flat, one dimensional, to my taste. It is not a bad blend so please don't misunderstand me. I'm just saying that there are so many English blends that I like that there just isn't any reason for me to want to smoke this one. The balance of Red Rapparree has been lost and the latakia dominates to the degree of being boring. Compare this to the variety of tastes in a blend like GLP Rennaisance or Dunhill London Mixture and Black Mallory is no match (excuse the pun).