Robert McConnell Scottish Blend

I bought my tin in 2018, and it has been aged 4 years now in a jar. Well, perhaps time for a review. I was led to this one because someone said it was similar to Old Gowrie which I enjoyed at the time. So I bought a tin, but did not care much for it so I put it away. This is a perculiar blend. Ok, I will try to break it down, what it tastes like IMO.

Taste: Sweeeeet and stout, that is what you get in this blend. Perhaps sweet from cavendish used. But it is not at all sweet in a natural way, more like sickly sweet and I would say the sweet profile that I get tastes a bit like apple (some topping I believe). But the sweetness is then also integrated with the perique which gives it a kind of dark prune note together with spice. What stands out for me is this strange combination of too sweet and too much perique. But then add kentucky into the mix, and you also get a very robust taste. Virginia and orientals I don't taste so much, they are minor players, even if I do get some natural sweetness from virginias too i the background, and some woody notes and sour that probably are a hint of latakia and orientals. Latakia is almost hard to detect IMO. Sure, the sweet profile in this blend can be enjoyable, but as you smoke it just builds up a bit too much. Imagine you have some kind of sickly sweet sirup-apple taste and then you pour over peppar on it. Then add the very full and robust character of kentucky and some sour woody note. What a weird combo, no? The second half of the bowl kind of mellows out a bit, and the taste caramelizes into something slightly better that I can appreciate more, mostly because the perique turns into something less peppary and more mellow-sweet. This is when SB presents itself as its finest, IMO. At times it almost wins me over. But just almost, because I still feel that the taste builts up in a slighty overwhelming way. Even when it mellows out and performs at its best in the pipe, it still is kind of too sickly sweet for me. But maybe if you had a sturdy meal and you feel like a dessert-like tobacco, this could do the trick.

It burns well, not too hot, produces a creamy smoke, but you do not want to smoke it too fast. I get the impression that if packed tighter the perique tends to dominate even more. Personally, I wished they had skipped the perique all together, I think it would have made it better (the kentucky is already strong enough). It is a very stout smoke, but dessert sweet at the same time. I can kind of see how aging has brought forth the sweetness of the perique, integrating it with the other tobaccos used. And sure, it is stout yet still very mellow, I can give it that. But still too weird for me.