Robert McConnell Scottish Blend

This review pertains to the 2022 version, and not the previous incarnations, which were different. The bright Virginias produce plenty of tart and tangy citrus, grass, bread, sugar, floralness, some vegetation, sour lemon, light spice, honey, and a touch of acidity as a team player. The spicy, woody, earthy, floral, herbal, vegetative, mildly creamy sweet and sour Orientals lead more often than not. The Cyprian Latakia offers some smoke, earth, wood, floralness, musty sweetness, and a little spice. It’s in the third slot most of the time. The spicy perique produces moderately sweet plums, figs, earth and wood. Overall, it’s a notch or so below the Latakia, but here and there equals it in effect. The sugary, toasty, mildly spicy fire cured black cavendish plays back up below its percentage in the mix. The strength and nic-hit are a couple of steps past the medium threshold. The taste is a rung past that mark. Mildly moist, it burns cool and clean at a reasonable rate with a deeply rich, very inconsistent sweet and spicy, floral, smoky, savory flavor that extends to the pleasantly lingering after taste. The room note is a little more potent. Leaves little dampness in the bowl, and requires a couple more than an average number of relights. Can be an all day smoke for the veteran piper, and repeatable for the rest. Three stars for the taste rounded down to two due to the constant changeability of flavors.

-JimInks

Typical tan-to-black ribbons with some choppier cut. Smell of hay and latakia in the tin nose, with some pleasant if not terribly rich oriental presence. I have no idea how old this tin was but the tobacco was not only still moist but the paper cover had discolored greatly from moisture. I found this one was better with just a bit of extra drying. Too moist and it tasted steamy and bland, too dry and it produced richer flavor but it burned too hot.

This is not my idea of a traditional Scottish mixture, as it contained Kentucky. Burley or its kin is just not part of what I view Scottish as, which is simply Virginia, orientals, a smidge of latakia and perhaps some unflavored Cavendish. Consequently, I found this one too robust and not sweet enough, as the Cavendish did not make up for the lack of character in the Virginias. Without viewing this as an actual Scottish blend, it still suffered from a lack of real development and a resistance of the various tobaccos to meld. The latakia was light, which was good, but the Virginias didn't play the lead role. The orientals were more dominant in the tin and room aromas but didn't shine in the taste. The Kentucky was probably the lead flavor but it too was subdued by the "too balanced" leanings of this blend. And I could swear that at times I tasted perique, and wondered what perique was doing in a Scottish blend. Some of the old Rattray Virginia recipes added perique once they got to K&K to better replicate the Virginias of old, so perhaps they did so here. Snorking did not elevate its presence so I may be incorrect. As Robert McConnell is one of my favorite blenders, this blend makes me wonder what K&K did to it that made it so forgettable. There are much better examples of Scottish mixtures out there (look no further than K&K's own Rattray line) and while I didn't dislike this one, it failed to excite.

Tasty orientals. It is a well balanced blend, with no flavor dominating the others. I recommend it for anyone who wants a full English. Quite floral. Not something I would smoke frequently however.

Update

By God, this tobacco can sometimes be disappointing! There exists, unfortunately, a lack of consistence from one tin to the other.

As where my first couple tins proved an agreeable change of pace, and generated a nice room aroma, the second tin brought up an acrid taste and room aroma that almost made my eyes irritated...

For the sake of inconsistence, I must downgrade my original appreciation of this blend to two stars. A proof that even the best can make mistakes...

Original review 03/18/2008

A good english blend, different that the other standard ones. The black cavendish, all depending of its proportion from one tin to another, will bring up a sweeter taste that is welcomed, for it provides a change of pace for a traditional english. The first tin I smoked was heavier on the BL CA that the second one, thus the taste was sweeter.

The perique will let itself known in sporadical cycles, adding a kick to the whole experience.

SB does manage to maintain my interest. Not an all day favorite, but still regular in my favor.

An easy to fill and smoke blend, I would smoke this one in the wardroom while relaxing with a good pint of ale.

While there was nothing particularly wrong with my current tin of SB, it is significantly different from what it used to be. Before it was a moist (some say overly so) wonderfull Scottish blend, on par with Rattray Black Mallory and the various Cotton Scottish styles. No it is a very nice English with some Black Cavendish. IT has none of the depth and nuance it used to. The only thing I noticed that was different was that K&K had taken over production. I generally like their product, and hope they will get this back to its former glory. OK English, not so good Scottish.

Good stuff, this is a pretty standard milder english to me, very tame, very even smoking and cool burning, no bite. Enjoyable while doing other tasks, I used to smoke this when we would go out and shoot pool, back when you could smoke in a pool hall...

I acquired 4 tins and noted serious inconsistencies from one to the other.

One tin would prove to be divine and the other harsh and unpleasant.

I will stay away. there are a lot of consistent good English mixtures available.

In general, I dislike Latakia. In most blends, I find it overpowering and medicinal- tasting. However, I gave this tobacco a try because it is called "Scottish" and has some perique, which I love in my pipe.

The first sniff of the tin was great. I am close to finishing my first bowl as I write this. On the whole, I find this to be a tolerable tobacco that I can smoke again and will not give away. I won't go searching for a pound of this in bulk, but it is a tobacco that I will smoke infrequently when I am in the mood for something like Dunhill Early Morning, which is more than simply tolerable for me.

I just finished the first bowl. There was no dottle whatsoever, even though the weed was quite moist in the tin. Although I could not actually taste the perique as a distinct ingredient, I had the odd sense that I did experience it on my tongue. For my second bowl, I think I might add a smidgen of perique and maybe a smidgen of blending Virginia or burley to "cut" the Latakia a little more.

This blend will not entice me away from smoking mostly perique blends, but if I find myself in a strange land surrounded by aromatics and Latakias and see a tin of this in a local shop, it will be like seeing a B List friend in a strange crowd and I will snatch it up, satisfied that I found something that I can be reasonably content to smoke, at least until I find another tobacco shop tomorrow. I would prefer a tin of Davidoff Scottish Mixture, but this would do under those circumstances.

Not exactly a glowing review, to put it mildly, but I feel that I am more positive than negative about this blend because I normally do not like Latakia blends. If this is all I could ever smoke again, it would not be the end of the world; I would continue to smoke a pipe.

A difficult tobacco to understand completely, too many tobaccos that don't mix in a definite way. The result is a pretty confused smoke with nods of everything here and there but without a precise plot to follow; it doesn't set that hook you can remember. On the contrary I can clearly remember the dampness upon opening the tin, which was quite awesome: it's mandatory to leave it open for a while. Not a bad tobacco, satisfying nicotine-wise, but really too confused for me. Here in Europe it's manufactured by Kohlhase & Kopp, so the USA version might be different.