Robert McConnell Scottish Blend

Bought in Switzerland at average price for quality tobaccoes, at opening is pleasant, correctly moisted, with a quite delicate smell. Quite little latakious, as we usually expect from a scottish.

Aroma: light and quite complex, pleasant

Taste: good, smooth, elegant, complex and hard to find a definition, but lacks in something, maybe a typical recognizable trait... is much more STRONG than you can imagine, after 3 or 4 bowls in an afternoon you can go knocked for the kick...

Room note: not invasive or too persistent

Burning: good, correctly slow, if you puff only a bit too much it can easily overheat the pipe

Best Briars: EM & co. dedicated, gives its best in small pipes

Well, it's a good and elegant but shifty, difficult to understand, mixture: escapes to a clear definition and is a bit inadvertently too strong, by me.

This is a medium aroma and nic blend.when you open it the spicyness fights the woodyness in a confusing way.packs easy needs a little effort to light.burns from cool to medium hot with a bit moist.the flavours are more spicy and earthy with a decent dose of woodyness in a sweet base.for sure not a strong scottish like the dunhill blends.you can start your afternoon with it in a decent but not exciting way.if you want to try a scottish blend without strong flavours and taste but also not flat experience that's your blend

Virginia, Latakia and perique combine to make a soft yet firm presentation. And the leaf that McConnell's was famous for (the Virginias), are rich, dark and tasty. A special blend that has never quite been duplicated by K&K, although they certainly are giving it a good effort.

The new 100g tin is now pale-green, reminiscent of moss. Great tin-art, like virtually all McConnell blends. Two shepherds with their dog. Funny enough the description on the label doesn't mention the Kentucky, whilst the sticker on the bottom of the tin does. It also says "full proportion of Leaf Latakia" which I contradict.

Cracking the tin you'll be greeted by lots of black ribbons, interlaced with red and brown ribbons and very few bright ones. Still the Latakia is rather smooth and not obtrusive. Wonderful tin-note of Latakia smokiness, sour and woody Orientals and some nuttiness. There's also a somewhat alcohol-ish and fruity note to it. The tin-note truly reminds me of scottish Highlands, a field of green and a shepherd smoking his pipe in the rough landscape. Great!

In the smoke Scottish Blend is delicious, delicious, delicious! The componenes create a smoking experience with depth, and the Latakia does what it's suppoed to do: season a tobacco blend, not dominate! Buttery, creamy, smoky, earthy and woodsy and with some sour and peppery tones to it. Pleasantly mild sweetness, with a fermented character.

I plead for there being some Perique present, that sports the sour-peppery notes I know and love about the Perique. In fact the K&K website description says there's some Perique in it: "B. Cavendish with bright Virginias and various spicy tobaccos like Latakia, Orient and Perique" it says. The typical Kohlhase & Kopp dilemma... 4-5 various blend descriptions floating around, each one contrary to the others... I'd go on a limb to sa there's B.Cav/Virginias/Perique,/Kentucky/Oriental in this blend, I definetly get a Kentucky nuttiness, and the Periues piquancy. Don't even mind to contact K&K for clearification, they won't tell you whats in the blend, that's my experience with it.

There's also a very, very mild flavoring and Dextrose added, which I guess contributes the fruitiness and sweetness as well. How do I know? Easy...you can find all of McConells (as well as other brands additives) on this website: https://service.bmel.de/tabakerzeugnisse/index2.php?detail_id=104486&site_key=153&stichw_suche=scottish+blend&zeilenzahl_zaehler=2

Scottish Blend is - aptly named - a blend with a good amount of not too sweet, unflavoured Cavendish and a moderate amount of Latakia whilst having a tolerable, almost pleasant roomnote and a broad variety of ingridients. Great aroma! Sour, sweet, smoky, hearthy, leathery, nutty...it has it all!

While the older format allowed the reviewer several degrees of recommendation, the newer format only allows one to say that I smoke this regularly, or occasionally, etc. But since I just tried it for the first time, old-familiarity terms do not really apply. I liked it. I recommend it. I cannot predict whether I will smoke it regularly, or occasionally, or seldom.

I am not sure what makes this "Scottish". When I think Scottish, I think Scottish cake, i.e., broken, instead of fully-rubbed, flake. I get the impression that modern Continental blenders use the term for a mild English blend, often with Cavendish-processed leaf.

That is precisely what this is. The smell in the tin is absolutely scrumptious, rich, mildly yeasty, a Latakia-blend smell. Truly mouth-watering.

Taste-wise, think a lighter My Mixture 965. The Latakia is applied with the most expert light hand; the orientals give a silkiness that caresses the tongue, and the virginia/cavendish base makes the whole thing as round and savoury as nutmeggy, cinnamonny bread pudding. Very good.

I smoked it in a Stanwell poker and then a Larsen prince. It burned cool, dry and tasty every time.

I picked this up at my local B&M. The components come together to make a fine blend with no one leaf really beating away the others for center stage. The moisture level is spot on at the cracking open of the tin. The tin note is quite nice and the room note even better. The nicotine level is about middle of the road, all the better to smoke 2 bowls back to back. This produced a decent amount of smoke and burned down to a nice ash at the bottom of the bowl. Definitely recommended.

For me, this blend was not so inspiring, but it was a unique experience.

The latakia is well mixed in with the virginias and orientals, and I would say it does not stand out in the forefront at all. On the forefront of the palate are the Virginias, but not pure virginias... virginias mixed with something,,, the perique! The perique is also not at the forefront by any means, but it is detectable, with that peppery quality. This blend was hard to pin down for me... leathery, light smokiness, grassy.

I really either like stronger lat blends or straight virginias, so this just wasn't my my alley. However, the quality is there, it burns well, burns cool, and really can't knock the quality of the product. It just wasn't for me. Still, a good blend for what it is.

I have to say that, being accustomed to stronger and more tasty mixtures (Balkan Mixture, Elephant Dung, Schürch 128 and 146, to name names), by now this one seems to me quite unremarkable. But (someone said that, here) this could be due to some balancedness of the mixture - a very steady one, too. So I'll stick with this for some time and see how the relation develops. Last thing, I noticed that drink some glasses of just milked milk (is this a proper or at least decent expression in English?) and the smoke some of our blend, well, that fits very well. A milky mixture, I'll say.

***UPDATE*** I have finished some time ago my first 50 g of S.M. Initial mistrust developed into honest tolerance and again changed into warm liking... and there I ran out of the stuff. But "you can't hurry love" (sang the Supremes). Also, the S.M. is the only thing I like to smoke in the morning (I mean, to smoke "just like that" and apart from special occasions). Waiter, one more star, please!

***UPDATE #2*** Now I really like it.

Contrary to some other reviewers, I didn't have the chance to smoke any of the McConnel's blends of the pre-Kohlhase & Kopp era. So I wouldn't be able to compare.

What I can say is that this blend is definitely English/Oriental, without a doubt. Certainly not a heavy one, but I can make out easily the Orientals, a bit of Latakia, VAs. I can't detect the Périque nor the Black Cavendish by tin aroma, but I can detect them when I'm smoking the blend.

This Bakkie is a long cut, with leaves of golden, orangy, red, green and black colours. The tin aroma is somehow reminiscent of Dunhill's Standard Mixture medium, so it is to say the amnount of Latakia is not high, because Standard Mixture Medium has no- or barely none- Latakia.

The filling is quite easy, due to the cut of the Bakkie. I like shortening the length of the bakkie to make the filling even easier. The moisture level was a bit high, but still smokable, despite the fact that it required more religthnings than usual.

The Orientals and Vas sure shine through right from the start, and they will remain consistent throughout the smoke. This is tasty, not really strong, but not light either; it's a proper balance, and the nicotine level is satisfactory. Think of a Rattray's no 7 on steroids. As you smoke your way through, some distinct hints of Latakia will emerge, but what comes back more often, but still on an irregular frequency, is the sweet black cavanedish which, frankly, is a nice addition as it cools off a bit the kick of the smoke and blends in well with the rest. It offers a nice contrast which I appreciate. Contrary to other reviewers, I think that those tobaccos blend well together and will benefit from some aging.

After all, more English blends than we think contain some black cavendish, sweetened or not, to smooth out the global taste.

The smoke gets stronger past half bowl, and I can't say I've detected with certainty any substantial amount of Périque in there. So, if it's there, it's in very small proportion. What I can say is this, though: make sure the bowl is not too loosely packed on the bottom, or the smoke will bite and irritate your taste bubs!

The ending is rather dry, but I've discovered that I prefer to finish off my pipefuls the next day rather than the same, for my ending of bowls have a tendency to be wet and alter the tobacco taste a lot when I smoke the whole thing at once. Maybe I smoke too fast, I don't know yet. But it's a diferent issue.

I must say, I like this Bakkie, and will order more. This is a different Latakia/Oriental and, thanks to the addition of the sweetened black cavendish and the low content of Latakia, the wife has no problem with it and I can enjoy it at home. And that is priceless!

Recommended!