Mac Baren: HH Balkan Blend 3.5oz Pipe Tobacco

A Balkan which features Latakia in perfect balance with the other players. The Orientals add just the right amount of pepper and spice, especially as a lingering taste. There is also a beautiful flavor with which I am unfamiliar, but delighted to find featured here. Packs easily and requires few relights. This is a delightfully complex smoke....Read More

Two years ago I enjoyed HH Balkan Blend a great deal. Today, perhaps due to the changing character of the aged blend and perhaps due to my own evolving tastes, I enjoy it less. The first thing to reach your nose from the jar is honeyed burley and a note like dark fired kentucky. MB is famous for its burleys and cavendish so that's no surprise – play to your strengths, right? But there's not enough oriental leaf here for it to fall under the balkan umbrella. The latakia is neat, sweet and smoky like barbecue instead of bitter like creosote, and it works with the burley and the bright virginias. It's a round, sweet, nutty, earthy blend with a little bit of smoke from the barbecuey latakia. But the orientals have faded. Now it's more of a colonial style blend than a balkan. It's still relatively good, just much more burley and virginia than anything else. A decent BurVa, but if you want a Balkan then aged HH Balkan probably isn't the one....Read More

Tin date Nov 2019 has note of smoky, fermented sour, and mild fruit. Tobacco ribbons are brown and black with a little tan. Moisture content is good, dry but soft and not sticky, so no drying needed. Burns slow with a few extra relights. The strength is medium and nic is mild. No flavoring detected. Taste is medium and mostly consistent, with notes of very smoky, spicy, leather, herbal floral, very woody, spices, dry earth, sweet grass, bitter cocoa, lemon peel, a buttery sweet nutty background note, and a peppery retro. Latakia and Orientals are leading with Virginias, Burleys and Kentucky supporting. Room note is pleasant to tolerable, and aftertaste is great....Read More

Great smoke, mild flavor, alot like Crowning Achievement, burned REALLY hot but smoke was ok, definitely enjoyed it.

Like most every HH mixture featuring burley, the burleys here are the only constant presence. It remains earthy and nutty for the duration of the bowl, opening up the experience and then ushering it out the door at the end. Very nice orientals tickle high up in the sinuses right away, starting the show with a bang just below the eyes and then slowly fading into the background. The latakia is present as a harmonizing and supporting player instead of a lead, which is exactly what you want in a balkan. These virginias are rather bright and sweet, which is very tasty can play a bit of havoc on the tip of the tongue if you’re not careful. HH Balkan Blend is significantly different from most of what Sutliff does with its burley-balkans. The tin note is sweet and round and barbecue-like, calling to mind a nice dark fired Kentucky( I had to double check the tin just to make sure they hadn’t snuck any in there). I was just reviewing Stokkebye Proper English and wishing it had some burley in it, but now if I ever want a balkan with tons of nutty burley I can turn to HH. Sutliff Crumble Kake English #1 and Sobranie 759 Match are still my daily go-to balkans, but I will definitely continue to keep HH balkan blend around for those days when that big burley craving hits. HH is not what many would regard as a “top shelf” marque, but it is incredibly reliable and consistent. For what it is, this blend is close to perfect....Read More

Why yes.. this indeed hit the spot. By far, the best tasting tobacco i have had in a while. Just the way it smokes is rather amazing. The mix of tobaccos were thoughtfully considered. Its just really good. Sip it or smoke roughly. It performs!

This very well could be my new choice for an all-day smoke. The tin note is wonderfully balanced, and the taste is just as balanced between sweet, smoky and sour. Very pleasant to smoke, and its the first of any MB tobacco I have had that doesn't bite me. Very smooth, with a mellow flavor....Read More

AS is the case with so many HH series, this is a great blend. This is certainly english in character, but it is not a lat heavy mixture. IF you favour the spiced subtleties of the various orientals and how they play against a backbone of rich virginia, you will enjoy this offering from MB. The Lat is used as a condiment, and is of a sweeter variety. This blend favours cooler weather, and is excellent for fall/winter....Read More

HH Balkan is a beautifully blended, smooth English, but the overall intensity of the Latakia is less than in other English blends. In my book, this is a good thing, giving an English option that is both top-quality and easygoing. It's a bit like the difference between Scotch neat and Scotch-and-soda: Both are good, and you might prefer one over the other depending on circumstances. Between HH Balkan, Kramer's Father Dempsey, and Bengal Slices, my English needs are more than met. (Update: I like this so much that I ordered a pound to cellar.)...Read More

First cracked the tin, and had to grab another whiff just to be sure, yup, it smells like a black forest ham. Very odd, but no it does not taste of it. In fast I find the virginias play a decent role in this blend, for a Balkan anyway. The latakia is kinda taking the back seat while letting the Virginia and Orientals do most of the work. Lightly sweet, kinda fruity, but there is still a noticeable dash of burley nuttiness in there if you really start digging. A different Balkan that is really worth a try....Read More