759 Match

[monbla256]

I have an attorney friend over in Dallas that is one of the fashionable "ping-pongers" tobacco wise and is always giving me something "new" to smoke when I see him. Earlier this week I was over in Dallas and we got together and his latest "new" blend was Hearth & Home's BS 759 Match . My having been a 759 smoker back thru the '70s into the early '80s he was happy to "... give ya some of what you used to smoke" as he handed me about 4 ozs of it !! I thanked him and took my baggie home and loaded up my Charatan 420 tanshell finished Billiard up with it after dinner that night. "tin" aroma was similar to my memory of it though not as Latakia heavy as I recall the original. It was a nice loose ribbon cut as the original and loaded and packed similar as I recall the original. Took to the match and lit similar as well and I thought "...we might have something here" but as the flavor reach my tongue I could tell we were NOT smoking the origianal !! The 'old" 759 had ALOT of Syrian Latakia in it and would assault ones palate right off with the Yenidje and other Orientals right behind !! This "new" stuff was much, much lighter Lat and oriental wise but thats probably 'cause I believe Russ uses Cyprian Latakia in this and I'm sure the Orientals are different now than back then. This had a much more subdued flavor as opposed to what I recall I smoked back then. Similar, but NOT the same! "Course most of us 759 smokers back then smokes "fresh" 'baccy and this feels and smokes like I was smoking from a 10 yo tin. Don't get me wrong, it has some of the elements of the old 759 but it is NOT the BS 759 of that time !! It is a good, solid nice smoking Balakan to be enjoyed for this alone but don't smoke it thinking you are going to experience the 759 of old. You're NOT!! Close but no cigar :twisted: :twisted:

 

[Richard Burley]

Hey, thanks for posting this review, Michael. Some of us old boys especially will find it useful. I never "got" the heavy oriental blends back in the '70s, generally, but I remember 759 as one of the few that I thought were pretty good, once in a while. I never liked, except as a once-in-a-while oddity, Balkan Sobranie White (or Black), just to give you an example of my tastes, or lack of. Bengal Slices was good; Craven's was awesome, Sobranie #10 ditto. We can't live in the past, and was the tobacco "better" then, or was it our youthful taste buds? It would be interesting to compare Russ's version with the current Dunhill. The old boy knows what he's doing, in my experience. Too bad about the Syrian. Maybe.

 

[JimInks]

Monbia is correct. 759 used Syrian latakia, which isn't possible now, and the original had more than the new version. The strain of Orientals may have changed, as yenidje isn't the same as it was years ago. That, I know for certain. But the Match is good on its own.

 

[Stick]

Shame that Michael. It would have been great if it delivered...

 

[daveinlax]

Even Gallaher couldn't match the Sobranie House tobacco and they had the recipe.
Blackhouse is the 759 match that won the BS Throwdown a few years ago in Chicago. :shock:
http://www.apassionforpipes.com/neills-blog/2011/5/21/russ-ouellette-wins-balkan-sobranie-throwdown-mike-mcneil-wi.html

 

[monbla256]

Even Gallaher couldn't match the Sobranie House tobacco and they had the recipe.
Blackhouse is the 759 match that won the BS Throwdown a few years ago in Chicago. :shock:
http://www.apassionforpipes.com/neills-blog/2011/5/21/russ-ouellette-wins-balkan-sobranie-throwdown-mike-mcneil-wi.html

Thanks for that link and I remember reading about that when it happened, The thing I was trying to get across was that my opinions are based on MEMORY of the product as I smoked it from '72 thru '85 and as I said it was ALL smoked "fresh" off the shelf with no more aging than what occured from date of manufacturing to sale point, i.e. FRESH as I said. Unless one has a time machine to allow one to get to sample a tin of it during that time today,as well as aquire the SAME base tobaccos from the SAME suppliers as then today, you can only get CLOSE to what it WAS !! As you mentioned, Gallaher made changes to it while they produced it and it was those changes which made me stop smoking it in '85!! :twisted:  Trying to get what was is a futile endeaver and we should enjoy what we have NOW!! That's what we did , at least I have done. "back in the day" !! :twisted:  JMHO  :twisted:

 

[scottbtdmb]

Even Gallaher couldn't match the Sobranie House tobacco and they had the recipe.
Blackhouse is the 759 match that won the BS Throwdown a few years ago in Chicago. :shock:
http://www.apassionforpipes.com/neills-blog/2011/5/21/russ-ouellette-wins-balkan-sobranie-throwdown-mike-mcneil-wi.html

Thanks for that link and I remember reading about that when it happened, The thing I was trying to get across was that my opinions are based on MEMORY of the product as I smoked it from '72 thru '85 and as I said it was ALL smoked "fresh" off the shelf with no more aging than what occured from date of manufacturing to sale point, i.e. FRESH as I said. Unless one has a time machine to allow one to get to sample a tin of it during that time today,as well as aquire the SAME base tobaccos from the SAME suppliers as then today, you can only get CLOSE to what it WAS !! As you  mentioned, Gallaher made changes to it while they produced it and it was those changes which made me stop smoking it in '85!! :twisted:  Trying to get what was is a futile endeaver and we should enjoy what we have NOW!! That's what we did , at least I have done. "back in the day" !! :twisted:  JMHO  :twisted:

Hate to say it, but if you started smoking Sobranie in 1972, you never smoked any with Syrian latakia. According to a Greg Pease article, the Sobranie House switched over to Cyprian latakia around 1960...

 

[monbla256]

Even Gallaher couldn't match the Sobranie House tobacco and they had the recipe.
Blackhouse is the 759 match that won the BS Throwdown a few years ago in Chicago. :shock:
http://www.apassionforpipes.com/neills-blog/2011/5/21/russ-ouellette-wins-balkan-sobranie-throwdown-mike-mcneil-wi.html

Thanks for that link and I remember reading about that when it happened, The thing I was trying to get across was that my opinions are based on MEMORY of the product as I smoked it from '72 thru '85 and as I said it was ALL smoked "fresh" off the shelf with no more aging than what occured from date of manufacturing to sale point, i.e. FRESH as I said. Unless one has a time machine to allow one to get to sample a tin of it during that time today,as well as aquire the SAME base tobaccos from the SAME suppliers as then today, you can only get CLOSE to what it WAS !! As you  mentioned, Gallaher made changes to it while they produced it and it was those changes which made me stop smoking it in '85!! :twisted:  Trying to get what was is a futile endeaver and we should enjoy what we have NOW!! That's what we did , at least I have done. "back in the day" !! :twisted:  JMHO  :twisted:

Hate to say it, but if you started smoking Sobranie in 1972, you never smoked any with Syrian latakia.  According to a Greg Pease article, the Sobranie House switched over to Cyprian latakia around 1960...

My bad !! Mr, Pease in NO WAY could be wrong about this so it's obvious that others including the Sobranie House have been lying all these years !! I stand corrected by my younger more experienced brothers .... :twisted: :twisted:

 

[Thomas Tkach]

I wonder if the fact that clones are lighter on latakia may be due to the nature of cloning long-gone tobaccos. If you have an aged sample to compare when trying to blend fresh, the character of the latakia will have toned down, so you'll use less latakia to get the same character of the aged tobacco in your fresh sample. You won't have successfully cloned what the original tasted like fresh, either.

 

[Ozark Wizard]

It really is unfortunate that those folks in Syria can't stop fighting for a few years or so and get back to those tobacco fields and start producing that fine Latakia again. It's like they have no consideration for those of us in the Western World whining desperately for something different to put in our pipes, eh? I mean, what the heck are they growing out there now, opium for the pharmaceutical companies?

smirk

 

[daveinlax]

It really is unfortunate that those folks in Syria can't stop fighting for a few years or so and get back to those tobacco fields and start producing that fine Latakia again.

From what I've gathered a large part of the problem is that the wood they need to smoke the tobacco is in short supply and not worth burning on tobacco. :shock:

 

[Ozark Wizard]

You may have a point there, probably not a lot of trees growing out there, eh?

 

[Brewdude]

You may have a point there, probably not a lot of trees growing out there, eh?

This!

:|



Cheers,

RR