I don't like this, Petty,Petty,Petty

Really now??? No words..
Some people just need to carp about something just to be happy....or mad..

I just wonder how many folks remember exactly what  the originals taste like.

If I'm not mistaken, Max has a long history of poking the nearest hornet's nest when the mood strikes. In this instance, I happen to somewhat agree with what he's saying. One of the elements of having an old, favourite blend changed that I find upsetting is not really that the blend has changed, it's that I'm being forcibly reminded that the past is indeed the past. That link to old memories and emotions has been taken from me...I'm getting older and closer to the end.

I grumble about it once in awhile, but rather than get too upset, I take it as a reminder that things change, and that if one of the things that upsets me is that if one or two hundred out of the thousands of blends available have changed...man, my life must be pretty good, and I have a lot to be grateful for. And then I smoke my new favourite blends as I create new memories.

Being a fairly new pipe smoker (2 yrs and 2 months in) I don't have a point of reference.
I can tell the difference from a fresh batch of baccy from say a 2 year old jar like SH Select Mixture, but if I were honest, I likely couldn't tell the difference if I was blindfolded and didn't know. Sure one may taste different from the other, but to try and remember a baccy from 20 years ago to now, my palate just isn't developed enough. I blame smoking cigs for 30+ years on that.
I'm typically the "get off my lawn guy" and only 50, but this guy takes it to another level and needs medication in my non medical education opinion.
Or he needs to focus on something else. The man is going to have an aneurism...maybe gardening or something.

Yeah I get it tobacco mixtures change and Max is a well known pain in the arse and I don't agree with him on much but guys bitch and moan about changes in Dunhill and other old line brands but at least they have some ownership link and heritage with the past. These brands are just stuff lane puts in tins with lapsed US trademarks. There is no link to the past and IMO STG Lane is just throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks.

Even if the blends continued they wouldn't be the same today as they were decades ago. All blends shift with time as tobacco is a natural product and the leaf today isn't the same as the leaf in the 60's.

I reckon you can agree or not agree with what he said, either way its not going to change anything. You either like the new blends or you don't, no one is forcing anyone to purchase them. Escudo went through a change and I didn't care for but, I still smoke it because it didn't take it that far off what it was (to Me) and I've learned to live with it because there is no replacment, it was my choice. Everyone has an opinion and everyone's taste buds are different, that I know. So when someone says this tobacco is garbage or its great I still have to evaluate it myself. I've got half a cellar almost of blends people swore up and down was the greatest thing since the wheel that I personally don't care for. Blenders I would imagine are like cooks, even if two chef's have the same ingredients they'll both taste a bit different. As far as ingredients being no longer available, that's just what happens in time and we have to substitute to make it work. Many of the old electronics and other items I've worked on in the past 30-40 years have components that wear out that are not made anymore and some can not be reproduced so I have to do with what I can make or find to make it work. I would think the same applies to tobacco blends and many other things in our lives that have seen there time. Just my two bits on the subject.

Nah it is more like if the Swatch group decided to sell Omega to another company. The new factory, most likely in China, won't be building watches exactly like there were in Switzerland. The new owners can't let quality slip too much because they likely paid a whole lot for the name. Old Omegas would fetch a premium on the secondary market, some collectors wouldn't even consider the new watches, and other would say "Hey my grandfather owned a Seamaster I want one too."

That's correct with regard to the Cottons, Warhorse Bar, and Bengal Slices.  They even went so far as to perform a thorough chemical analysis, including gas chromatography, to determine what was in these blends so that they could  make as honest an attempt to recreate them as possible. 

Max has his opinions and they're often ignorant so this little rant doesn't surprise me. 

Take Capstan, one of the blends Max objects to.  I've smoked Capstan from the '30's, '40's, '50's, "60's , etc as well as the recent production and it all has that distinctive Capstan taste, even allowing for the effects of aging.  Is it the same?  Of course not, how could it be? 

But it's recognizably close.  Move a blend to another facility and the blend will change.  Rely upon recipes only and changes in sources will throw the result off the mark.  Germain's may have the recipe for Balkan Sobranie, but they have neither the ingredients, nor the taste.  Russ' WhiteKnight is closer to what I smoked, and closer to the samples of the Gallaher made product, against which I got to sample Germain's BS and H&H WhiteKnight.  Russ has got a palette.  He uses that instead of an outdated recipe.

I never smoked the original Cottons, so I have no basis for comparison, but I have smoked Bengal Slices in days of yore, and Russ hit the mark there as well.

Where I will agree with Max is that a lot of blends are just relabelings of readily available currently made blends, and that sticking a "famous" name on a simple relabel is misleading.  Welcome to rebranding.  I'll also concede that changes in ownership lead to loss of the original blend, unless the new owner is dedicated to finding a reformulation that restores the flavors as closely as possible. 

I've even labeled Denmark as the place British blends go to die.  But sometimes things stay just fine or are even better.  I love the A C Peterson version of Escudo.  But the STG version misses the mark.  And now that they're using Stokkebye tobacco for it, you might as well buy LBF and save yourself some money.

MacBaren's St. Bruno is a "sort of" version for me, but I'd still rather have it than nothing.  And I enjoy it on its own merits.

By Max's reasoning, all current Dunhill products are fakes, crap, an outrage.  Hmmmm...maybe he IS onto something. 

But even if a blend has changed, judge it on its own merits.

Ditto .Personally  I like it and I am grateful they made it