Ongoing Experiments With Mastic

[Hassouni]

So, maybe you read my most recent Lebanon post and saw I smoked this delicious dessert-y flavor mixed in-house at a restaurant in Beirut. They said i was a special blend of tobacco (cocktail as they call it) with added mastic (miskeh in Arabic). Mastic is a tree resin that's used a lot in Arabic desserts, and has a very hard-to-define taste, but if you've ever had Arabic ice cream, sahlab, or some of the creamy desserts, it's similar to that. I asked how I do it, and they said just add a few bits of mastic in with the tobacco. It comes in what's called "tears" which are solid droplets ranging in size from about 50% large to 50% larger than a peppercorn. The taste was very subtle, took a while to kick in, but was delicious. Sadly I didn't ask how much I should mix in, or whether I should crush them. They gave me a sample of the tobacco they mixed, and I didn't smoke it (because I didn't have any means to in Beirut), but it smelled sort of like berries and cream, maybe with a hint of grape.

Experiment 1:
80% Elmas mixed fruit, 20% SS Potion 9 or whatever it's called (Chris/IncubusRATM sent this to me a while ago), 3 tear of mastic crushed into almost a powder and mixed in.
Result: disappointing. The tobacco seriously overshadowed the mastic. After 20-30 mins I could BARELY tell it was there, and only in the aftertaste.

What I want to try now is a mixture of AF strawberry (since it's sort of creamy), vanilla, maybe some grape, and change the mastic. Maybe leave it whole, but add more than 3 tears. I know Aaron (cp44) was really excited by me talking about this, so if anybody else wants to try this out, please do post your results here!

Mastic, by the way, was the world's first gum, so to get a feel of what it tastes like, if you get some, pop a tear or two in your mouth and just start chewing. I'll turn into a gum almost instantly, and the flavor comes out within a few chews.

[mitchard]

Have you tried this yet?

[img]http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/6113/gummastic.jpg[/img]

[Venger]

I chew mastic gum all the time. It is a wonderful flavor like sweet pine tar. I would love to smoke it.
Ray
Also would like to find something that will go with lavender.Af vanilla maybe.

[Hassouni]

[quote name='mitchard' timestamp='1298321277' post='498714']
Have you tried this yet?

[img]http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/6113/gummastic.jpg[/img]
[/quote]


I haven't. The natural mastic is nice, but the commercial gum made from it (which is pretty popular in the Arab World) is gross, or at least I remember it being so....

[Hassouni]

Experiment 2. BAH.

6 or so mastic tears, not powdered, mixed with AF strawberry. Almost nothing. What does it take!

[IainUM]

75% mastic, 25% tobacco. GO

[Hassouni]

Well well, went back to my favorite place in Lebanon, saw the flavor, asked, they said no, you can't use the mastic drops, you need to mix in "essence" of mastic, sort of like a flavoring or essential oil, which is apparently very hard to get. Instead, he just gave me a bunch of the pre-mixed tobacco. Good stuff, but sadly not easy to do homemade. Oh well

[Blargthesmoker]

There's a flavor by al fakhar(sp?) it's called gum mastic and it's really good, if you like mastic flavor. It is good with a bit of mint, or lemon, or blueberry.

[Hassouni]

Yeah, I have a carton of it now