Monthly Archives: September 2016

Private Reserve inks

A bit of history Private Reserve suggests a fine wine, rather than an ink, but it’s a brand that has had a loyal following in its native North America for many years. Here in Blighty, it’s a little harder to find, but several of our reviewers were kindly provided with samples by The Writing Desk following our recent couple of articles about their ways. The three reviewers all got different samples, so a meta-review has been a bit more challenging than usual – but Ian had reviewed many Private Reserve inks in the past and Scribble had tested all the purples, so we have quite a range covered!  Between us, there are five Private Reserve inks that at least two of us have tried, comprising two greens, a greenish blue and a pair of purples.  Are you inking comfortably? Then I’ll begin…

Don’t step on my blue suede shoes  Blue Suede is a good place to start because it’s a tricky colour to pin down.  It IS blue, but then again it’s really rather green.  Our newest reviewer, Daniel, points out that this is actually a teal, if anything – and a jolly decent one too. blue-suedeIt’s so saturated that there is no shading to speak of, but it’s not going to look insipid either.  Ian was a big fan too, adding that drying times may not be the fastest but they were also far from terrible.blue-suede-inkling

Ebony and burgundy go together in perfect harmony Those of us who like to sneak a purple to work are often in search of a purple-black ink, and this certainly fits the bill – plus, it has quite a noticeable sheen if you lay it on thick.  Ruth got a sample of this as part of her trial assortment and was suitably impressed.ebony-purple-swab

Scribble has been busy trying to review every purple there is, and still liked Ebony Purple so much that he’s got on to The Writing Desk and bought a big bottle of the stuff.ebony-purple-scribble

You say avacado, I say avocoda, oh let’s call the whole thing off Now, the good people at Private Reserve may not be able to spell avocado, but they certainly know how to make an ink that looks like the flesh of said fruit. avacado-inklingIan found the colour impressively rich, and Ruth was quite taken with it too.avacado-swab

Down-there-in-the-ink, sha-la-la-la-laa, it looks like the inkling of a plum Plum is a fruity shade which seems to do different things in different pens, unless of course we got some labels mixed-up!plum-inkling

Ian found Plum to be a fairly standard purple, whereas Scribble had it down as a deep magenta. But it’s rich and tasty, either way.plum-scribble

Yes, we have no rhinoceros Spearmint was quite a bit darker than the mention of mint appeared to suggest.  spearmint-dotcross

Rob found that there was more shading with this colour, but that the saturated nature of the ink could pose clogging challenges with some pens – albeit nothing that good rinse of the feed wouldn’t sort out. Ian enjoyed the shading that showed-up in his ‘inkling’ illustration too.spearmint-inkling

Somewhere over the rainbow Private Reserve has its origins in Indiana, which is quite a way from Kansas, but Dorothy probably wouldn’t be disappointed – plenty of other colours are available too!  Thanks to The Writing Desk, Daniel enjoyed another two greens; Ebony Green and the possibly mislabelled Ebony Blue, while Rob sampled Electric DC Blue and the nicely dark Chocolat, and Ruth enjoyed a sip of Orange Crush.  Private Reserve sent Scribble a set of samples directly to support his search for the perfect purple, so he’s also had fun with Purple Mojo, Purple Haze and Super Violet. Ian gets the prize for the broadest reach with reviews of Tanzanite, Buttercup, Ebony Brown, Black Cherry, and Shoreline Gold.

It’s the End of The World As We Know It But you’ll at least feel fine in the ink department with some of these – ‘well worth checking-out, in our assessment, and the simplest way of getting hold of them in the UK is to head to The Writing Desk.  Let us know about the colours we missed!