Pipe and Cigar Smoking

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April 26, 2024:

Back to "Fruit McBullshit." This is Savinelli "Armonia," arguably the best aromatic on the market today, mixed with chopped "Cotton Boll Twist" and maybe a little "Brown Twist Sliced" so that the smoker does not perish from nicotine deprivation. "Armonia" is great stuff that involves dark fired Kentucky Burley as well as Virginias in a blend with a chocolate and floral or fruit topping that defies description. It is stouter than most aromatics and has much better quality underlying life; most of them are pile Burley plus Cavendished pile Burley. Mixed with strengthening agents like "Cotton Boll Twist," it becomes a slow-burning power smoke for long afternoons. I can smoke "Fruit McBullshit" in public and not have people whack me with a traffic cone like happens when I light up even a light English. In addition, since it hits with a load of flavor and has a gentle topping that lasts through the end of the bowl, it is perfect for those days when you need a smoke but do not want to think about fiddling with the pipe too much.

April 24, 2024:

Sadly, the "University Flake" has moved on to the afterlife of clouds and smoke, but when I moved a stack of books and a sweater, I found the remnants of a jar of "Coniston Cut Plug." Like all the best SG/GH blends, this one combines different types of leaf to enhance the flavors of each other and then adds the famous English natural flavoring mosaic that gives it an incense-like scent and flavor on top of a good solid Burley/Virginia mix that will put some hair on your chest. This blend took me a long time to start liking because of the heavy scent on some early batches, but over time it has become one of my go-to blends. I rub nothing out, just wad and twist, then stick in the bowl and light. It stays lit and burns consistently, requiring very little smoke to enjoy since it is both powerful and flavorful. I hope there is another jar of it around here somewhere.

April 21, 2024:

Working weekends make for long hours and tired eyes. The enterprising pipe smoker seeks a simple smoke, but one that is long-burning. Exiled to a porch with a leg up, he realizes he has nothing but a pair of garden shears and a tin of "University Flake," that plum-topped (or maybe it is grape; no one is sure) Burley flake with plenty of power. Snip a flake or two into a cube cut and use an IRS envelope torn down the middle to pour the result into an old battered briar pipe whose brand name, such as it was, wore off years ago. Hit it with one of those kitchen matches next to the barbecue grill, then draw once hard and resume breath smoking. It might seem like blasphemy or laziness, but it delivers a power smoke with the greatest of ease.

April 13, 2024:

I am smoking what I call "Old Albert Krantz," basically OJK mixed with "Prince Albert." This gives some strength to the mix, and the flavor of the Perique and Virginias melds perfectly with this sweet Burley blend. Although it is the main ingredient in most large production tobaccos, Burley gets a bad rap because it can bite, it has high nicotine, and it tends to hit people in the gut like underripe fruits or vegetables can. Somehow the "Prince Albert" tames most of it, and this OJK is several years old so it has mellowed a great deal. A perfect smoke for the end of a long workday like today.

March 30, 2024:

To put it gently, it is not easy to estimate the amount of tobacco that will fit in a bowl. I tend to always have leftovers, a little mound of leaf that is usually the smaller-size pieces and dust. At first, I mourned it; it would dry out and be wasted, which seemed sad for a noble plant which has gone through such a journey to get to me. For awhile I kept a scraps jar where I tossed in any leftovers, and after it accidentally aged for three years, it was fantastic! These days I tend to keep the tobacco residue around for when I smoke flakes. I like to fold a flake and some portion of another flake, then twist them, and slide them into the top of the bowl. I spread the residue in any cracks and open space above the flake since being dry it burns like an Iraqi orphanage. Maybe this is cheating, but it gets flake started, which is always a bit of a challenge, and lets me stop mooning around over the two pinches of tobacco I wasted because it was near impossible to estimate exactly how much goes into my fifteenth no-name billiard.

March 29, 2024:

I do not go in for trends, cults, or superstitions. I believe in certain things like the ancient gods because I think they are anti-superstition. I think fortune ("luck") happens but only works for you when you are ready for it, and most times we are not. For that reason, I am skeptical of the aging tobacco cult. Aging has its benefits, but to hear people on Instagram or Reddit talk about it, you are a cotton-picking beet-eating untermensch if you do not order something rare, expensive, hard-to-get, and weird and then age it for ten years. Well, no thanks... life is now. It is also the future and past, but now is important too, and so I tend to get things, smoke them, and only age stuff accidentally and through laziness. I mean, who can "wait" on that tin of "Stockton" or "Irish Flake"? LOL FUCK THAT! But I buy stuff on sale and sometimes it gets marooned in our guest room XXL walk-in closet, and since no one wants to clean that blighted mess, delicious tobacco stays for years. Such is the case for this jar of "Old Joe Krantz" that rolled out this morning when I threw an old duvet into the heap of electronics, books, boxes, heirlooms, fishing rods, lamps, cans, and skulls that is our closet. I think this one has more than a couple years on it, probably closer to five or eight, but who the hell wants to label these jars in precise internerd script with date and time and stuff. With age, the Virginias sweeten and seem to ferment, and the Perique gets more brandy-like, zooming to the front. You taste the Burleys on the first light, but they have lost that vegetal strength and extra-nutty flavor, so instead this tastes like good jam on bread with a little spice to it, like tangy berries instead of gooshy sweet fruit. The Burleys however make this blend burn so evenly that you barely know you are smoking it. Probably time to order a few more pounds of "OJK," jar it, and huck it into the closet. After all, we have more duvets floating around that are too ugly to do anything but consign to the administrative abyss of this closet and ignore until they are old enough to throw out without guilt. Maybe next time, another jar of this sweet tart zingy stuff will roll out for me.

March 25, 2024:

People ask why Prince Albert is recommended for new smokers. The answer is that because it is bulk Burley, it is moronically easy to smoke and has enough nicotine for new smokers to avoid boredom, and because it is lightly topped with a flavorful cocoa-rum-raisin mixture, it has enough flavor that anyone can appreciate it no matter how bad their equipment or technique. It is very hard to screw this one up, and very easy to enjoy it. You can fill the pipe anyway you choose, and it will turn out fine. As long as you get it lit, all of it will eventually burn. Even if you smoke it like a freight train escaping hell, you will get a pleasant flavor, and the intensity of the flavor tends to regulate how quickly you smoke it. For most new smokers, it will take a year or so to get the technique down, and this tobacco is perfect for learners as well as experts and anyone in between.

March 23, 2024:

Maybe your grandfather smoked this one, or maybe you just found it on a shelf somewhere, but it is easy to see why this blend endures. Pile Burley with rum-raisin and chocolate flavoring, it is not over-topped and burns easily, so all you do is take the pipe, stuff it full, tamp it, light, and go. I find myself taking the big red plastic bucket out of the closet and loading a bowl, but then the damnedest thing happens... the bucket moves onto my desk and stays there. My fingers keep reloading every couple hours, and I enjoy the easy burn and flavor that is strong enough to cause me to smoke it very slowly. No bite, and it is hard to screw up with packing or lighting this blend. I suppose if you really puff like a meth addict fleeing LAPD then you could have some problems, but you'd have to work at it. Anyway, most of what I taste is the chocolate top note meeting the chocolatey taste of fermented Burley, with the rum-raising note giving it an almost Perique-inspired flavor. Then at some point the bowl turns to ash and I'm digging around in the big red bucket to fill another pipe.

March 20, 2024:

I screwed up royally today. That is, an old suitcase was passed to me for storage and being an impetuous type, I flung open the door of the closet in our guest room and tossed in the suitcase, precipitating an avalanche from one of the heaps of old clothes, heirlooms, obsolete gear, tobacco, books, and fishing stuff. I was getting bawled out by multiple members of the family when I noticed this tin just sitting there on the floor, even as I could hear the landslide begin again inside the closet. I can fix that later; for now, I need to enjoy this blend that pairs dark fired Kentucky Burley with Perique and Virginias. I hid this tin back in there some time ago when I got a few on order, and now the Virginias are honey-sweet and the Perique has toned down to a gentle brandy-like flavor, although the dark fired Kentucky Burley is stronger than ever. This blends reminds me of "Three Nuns" back when it was a powerhouse blend for people in motion. It is slightly stronger than medium and has one of those intense flavors that sort of compels you to smoke it slowly. I hope Mac Baren makes this a regular production line because nobody does ropes and curly cuts as well as Mac Baren, and this blend really brings out the varietals that complement Virginias and enhance their flavor

March 13, 2024:

I have switched back to the black twist. This blend is amazing for how much smoke it produces on the first light, and how long it smolders. You can keep one of these going for hours. Part of the secret is that the flavor is so intensely smoky that you really need very little of it running across your tongue to have a fulfilling smoke.

March 7, 2024:

So what is it that makes a blend one you reach for time and again? In the case of "Irish Flake," it is the intense flavor and strongish nicotine with nearly perfect flakes that make for easy smoking. The little tins find their way into my greedy hands on a regular basis and then muscle memory takes over: fold a flake or two, twist, wad, and then slide into the top of the pipe. Leave as much space as you can on the bottom. Flakes take some work to get lit, and "hard" flakes like this which have not been conditioned and softened with excessive amounts of topping require more of a starting light than most of us are familiar with. Once you get it going, however, it smokes smoothly down to the last fragments, although the last quarter of the bowl is when the accumulated nicotine reveals its strength. If you are new to this blend, consider ripping off the edge of a flake and stuffing two-thirds of one flake into the bowl, since that way you get all of the flavor but avoid the whallop.

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February 27, 2024:

On the smoking of flakes... while the 320 KS pipes I have provide the best all-around flavor, flakes smoke really well in tall billiard pipes. The trick is to fold, wad, and squeeze the tobacco into a stack and then slide it into the pipe, but keep it near the top. This leaves a little space at the bottom where otherwise the flake, which expands as it burns, will form a seal and make the last parts of the bowl miserable. You want the flake to burn evenly from the top down and then collapse into a heap of coals that smolder gently so that the last third of the bowl is as flavorful as the first.

February 16, 2024:

Someone brought me a very kind gift of Peter Stokkebye "Danish Export." While this has less nicotine than the blends I generally enjoy, it also has a supremely light Virginia flavor with a very delicate topping that might be rum and a bit of port wine. This gives it the same slightly figgy, peppery, and fruity flavor that Perique gives to blends which has been often imitated by blenders with toppings. However, this aromatic touch is scant and serves more as a booster and spin to the flavor of the Virginias than a flavor in itself. If you liked the old "Three Castles," this is the closest replica you are going to find in a normal store and better than "Three Sails" by a long shot. Like all shag, it packs in a heap and needs some compression, but then lights easily and stays going. All good big commercial tobaccos have this kind of focus-free handling, and here it makes for a blend that is ideal if you are picking up a packet at HEB on your way out the door to hike, fish, hunt, or drive two hundred miles to a nearby city to hear some death metal. The softened Virginias, probably a result of compression and heavy casing, burn the same way through the whole of the bowl, with the sweetness moving from lemon curd on fresh wheat bread to honey on toast as the flame lowers. It rewards slow smoking but also encourages it with enough flavor and full, bold smoke that the smoker has no need to puff, suck, wheeze, gasp, slurp, or any of the other ridiculous stuff they talk about in videos and TR reviews. Designed for cigarettes, but works great in a pipe.

February 9, 2024:

Useful links:

Pipesmoking
* https://sutliff-tobacco.com/tobacco-101/smoking-a-pipe/
* https://pipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_Packing_and_Smoking_techniques
* https://www.deathmetal.org/lifestyle/introduction-to-pipe-smoking-and-pipe-tobacco/
* https://www.smokingpipes.com/smokingpipesblog/glossary.cfm
* https://write.as/nicotiana/pipe-tobacco-smoking-guide-ptsg
* https://www.smokingpipes.com/information/howto/cleaning.cfm
* https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/leisure/a-pipe-smoking-primer/
* https://www.pipesandcigars.com/faq/pipe-faq.html

Tobacco
* https://www.glpease.com/FAQ.html
* https://popvox0.tripod.com/pipes/guide.html

Research
* https://pipeportal.eu/
* https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/
* https://pipemuseum.nl/en/
* https://dutchpipesmoker.com/
* https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/tobacco/tobacco.html

Pipes
* https://pipedia.org/
* https://www.smokingpipes.com/search/the-pipe-locator.cfm

Buying
* https://pipesmagazine.com/retailer-directory/
* https://wholeleaftobacco.com/
* https://www.leafonly.com/
* https://www.trueleafmarket.com/collections/tobacco-seed
* https://briarreport.com/

Social
* https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t578177/
* https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/pipe-smoking-rises-ashes-hip/story?id=26081188

Forums
* https://thebriarpatchforum.com/
* http://www.cigarasylum.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=22
* https://www.brothersofbriar.com/

Health
* https://gwern.net/nicotine
* https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/96/11/853/25207

February 6, 2024:

For today, which has been a long one starting long before the sun rose, the Peterson "University Flake" called out from a lonely shelf where it has been in repose next to a broken coffee grinder, a tape measure, and four sets of decorative salt and pepper shakers received as gifts which are too hideous to consider putting on the table. This strong Burley blend, featuring some smoke-cured and some air-cured, includes Virginias of a natural mature sweetness that is not cloying but more like a touch of maple syrup on your pancake. On top of that a strong but oddly unobtrusive plum topping gives the blend a wine-like flavor which melds with the molasses of the Burley-Virginia mix. I keep hearing how it is so strong that it mutilates ordinary smokers but at this point, it seems just about right.

February 5, 2024:

Whenever I get a chance to pick up some Sutliff "507-c," I usually grab a pound or so. This is a bright Virginia flake with what I suspect is some browner Virginia to slow it down a bit, but despite being "matured Virginia" it still needs six months to a year in the cellar -- in my house, an overflowing walk-in closet of odds, ends, and stuff I do not want to deal with and hope gets stolen by a clandestine UFO -- to really shine. During that time, the sparkly citrus of the bright Virginia dials down to a honey and lemon curd type flavor, and a rich toasted whole grain wheat flavor emerges from the darkening Virginia leaf. You have to smoke this one like someone in slow motion or like all Virginias and most bright Burleys it will bite, the acidic kind more than the steam kind, but if you can let it trickle over your tongue in a slow smoulder you will get the type of tobacco flavor that people seek in leaf that costs four times as much. It is not bad out of the bag but the extra cellar time makes it stellar.

February 2, 2024:

If you want to buy tobacco online:

1. Order enough for free shipping
2. Keep track of coupons
3. Coupon + free shipping + sale = win
4. Stock blends you like
5. Tins are fine, bags go to jars
6. Aim for June and October sales
7. Avoid trendy "new" blends
8. Buy off-brand clones and alternatives
9. Have fun and smoke in public

February 2, 2024:

Switched to Peter Stokkebye "English Luxury" today. A small stash of this remains from exploring Englishes a few years back. It incorporates Cavendish, so is technically probably a Scotch blend, but also has some nice warm Burley to make it smoke cool and with a little more kick that your average Virginia, Orientals, and Latakia mixture. This one strikes me as good value for the money for someone who wants a mild English, since these blends are sweeter and take the edges off the Englishes, which otherwise can be too much of a flavor explosion for all-day casual smoking.

January 29, 2024:

Kicking off today with an old favorite. Prince Albert is out of the can (let him out!) one of the easiest blends to smoke since it is pile Burley with a minimal topping, so you gravity fill the pipe to a small mound on top, then clamp it with a thumb, light and wander off smoking it. Since I sort of dislike most toppings, I adulterate the blend with a mixture of white Burley and dark Burley at about 40% of the target total by weight. This makes a drier tobacco, so I have to actually do two rounds of gravity fill plus thumb clamp, but then it is the same drill of sticking the pipe in the mouth, lighting it, and wandering off enjoying this chocolate rum raisin accented mixture.

January 28, 2024:

A long day calls for a long rope (of tobacco). Sliced up a half-inch of this nice and thin, stuffed it into an old beater pipe I keep around for long days, and got it lit on three tries, which is pretty good for these dense, moist ropes. This may be one of the strongest tobaccos you or I are likely to encounter in our lives, manifesting as a kind of foreboding feeling in the gut and intense vision with sparkling awareness. I like to enjoy this one with creamy but strong coffee in big buckets. No sugar; it has never seemed to work for me anyway, but with this degree of nicotine power, there is no point throwing obstacles in its path. Soon I will see before the creation of time, into the labyrinthine secret ways of the elder gods, and unlock the secrets of the seven mages and nine sacred gates. The room note is odd, both powerful and dark, but also scented with a slight incense, so that people are not sure if it is tobacco or the immolation of wayward souls.

January 26, 2024:

Smoking the "Coniston Cut Plug." This is a strong, Burley-powered flake with lots of Virginia flavor, and I do not mind the "Lakeland Essence" because here it is combined with incense-like flavors. They warn you that it is very strong, and this is true, but that makes it perfect for being outdoors and doing things or just hammering out code on your laptop.

January 16, 2024:

Switched back to Mac Baren "HH Bold Kentucky." It does not have the cool stripes that Orlik "Dark Strong Kentucky" had, but it has a mixture of the dark fired Kentucky Burley power and bright Virginia sweetness, brought out by a steam-press that mashes the little cells into paste and lets out the harmful compounds while allowing advanced carmelization of the sugars and release of the delicious nicotine. Normally, bright Virginia blends tend to be super acidic but here that tendency is tamed, and the roughness of the dark fired Kentucky Burley is also hammered down for a sweet molasses flavor with lots of nicotine. This blend is one of my happy places where I go when the world seems to be circling the bowl in a flurry of toilet paper and chewing gum.

January 15, 2024:

It is finally cold out, out there, which is the perfect time to break into an aged stash of English blends. This one is a Dunhill "Early Morning" clone but with a little more spice, and although I miss the Burley and dark fired Kentucky Burley Cavendish that the Gawith Hoggarth "Scotch Mixture" had, this has lots of Virginia flavor and a pleasant piquant herbal spice from the Latakia and Orientals. Because it has almost no nicotine, a few sliced coins of Gawith Hoggarth "Brown Twist Sliced" round out the mix. I do not smoke just for the nicotine, but it is part of the experience, and I would not smoke without the nicotine, so might as well go all-in. Something about crisp cold weather favors the gingerbread cookie flavor of a solid English blend!

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December 27, 2023:

Fired up some "Irish Flake" in a Savinelli "Quercia" tonight. This is a big pipe -- over an inch in diameter, and a couple inches deep -- and it accepts two flakes without a problem, then smokes for almost three hours. Has almost perfect draw. Also weighs about four pounds but that's neither here nor there.

December 24, 2023:

Everything seemed boring. All of the options were well-known. Sometimes when that happens, it makes sense to just throw together a couple of things and see what happens. The closet disgorged a tin of Sutliff "TS-12 Dark Fire Cured" a.k.a. dark fired Kentuck Burley the other day, and I had some "Brown Twist" around, so I sliced up the latter, diced the bits, and fed them into the dark fired which I wadded up and slid into a pipe. Somehow I have survived this nicotine powerhouse. It has a very rich and dense flavor, sort of like the tobacco equivalent of catacombs or dungeons, but passageways branch off where you would never expect, making for a nuanced smoke with an incense-like quality. Room note is, well, probably not for other people, but if you are alone on a porch (usually, to escape those other people) with a soft breeze blowing on a rainy night, it hits the spot.

December 23, 2023:

Lighting up some "Black Twist Sliced" mixed with new-model "Old Joe Krantz." I miss the old OJK made with the woodchipper-ground Burley that was strong enough to stop a tank, but the new stuff is very flavorful and people who are not accustomed to nuclear nicotine levels can enjoy it. The two together make for a deep dive into Virginia flavor with the warming, smoothing effects of Burley.

November 26, 2023:

Difficulty staying awake after a long night of trying to get stuff done while the other five nines of the world (99.999%) try to impede this with the usual distractions, deflections, confusion, and other time-wasting nonsense. Solution: a mixture of "Cotton Boll Twist," "Black Twist Sliced," and some of the last of the "Brown Twist" which was hand-sliced here in the kitchen using the same knife that after a wash was used to cut the product of another nightshade plant, potatoes. Ever notice how much we depend on nightshades? Tomatoes, eggplants, and bell peppers are pretty hard to argue against, and tobacco as a fellow Solanacea provides a great deal of joy. It can also keep you awake when coffee fails.

November 25, 2023:

Saturday is dottle day sometimes. That is, the stuff at the bottom of the bowl after the pipe runs down gets heaped in a clean ashtray, and at the end of the week, run through a bit of steel mesh to take out the unburned bits. These generally occur around the edges of the bottom of the bowl, especially with flake, and cannot be burned without exerting a lot of fire and therefore making a hot bowl. Instead, the last partial quarter-inch of the bowl goes into the ashtray and then makes for a handy bowl on Saturday morning when it is too early to figure out another jar or tin to pop open but a pipe is called for. This week, it was a mixture of "Bold Kentucky," "University Flake," "Dark Flake," and "Irish Flake," and upon first light it gave off a slightly ashen taste, then flared up with a solidly enjoyable sweet but stout smoky flavor, with its constituent parts not really discernible but still evident in its power. Dottle bowls are great because the nicotine and tar tend to flow downward, so you get a power hitter of a relaxing smoke. The ashtray gets clean at the same time, which keeps the workbench tidy.

November 16, 2023:

The sign of a blend that is not just good, but connects with you and your personal acidity levels and taste profile: you reach into the tin, realize there are only two flakes left, and experience a sense of trepidation and anxiety, even if only a tiny one.

I will have to muddle on down to the local pipe shack later today to pick up some more "Irish Flake." It has a silly name and it is in a tourist village now owned by the Chinese, but the shop has kept pipe smokers in tobacco and pipes for decades. I will resist the urge to look at any more Savinelli 320s, which are probably the finest-smoking pipe available on a shelf in most areas.

November 14, 2023:

Our weather got, like, four degrees cooler, so of course I hauled out the Englishes. You have to enjoy the season, whatever it is, and there is nothing like the classic English blend:

* Bright or orange and red or brown Virginias
* Turkish/Orientals
* Latakia
* Optional: Burley, Cavendish, Perique, Maryland, dark fired Kentucky

Personally, some of my favorites are the old Dunhill blends. Dunhill screams English as a brand, and their Darwinian policy was to mix custom blends for customers, then keep whatever capitalism favored through word-of-mouth. The most requested blends then lived on as the "My Mixture" series. For a basic English, "Standard Mixture" is pretty much as glorious at it gets. "Nightcap" mixes in some Perique for a powerful nocturnal smoke; "My Mixture 965" is a Scottish English with some Cavendish and a spicy gingerbread cookie taste. These were designed in part for customers to mix them with other Dunhill blends like "Elizabethan Mixture" and "Royal Yacht," because back in the day smokers used to treat their pipe blends like their drinks, and had their own preferred style that they experimented with regularly.

Some years ago, I started mixing my own Englishes, focusing on the American English style which includes Burley. There was no good reason for this except that it was fun and I like Burley. Fortunately, after almost ten years in the cellar/closet, these are really hitting their stride. My classic mixture:

* 10% Latakia
* 10% Turkish
* 20% Virginia bright
* 20% Virginia red
* 20% Burley dark
* 20% Burley white

If that gets boring, you can dust it with a little bit of Perique. Sometimes I swap out the Burley dark for dark fired Kentucky Burley, which gives the blend a smoky flavor with hints of the exotic Latakia. Many smokers would prefer more Latakia but I find a minimal amount goes a long way and you actually taste more of it. This blend tastes like a ginger-cinnamon-cardamom on sugar toast, or some other blog-friendly description that uses food metaphors, but it is just a spicy, zesty treat that hides its sweetness behind a bit of strength.

November 13, 2023:

Want a basic English?

Mix a pound of this:
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipe-tobacco/low-country/natural-virginia-and-oriental/product_id/236887

With four ounces of this:
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipe-tobacco/cornell-diehl/latakia/product_id/79414

I like to throw in some of the Virginia & Burley mixture as well, but that makes an American English. Add Perique to taste:

https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipe-tobacco/Sutliff/ts-20-louisiana-perique/product_id/250829

November 12, 2023:

If your homebrew Englishes are too rough, consider adding half as much dark fired Kentucky Burley as the amount of Latakia you add. The Latakia flavor swallows up most of the dark fired taste, but this warms it up from within and rounds it out, taking away the worst of the Latakia herbal essence and room note of burning camel dung in a spice shop. For many of us, Latakia is quite delicious but can often be overwhelming in a blend, and this technique allows you to keep your Latakia levels but mellow out the extremes of that ingredient.

November 12, 2023:

Trying some of the new style "University Flake." The topping on this tastes like cherry vanilla with maple and maybe rum. The quality of the leaf is quite excellent, and the new smaller flakes fit better into most pipes. I miss the strength of the older version and whatever they did to make it taste like a giant blueberry.

November 11, 2023:

What are you smoking today, Spinoza Ray? Not like anyone cares, but a quick kick to the wall next to the door of the "cellar," an oversize walk-in closet in our guest-slash-office-slash-storage room, dislodged a six-year aged jar of Cornell and Diehl "Virginia Flake," so it only made sense to mix that up with Sutliff "TS-12 Dark Fired Cured" dark fired Kentucky Burley for the UK plug feeling in a ready-rubbed and ribbon format. The dark fired cured really slows down the burning and the Virginia mixture C&D uses has always been a favorite but owing to the high bright and orange content needs a few years to tone down the acidity and sugars. Together they meld into a smoky sweet flavor with hints of lemon and mustard.

November 9, 2023:

I dug out an oddity for fun. "Amsterdam Shag" is technically designed for cigarettes, but like Drum "Blue," it smokes really well in a pipe if you pack it tightly and breath-smoke it very slowly. Like many of the Dutch blends, it features dark fired Kentucky Burley mixed with red Virginias in a shag cut. Conveniently, this is the easiest cut of blend to use to fill a pipe. It is dry and compresses easily, so slide in a bowl and a half, tamp firmly, light and enjoy.

November 6, 2023:

For late night work, I like Mac Baren "HH Bold Kentucky." Mostly dark fired Kentucky Burley, but sweetened with bright Virginias, this blend produces voluminous smoke with lots of flavor and as a result rewards glacial breath-smoking. This ironically simply intensifies the nicotine power, which is substantial here, but that really is not what you notice about this blend because the two different types of leaf combine in a natural spicy molasses flavor.

November 5, 2023:

For tonight, I have a bowl of equal parts Gawith Hoggarth "Dark Flake" and "Brown Twist." If I survive, I think it will be quite tasty, but surely a higher-nicotine combination would be hard to find.

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October 23, 2023:

Although our longtime local tobacco shack, the Briar Shoppe, is great, some of us have been venturing to another local establishment in order to amplify the pipe world.

Like all tobacconists these days, it mostly sells cigars, since these make a ton of money and are very popular. People need luxuries that do not make them fat, and you can spend $200 on cigars and feel pretty good about life.

However, this shack also supports pipe smokers in the small, with a few selections. Some are flakes. Talking with pipe smokers there, it became clear that many people are afraid of smoking flakes "as is."

Luckily, the tobacco tin in my pocket was full of Irish Flake, so I demonstrated some technique: fold the flake, roll it into a plug, squeeze the plug, then slide into the pipe.

I showed them some additional tidbits that have come along through my ambling path: use your pipe tool to pry the flake away from the sides of the bowl, and then use a thumb to fold wayward strands back in toward the center.

You do not want "flat." You want a little mountain that looks like Devil's Tower, a straight vertical with a flat top.

Then there are two types of lighting. Your first light, you move the flame round and round to get the top layer to char so you can tamp it so that it lies flat. Then, your second light, which you want to penetrate fairly deeply because flake is hard to get lit.

For this one, you draw in slightly harder while make small, tight circles over the center of the Devil's Tower. You want that flame to get in there about an eighth of an inch, charring the stuff below and setting the very top layer alight in a blazing orange glow.

At that point, you should be free from relights as long as you keep some kind of capillary pressure on the pipe. Many of us were able to remove the pipe from the mouth, talk a bit, and get it back up and smoldering with just breath-smoking, even after thirty seconds of no draw.

Flakes are perhaps the most "fun" form of pipe tobacco because they smoke so elegantly and easily. However, there is a little start-up labor. These old Irish Flakes are longer than the contemporary version, which tells us that older pipes were probably bigger and deeper, but the same principle applies with short flakes as well.

This bowl from yesterday lasted well over two hours. When the flake really starts smoldering, it produces smoke without effort, so just keeping the pipe in the mouth and breathing slowly through the nose keeps a constant stream of low-temperature and therefore flavorful, not wet, and not bitey, smoke.

I encourage all of you to try a flake that works for you. The starter flakes like Orlik and Newminster #403 and #400 are conditioned to be soft, so they light a bit easier than the more natural flakes from Mac Baren, Peterson, and SG/GH. They are also a bit sweeter, which makes it easier to slide into enjoying them.

October 18, 2023:

It is hard to express why we love Prince Albert. Despite top flavoring of chocolate, molasses, vanilla, raisin, and rum the core of this blend is the naturally chocolatey pile Burley which in shredded form burns easily. The pouches, now discontinued, used an accordion-folded long ribbon cut, but the cans still use the shreds, and both forms make for an ultra-easy smoke: you drag your pipe through the heap, then thumb-tamp and top off as necessary. I like to drag then thumb-cap the pipe and shake it, since this tends to naturally settle the tobacco before tamping. You light it once and smoke it without a further thought. This is why we love Prince Albert: half of the great smoking stories involve stopping by a familiar store on the road to fishing, hunting, camping, Bible study, the army, outer space, or whatever and picking up a pouch for the road. The pouches had about the right level of topping or at least it seemed to evaporate from them, but the cans have more humectant and topping because they are meant to be open longer at fourteen ounces of leaf. To make mine palatable, I mix it with 2:1 dark:white Burley, toss it carefully, and then age in a jar for a few months so the Burley loses its vegetal flavor. When you take that out of the cellar or closet, it will be slightly stronger than normal and a little bit drier, which means that you can really compact this in a bowl without it obstructing airflow. This is useful if you are heading out for a few hours of mucking around the plant, office, or backyard and need a bowl that will not quit on you; it lends itself to breath-smoking simply because it burns so easily that you do not need to puff, suck, slurp, gulp, or whatever else social media pipe influencers do. Just stick the pipe in your mouth and set it on fire and nature does the rest.

* https://www.pipesandcigars.com/shop/blending-tobaccos/1800508/ Blending Tobaccos
* https://www.pipesandcigars.com/p/blending-white-burley/2008049/ Burley White
* https://www.pipesandcigars.com/p/blending-dark-burley-pipe-tobacco/1473127/ Burley Dark
* https://www.pipesandcigars.com/p/blending-aaa-burley-pipe-tobacco/1473122/ Pile Burley

October 18, 2023:

What famous people smoked:

* J.S. Bach: Planta "Königlich - Preußisches Tabakskollegium 1720 Blau"
* Stanley Baldwin: Presbyterian
* L.L. Bean: Prince Albert, Edgeworth Ready Rubbed
* William Conrad: Amphora Full
* Walter Cronkite: Sail Green
* Bing Crosby: Hayward
* Umberto Eco: MacBaren "Symphony"
* Albert Einstein: Philip Morris - "Revelation"
* William Faulkner: My Mixture 965, A10528 by Dunhill, and Prince Albert
* Shelby Foote: Edward G. Robinson and Half & Half
* Gerald Ford: Field & Stream, Walnut, Edgeworth
* Hugh Hefner: Sail and Mixture #79
* Carl Jung: Granger
* C.S. Lewis: Gold Block and Three Nuns
* Gen. Douglas MacArthur - Harkness
https://www.clubhumidor.com/product/harkness-f-1-oz/
* Leonard Nimoy: Kramer's English Blend
* J. Robert Oppenheimer: Walnut
* Chesty Puller: Prince Albert
* J.B. Priestly: 2/3 Dunhill "Standard Mixture" and 1/3 Dunhill "Royal Yacht"
* Basil Rathbone: Wilke's No. 515
* Bertrand Russell: Fribourg & Treyer - "Golden Mixture"
* Georges Simenon: Dunhill "Royal Yacht," Dobie's "Four Square," Granger
* Joseph Stalin: Edgeworth Ready Rubbed, Herzegovina Flor
* J.R.R. Tolkien: Capstan - Blue Flake

References:
* https://pipesmagazine.com/forums/threads/what-tobaccos-did-the-great-men-smoke.40981/
* https://pipesmokersdens.com/threads/famous-smokers-and-their-tobaccos-of-choice.1241/
* https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/what-famous-pipe-smokers-smoked-kind-of-goes-with-famous-pipe-smokers-thread-but.481319/

October 10, 2023:

It feels wintry enough to be a good time to smoke Englishes. What are these? Virginia blends with Orientals and Latakia to flavor them and give them an herbal, spicy, and sweet-sour flavor. There are some varieties, including American Englishes with Burley and strong Englishes with Perique, sometimes even aromatic Englishes with a stronger top note than the anise used to condition most tobacco. But they can all be delicious. Here are some favorites by quality and value:

1. C&D - Engine #99
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipe-tobacco/cornell-diehl/engine-no-99/product_id/123403
American English with stout Burley, makes for a good naturally slow and cool smoke.

2. GH - Scotch Mixture
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipe-tobacco/gawith-hoggarth/scotch-mixture/product_id/4006
An aromatic American English, good for lunting in the misty outdoors.

3. Newminster - #306 English Orient
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipe-tobacco/Newminster/no.306-english-orient/product_id/102420
This is a Balkan blend, or one with a greater proportion of Oriental tobaccos.

4. Newminster - #17 English Luxus
Luxury Englishes include Cavendish to soften the smoke. This one also includes Burley.

5. Stokkebye - #52 Proper English
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipe-tobacco/stokkebye/ps52-proper-english/product_id/11744
A middle-of-the-road English with no surprises and no defects either.

6. Sutliff - #503 Heavy English
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipe-tobacco/Sutliff/503-heavy-english/product_id/180668
The "heavy" means not aromatic. Based on the old Dunhill blends with the intensity dialed back slightly.

7. Sutliff - #504c Aromatic English
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipe-tobacco/Sutliff/504c-aromatic-english/product_id/187713
Miss old Frog Morton? Same appeal here: a tangy English with an aromatic topping.

8. Sutliff - #526 Old Professor
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipe-tobacco/Sutliff/526---old-professor/product_id/84738
A Latakia-heavy English without being excessive.

9. Arango - Balkan Supreme
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipe-tobacco/Balkan-Supreme/balkan-supreme/product_id/151152
A light Balkan which tends toward the English side.

10. P&C - Match Sunrise
https://www.pipesandcigars.com/p/match-early-morning-pipe-tobacco/1473112/
"Early Morning Pipe" (Dunhill) was famous as a Virginia-first English, and still is the best gentle English in this match form.

October 2, 2023:

In my view, the pipes and tobacco industry made the wrong choice back in the 2000s when they decided they wanted to sell to bearded hipsters instead of normal people. The "Pipe Force" cover art makes me cringe, as do the pictures of obviously directionless people spending tons of money on pipes and unobtanium boutique tobaccos. This might be what industry wants to think is the future, but really it is the fairly normal person who just wants a safer way to enjoy tobacco and their time off.