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Pipes and Cigars and Tobacco
Weather pretty abruptly went from summer to fall last week. Smoking Autumn Evening in this poker. Med-dark roast arabica cappuccino. Balcony garden. Nice fall ambiance. Happier with this tobacco blend than in previous moments. It’s got several years of age on it if that makes the difference. Has some voluminous body and tobacco core now instead of just aroma. Maybe the weather. Maybe me. Anyway, nice chill time visiting with an ancient medicine. Best to you all.
I ordered from SmokingPipes.com in the US. They carry a lot of different tobaccos. These are some ideas around blending, but include thoughts around the individual blends. All of these are bulk tobacco rather than tinned. You can you can probably tell that I prefer Virginia tobaccos. 🙂 Tobacco tasting notes ### Stoved Virginia Smooth and brown-sugar-like on the retrohale, with a hint of smokiness. Like a sweet barbecue sauce with none of the sour campfire flavor some blends have. Very tasty on it's own. Should blend well with some of my hot-pressed favorites, or as a base for something with a bit of citrus or tartness to balance the heavy mouth-feel. Maybe a bit of lemon peel? ### Yorktown blend It looks like a very light Virginia, but tastes slightly darker than that. Mostly light and smooth with a little bit of sweetness and hay. This might blend well with a hot-pressed Virginia, to sweeten it without adding too much complexity. ### Mac Baren rustica ready rubbed I found this pretty hard to light. It's probably just too wet it needs to dry out a little bit before I smoke it again. When I can keep it lit, it reminds me a lot of Mac Baren's pure Virginia blend, which is excellent. The nice thing is I can buy this in bulk. I think this is going to be worth an 8 oz reorder, but I want to try it after drying it out a bit to make sure. ### Windsail Silver This tastes like a very medium Virginia blend. No real smokiness, maybe a hint of hay, and that typical Virginia retrohale. On the retrohale it's not nearly as deep as something like an evening flake, but still satisfying. Probably a good one if I want just a light smoke, or better still a good base for blending. ### Night Slice Pre-Lite, it smells a lot like evening flake, or luxury twist flake. Not surprising, given the maker. The flavor is much lighter than the other Stokkebye blends. Complex, and interesting. Toasted nuts and hay, It became spicier the longer I smoked the bowl. I'm really enjoying it, and I will l want to get some more of this. It's very good, but I think if I age it a year or two it will be fantastic. ### Louisiana Perique Dis heeyah tase like de Virginia, but wit a hint a da fahn madiro see-gar. Will add complexity to anything I mix it with. It smokes really well on its own, too! ### Broken Scotch cake This Burns really really well. Stays lit for quite some time. Overall flavor is standard Virginia, maybe a bit of spice but just a tiny bit. Probably best mixed with something with some dark character, like Stoved Virginia. ### Brown Flake Unscented Smoooooth smoke. Burns amazingly well. A bit of spice and vanilla. **MUST BLEND** this. It will be a great base. Maybe a little perique, a bit of navy flake, and just a hint of Stoved Virginia. It doesn't need much. It develops nicely on its own. Still smooth, but a bit more spice halfway through a bowl. The finish is like a navy flake. Maybe top it with a small amount of the above instead of mixing? ### Kendal #7 This didn't leave any lasting impression. It was sort of a "yeah, it's a ribbon cut virginia". It will be fine as a minor additive if I want to round out a blend & the cut of the other tobaccos is compatible.
Anyone else enjoying a cigar in the snow?
I've been barely getting by with 2 Xikar travel humidors, that for their size don't really hold a lot, once you factor room for the foam and humidity packets. So I went wild and picked up this Yeti GoBox 15 on sale, then stuck a humidifier unit to the inside of the lid. I'm currently waiting on 2 stackable cedar trays for the bottom, so that the lower cigars stay more organized and contained while in movement.
Price: ~$0.30 (from 1964 to 1990) Production began in 1964 and was Czechoslovakia's highest quality cigarette.  >smoking kills on the bottom  >20 filtered cigarettes  
I often like the interviews on this YT channel. This particular interview isn’t notable to me except for this snippet where neuroscientist Carl Friston pauses, mid a long clinical discussion about how we perhaps interpret reality to respond to Curt, the interviewer, asking for guidance on feelings of existential crisis. The expert response: “have a cup of tea and a cigarette my boy, I smoke a pipe myself“ For me that was the most profound and meaningful comment of the episode. I hope most of you are headed into a joyful holiday. But I know it’s troubled waters for some. So I wish you all peace and patience, and the comfort of your trusty teacup and tobacco. ✨
Gonna be too cold (for me) to smoke outside soon. I’ve considered getting some type of air filter for my office to use in the winter months. What’s your winter tobacco solution?
Cooler days settling in. Sunny afternoon with a brief tantrum of hail. Smoking a virginia flake with couple years on it. Fragrant plum fruity nose in the jar. Lightly sweet, a touch of pepper, and hint perhaps of woodsmoke. Happy fall weekend to you all.
Felt inspired to break out a well known maple flavored pipe tobacco in honor of autumn. I was quickly reminded that while it smells nice, it just has no ‘oomph’ - which probably equals nicotine. Conversely a virginia and/or burley blend has subtle natural fermented sweetness but also a kind of deep presence in the experience. Feels more meditative and substantial to me. Whereas aros give me the impression I may just be wasting time. To each their own of course. Think I’ll work on breaking in my new pipe with some Carter Hall (va/bur). What’s in your fall pipe / cigar rotation out there?
I saw some pipe vids on YT talking about which 5 you'd choose if that's all you could smoke. This week my answer would be: - Balkan: C&D Star of the East, H&H Marquee Magnum Opus, Sutliffe English Oriental Supreme - Codger: Sir Walter Raleigh - Aromatic: C&D Epiphany
Why? If you open your tin or pouch it’s going to begin drying out over a few days and taste and flavor will eventually suffer. You can store pipe tobacco in most any airtight container almost indefinitely. The tobacco taste can develop over time. A blend that you find over strong or pungent when fresh may become smoother and nuanced with a year or two in the closet. The generally recommended solution is some kind of canning jar with a good seal. Remember to label what it is and when you put it in there! Pipe tobaccos age in usually positive ways over time. How long is useful? Depends on the tobacco type. Virginias benefit the most - mellowing and sweetening. A year or two is likely enough to see benefits. Beyond 5-10 years you may do more harm than good. Some more comments by blender GL Pease and others here: https://pipe-club.com/tobacco_aging_faq/eng/aging.php Your pipe tobacco should NOT live in a humidor. Just air tight, stable temperature, and dark. Watch out for mould - fuzzy hairy bad smelling growth on the leaf. Better to pitch it if that happens. In the attached pic you’ll see a couple different size jars. I like the little 2-oz jars for travel. I’m a very occasional smoker so it’s nice to be able to pack around a little jar for days, weeks, even months until I’m ready. Bigger jars go in my tobacco “cellar” (a box on a shelf) until summoned.
A newer favorite in my rotation. A little lighter bodied than most sticks I smoke, but a real flavor bomb. One that I always want to smoke to the nub. Smells excellent as well, always gets a compliment or two.
Never had a Flathead in a lancero-ish size, I usually keep a few of their Sparkplugs in stock though. So far it's got a bit of a restricted draw on it, rolled super tight. We'll see. SOL chelada is best chelada, just FYI.
Please excuse my dusty desk!
I'm telling you, everyone needs a cigar knife in their toolkit. Please downvote once if all you smoke are Rocky Patels.
Another sampler. A new favorite! First let me explain "sampler". Whenever I stop by a local shop in person, I like to pick up 3 cigars I haven't tried before, that either the tobacconist or another customer recommends. I picked up one of these in the "natural" wrapper which is a bit oilier. Unburnt, it smelled wonderful and sweet. Very clean presentation. The cap popped right off using my knife, with no unravelling. Coffee, woodsy, sweet. No bite, but full bodied. Burned evenly and beautifully, requiring no touchups or relights. Had to break out my cigar spear, because I wanted to smoke this one until my nose hairs were gone. Amazing. Gonna stock up.
I personally think Davidoff cigars are a rip off, but this is an excellent video, with great techniques for lighting a cigar with a soft flame.
Alec & Bradley is a cigar line, by the sons that makeup the namesake of Alec Bradley. A gross simplification of Kintsugi (金継ぎ) is the Japanese art of reassembling broken porcelain items using gold and lacquer. Like any Japanese art, it is much, much more than that in expression and practice. This is a new sampler for me. I was admittedly not impressed. The smoke was a lot lighter than I usually go for, and nothing to write home about. Comparable to a corner store stick, it tasted like a rollie. The particular one I got ran like hell, and required more than a couple touchups. However, [the manga](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomega_(manga)) is excellent. I highly recommend it.
95f today. Visiting the local shop with air conditioned lounge! Postprandial smoke with a Cappucino and some water. Guillotine cut. Easy light with two long matches. I find it to be light to medium in strength and body. Creamy leather wood and some hay. Nice with the coffee. Bit of pepper kick whenever the ash gets long - goes away with ashing. Nic hit builds up gently over 30-40 min. Not harsh but makes itself gently known. About through it at 80 mins. Same nice profile throughout. Thanks to all the hands that crafted it, the sun, earth, and water. Best to you all.
Doesn’t quite “get it” obviously but the elements are there. So how could a computer *understand* smoking? (Or fingers…) My first thought is you need an organic system that responds to all the stimuli. Feel of the pipe, heat, smell, taste, and the bodily response to the chemicals. Then I thought, the computer might need to be able to *suffer*. To know stress, hurry, doubt, fear. Then to have an experience that elevates condition. First a distraction of small details. Attention to moment. Chronology warps, wafts, disperses. Adrift gently in the eye of a storming world.
The Tabernacle, Havana Seed CT - No 142 I prefer most Tabernacle cigars in a lancero if possible, but this'll still do just nicely.
I love mine, and how utilitarian it is. Obviously, first and foremost it can be used as a guillotine cutter. Though for a while now instead I've been opting to only close the blade around the cap enough to pierce the wrapper. I will then carefully rotate the cigar, until the cap is delicately severed, and pops right off. This allows me to avoid any kind of pressure damage, and the results are much neater than the average guillotine nip. Let's talk about some potential functions of the knife itself. Cutting pesky plastic wrappers or difficult bands are a given. I've found it particularly useful in situations where I have had to step away from my smoke for a while, and when returned it needs a full relight. You can use the razor sharp blade tip to carefully "trim" away the ash and scraggly bits, resulting in a more clean and even surface area for a relight. If you're a fan of punches or V-cuts, this won't serve as a replacement. But I think it's an excellent tool to carry, for many other reasons.
So you’re getting started with cigars or you’re on the move. You’d like to store a couple sticks but don’t know if you’ll get to smoke them this weekend or months from now. Also… humidors… how do I even…? No problem. Just get an airtight food safe storage case (glass, food safe plastic, etc) from wherever you get your kitchen stuff. Grocery store may have them. When you pick up your cigars, get a couple of humidifier packs (e.g. Boveda packs). They have a humidity number typically between 65-72%. Avoid mixing humidity levels among your packs. - how many: they come in different sizes and are rated based on how many cigars you’re storing. 1-2 little ones (8g each) should do for a small container (up to about 25 cigars). - Check them after maybe 6 months - more if frequently opening your container. If they’re getting hard, time to replace. - They’re made of natural non-toxic stuff. Safe to handle. Safe to throw away. If you’ve got a cigar shop you could ask them if they sell or give away scrap ceder strips which you can add to your container. Helps modulate humidity and is a natural insect repellent. And smells good! Boveda bags are an even simpler and smaller solution for a couple sticks. I’ve had 2 cigars in a bag with an 8g pack for a year unopened and they’re just fine. Plus you can feel the humi-pack to see how it’s doing. Storage: try to find a steady room temperature area to keep your container. Remember the 70/70 rule: most cigars store well at around 70 Fahrenheit and 70% humidity. You’re all set!
This is a new favorite for me, in my rotation. Really enjoying them.
### DO: - Get an inexpensive corn cob pipe ~10 USD. The trusted famous brand is Missouri Meerschaum. - get a well loved “codger blend” like Carter Hall or Prince Albert - watch some YouTube videos on packing and lighting; keep it simple (3 step packing) ### DON’T - buy an expensive pipe to start with - get frustrated with learning curve - patience ### Tobacco Types - wealth of info at tobaccoreviews.com - aromatics (broadly, smell good but no taste) - virginia / burley: core tobacco leaf types (notes of bread, hay, leather) - latakia: smoke cured (campfire smokey smells) Try them all. See what you like. (But va/burley is the best!) Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/miguellopezmallach/15365251481/in/photostream