First blending attempt

With a decent assortment of tobacco leaves on hand, I decided to try blending a bit of pipe tobacco. Even though I’d pressed a little block of VA with a few leaves of Samsun in the mix, I’m going to consider this as my first “real” blending attempt.

There are quite a number of recipes available in Bob Goff’s books. He also posted kind of a “Latakia matrix” in the FTT forum, with a number of different blend recipes varying in their percentage of Latakia. I decided to start where he suggested, with one called “Towers of Antioch”. The proportions are the same as “Balkan White”, but the Oriental I have is Samsun, not Xanthi, which has a different flavor profile.

I started out by cutting up enough of each component leaf in 1 gram per part, ending up with about 16 grams of tobacco. I tried some in the pipe and it was OK; not great. A little rough around the edges, not a smooth blend. I could see the potential there, but overall it just “felt like” it needed some time to mature before I could really make a decision about adjusting the ratio of components, or adding something like a touch of Perique or Cavendish or something. I decided to press some and age it a little.

I started that exercise by mixing up another 16 g of the blend and combined it with what I had. I had ordered a noodle press from Amazon, based on recommendations from others who have tried this. The noodle press arrived yesterday, so the timing was perfect. I cut a circle of parchment paper to block the extrusion end of the noodle press, and another for the press follower. I loaded the batch in the press and, over the next several hours, gradually added pressure until it was pretty tight.

This morning I took the resulting puck out of the press, broke it apart into a loose blend, and misted it with some water and then re-loaded the press. I don’t want to repeat the mistake I made last winter with the VA flake, which was pressing it in too dry a condition. I think that would have turned out a lot better had I made sure the lease was in high case before pressing.

As I write this, the blend is back in the press under moderate pressure. I’ll crank the press handle a few times today to get it back under as much pressure as it’s safe to maintain with he noodle press (and its few plastic parts), then let it sit for another 2-3 days before removing it.

What really struck me about this exercise is that, while this bend is not what I’d say is my favorite, it’s close enough to one of the commercially produced English/Balkan blends that I like that I can see the potential for getting it there. I think with some adjustment, maybe switching from Samsun to Yenidje or Xanthi, I may be able to produce a blend that I enjoy as much as or more than my go-to White Knight/Sobranie Match, or one of the others (Father Dempsey, My Mixture 965, Balkan Sobranie) that I have enjoyed so much.

Next up: I have to wonder how difficult it would be to blend up a VA/Per that I like as much as Escudo…

The new tobacco is here!

Cue the Steve Martin video…

I ended up ordering a few different types of tobacco leaf from WLT, and it all arrived today. I’m looking forward to mixing up a small batches of different blends and trying them out, until I find the combinations I like. I find that I enjoy different types of tobacco depending on the day and my mood. Some days nothing but a nice Latakia-infused English or Balkan blend will do. Other days I really like a straight Virginia flake, or a Virginia/Perique (or VA/Per, as it’s often called). My own pressed VA that I made has some Turkish Black Sea Samsun in it, and in my opinion needs something else – like Perique or Latakia. So, I’ll be doing a lot of experimenting over the coming weeks and months, I think.

Right now I’m thinking I’ll start by trying a pinch of each of the leaf varieties I have, on their own, one at a time to get a better idea of what they’re like. I have some Lemon VA, Dark Air Cured, Perique, Latakia, and they were nice enough to throw in a small sample of Light Fire Cured.

It’s going to be bitter, deep cold for the next couple of weeks, so I won’t be distracted by any maple sap collection. I’ll update this post as I try each of the leaf varieties on their own.

  • I decided to start with some Dark Air Cured (DAC). The bag note is like a box of cigars or high end cigarettes. The leaf is in medium case, easily handled and stretchy. I shredded a little over 4 grams, or s small piece about half a hand size torn from one leaf, and loaded up about half of that in a briar. Wow. Strong stuff!! I would have bought a smaller quantity of this stuff, because the blends I want to try only have very small quantities of it. I understand why. It lights easily and burns well, but the strength and nicotine content is well above what I’d want to smoke on its own. I only made it a few minutes into that pipe before I had to set it down and take a break. This stuff is most definitely not for the faint of heart. I was left dizzy and a little nauseous for a couple of hours afterward. I fought it with some dark chocolate and a little food, but in hindsight a better approach would have been trying s very small amount after a full meal.
  • Next up: Lemon Virginia from Canada. This gets its name from the color; the leaves are indeed a light lemon yellow, unlike the medium browns tending to reddish-brown of my own home grown VA (which is why I bought it; a lot of blend recipes call for it and I haven’t grown any). The bag note is… light and quite frankly uninspiring. Not bad, just not that delicious “tobacco” smell. I shredded all of one small leaf of this. As expected, the flavor and nicotine are quite a bit milder than the DAC. The taste is fairly mild; I have a hard time describing flavors but I’d call this rather a classic Virginia, a little woody more than grassy. No overpowering nicotine hit from this stuff. I didn’t notice a lot of spice in the nose, but it does make its presence felt in the back of the mouth and tongue. Overall quite smokable, but one-dimensional and in need of other flavors to give it some complexity. I was tempted to mix in about 5-10% dark air cured just to see how it would taste, but decided to wait. I still have Perique and Latakia to sample.
  • Next up: St. James Perique. The bag note of this stuff is unmistakable. Earthy, with a hint of what others and I have called “barnyard”. Think horse barn, not cattle feed lot. There’s more to it; maybe a little hint of pepper or something there as well. Darling Wife said she smelled candied fruits. Some have said the Perique from Whole Leaf Tobacco arrives “soggy”; I’d just say it’s just high to very high case, pretty moist. Probably a good thing, given the amount of handling that would required to flatten the leaves out. The leaves seem to be fairly small compared to other varieties, more like an Oriental size. They’re pretty well wadded up from their time in the fermentation process. I unfurled one leaf completely and shredded it, putting the contents into a snack size Ziplock bag like I did with the others. It needs a bit of drying time before it’s ready to light. Having learned a valuable lesson with he DAC, I very cautiously tried a small amount in the bottom of the bowl of the briar pipe I’m using for sampling. It’s got a definite Perique taste to it; not overpowering, and the nicotine wasn’t immediately overpowering (but as I said,I’m being very cautious). More telling was that, just before I tried it on its own, I sprinkled a few little strands on top of some half-smoked Lemon VA and re-lit that. The resulting smoke was, unlike the VA on its own, quite interesting — I got a hint of almost a soapy taste, in a good way, like all sorts or Sen-Sen. Not strong, just a hint.
  • Last up: Latakia. As expected, this had a strong, pungent smell of smoldering campfire as soon as the bag was opened. Actually, a little before — I think it actually permeated the rather thick poly heat sealed bag, to be honest. On reflection, the aroma isn’t exactly “smoldering campfire”; it’s closer to “smoldering ashes of last night’s campfire”. The tobacco isn’t large leaves bundled or laid together as with he VA or DAC; at least the stuff at the end of the bag I opened is broken and crumbled pieces of leaf. I pulled out some pieces and chopped them into small strands and chunks to load up a little snack Ziplock for tasting and test blending. This tobacco, opposite of the Perique, is fairly dry – I’d say a bit below medium case. I dropped a bit into the pipe and lit it. Honestly, this is one I think I could probably smoke straight. It’s not overpoweringly strong, there doesn’t seem to be too much nicotine, and it’s a quite nice smoke with kind of a floral undertone to it. I’m eager to see how well it plays with some VA and maybe a bit of Perique, just for a little more depth and complexity.

I’ve been accustomed to smoking Sutliff’s Balkan Sobranie Original Mix Match, later renamed “Balkan S Match”. Unfortunately, Sutliff was swallowed up by Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG), and STG promptly drove a stake through the heart of Sutliff. Their factory was shut down and most of their tobacco blends discontinued without notice, including BSOMM. It looks like I can still buy its nearly identical tinned version, Hearth & Home White Knight, but I’ll hold off and see how much success I have in blending something that I like as much. One potential obstacle is that the Match & White Knight use Yenidje as part of the blend, and I have none. My Oriental is all Samsun, but I can order some Yenidje seeds and grow it myself. WLT also sells Izmir, which I’ve been told has a much more “floral” taste than Samsun. I may have to try some of that, though again the smallest quantity I can buy is a full pound.

If nothing else, this growing and blending of pipe tobacco is teaching me patience. The Virginia I grew in 2023 is just now beginning to show its potential, about a year and a half after harvesting. It will be next winter before I would have some Yenidje available to try out. I think it’s worth the wait.

Smoking my own tobacco

I’ve still got nearly all of my 2023 crop of Virginia and Samsun Oriental tobacco. I’ve tried it at various times and generally found it to be rather harsh and one-dimensional. Even the Cavendish I cooked over a year ago wasn’t very good at all the last time I tried some.

A few days ago, I tried a bit of some that I’d pressed back in December of ’23. I had cased the ear with water and a bit of molasses, stacked the leaves, wrapped the stack in parchment paper, and pressed it between two pieces of particle board in a shop vise for a couple of weeks. I tightened the vise every couple of days during that time to keep the pressure up. When it was done I sliced the resulting block of tobacco, and it was… horrible. I stuck it in a jar and have tried it every few months since then, and it’s slowly improving. The bowl I sampled a few days ago was actually not bad, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I didn’t like. Then it occurred to me… I was expecting a pure Virginia flake tobacco. This wasn’t. I had included some Samsun leaf in the stack, so what I made was almost a cigarette blend. That’s why I wasn’t wild about the taste.

I think I’m going to order two things from Whole Leaf Tobacco that I either cannot produce myself, or simply don’t want to. The one I can’t reproduce is Latakia. Once produced in Syria and now almost exclusively in Cyprus, Latakia is made by hanging Turkish tobacco leaves in a shed and burning aromatic wood and leaves in a pit in the floor of the shed. They’ll use myrtle, pine, mastic, maybe juniper. Who knows? They burn whatever is available locally – none of which is available here, not that I could keep a smoky fire going for months at a time. So I’ll but the Latakia.

The other is Perique. Used as a “condimental” tobacco both for flavor and to Ph-adjust the Virginia, Perique is both the name of a strain of tobacco, and the process that is commonly used to prepare it. This involved compressing the leaf in an oxygen-deprived environment, which allows a specific bacteria to breed and do its work fermenting the leaf. During the months-long process the leaf needs to be periodically removed, tossed, and re-compressed. Even if you do it right, I understand it to be a tedious, stinky process. I may try my hand at it later on, but for now I think I’ll buy mine.

The pressed flake I have will probably be pretty good with the addition of some Latakia and maybe a pinch or two of Perique. I’ve got some Cavendish that’s still sitting in a jar contemplating its sins, and as soon as this cold clears up I’m going to try a little of that and see if it’s learned its lesson yet.

Home grown VA pressed flake

After harvesting my small 2023 crop of tobacco, I spent some time “flue curing” the leaf in a home made kiln. I kept it at roughly 120-125 degrees with humidity levels of at least 70 percent, though I think it was significantly higher for most of the time. I think I had it in there for 4-5 weeks, maybe longer, before giving up trying to keep the kiln sealed up enough.

Once the leaf was out of there, I made a few ounces of Cavendish in a pressure cooker. From the remainder I selected a couple ounces and pressed it for a couple of weeks. It’s mostly VA with a little bit of Black Sea Samsun oriental mixed in. I just removed the midrib, stacked the leaf, wrapped it in parchment paper, and squeezed it in a vise between two chunks of particle board. When that was done, I sliced it into flakes (strips, really) and tried some. It was, well, kind of awful. I put it in a jar to age and see if it would improve with age.

I tried it after 3 months, then 6, and now it’s been about 13 months since it went into the jar. I’m smoking some now in a MM corncob, and I have to say that if you’re a fan of straight Virginia, it’s not bad. There seems to be a fair nicotine content; I had to take a break halfway through. I’ll bet this stuff will be pretty darned good in another year.

So tobacco growing is a long term process that requires a fair amount of patience. I’ve often heard that cigar rollers will often age tobacco leaves for several years before rolling the sticks, then let them age for months before they’re ready to smoke.

I have a pound or two of leaf sitting in a Sterilite tub now, aging at 63 percent RH and room temperature. I’ll likely pull some out in the coming weeks and press two more blocks. One will be straight Virginia tobacco leaf, brought into high case with distilled water. The other will be the same, but brought into high case with a spritz of Islay Scotch whisky just to see if that imparts any of the smoky/peaty flavor at all. I’ll probably try about 50 grams of each.

Update: Here’s a followup.

Bayou Morning

Man, if you’re going to smoke this stuff you’d better really love Perique. 25 percent of it is straight out of Louisiana.

I’ve had this stuff sitting in a sealed jar for well over two years now. The first time I tried it, I did so right after half a bowl of Haunted Bookshop. Both of them have a pretty stout nicotine kick, and I spent the next couple of hours fighting the urge to puke. Not a good scene. Anyway, if you’re used to smoking a lightweight aromatic like Lane 1-Q (aka Captain Black), a perique heavy blend like this will kind of punch you in the face. As a result, I’ve shied away from it until now.

Last night I loaded up a corncob with some and dived in. Cautiously. It’s not bad. It is quite strong, but it’s the Perique spice and not the nicotine. It’s honestly more Perique than I’d prefer at this point, but I’m wondering how it would do mixed 50/50 with my own home grown Virginia, now that it’s got a bit over a year of age on it. I’m planning to press another batch of VA flake before long; I’ll probably try some with some Bayou Morning mixed in to make my own VA/Per and see how that works.

Peterson’s My Mixture 965

I decided to try this one based on some reviews and recommendations I’d seen on line. Actually, that was a small part of it. There’s a (sorry for the Facebook link; it’s apparently the only web presence they have) local tobacconist I visit every once in a while; I try to find something to buy when I go in there. His prices on tobacco are quite a bit higher than what I’d pay ordering on line, but I’ve bought several pipes there. His prices on pipes are pretty reasonable. While the shop’s main business is cigars, the owner is a pipe smoker in addition to smoking cigars. I like giving some support to a local shop; these guys have to try to stay in business. Anyway, the last time I was in there I talked myself out of buying a new Savinelli pipe – gorgeous, but not exactly what I wanted – and settled on a tin of tobacco instead.

It’s an English mixture, with a good portion of Latakia complementing the cavendish and oriental tobacco. I find that it’s not quite as complex as my old standby, Sutliff’s Balkan Sobranie Original Mix Match. I don’t know if it’s different Latakia, different orientals, or what. There’s plenty of nice tasty smoky goodness, but like I said – not as complex.

I will give it this, though: there’s plenty of nicotine, enough to get your attention. I find that a small bowl is plenty, and I often take a break midway through. I probably have a fairly low tolerance, as I don’t smoke every day and haven’t smoked cigarettes or cigars in quite some time. In fact, the last time I tried to smoke a cigar I almost ended up losing several consecutive meals over the next day or two. I’ve run into a few pipe blends that hit me pretty hard, and this is one of them. Orlik Golden Slices is another.

I’ve tried this in several pipes, from a well-used Missouri Meerschaum corncob, to a non-Missouri for-real meerschaum, a couple of different briars, and a calabash. It smokes well in all of them, though of course virtually everything seems a little better out of that calabash.

Will I buy more? I don’t know. Never say never, of course, but at this point I see it as kind of duplicative. I have a solid favorite Balkan/English. If I’m going to stray from that for a little change of pace, I’m more likely to load up some Father Dempsey or possibly Early Morning Pipe, another Peterson labeled product that I bought at Ted’s.

Which reminds me… I should probably load up on some bulk Father Dempsey. I don’t know how the current blend compares to that which was made before the Kramer family closed up shop and sold the blends to Smoking Pipes, but I’m afraid eventually it may get changed substantially or dropped altogether. It seems to be not uncommon when I find something I really like.

Balkan Sobranie

The current version, that is. I know that this really isn’t the same as the legendary Balkan Sobranie of the 1970s or whatever. Now, having been around back then, I actually did very much enjoy the occasional tin (yes, actual tin) of Balkan Sobranie cigarettes. They were wonderful, if pricey at about $2 a tin, but not quite as bad as Black Russians at $2.40 a pack. But I digress; I never did try the pipe tobacco since I wasn’t smoking a pipe back then.

I bought a couple tins of the current version at my local tobacconist at a shamefully inflated price, partly to support a local shop and partly because I really wanted to try this and compare it to my Sutliff Sobranie match tobacco.

So this is partly a review on its own merits, and partly a comparison to the “match” blend, which is actually I think supposed to be a match for the older version that I’ve never had.

The presentation is very nice. I do love tinned tobacco just for the old school appeal of the tin. The aroma is, as expected with a Balkan blend, just delicious. It’s like a summer campfire, smoky and rich. It’s a fine ribbon cut, almost a shag, which I do like better than the coarser ribbon/flake of White Knight or BSOMM. It’s also moister, meaning it does need half an hour or so to dry out before it will stay lit decently.

I’m not a professional wine taster nor do I have the palate for a molecular analysis of the individual components of the smoke, so I won’t get into terms like figs or stone fruit or oranges or any of that nonsense. It’s a little lighter than the Sutliff version, I think, with just a little more subtle flavor. Don’t take that to mean there’s not a ton of campfire here; there is. If I were to guess I’d say maybe a touch less Latakia and a touch more Turkish/Oriental. Or maybe the other way around. Either way, there’s a difference. I like both.

The Sobranie doesn’t have the occasional note of anise that I seem to get from the Sutliff “match” blend, and I like that a lot. On the other hand, I do really like the finer ribbon cut. I just had a 2 gram bowl in my Ropp cherrywood, and it went literally all the way to the bottom with no dottle. I honestly attribute this more to the pipe than the tobacco, but it smoked well all the way to the bottom with just a couple of relights (mostly due to my taking breaks to type this).

I have one tin of the Sobranie still unopened. I plan to leave it that way for a few years and enjoy it with some age on it. It really is quite nice; I may pick up more if and when it becomes available again. It’s expensive stuff compared to the bulk blend, but both have a place on my shelf for sure.

Escudo Navy Deluxe

Since I started smoking a pipe again several years ago, I’ve found that my tastes have shifted quite a bit. Like I think most pipe smokers do, I started out with aromatic blends, mostly vanilla topped – think Lane 1Q, Captain Black, that sort of thing. On the plus side, everyone loves the smell! Whether it’s in the pouch or jar, or being smoked, you’ll get constant compliments on how great it smells. I know I did. Even non-smokers or anti-smokers love the smell of a nice aromatic blend like that. They produce luxurious, thick smoke and are overall pretty enjoyable to smoke.

On the downside, they’re often pretty heavily doped with propylene glycol (PG), a humectant that keeps the tobacco from drying out and helps to produce that thick rich white smoke. My experience has been that these blends often require annoyingly frequent relights and tend to leave a lot of moisture in the pipe.

Eventually I tried branching out a little. I tried straight Virginia flake, some VA/Perique, and some English and Balkan blends. Once I learned how to properly smoke Virginia flake I liked it. I just didn’t ever really get into the VA/Per thing.

I do really still live my Balkan and English mixtures. I’ve probably smoked more of that than anything else, and still love it. I have been working a little VA/Per into my rotation, though, just to see if I develop an appreciation for it.

I’ve probably made it halfway through a tin of Escudo and actually have started enjoying it. I had a couple of slices in a Ropp cherrywood sitter that I’m breaking in. It was actually quite nice. It won’t replace my Sobranie match mixture any time soon, but I’m starting to appreciate it.

Maybe one of these days I’ll crack open the jar and try Bayou Morning again.

Bob’s Chocolate Flake

If you’ve been smoking a pipe for a while, you’ve probably heard of Lakeland tobacco blends. These mostly come from either Gawith & Hogarth or Samuel Gawith, and include things like Grousemoor, Ennerdale, and this one – Bob’s Chocolate Flake.

Lakelands get a bad rap from some people, and I suspect that’s mostly from people who have smelled a tin of a Lakeland but not actually smoked it. Ennerdale, for example, has a very distinctive and fairly strong floral note n the tin. Comparing to “old lady perfume“ is not entirely unreasonable, and some people assume the stuff will forever “ghost” a pipe. I’ve found this to be a baseless fear; I’m on my second tin of it and it’s fine. It doesn’t smoke like it smells.

I’d wanted to try Bob’s for a while, and finally scored an ounce of it. It’s a dense flake, which doesn’t easily crumble like some. I’d expected a strong chocolate note from the bag, but it’s more of a subtle undertone.

I’m not one of those people that describes tobacco in wine tasting terms. Maybe my palate isn’t sufficiently refined, but picking out “notes of dried fruit, sweet grassy almond” whatever just doesn’t happen for me. Bob’s does have a somewhat unique taste; not overpowering and not unpleasant. It’s definitely a more aromatic smoke, but doesn’t seem overly “flavored” as some are. I’m thinking of Lane 1Q / Captain Black’s vanilla, for example.

BCF smokes fine, given a bit of a rub out and 20-30 minutes to dry a bit. It lights evenly and seems to smoke without requiring much in the way of relights, just the occasional light tamp. I like it, but I don’t love it. Will I buy more? I can’t say at this point. I’m about halfway through the ounce of flakes I bought. One of the things I’ve learned about tobacco is that it seems to take a while, at least an ounce or two smoked over several months under different conditions and in different pipes, for me to decide whether I like a particular blend or not.

My tastes are also evolving as time passes and I get exposed to more blends. Where I used to love aromatics like 1Q, I now find them to have a displeasing chemical taste from what seems like a rather heavy-handed dousing with propylene glycol (PG), a humectant used to keep it from drying out. I’ve gotten more accustomed to VA/Perique blends, though my tolerance varies on those. About the only constant is my taste for English and Balkan blends; I’ve become a real fan of Latakia.

Anyway. Bob’s is a decent enough tobacco, but so far I haven’t really developed a love for it. We’ll see if and how that changes over time as I finish off what I have.

Peterson’s My Mixture 965

Picked up a tin of this at Ted’s Tobacco yesterday, and have been trying it out. Flavor wise, it’s a pretty good Latakia-forward English mixture. It needs half an hour or so out of the tin to dry out before lighting, but burns evenly. It doesn’t seem to need a lot of relights, and doesn’t get wet quickly.

I’m on my second bowl of it. The first one was yesterday in a newly purchased estate pipe that turned out to need some serious cleaning… it had some truly nasty tasting stuff inside and on the stem that I’ve since cleaned out. Today I’ve got it in my Jobey 450 paneled billiard. I have to say, this stuff is plenty strong. The taste is good; plenty of flavor and all, but the nicotine content is enough that I had to lay the pipe down halfway through. I can see this being a good candidate for smaller pipes and quicker smokes. I’m really glad I didn’t load up the Savinelli 320KS with a big pile of this! I’d probably be on the floor by now.

So will I buy it again? It’s too soon to say. I do like it, but at this point I’m thinking the Sutliff Balkan Sobranie match is more my speed. A bit milder and a lot less nicotine. I’ll smoke more of this, obviously, since I’m only maybe 5 grams into the 50g tin. if I can get past the nic buzz, it’s pretty good stuff.