Category: Pipes & Tobacco

I bought an ounce of this because I wanted to try another vanilla blend. Some of the others I have are pretty well flavored with vanilla, but this one sounded good.

The first two bowls I tried didn’t end well. Although the moisture level felt about right in the bag, smoking it resulted in a dense, soggy plug in the pipe that would neither stay lit nor pass air. The second time I actually broke it up with my pipe tool and re-lit it. Then I dumped it out, as I found it harsh and not at all pleasant to smoke.

For the third bowl I let the tobacco sit out for about 45 minutes on the deck railing. It felt quite dry and crispy after that. On the plus side, it lights well and seems to stay lit pretty well. On the minus side, it seems somewhat harsh and has a fair amount of tongue bite. On top of that, I’m smoking it in my Peterson Atlantic. That pipe tends to collect water and gurgle with almost everything, but this stuff seems to generate more moisture than most.

It’s just not what I was hoping for at all, really. I’m glad I only bought an ounce of it. I’ll probably give it one more chance in a straight pipe with a filter – either a cob or the Kildare. I don’t really think that’s going to help much, though. I’ll likely dump the last bit into a new jar to be joined with other odds and ends to make an “infinity jar” and let it hang around with some good influences for a while.

I should wait to post this until I’ve given it another chance. I really should. But I won’t. I’ll update later, when I have had a second bowl… any maybe a third, if the second one isn’t as absolutely horrible. You see where this is going?

I tried this tobacco the other night. The first thing I noticed was the utter lack of anything that I would describe as “bourbon whiskey” about it, either the aroma when I opened the pouch or the taste when lit. And I mean anything. But, hey, I have – apparently – a completely uneducated, uncultured palate. Still, I was a bit disappointed. I remembered Dad smoking this stuff back in the 70s, and it smelled amazing. Well, the blend has been through at least two manufacturers since then, and the years have apparently not been kind. Happens to us all, I suppose.

The first half of the bowl was entirely unremarkable. Not particularly pleasant, not particularly unpleasant. No real apparent flavoring, at least not in my uneducated opinion. Still, not a bad smoke. Just not a great one.

Then about halfway through or maybe a little further than that, something magical started to happen. And I don’t mean magical in a wonderful Good Fairy wand waving kind of way. More like magical in the witch dipping an apple in poison kind of way. The kind of magic that brings Chucky to life. The tobacco developed a very distinct flavor profile. Unfortunately that flavor profile was nearly identical to the aroma that I got years ago when I was using a propane torch to remove integrated circuits from a fiberglass circuit board. Yes, the smell of scorched epoxy is what I noted. I’m not making this up.

I’ll try it again, if for no other reason than I can remember the dating scene from Hitch, where Will Smith has a date with Eva Mendes that turns into a complete disaster. Who knows? Maybe I accidentally got a big chunk of the plastic pouch in there when I packed the bowl. Maybe one of the stink bugs that take up residence when the weather cools off crawled in and I didn’t notice. Maybe someone set fire to an old TV set and the wind was blowing int he wrong direction. But I’m all about second chances, so I’ll try it again.

Eventually.

The second of the Old Ones I decided to try was Amphora original. There are numerous flavors of Amphora, but this is the original blend and probably the one I remember from the 70s.

The aroma from the bag is absolutely wonderful, if you love tobacco. My wife doesn’t think much of it in comparison to something like BCA or 1-Q, but it’s got a lot less topping than those. I suppose technically it’s an aromatic, but mostly it’s tobacco, and lots of it.

I let this air out for an hour or so – maybe less – before loading up the Savinelli Bing’s Favorite and lightning up. The flavor is definitely stronger than the Half & Half, not too strong, and with virtually no bite on the tongue or in the nose. Now, I’m not experienced enough to know which flavor is burley and which is Virginia and which is Oriental, but the flavor is nothing at all like the H&H. It’s a little more “exotic”, I suppose you’d say. I like it, but I also noted that it seems to have a higher nicotine content than most blends I’ve been smoking. I could feel the nicotine a bit, though nothing like Bayou Morning (thank heaven).

I also noted that it stays lit better, I think, than anything else I’ve tried so far. I was fully halfway through the bowl before I needed to relight. The ash is quite fine and the smell of it reminds me of a fine Cuban cigar. Just the ash, not the smoke. It seems to burn evenly and not too hot.

Will Amphora be my new best friend and daily smoke? Probably not. Will I keep some on hand and enjoy it fairly regularly? Probably, yes. I can see it as one to enjoy when I’ve got the time to sit down and really enjoy a pipe.

As I write this, the pipe is sitting on the table a little over half smoked. I’ll finish it off in the morning and see how it does then. It’s really quite nice and I’m looking forward to it.

Update: The rest of the bowl didn’t disappoint. I tried another bowl a couple of days later in the Peterson Kildare, and it was quite nice as well. It burned to the bottom of the bowl with no excess moisture and not too many relights. It likes to be tamped a little tight to burn well.

A few days ago I decided I’d like to try out some of the so-called “codger” pipe tobacco blends. These are the ones that our fathers, grandfathers, and maybe great-grandfathers smoked. Brands like Half & Half, Prince Albert, Borkum Riff and so on. I mean, if something has been on the market for decades and is still sold, there’s got to be a reason, right?

Through the magic of the Internet and the US Postal Service, today I received a package with a few blends to try. Half & Half, Borkum Riff Bourbon Whiskey, and Amphora – plus some Mac Baren Vanilla Cream, just for good measure. I remember Dad smoking Borkum Riff and Amphora in the 70s and 80s.

I decided to start out with something completely new to me – Half & Half. The first thing I noticed when I opened the sealed pouch was the incredibly wonderful aroma of this stuff. You’re not hit with the smell of toppings or flavorings, just a rich tobacco smell. If it smokes half as good as it smells this could be a winner!

I loaded up a bowl in my Peterson Atlantic 221, a bent billiard, and tried it out. Of course, it’s a different experience than an aromatic blend. I love the mix of burley and bright Virginia. There’s just a tiny hint of bite on the tongue and in the nose, but not enough to distract. Just enough to let you know you’re smoking tobacco, not candy. There’s nothing to cover up the flavor of the tobacco, but it doesn’t try to club you over the head (looking at you, here, Latakia). My wife said the smell was “just OK”, not the wonderful smell of the aromatics and Cavendish I’ve mostly been smoking but not as bad as the Latakia blend.

Unfortunately I seem to have packed the bowl a bit too tightly or tamped a bit too much, as it quickly developed a draw not unlike a plug of concrete and required a re-light every couple of minutes. I ended up cleaning out the bowl about 2/3 of the way through, but not before developing a real appreciation for this blend. Overall it seems a solid, very likable smoke. I can understand why it’s been on the market for over a hundred years.

I’ll revisit Half & Half again with a little drying time and a more careful packing of the pipe. And don’t take my two mentions of Latakia to mean I don’t like it… I’ve got some Consummate Gentleman in a jar for those times when I’m feeling like some serious smoky flavor. I like it, but like Lagavulin it’s not an every day thing for me.

Update: The second bowl smoked well also. I should have let it dry some before packing, and I’ve really got to watch not to pack or tamp this too tight. It’s the opposite of Amphora in that respect.

Update 2: The third bowl was even better. I let it dry longer than I had planned, a couple of hours, but it still smoked well. I was more careful about packing and tamping. It smoked quite well all the way to the bottom of the bowl, with I think two re-lights and a tiny little dottle. Very well behaved and consistent all the way through. That was in my Peterson 221, so no filter.

I’d heard – well, read, since I know virtually no one personally who smokes a pipe – a lot about Haunted Bookshop. This is a Cornell & Diehl tobacco blend that a lot of people seem to love. The local shop carries it in bulk, so when I bought my Savinelli pipe and he offered a couple of samples to try out, Haunted Bookshop was one of them.

I did like the taste. It’s not an aromatic, and the so-called “room note”, or how it smells to those being exposed to your demon second-hand smoke, is not as sweet but isn’t bad.

The tasting, however, did not end well. I tried a small amount, maybe half a bowl, of HB followed by a similar small amount of Bayou Morning, a Virginia Perique blend. Now, this is pretty serious stuff, for me at least. Lots of tobacco flavor, no sweeteners or flavors. It’s definitely no Captain Black. That’s fine, but I was unprepared for the massive nicotine hit. After years of not smoking at all, then slowly starting to smoke a little aromatic blend on a pipe occasionally, my nicotine tolerance was about zero. I enjoyed the smoke, but not the two hours of sweating, clammy nausea that followed and had my wife wondering if she should call an ambulance because I was having another cardiac event.

I put those two tobaccos in jars next to the Latakia blend that I like, but only occasionally. One thing I like about pipe tobacco is that it seems to be like wine… stored properly it only improves with age, for the most part.

This morning I decided to try a little experiment. I mixed up a batch of about 2/3 black cavendish (Lane Ltd. BCA) with about 1/3 Haunted Bookshop. I packed a full bowl in my Bing’s Favorite, deciding to let the new Peterson rest a few days. So far I’m quite pleased with it. The BCA tames the HB down quite a bit, while the HB gives some flavor and character that the pure cavendish lacks. It burns well, and my wife tells me it smells good. No tongue bite at all, it’s not the least bit harsh and the nicotine content is low enough to not bother me.

Now obviously I’m not the first person to figure this stuff out, but it’s interesting to figure out what works for me and what doesn’t work so well.