nicotiana

Perhaps the title is a bit of a troll. I always liked the original expression, “sucks eggs,” better than the shortened form anyway, but no one quite understands now why egg-suckers were so hated. Apparently back in the day, hungry people would take nails and poke little holes in eggs, then suck out all the good tasty proteins inside, leaving the empty shell for someone to discover later as a nasty surprise. I suppose the answer is a good lock on the ol' chicken coop, but my guess is that like most things, it was probably an overstated phenomenon.

Out there on the interwebs, I see a lot of discussion about “sipping” or “puffing” the pipe. To my mind, this is a good way to get new pipe smokers to give up the habit. If you are told to suck, sip, draw, or otherwise forcibly take smoke from a pipe, you will get the wrong idea and your technique will get off on the wrong foot. Pipe smokers have since the dawn of time relied on the physics of the pipe, which is that when the lips seal around the stem, a natural capillary pressure is created that draws smoke into the mouth. No individual action like sipping, sucking, slurping, gulping, or puffing is required. In fact, the very nature of a hard draw on the pipe makes it burn hotter, reducing flavor while also making the fire burn hotter, which means that it consumes the tobacco entirely instead of leaving the smoldering ember that it needs to light the next layer in the pipe.

What is called breath smoking seems to us a weird thing because we are accustomed to a consumer society. If it looks like a straw, suck on it. If the tobacco does not stay lit, buy some soaked in sugar that will burn like a wildfire, because that way you can suck on it every three minutes, then have it go out thirty seconds later, then relight and feel almost as if you are master of the situation. A pipe, we think, must be forced (get in there, goddamnit!) to do what we want by the application of pressure, just like we treat — or at least some of us do — subordinates, contractors, wait staff, and coworkers. Make them do what you want! You know you're working hard when you're hard on others and any recalcitrant object that dare provoke your wrath.

If you will forgive me a metaphor, consider a really good root beer, like Sprecher's root beer (disclaimer: I am not paid anything, even coupons or free product, by this company, and they probably don't want to be associated with me anyway) or even Hires root beer. It doesn't make sense to guzzle such a fine concoction. Instead, you take it out of the fridge, decant it and let it warm up for a minute or two. Then, you lift up the glass and tilt it to your mouth, essentially letting the cool liquid spill into your mouth by gravity. You take just a small mouthful, then roll it around your tongue, tasting that spice-laden sassafras goodness, and when the flavor has flared and then subsidized, you swallow. An experienced drinker can milk a dozen ounces of quality root beer for well over an hour. You could just guzzle it like any other soft drink, but then you would miss out on depth, breadth, and quality of the flavor.

The same is true of a pipe. You light it, then stick it in your mouth. The lips seal around the stem, the pressure begins, and a slow steady stream of smoke enters your mouth with no effort on your part. You then may move the tongue around a bit, tasting more of the smoke, but at the seven second point or so, it becomes time to briefly release the lips as you breathe in, forcing out the old smoke and resuming the pressure that brings more of the smoke. You never need to puff or draw except when lighting, and this slow burn keeps the tobacco smoldering at the coolest possible temperature, leading to the most flavor. When the taste goes away and you feel the pipe cool, probe it with a pipe nail. You usually find that you have nothing but grey ash, and if you invert the pipe, it will fall out, hopefully into a rose bed or other damp place (it seems counter-intuitive, but you never want to leave ash in a trash can, and if you have someplace moderately damp outdoors to ash, the smell and fire risk goes away quickly). Interestingly, you not only keep your briar or cob cool this way, but you get less moisture, because the slow pace evaporates any gathered moisture. Puffing quickly will build up moisture, which is a natural byproduct of fire.

When I first took up the pipe, most of the advice for new smokers came right out of LaMaze class: “okay, you're going to puff then count to five, then puff again, but breathe out this time!” That gives birth to nothing but a wretched smoke, full of tongue bite, moisture, and ashy flavor instead of the delicious taste of quality pipe tobacco. Like all the complex things in life, you cannot force pipe smoking, at least if you want a good result. You are not stoking a fire, flooring an accelerator, or chopping wood here. You have to let the process play out. I just had a sublime smoke with a new favorite, Mac Baren Plumcake, while I was busy doing other things. Once you get the rhythm down, like how you manage oxygen when you swim underwater, your body does it for you. Then you simply become aware of a very pleasant flavor and scent as you go about your day, fixing the stuff that needs fixing and organizing the rest, such that time does not pass mildly but you have a fuller experience of the time that does pass. It's like living a few lifetimes in one.

As mentioned in a previous post, I stumbled on down to the local pipe shack and scanned through their jars of bulk tobacco, looking for something to give the week a little “lift.” Trying new things is part of life, even if — in my experience — nothing ever really changes, and I am always curious to see what the tobacconists here invent. Last time I tried The Punisher, a Latakia-Cavendish blend with Perique that lives up to its name, and this time, I sampled from the jar marked Boudreaux's Reserve.

All they would tell me about this one is that it consists of two types of Virginia and some Perique. One of these Virginias is a flake or ready-rubbed and adds a great deal of bright, orange, and red Virginia sweetness, while the other appears to be slightly richer, and fleshes out the body. At least one of these blends seems to have some Burley in it, although not much, and that warms up the smoke. As said before, this reminds me of Peterson Irish Cask because it has a similarly rough take on the vaper genre that emphasizes strong Virginias in the UK style.

If I had to summarize The Briar Shoppe Boudreaux's Reserve, it might be as a refined vaper that retains its ragged edges:

Summary: a Virginia-Perique mixture with mild amounts of Perique but a strong, variegated Virginia flavor.

Your average va/per blend clobbers you with either Virginia or Perique, or worse, the two in sequence. A good vaper like “Boudreaux's Reserve” synthesizes the sweetness and honeyed grain flavor of the Virginias with the zesty stewed fruit taste of Perique, ending up with something a lot like a good tangy jelly on lightly toasted French bread. With this blend, the first light brings out a wave of dark Virginias, but then the ready-rubbed mixture of bright and red Virginias kicks in, lifting up the flavor so that it meets the descending attack of the Perique, translating both flavors into something new that is more like a slightly acidic berry jam than the grain or fruit flavors of the Virginia and Perique respectively. This one caramelizes quickly but continues to burn cool, probably from some Burley in one of the Virginia blends used, and avoids the cloying sweetness of heavy Cavendish blends while also steering between the extremes of Virginia flavor. This gives you a nice middle-of-the-road smoking experience where the Perique serves a condimental role but gives enough of a subtone to the other leaf that you get a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. This one burns down slowly and in the last moments of the bowl, feels about like midnight on the bayou should, an intense stimulation from medium levels of nicotine but a flavor so impeccably comfortable that you almost doze off in front of your tapering fire.

The more I smoke of this one, the more I think it should be a regular addition. Being a bit of a tobacco lunatic, I might throw in a very little dark fired Kentucky Burley and just a taste of Green River Cavendish, and maybe kick up the Perique a skosh, but Boudreaux's Reserve smokes perfectly as is, and I hope to pick up a few more ounces before too long.

According to the talking screen, the Jersey Islands are back in the news as the real reason for Brexit emerges:

France will be breaching international law if it unilaterally carries out threats to interfere with the Channel Islands’ electricity supply and stop fishermen landing into the country’s ports, the External Relations Minister has said.

As you know, J.F. Germain and Sons produces the Esoterica blends as well as some like Rich Dark Flake under its own label, and is located in the Jersey Islands.

It is unlikely that France will go to war over this, since the conflict over UK versus EU fishing rights essentially drove the UK to Brexit and now they are going to re-assert national sovereignty and essentially boot the French entirely from their waters, but there may be disruptions ahead as France stages this last-ditch attempt to bully England.

In my experience, the tobacco blends to beware of are the tins that you sort of kick around and treat like a fallback until, suddenly, the tin is empty or quickly emptying and you realize that you have been loading back-to-back briars of this stuff because your gut and heart like it (id), even if the conscious, articulating part of your brain is lagging behind (ego).

It was this way for me with possibly my all-time favorite. I was making “Royal Yuck” jokes up until the point that I scrabbled in the tin for the last fragments of leaf, and found nothing but cold metal staring up at me. At that point it was off to the store, then the mail-order bin, for more Royal Yacht.

The same proves to be true of Mac Baren Plumcake. It's a navy blend, which means strong Virginias with rum, but there is Latakia in here too, making a naturally fruity, port-wine-like flavor that these blenders intensify:

Summary: a light English, this low-Latakia blend shows off its Virginia base with a rich earthy flavor.

Aleister Crowley used to soak his Latakia and Perique in rum because this takes away some of the extremes of powerful leaf. Mac Baren describes “Plumcake” as a “Navy Blend,” and this holds true in its composition: comprised essentially of Virginias, cooled down by Burley and softened by Mac Baren's famous “natural Cavendish” which is steamed tobacco without added sugars, with some flavor from the rum-soaked Latakia providing more of an earthy, smoky undertone than the burning herbal incense effect of heavy doses. This produces an easy-burning, mild blend in which the Virginias can show off their natural flavor without burning too hot or biting, tamed by the Latakia and broadened by the Burley. You stick this stuff in the pipe, where it is damp enough to cling together and need no compression, then light it and you will have a very pleasant flavor not unlike toasted sourdought bread: a slight smokiness to the outside, then a sweet core, with a slightly sour and nutty grain flavor around it. It burns down completely and, at the heavier end of medium strength, can keep your interest as an experienced smoker without wearing you down over the course of the day. I am glad this comes in 100g tins but I don't think they'll last much longer than the usual 50g ones do.

This 100g tin is going down at the same pace that the 50g ones do mainly because it is so pleasant to load up a fat bowl of this and take a walk around the block, fix a blown fuse, even mow the lawn. Like a good English blend or a good Oriental rug, this blend has such a texture of flavors that it becomes a thing in itself, but then has depth within it. New dimensions expand from inside of the normal, mundane, and constant, with a steady sweet but rich Virginia flavor surging throughout. You know you are in trouble when your first thought is, “I need to get some more of this good stuff before it runs out.”

If you want a vaperbur that does not whack you over the head, but instead slides gently into your pipe like Brown Clunee or Plumcake, consider Robert McConnell Scottish Cake which makes for a sweet but nuanced smoke:

Summary: this mixture stabilizes orange and red Virginias with dark fired Kentucky Burley so that the Perique can assume a tangy sweet-sour role more than a peppery or fruity one.

Perhaps the best Va/Per I have encountered, “Scottish Cake” uses mature Virginias and shores them up with dark fired Kentucky Burley, which gives them a natural zesty spice and allows the Perique to emerge from within as a sweet-source taste like light barbecue sauce made from pineapple, honey, and new tomatoes. Thanks to the Burley, it burns very cool, but seems to be a “naturally” sipped blend because its flavor is so intense yet so enjoyable. Like “Royal Yacht,” it shows how to bring out the flavor of Virginias by not overloading on them, and has the same all-day smokeability that comes from something with a balanced flavor that has some depth, causing each moment to be a journey of discovery and delight.

Like many things European, this blend approaches tobacco with the idea of refinining, elevating, and balancing flavor to the point where you get a smoke that is OTC-simple but also flavorful with some depth of experience.

On the dark side, the European approach leads to often an unrealistic tobacco. Some of us — raw, dark, and primitive Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal beasties at heart — like our rough and tumble straight-up tobacco like La Brumeuse or Pegasus.

In my view, the idea blends balance an American OTC and an English luxury blend, and this ideal is best exemplified by the Gawith Hoggarth shags, the Mac Baren ready rubbed blends, and the C&D flakes.

But, in the meantime, there is room for lots of good stuff, and Robert McConnell produces a number of them. Scottish Cake in particular is quite tasty and has a lingering satisfaction to it, since it melds a complex list of ingredients into a single smooth flavor.

I used to love this site because I could get an accurate description from old pipers like Friar Tom, PipeStud, etc.

Now it's all these JimInks style posers who are writing anything but what is helpful. You get this kind of sales job:

The initial flavors of mink, zucchini, and motor oil gave way to an elegant fragrance of leather, campfire, and napalm attack victim. Then, halfway through the bowl, the honey, milk, hay, macadamia nut, lanolin, and buttered toast with nutella flavors emerged. The bowl burned right down to a dry white ash and there was no dottle! A great all-day smoke, and I didn't receive this sample for free from [major tobacco company] I swear.

I mean, for fuck's sake, you're just spinning words at this point. JimInks frequently uses words incorrectly, has massive grammatical mistakes, or confuses blends. Some of the other reviewers sound like they've never smoked a pipe but just wanted to gush about something.

Where do you guys go just to find out the bottom line about new tobaccos? I ask the guys at the B&M, they're straight shooters and will tell you the skinny or be up front and say they haven't smoked it and don't know.

I got tired of canned Va/Pers a few years back so partially homebrewed my own. I threw together C&D's Cube Cut Burley with a smaller amount of their Virginia Flake, then chopped up some Perique and mixed it in. It has a fair amount of Perique.

Aged about a year now, and it's tasty as heck. The Virginia Flake turned a nice toasty brown, the Perique mellowed, and the Cube Cut Burley means that it burns nice and slowly and is easy to smoke.

It's not blending like the pros do, but blending like your local shop does. A lot of the old pipe smokers I know do something similar. After awhile, you know what you like.

I see a lot of people struggling with basics like packing, lighting, and breath-method smoking.

Maybe we can walk through the process.

You take a pipe off the shelf, blow it out, and with a finger dislodge any little bits of ash that have stuck to the inside of the bowl. These were once wet, but now have dried, but they hang out in the stem and bowl and can obstruct airflow.

This pipe goes into your non-dominant hand. For me, that is the left hand. I open up a tin, jar, or pouch, and take a pinch of tobacco.

I drop this into the pipe, then using my pinkie finger (“a high-tech tool”) I spread the tobacco into an even layer. I then jiggle the pipe a bit, causing the pieces of tobacco to seek their lowest level.

Another pinch goes in, and I spread it to the edges with my pinkie, poking at any pieces which are standing up or can be shoehorned into place. This is “tobacco tetris”: I want each piece to be touching other pieces as uniformly as possible, making a complete layer.

I do this with another few layers, a pinch at a time, until the pipe is full. At that point I jiggle it again, making all those pieces settle in against each other. Then, I press down lightly like pressing a key on a keyboard, and hold that position for a couple seconds. This is all the compressing that I do.

Now, it is time for fire. I use a complex, elite and high-profile tool called a “Bic lighter.” With pipe stem in mouth, I draw in very gently while rotating the flame over the top of the tobacco, just barely touching it. I get a nice glowing disc of tobacco as a result.

At this point, I kick in the breath method. I seal the pipe stem with my lips and breathe normally, inhaling down the back of my throat and keeping the mouth sealed off. That slight draw fills my mouth steadily and consistently with smoke. About every seven seconds, I take another breath; every half-minute (or so) I blow out the accumulated smoke.

Relights? They happen. It is better to re-light than to draw too hard and get that ashy airport rental car cigarette taste. If you breathe consistently and pack your tobacco as I have described, they happen less.

After a couple hours, the smoke volume decreases and gets a little hotter. That means I have hit the bottom of the boil and am boiling the moisture there, producing steam. At this point, I usually dump the tobacco, since there is not much left anyway, but sometimes I keep smoking by breathing more quickly. This makes the draw a little bit more jagged and keeps the flame alive.

When all is done, I turn the pipe over above my wife's rosebushes and let the ash fall out, then use the pipe tool that looks like a shovel to scrape out any wet tobacco or unburned bits. Then, I run a pipe cleaner through the pipe, one end and then the other, then double it over into a loop to scour out the bowl.

Pipe goes back on the rack. Repeat the process. Good luck, friends in flame and legends in leaf!

Well, not all of them.

I started out on a vanilla cavendish plus Burley aromatic. It was hard to light, burned hot, but smelled good and was thick enough with nicotine that I could enjoy it when working but not such a blast that I could not enjoy it all day.

Once I found natural tobaccos, though, I was like, “Screw that. I'm on to the real deal.” I still feel this way, mostly because naturals burn better, have a more interesting flavor profile, and tend to provide more life-giving nicotine.

Still, I always liked the English aromatics. Stuff like Ye Olde Signe or Royal Yacht, the Gawith Hoggarth blends with mysterious old lady gardens dumped onto them with abandon, and the flakes with mysterious toppings that gave them just enough of a flavor “tweak” to stay interesting, like Erinmore. In fact, one of my favorite blends, Conniston Cut Plug, tastes like a great Virginia-Burley plug that collided with both a retirement home and a Turkish carpet store.

Now, I still avoid most aromatics but that is merely because bad choices were made in their production. Autumn Evening, for example, is a 1-Q clone but in maple, and similarly uses too much goop and makes it too sweet and cloying, making me feel like I am trying to smoke a Yankee Candle (“Malicious Maple”). Captain Black and friends look like vinyl, burn like paper, and while they leave a nice lingering smell in the air, generally taste like someone boiled the tobacco before adding the sugar-oil-acid mixture.

But Essenza Cipriota changed all that. It is a light English, like Presbyterian or Early Morning Pipe, but has a mixture of floral, berry, and wine flavors layered on top, done with a subtle hand like the English aromatics more than the most popular American or Danish versions. It is classically Danish in that it uses a melange of fruit flavors to produce something sort of like their balsams and meads, an entirely new flavor arising from a mix of familiar elements. It burns more like a natural, leaves a room note like an aromatic, but you can still taste the tangy Latakia and sweet Virginias, maybe a shade of white Burley, and some Orientals. The topping complements the leaf flavor instead of obliterating it.

Fortunately, it also has enough nicotine that I can smoke it all day (the old definition of an “all-day smoke” as being mild does not work for me, I think, since I am usually in motion of one sort or another). It has a varied enough flavor that I can enjoy it for hours. You can also breath smoke it, unlike most aromatics, which people like because they burn hot so if you forget to puff on your pipe for a minute, it will come roaring back and you can take a brief puff, then forget it about for awhile. I like the breath smoke method done the old way, which involves taking no puffs at all, since it lets me enjoy a steady constant flavor and brain-warming nicotine.

A few weeks back I got a coupon and some cash card rewards from a major retailer, so I picked up ten tins. This is notable only because these are the 100g “big chonker” tins that you can smoke out of for two weeks, so I have secured myself almost a half-year supply at sale prices. Everyone loves a sale because we are in our souls still the hunter-gatherers foraging around the edge of the forest, looking for that patch of mushrooms, nuts, or berries that the others have missed. I suppose it is worth mentioning that people like me more when I reek of floral, berry, and wine flavors, which makes me doubt all the effort I put into having a personality in the first place.

Those who read my ramblings on here will know that I like mostly UK blends but am over the moon for Cornell & Diehl Cube Cut Burley. This is basically a white/dark Burley flake which is then cut into little cubes and shipped dry.

I like it because not only is it tasty, with the white Burley providing enough sweetness for anyone and the dark Burley giving it a rich flavor of molasses and honey on pumpernickel bread, but it is brain-dead simple. You just dump it in the pipe, set it on fire, and you're set.

Someone came into my office to find that I had repurposed the little pitcher we use for gravy at Thanksgiving by cleaning it thoroughly and filling it with Cube Cut Burley. This way, when I need a refill, I can just pour the little cubes directly into the pipe through the extra-long gravy pitcher spout.

Apparently this is not the right way to smoke a pipe, but it's working for me.