Throughout pipe-smoking history, blenders have bragged about how “mild” their blends are. As usually happens, this measurement consists of a combined assessment of strength and flavor.
People, as it turns out, like tobacco mixtures that taste like their favorite foods and do not put them on the floor (or in a Zen state) with nicotine. Your average smoker kept his pipe lit for much of the day, and wanted an “all-day blend” that did not aggregate nicotine to the point where he felt dizzy and needed to slurp on a mint or drink a sugary beverage.
This presents no problem to me because I want these people to leave the high-powered tobacco blends alone so that I can consume them. As a working smoker, or someone who is usually on the job or fixing up stuff around the homestead while I generate thin trails of blue smoke, it helps to have a stimulant effect, like caffeine, but without the jitters.
After all, a stack of Irish Flake smoldering in a big briar bucket will not throw you off much if you are in motion, forcing people and objects into functional arrangements, and hammering on technology or old fences that just refuse to listen to reason and be useful. It might knock you flat if you smoke a bowl a day while relaxing in your armchair and watching Netflix soap operas, however.
In my view, however, people who are smoking for a hobby or pleasure alone worry too much about high nicotine. It is a pipe; you can put it down if you feel the spins coming. Take a sip of water or a nice sugary drink, or suck on a mint or other candy, and you will be fine in just a few minutes. However, you want to let that pipe sit still for another half hour to let your body process that nicotine surge that you got.
Breath-smoking helps with this process because while you get more nicotine this way, you get it slowly and steadily, so there no (or at least, fewer) jagged ups-and-downs that can suddenly hammer you with a blast of powerful alkaloids. If you huff and puff like the guys on your favorite videos — breath-smoking produces little smoke and looks unimpressive on film — you might run into unexpected trouble.
But for those of us who like high-nicotine blends, breath-smoking lets us enjoy these in a steady place of mind where everything makes sense. I have known how many stars are in the sky, and felt the looming satori as life revealed itself as a self-assembling puzzle. Then I swigged some sweet tea and sucked on a mint.
This is never a bad experience, but you learn how to listen to your body when it starts to sweat around the collar, get jumpy, or have that churning in the gut which says that you are on the precipice of the mountain of nicotine madness. Like I said: you can always put down the pipe. You are not less of a man, or a woman, if you do. You are a sane animal responding to the needs of your body.
My first experience with high-nicotine tobacco came courtesy of what became a favorite, Royal Yacht. I liked it so much I even went with a nautical theme for a few years, buying ascots and captain's caps for when I would light up a pipe, but after the men in white suits showed up I quickly ceased and desisted. People told me when I first acquired this storied English leaf that it would put me on the floor, possibly kill me, and if not, I'd wake up in a drum circle chanting “hare krishna.”
If my hand trembled a bit lighting up that first bowl of Royal Yacht, it was remembering the advice I had gotten. Clearly the abyss yawned beneath me now. Instead, I fell in love with the blend, and found myself reaching for it when I had to go clean the gutters or do other unrelenting work. At that point, I reached the next stage in my professional life, and soon the gold and crimson tin became a fixture at my desk.
In the bigger scheme of things, Royal Yacht is not all that strong; it dopes out as “medium-to-strong” on my primitive chart. The non plus ultra tobaccos would be those Gawith Hoggarth pressed dark fired Virginias, Cotton Boll Twist, maybe Five Brothers, Irish Flake before they neutered it, and the much-loved HH Bold Kentucky and its full-bodied cousin HH Old Dark Fired. With these, be careful if you are afraid of nicotine sickness. Remember that you can always put down the pipe, and have at least lukewarm water and a mint on hand.
Today I fired up a huge bowl of Cotton Bowl Twist mixed with Brown Twist Sliced, using some Amphora Original Blend for “kindling” or lighter tobacco to get these dense, oily ropes burning. Well through my second now, I am nearing the end of some labors that I had been resisting, and can report no demise, at least yet. It is a flavorful mixture, with the Amphora sweetening it, and perfect for a day like today when I try to fix the world, or at least everything in my world. But just in case, I have a linty mint in my pocket.