<<There is very little in pipe smoking that I consider hard set ‘rules’. Yes, there are some ‘rules’ that should be followed very closely. Such as cleaning your pipes after every smoke and having a good rotation, but even that is debatable. Does cleaning your pipes after every smoke and having a good rotation help the enjoyment of pipe smoking? In my opinion, yes it does. But back before pipe smoking became a hobby and there were a lot more people smoking pipes, a lot of them smoked the same pipe every day and did not clean them after every smoke. They certainly seemed like they enjoyed their pipes just as much as I do. Am I right and they were wrong? Or were they right and I am wrong? The answer is neither. Pipe smoking is all about enjoying YOUR pipes, tobacco, and smoking.
I do not put much value into those who consider themselves ‘Expert Pipe Smokers’. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not including pipe makers and tobacco blenders in this discussion of being an expert. They are obviously some form of an expert because they have studied the art of pipe making or tobacco blending and they apply their knowledge in their trade and make a living from it. So they have to know quite a bit about what they are doing are they wouldn’t be able to make a living doing what they do.
The ‘Expert Pipe Smokers’ I am referring to is, the people who say; “I have been smoking a pipe for so many amount of years and I have all of this knowledge and this is how you are supposed to smoke a pipe”. In my opinion, the individual person finds their own way to smoke a pipe. If you enjoy smoking a pipe the way that you smoke it, you are doing it correctly. Once again, that does not mean the so called ‘experts’ are wrong, because they are not. They are enjoying their pipe smoking as well.
I do always listen to and read every bit of information that becomes available to me because I am always learning. There is almost always some bit of information that I was not previously aware of. Sometimes the new info or tip helps me to enjoy my pipe journey better and sometimes it does not. I keep using the things that work for me and do not use the things that don’t work. I do not discard any info whether it works for me or not because it might help out a fellow piper even though it did not work for me. A prime example is the fold and stuff method with flake tobacco. I know that a lot of people use that method with much success, but I can not use that method. I do not get satisfactory results from it although others do.
This applies even more to tobacco reviews. Remember that every one has different tastes and what tastes good to me, might not taste good to you and vice versa. When I write a review, I keep that in mind and try to remain objective. I really hate when I read a review and the reviewer tears apart a blend that he doesn’t like just because he doesn’t like it without any explanation of why he doesn’t like it. I have seen reviews of aromatic blends and the reviewer starts his review with, “Let me start by saying that I hate aromatics.” And then proceeds to bash the tobacco. Well if they hate aromatics and can not be objective, then why are they reviewing an aromatic?
When I read reviews of a tobacco that I have not had before, I look for certain things in the review. I tend to disregard the reviewers personal taste as far as the blend goes, unless I know the reviewer and know what their tastes tend to be. Here are some of the things that I look for when reading a review; what type of tobaccos make up the blend, what type of blend it is, does it sound similar to a blend that I have smoked and if so did I like it or dislike it, if it had a lot of bite to it, etc.>>
In my early twenties I was fortunate to become friends with Mel Feldman, who owned The Smoker in Albany, NY. Mel was kind enough to spend hours talking to me about blending tobacco, which led to some admittedly amateurish attempts at creating my own mixtures. With a little perseverance my work became good enough that we offered a few of my blends at The Pipe Den, also in Albany. They did reasonably well. Well enough, in fact, that some of them were used by other stores in the chain. As I did more blending, I tried to codify things so I had firm guidelines to follow.
In the ensuing years, I read a number of books by people who had a lot more experience than I did, and spoke to a number of blenders to glean as much information as I could with the goal of creating a set of rules to make my efforts as successful as possible. I discovered that opinions differed greatly, even among well-respected blenders and shop owners, but there had to be hard-and-fast rules, right?
From the books I had read, it seemed that most of the authors wrote that a blend shouldn’t contain more than 10 or 20% Perique, and Latakia should be kept at no more than 30%. Something didn’t ring true, as I was fairly sure that Balkan Sobranie Original Smoking Mixture contained more than 30% Latakia. Lane’s bulk blend BS-005 definitely had more than that. As far as Perique went, I couldn’t be sure, but I swore that I had smoked blends that had in excess of 20% of the deeply fermented leaf.
Some of the books said that Orientals and Turkish tobaccos shouldn’t constitute more than 20% of a mixture. But not all Orientals are that assertive, so there must certainly have been some blends with a healthier share than that. The picture didn’t seem any clearer from my reading and discussions. What muddied the waters even further was the lack of consistency in terminology.
Cavendish generally referred to leaf that has been sugared or flavored and pressed for a period of time, then it was sliced and tumbled out. But some black Cavendishes are made of cut leaf that’s toasted and/or steamed without the use of pressure. In fact, I learned as time passed that some "Cavendishes" were just tobaccos that had a top-dressing and were never pressed at all, except during cutting.
Let’s not even get into the English vs. Balkan confusion. When I first started in the business, the term "Balkan" was never used except as a part of a brand name. Back then, "English" tobaccos were ones that were largely unadulterated, so most of today’s "English" blends would fall into this category, but so would a Virginia/Perique blend without any top flavor. This came from the fact that, in the past, the British government had strict guidelines regarding what could be done to tobacco, and the use of flavorings and additives was greatly restricted.
Flakes are pressed whole leaf that is sliced after being removed from the mold, so imagine my surprise when I ordered some Virginia flake and got yellow leaf that had been cut into pieces about ¼" square. Apparently flake-cut tobacco meant something different in the US than in the UK. How could I put together a set of rules or guidelines when there was so much confusion in usage and terminology?
Fast-forwarding to the beginning of Hearth & Home, I found myself fighting against the walls that had been erected by the experts who wrote those old tomes. I felt that I was really taking a chance with one of my earliest blends. Larry’s Blend contained 67% Latakia by weight, and had about 25% Turkish, so I was breaking two of the "rules" with this concoction. Larry Loerzel, for whom the blend is named, really liked it, and I did too. But I was concerned about selling it because it was so unconventional by the standards I had read about. I needn’t have worried as Larry’s Blend has been hugely successful, being one of our best-selling tobaccos for almost nine years.
The success of that blend helped me to come to a conclusion- there are no rules, other than the ones that a blender has to comply with legally. Since then, I have used 25% Perique in a blend that also has toasted black Cavendish in it (Obsidian). A number of my later blends are very Orientals-heavy (Sweet & Savory, Magnum Opus, WhiteKnight), and yet they’ve done well. I’ve done a blend with 30% Latakia and a Bourbon top-dressing (Missouri Meerschaum American Patriot) that’s been well-received. When I was challenged to make a bacon-flavored tobacco, I mixed dark-fired Kentucky, with a hickory smoke aroma, with a maple-flavored base. I did it because of the challenge, but it’s turned out to be pretty popular.
My conclusion is that rules apply when there are universal truths, and those don’t exist when it comes to flavor. Many people would shudder at the thought of chili peppers being combined with chocolate, but it’s been done for centuries with Mexican molé, and now you can find dark chocolate bars with chilis added.
Not only do different people have different tastes, but some people can’t even taste certain things, or, at least they can’t taste them well. I’ve tweaked an experimental blend because I wasn’t happy with it and found that the new version to be satisfying, but some of the people I had sampled it to couldn’t detect any changes. That alone is an indication that rules don’t apply to matters of flavor.
I’ve said a number of times that when my work day is over and I have to clean off my work area, I could take the leavings from the top of the bench, put them in a bag and somewhere, someone would smoke those scraps and declare them to be the greatest blend they’ve ever tried. The upshot is that I’ve decided to not worry about rules anymore and just trust the old taste buds.
Russ Ouellette is the blender/creator of the Hearth & Home series of tobaccos for Habana Premium Cigar Shoppe and www.pipesandcigars.com in Bethlehem, PA. He has been a pipe smoker and blender for over 30 years, and enjoys feedback from the pipe smoking public. You can reach Russ at russo@pipesandcigars.com
When I thought of # 46, I wasn't intending to exclude those who also served, but @RockyMountainBriar and @PappyJoe do have a point. I am not a veteran, based on my experience as a firefighter, we had a lot of members that never set foot in a burning building during their tenure. We called them "BIG" men on the fire ground BYSTANDERS IN GEAR.
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!” ― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
@Zouave1864 Why spring for a cinder block, just get a big rock, you could even spiff it up a bit and write “Door Stop” on it in black marker😉 Most rocks are free, cinder blocks, maybe yes, maybe no😬
@opipeman I used to look at attractive women and think to myself "I have a chance with her" now when I see an attractive young woman, I feel like all they see is me looking like shemp from the three stooges with steam shooting out of my collar and my bow tie spinning around.
It must be how you guys are dressing. Most of the year, I get younger women who smile at me when I'm out shopping The rest of the year they stand in line just to get their picture taken with me.
Case in point. My bride came in my little office in our basement last night and noticed all the jars of Tobac that I have stored in one corner. She said, "you will never smoke all that tobacco". All I said was "I've always loved a challenge". End of discussion.
Comments
http://pipesmagazine.com/python/pipe-smoking/reading-between-the-lines/
<<There is very little in pipe smoking that I consider hard set ‘rules’. Yes, there are some ‘rules’ that should be followed very closely. Such as cleaning your pipes after every smoke and having a good rotation, but even that is debatable. Does cleaning your pipes after every smoke and having a good rotation help the enjoyment of pipe smoking? In my opinion, yes it does. But back before pipe smoking became a hobby and there were a lot more people smoking pipes, a lot of them smoked the same pipe every day and did not clean them after every smoke. They certainly seemed like they enjoyed their pipes just as much as I do. Am I right and they were wrong? Or were they right and I am wrong? The answer is neither. Pipe smoking is all about enjoying YOUR pipes, tobacco, and smoking.
I do not put much value into those who consider themselves ‘Expert Pipe Smokers’. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not including pipe makers and tobacco blenders in this discussion of being an expert. They are obviously some form of an expert because they have studied the art of pipe making or tobacco blending and they apply their knowledge in their trade and make a living from it. So they have to know quite a bit about what they are doing are they wouldn’t be able to make a living doing what they do.
The ‘Expert Pipe Smokers’ I am referring to is, the people who say; “I have been smoking a pipe for so many amount of years and I have all of this knowledge and this is how you are supposed to smoke a pipe”. In my opinion, the individual person finds their own way to smoke a pipe. If you enjoy smoking a pipe the way that you smoke it, you are doing it correctly. Once again, that does not mean the so called ‘experts’ are wrong, because they are not. They are enjoying their pipe smoking as well.
I do always listen to and read every bit of information that becomes available to me because I am always learning. There is almost always some bit of information that I was not previously aware of. Sometimes the new info or tip helps me to enjoy my pipe journey better and sometimes it does not. I keep using the things that work for me and do not use the things that don’t work. I do not discard any info whether it works for me or not because it might help out a fellow piper even though it did not work for me. A prime example is the fold and stuff method with flake tobacco. I know that a lot of people use that method with much success, but I can not use that method. I do not get satisfactory results from it although others do.
This applies even more to tobacco reviews. Remember that every one has different tastes and what tastes good to me, might not taste good to you and vice versa. When I write a review, I keep that in mind and try to remain objective. I really hate when I read a review and the reviewer tears apart a blend that he doesn’t like just because he doesn’t like it without any explanation of why he doesn’t like it. I have seen reviews of aromatic blends and the reviewer starts his review with, “Let me start by saying that I hate aromatics.” And then proceeds to bash the tobacco. Well if they hate aromatics and can not be objective, then why are they reviewing an aromatic?
When I read reviews of a tobacco that I have not had before, I look for certain things in the review. I tend to disregard the reviewers personal taste as far as the blend goes, unless I know the reviewer and know what their tastes tend to be. Here are some of the things that I look for when reading a review; what type of tobaccos make up the blend, what type of blend it is, does it sound similar to a blend that I have smoked and if so did I like it or dislike it, if it had a lot of bite to it, etc.>>
https://pipesmagazine.com/blog/put-that-in-your-pipe/rules-what-rules/
In my early twenties I was fortunate to become friends with Mel Feldman, who owned The Smoker in Albany, NY. Mel was kind enough to spend hours talking to me about blending tobacco, which led to some admittedly amateurish attempts at creating my own mixtures. With a little perseverance my work became good enough that we offered a few of my blends at The Pipe Den, also in Albany. They did reasonably well. Well enough, in fact, that some of them were used by other stores in the chain. As I did more blending, I tried to codify things so I had firm guidelines to follow.
In the ensuing years, I read a number of books by people who had a lot more experience than I did, and spoke to a number of blenders to glean as much information as I could with the goal of creating a set of rules to make my efforts as successful as possible. I discovered that opinions differed greatly, even among well-respected blenders and shop owners, but there had to be hard-and-fast rules, right?
From the books I had read, it seemed that most of the authors wrote that a blend shouldn’t contain more than 10 or 20% Perique, and Latakia should be kept at no more than 30%. Something didn’t ring true, as I was fairly sure that Balkan Sobranie Original Smoking Mixture contained more than 30% Latakia. Lane’s bulk blend BS-005 definitely had more than that. As far as Perique went, I couldn’t be sure, but I swore that I had smoked blends that had in excess of 20% of the deeply fermented leaf.
Some of the books said that Orientals and Turkish tobaccos shouldn’t constitute more than 20% of a mixture. But not all Orientals are that assertive, so there must certainly have been some blends with a healthier share than that. The picture didn’t seem any clearer from my reading and discussions. What muddied the waters even further was the lack of consistency in terminology.
Cavendish generally referred to leaf that has been sugared or flavored and pressed for a period of time, then it was sliced and tumbled out. But some black Cavendishes are made of cut leaf that’s toasted and/or steamed without the use of pressure. In fact, I learned as time passed that some "Cavendishes" were just tobaccos that had a top-dressing and were never pressed at all, except during cutting.
Let’s not even get into the English vs. Balkan confusion. When I first started in the business, the term "Balkan" was never used except as a part of a brand name. Back then, "English" tobaccos were ones that were largely unadulterated, so most of today’s "English" blends would fall into this category, but so would a Virginia/Perique blend without any top flavor. This came from the fact that, in the past, the British government had strict guidelines regarding what could be done to tobacco, and the use of flavorings and additives was greatly restricted.
Flakes are pressed whole leaf that is sliced after being removed from the mold, so imagine my surprise when I ordered some Virginia flake and got yellow leaf that had been cut into pieces about ¼" square. Apparently flake-cut tobacco meant something different in the US than in the UK. How could I put together a set of rules or guidelines when there was so much confusion in usage and terminology?
Fast-forwarding to the beginning of Hearth & Home, I found myself fighting against the walls that had been erected by the experts who wrote those old tomes. I felt that I was really taking a chance with one of my earliest blends. Larry’s Blend contained 67% Latakia by weight, and had about 25% Turkish, so I was breaking two of the "rules" with this concoction. Larry Loerzel, for whom the blend is named, really liked it, and I did too. But I was concerned about selling it because it was so unconventional by the standards I had read about. I needn’t have worried as Larry’s Blend has been hugely successful, being one of our best-selling tobaccos for almost nine years.
The success of that blend helped me to come to a conclusion- there are no rules, other than the ones that a blender has to comply with legally. Since then, I have used 25% Perique in a blend that also has toasted black Cavendish in it (Obsidian). A number of my later blends are very Orientals-heavy (Sweet & Savory, Magnum Opus, WhiteKnight), and yet they’ve done well. I’ve done a blend with 30% Latakia and a Bourbon top-dressing (Missouri Meerschaum American Patriot) that’s been well-received. When I was challenged to make a bacon-flavored tobacco, I mixed dark-fired Kentucky, with a hickory smoke aroma, with a maple-flavored base. I did it because of the challenge, but it’s turned out to be pretty popular.
My conclusion is that rules apply when there are universal truths, and those don’t exist when it comes to flavor. Many people would shudder at the thought of chili peppers being combined with chocolate, but it’s been done for centuries with Mexican molé, and now you can find dark chocolate bars with chilis added.
Not only do different people have different tastes, but some people can’t even taste certain things, or, at least they can’t taste them well. I’ve tweaked an experimental blend because I wasn’t happy with it and found that the new version to be satisfying, but some of the people I had sampled it to couldn’t detect any changes. That alone is an indication that rules don’t apply to matters of flavor.
I’ve said a number of times that when my work day is over and I have to clean off my work area, I could take the leavings from the top of the bench, put them in a bag and somewhere, someone would smoke those scraps and declare them to be the greatest blend they’ve ever tried. The upshot is that I’ve decided to not worry about rules anymore and just trust the old taste buds.
Russ Ouellette is the blender/creator of the Hearth & Home series of tobaccos for Habana Premium Cigar Shoppe and www.pipesandcigars.com in Bethlehem, PA. He has been a pipe smoker and blender for over 30 years, and enjoys feedback from the pipe smoking public. You can reach Russ at russo@pipesandcigars.com
I wasn't thinking about pipe smoking when I added #47, but those are good as well.
49. Never, never, ever trust a fart.
How might one go sbout “trusting a fart?”
Just askin’
You know, sometimes they bite😳
Like a lot of things in life, you learn from experience.
50. If junk mail comes with a prepaid return envelope, return it empty.
I like your idea better than mine.
51. Live your life so that when you pass, your service will be more than a two car funeral.
― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
Everyone should have a plan.
52. If you are instructed to press “1” for English, hang up.
the result is. You don’t accomplish your own goal; that is, being connected to the person or department you are trying to reach.
Yes.
Why spring for a cinder block, just get a big rock, you could even spiff it up a bit and write “Door Stop” on it in black marker😉 Most rocks are free, cinder blocks, maybe yes, maybe no😬
54. Young women flirt with old men because they think they have money or they want a big tip.
A new study suggests that men become invisible to younger women as they approach 40.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/10955708/Men-become-invisible-at-39-now-they-know-how-women-feel.html
Unless you have a wallet full of money and a Black American Express. Then their vision gets better.
The rest of the year they stand in line just to get their picture taken with me.
55. Always control your “inner voice” when your wife asks for your opinion on anything she feels is important.
I guess, we all aren't as handsome as yourself.
It’s the uniform😬