My pipe journey has, in some ways, been a big circle. It started about 20 years ago when I was a teenager with a Dr Grabow Lark and a couple pouches of Middleton Cherry and Borkum Riff Bourbon Whiskey. I smoked that pipe off and on for a year or so, but I knew nothing about how to properly pack a bowl, do a charring light then a true light, how to tamp, or how to sip a pipe slowly; so every time I smoked I couldn't keep the tobacco lit and got terrible tongue bite, and I eventually just quit smoking my pipe and went back to cigarettes.
Fast forward 20 years later, to October of last year, and I took an interest in pipe smoking again. This time I had YouTube on my side and watched all the Muttonchop and Matches860 videos on how to get started and learned how to smoke a pipe the right way. I restarted my pipe journey with just a tin of Cult Blood Red Moon and a Missouri Meerschaum Cobbit Shire, and now a year later I've got a cellar packed with 48 Ball jars full of blends in nearly every style imaginable and a nice little walnut hardwood pipe rack with 8 pipes on it. Mostly Savinelli and Peterson briars but a couple cobs and an AKB Meerschaum as well.
Getting back to the tobacco part of the journey though, I went from my tin of Blood Red Moon to trying a ton of Sutliff, Peter Stokkebye, and Lane aromatics and found that I just didn't terribly enjoy smoking them. Most of them were very wet and hard to keep lit, burned hot, tasted too sweet, and I just didn't like the aroma or flavor of the casings on them. From there I branched out into non-aromatics, Virginias, VaPers, and English blends mainly, and ran into no less problems. Virginias mostly tasted dull and boring to me and bit the heck out of my tongue (at least until I later learned how to properly dry my tobacco before smoking), VaPers and anything else with Perique in it would give me a really sore throat and a cough that would last for 2 or 3 days every time I smoked one, and my throat didn't terribly care for Latakia either.
Having run into some manner of disappointment at every turn I was almost ready to give up on pipe smoking, when by chance I decided to try a tin of Cornell & Diehl's Autumn Evening. That was the, "Ah ha!" moment for me. I found an aromatic that was nicely dry and burned well like a non-aromatic, tasted great and not too sweet, and I could really taste the dark bready Red Virginia tobacco in it too and liked the way it mingled with the maple topping. From there I started researching dry and tobacco forward aromatics as well as other Cornell & Diehl blends and discovered a wide variety of aromatic blends that are nicely dry straight out of the tin, smoke great mechanically speaking, have flavor profiles where the toppings are natural tasting and not too sweet, and you can taste both the toppings and tobacco in equal measure. Some favorites of mine have been Mac Baren Vanilla Flake/Vanilla Cream Loose Cut, Mac Baren 7 Seas Red Blend, and Super Value Bourbon Whiskey (that last one totally surprised me but after trying every whiskey flavored blend I could find it truly was far and away the best).
I also picked up a real appreciation for Burley along the way as I got acquainted with the flavor profiles of different kinds of tobacco and tried all the old codger blends, and I'm currently looking for a more premium Burley blend without Perique in it. As much as I love the taste and tin note of Haunted Bookshop that Perique just tears up my throat something fierce, so I'll be giving Pegasus a try next. I was also pleased to discover that even though English blends normally really irritate my throat too, for some reason Peterson Early Morning Pipe doesn't bother it at all and I love the tangy campfirey flavor of it; so that's become a regular part of my rotation as well. I'm even beginning to appreciate the bright/grassy/citrusy/bready flavor profiles that straight Virginia blends offer from time to time too, and I really should try Mac Baren HH Pure Virginia or Capstan Blue at some point.
For today though I'm just puffing on my AKB block meerschaum pipe carved in the shape of a wolf's head with a nice relaxing bowl of Mac Baren 7 Seas Red Blend, which oddly enough tastes almost identical to how I remember Middleton Cherry tasting when I first started my pipe journey some 20 odd years ago; just with much higher quality tobacco and no bite. And so, the story ends more or less where it began.
Fast forward 20 years later, to October of last year, and I took an interest in pipe smoking again. This time I had YouTube on my side and watched all the Muttonchop and Matches860 videos on how to get started and learned how to smoke a pipe the right way. I restarted my pipe journey with just a tin of Cult Blood Red Moon and a Missouri Meerschaum Cobbit Shire, and now a year later I've got a cellar packed with 48 Ball jars full of blends in nearly every style imaginable and a nice little walnut hardwood pipe rack with 8 pipes on it. Mostly Savinelli and Peterson briars but a couple cobs and an AKB Meerschaum as well.
Getting back to the tobacco part of the journey though, I went from my tin of Blood Red Moon to trying a ton of Sutliff, Peter Stokkebye, and Lane aromatics and found that I just didn't terribly enjoy smoking them. Most of them were very wet and hard to keep lit, burned hot, tasted too sweet, and I just didn't like the aroma or flavor of the casings on them. From there I branched out into non-aromatics, Virginias, VaPers, and English blends mainly, and ran into no less problems. Virginias mostly tasted dull and boring to me and bit the heck out of my tongue (at least until I later learned how to properly dry my tobacco before smoking), VaPers and anything else with Perique in it would give me a really sore throat and a cough that would last for 2 or 3 days every time I smoked one, and my throat didn't terribly care for Latakia either.
Having run into some manner of disappointment at every turn I was almost ready to give up on pipe smoking, when by chance I decided to try a tin of Cornell & Diehl's Autumn Evening. That was the, "Ah ha!" moment for me. I found an aromatic that was nicely dry and burned well like a non-aromatic, tasted great and not too sweet, and I could really taste the dark bready Red Virginia tobacco in it too and liked the way it mingled with the maple topping. From there I started researching dry and tobacco forward aromatics as well as other Cornell & Diehl blends and discovered a wide variety of aromatic blends that are nicely dry straight out of the tin, smoke great mechanically speaking, have flavor profiles where the toppings are natural tasting and not too sweet, and you can taste both the toppings and tobacco in equal measure. Some favorites of mine have been Mac Baren Vanilla Flake/Vanilla Cream Loose Cut, Mac Baren 7 Seas Red Blend, and Super Value Bourbon Whiskey (that last one totally surprised me but after trying every whiskey flavored blend I could find it truly was far and away the best).
I also picked up a real appreciation for Burley along the way as I got acquainted with the flavor profiles of different kinds of tobacco and tried all the old codger blends, and I'm currently looking for a more premium Burley blend without Perique in it. As much as I love the taste and tin note of Haunted Bookshop that Perique just tears up my throat something fierce, so I'll be giving Pegasus a try next. I was also pleased to discover that even though English blends normally really irritate my throat too, for some reason Peterson Early Morning Pipe doesn't bother it at all and I love the tangy campfirey flavor of it; so that's become a regular part of my rotation as well. I'm even beginning to appreciate the bright/grassy/citrusy/bready flavor profiles that straight Virginia blends offer from time to time too, and I really should try Mac Baren HH Pure Virginia or Capstan Blue at some point.
For today though I'm just puffing on my AKB block meerschaum pipe carved in the shape of a wolf's head with a nice relaxing bowl of Mac Baren 7 Seas Red Blend, which oddly enough tastes almost identical to how I remember Middleton Cherry tasting when I first started my pipe journey some 20 odd years ago; just with much higher quality tobacco and no bite. And so, the story ends more or less where it began.
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