Archive for the ‘pipe’ Category

A Beginners Guide To Choosing The Perfect Type of Pipe Tobacco

Tuesday, January 23rd, 2018

I thought I’d do this blog on the different types of cuts you will find on premium pipe tobaccos, since a newbie just discovering his love for the briar may be somewhat intimidated by this somewhat confusing selection.

Because ready-rubbed, ribbon-cut, or cube-cut tobaccos are extremely easy to pack, you might want to start with them. However, if you want to dive right into the intricacies of this hobby, then go ahead— try the flake styles. Flake tobaccos, are packed in slices resembling beef jerky, the tobacco is aged under pressure in “cakes” to draw out the extra flavor and sweetness. While this format can be daunting to a neophyte, I highly recommend them to premium cigar smokers who are accustomed to a thick, dense, smoking experience. Just pinch off a piece and rub it between your thumb and forefinger, separating it to create a lump-free consistency.

Flake tobaccos retain more moisture and freshness than ribbon-cut styles, giving the smoker better control over the burning rate. In addition, many ribbon cut tobaccos are of the cheap drug store variety that tend to burn hot on the tongue. That’s why many newbies quit the hobby after just a few bowls.

If I have convinced you that flake-cut is a great place to start you on your pipe-smoking journey, let’s take a look at a few of the bestselling brands that I personally have been smoking for many years.

Solani is a premium pipe tobacco that offers the pipe smoker very well aged, and fermented tobaccos with as little additives as possible. These blends have been a huge success because of the great taste, fantastic aroma, and outstanding blending.

Since 1887, Mac Baren has been manufacturing fine pipe tobacco utilizing the same rigorous standards that they still use today. MacBaren Navy Flake is an exceptionally smooth mixture of the finest aged Virginias with a touch of Burley and Cavendish, enhanced with rum and honey to create a blend that is mellow, smooth, highly fragrant, and gentle on the tongue.

Dunhill is famous the world over for creating some of the most legendary pipe tobacco blends for many decades. Dunhill Flake contains a smooth blend of fully aged Virginia tobaccos to create a mellow, satisfying smoke with flavors of sweet tobacco, some leathery tones, and hints of creamy vanilla.

McClelland Navy Cavendish premium pipe tobacco’s thick, slow burning qualities make it both the perfect indoor or outdoor smoke. A classic recipe of aged golden Virginia tobaccos infused with the mouthwatering essence of dark Jamaican rum has made this blend a fan favorite for over thirty-plus years.

Formerly from Ireland, but now manufactured in Denmark, Peterson University Flake offers  a delightful mellow to medium blend of  finely aged Virginias and burley tobaccos  infused with  a light, berry-like top dressing. Smooth, mouthwatering flavors of earth, raisins, some nutty components, and hints of molasses, will tantalize your taste buds while the “fresh bakery aroma” room note will captivate you and everybody else within sniffing distance!

 

Flavorless in New York City by Steve Nathan

Friday, March 8th, 2013

All of you “New Joisey” commuters and native “New Yawkers” may already know that, in October of 2009, the Big Apple’s mayor created an ordinance that restricts the sale of flavored tobaccos throughout the whole city. So, if you’re looking to purchase some “Jamaican Me Crazy” aromatic pipe tobacco or a cognac-flavored corona, you’re in for a big shock.

 

Per New York City’s health commissioner, “Flavored-tobacco products are marketed to youth, their packaging resembling that of candy and gum, and young people are more likely than adults to try flavored-tobacco products. This law, one of the first of its kind in the country, ensures that youth will be protected from these harmful products.”

 

Okay, I can understand if the honorable doctor was referring specifically to the monitored sale of those cheapo candy-store flavored blunts sitting on the front counter at the local Quickie Mart and are many times irresponsibly sold to underage smokers with fake IDs, because I sure don’t see a market for those amongst the old farts that enjoy a good machine made cigar. And I surely can’t imagine my 93-year-old Uncle Irving enjoying a blueberry stogie after downing a bagel with a shmear: “Oy vey! What’s up with these farkakte flavors? Where the hell is my Dutch Masters?”

 

Regulating Tobacco

So, yes, I can see regulating such blatant unregulated abuse of tobacco. But to make a sweeping bill that affects allflavored pipe tobaccos and cigars, no matter where or how they are sold, is pure stupidity that just adds another nail in the coffin for those poor tobacconists that have already been kicked in the cajones with a 75% tobacco surcharge in thecity that never sleeps!

 

This is just another example of government telling us what to do. For our own health, the King of Manhattan decided he was going to fight obesity as the New York City Health Department became the first in the nation to ban the sale of sugared beverages exceeding 16 ounces at restaurants, mobile food carts, sports arenas and movie theaters. Well, guess what? If I consume four triple cheeseburgers and a bag of Cheetos with my “healthier” eight-ounce soda, I’m still going to eventually be fat enough to have my own zip code! And admit it, most very corpulent (lard-ass) people wash down their bucket of chicken with a diet soda anyway. Perhaps it makes them feel less guilty… but I digress!

 

Let’s get back to the flavored-tobacco ban. Show me one pimply kid living with his parents and making $120 a week bagging groceries who is walking into a fine tobacco shop and dropping 10 bucks on a Maker’s Mark bourbon cigar, complete with glass tube and fancy melted-wax cap. No way, fella! He’s headed to that Quickie Mart for a 65¢ blueberry dog rocket so he can smoke Latin lettuce in his bedroom without his mom smelling anything suspicious. And he certainly isn’t going to take his whole paycheck and buy an $85.00 Savinelli pipe and a tin of Mac Baren Cherry Cavendish to start his spiral into the depths of tobacco addiction: Unsatisfied by smoking just cherry pipe tobacco, he turns to marijuana, the gateway drug to opiates. And when the opiates become too expensive, he hocks his Savinelli pipe for a bag of crack. And sadly, when he is living in a cardboard box behind the Home Depot, he will forever regret that first bowl of Mac Baren Cherry Cavendish…

 

Luckily things are a little better across the pond in “Joisey,” where our main man hasn’t seen his shoes since 1983; we are still allowed the guilty pleasure of negotiating a giant Slurpee while loading our pipes with gobs of gooey-casing goodness or smoking any flavored cigar that our hearts desire.

 

Mr. Mayor, there are much bigger problems to tackle in your city. And one day, if you’re not too busy, maybe you can put on a gas mask and walk into one of your local tobacco shops to see for yourself that you are depriving responsible adults their freedom of choice to enjoy flavored tobaccos… as they have for many years before you interceded. And guess what? I’m also sure you won’t find any nicotine-starved young folks drooling over a jar of vanilla pipe tobacco and begging for a fix.

 

 

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