Are they really THAT good??

[w4ti]

While I remember Greg Pease's tobaccos from the ill fated partnership with Irwin Friedman quite well, I have to say I haven't been impressed with his tobaccos then or now (of the ones I've tried, of course- maybe I just haven't had the right one). The word that keeps coming up in my tasting notes from some of his blends I've tried is "monochromatic."
I think there is a great deal of hero worship that goes on within any fraternity, and this reverence to GLP is no different. They aren't bad tobaccos; they just aren't remarkable.
-w4ti

 

[settersbrace]

So Monty as you can plainly see there is no black and white answer to your initial inquiry. Only varying shades of gray. The best thing to do is cellar a fair amount of what your sure you like, now, then cellar what you think you'll like and sample them down the road as your tastes evolve. There will always be fluctuations in the way you percieve tobaccos over time and that's one of the great joys of pipe smoking IMO. There's blends and genres that you might not care for today but might make you wonder how you lived without them when you revisit it months or years from now. It happens all the time for me so I try not to blow off opportunities to sample a tobacco that I may not have gone ga-ga over 3-4 years ago.

 

[cigrmaster]

When I first began smoking I smoked a lot of GLP's English blends, I also loved his Two Friends Deacons Downfall. I moved to Florida in 2003 and for some reason I lost my taste for English blends and now I smoke VA, Vaper and Vabur flakes exclusively. I do smoke GLP Navigator and I have cellared a good amount of it. For my money, GLP makes some of the best English in the world, I wish I had not lost my taste for them.

 

[thehappypiper]

w4ti, I initially felt the same, but after a few months aging of the tobacco and gettong used to the different palate GLP has, I changed my mind. I suggest buying two tins and just leaving them in the cellar for two years before coming to a final decision. I think, as an American and a fully-commited pipist, Mr Pease is working on a different level than almost all of us and I feel he takes the long view, in the same way the Chef de la Maison at Margaux will taste a new wine and think "Give this ten years and it'll be a classic". Not many of us can do that, and I feel you have to adjust to his particular house style.

 

[w4ti]

But that's just it, thehappypiper- I've had his blends from the very beginning (late 90's) and after all this time still don't care for them (but I haven't had them all, so maybe there is one I would like, as I said before). Why should I cellar something on the hopes that I'll eventually like it? That's a fools errand, for sure. If you don't like it immediately, you most likely aren't going to like it in the future. I can't help but think Greg would agree with me on this.
I don't have anything against Greg, nor do I think he is a bad blender or untalented or anything such. I can tell you one thing: he certainly is a great marketer of his tobaccos- he's built up a following which has to be based on some success in delivering what some people are looking for, after all; I just haven't been bitten by what he is selling and merely stating my opinion. I've only been smoking a pipe for 15 years or so- so maybe I've got it wrong. I usually smoke about four ounces of something before I really make up my mind about it, and I've given his blends a fair shake and found them wanting. Big deal. Greg isn't blending tobaccos for me, he blends them for himself, and it happens that a lot of people like what he is selling. I'm not one of them, but that certainly doesn't mean I don't have the ability to form an opinion about my own experience.
Perhaps I'm short sighted on this, but I just finished half a tin of old Friedman and Pease Templar someone gave me, and, yes, it just wasn't the best thing since sliced bread, even after all this time. That was something that had close to 15 years of aging and, after having smoked half the can, gave it away to another friend. I don't think this makes me a Philistine. It does mean I've done my homework though. If you buy into the "it will be awesome 20 years from now crowd," then keep buying the tobacco or wine or whatever. The immediate sales are all that matter, and I'm sure that any mystique that is added on is appreciated by the manufacturer.
-w4ti

 

[neverbend]

I thought perhaps I am just in a wonderful time of pipe tobacco blends and fortunate to sample these special tobaccos that are going to be the future

Hi Monty,
You ask a very good and interesting question where the simple answer is Yes, if you're pleased with what you smoke then this is a very good era for tobaccos.
I, on the other hand, am the flip side of the coin, with my tastes lodged 25 years in the past and there were some at that time whose tastes lay similarly before mine.
Tobaccos and their availability change over time. In 1989 the English made manufacturers didn't use burlies or aromatics in their English, Orientals, Balkans or Virginias. At the recent Chicago Land Pipe Show, many of the 12 entrants in the English Blend contest contained one or both.
I enjoy seeing the interest in blending that exists today but I find that most tobaccos aren't well suited to my (throwback) tastes. Current Virginia tastes different to me because it is different.
You're in the enviable position of having found tobaccos that you like. I'm not the biggest proponent of cellaring tobacco (a fairly recent phenomena) but given pricing and political concerns you might want to start a cellar so that you can always enjoy the tobaccos that you've found that you like.

 

[igloo]

I can no longer just smoke bowl after bowl everyday so when I do smoke it is complexity I look for in a blend . Lucky for me GLP blends fit the bill . In this day and age of mass production it is nice to find a blender who still understands the effects of time on a blend .So yes I have had some GLP blends I did not care for but was able to come back later and enjoy after the tobacco had time to merge and marry the flavors .Some blends like Piccadilly can be enjoyed fresh as well as aged but I find others like Embarcadero to me are far better if left closed until after the three year mark .Until I think the blends in my cellar are ready to smoke I shall keep shaking the tins and riddling the wine . I look forward to the day when Harris has his taste buds change back so I can trade him tins of aged English blends at a two to one ratio .

 

[monty55]

Wow, so many great replies! I can't thank all of you enough in helping to educate me.
I tasted my first aged tobacco tonight. A 2004 Cornell & Diehl "Old Hollywood" that I bought from Steve at Pipestud's. I can say without a doubt it is the finest smoke I have tried to date. Now, I had no idea when I bought it that it would be what I love, but I read the ingredient tobaccos and it had all the same varieties I love so I gave it a shot. Now I am thinking.. in answering my own question regarding the initial post, that GLP has simply found a way to blend and create his tobaccos to not only age well, but taste like aged tobaccos from the start.. kinda... at least more than others lets say.
I can say that this non-GLP I had tonight was better than anything I have had that is GLP, but then I haven't yet tried an aged GLP. But I have a buddy on here that has sent me some 2005 GLP Cumberland which I am very excited to receive any day now. When I do I will post my observations

 

[escioe]

Dear w4ti: I think your view about the aging process being hype is a little cynical. People have been doing it with wine for centuries, and in a different way, with whiskies too. Also, Greg Pease isn't the only one to advocate aging a blend. He might be the most prominent to do so, but he's not the first and far from the only.
But you've tried and didn't like the blends. I can respect that. Not everything is for everyone. Some people really like the Frog Morton blends and they're just not for me, so I get it.
Dear monty55: I think at least part of the aging process is growing anticipation on the smoker's part. You're focusing more on what's there and putting yourself more in a position to enjoy it. Most of us aren't smoking decade old blends with the same sort of carelessness we might smoke something recent. I think at least a part of aged blends is that you're expecting it to be better, so you're paying much closer attention to the stuff that's there and, yes, has been amplified and mellowed by the aging process. I like aged tobaccos as much as anyone, but if I don't like a blend fresh, I'm not going to like it older.

 

[mso489]

The merits or reputations of specific blenders aside, having grown up with pipe smokers in an earlier time, I don't remember

a lot of ardor about blends and blenders in the old days. The vast majority of pipe smokers -- and there were millions of them--

were solid over-the-counter brand smokers, and they didn't think of them as codger or cheap blends. I had an uncle who was

a steel executive and lived large, and I believe he probably had an exclusive personal blend on file with a New York tobacconist,

but he was part of a really small cohort. I think the scale of upscale and custom blends is likely as large or larger than it has ever

been, so pipe smokers today probably have more choices and a wider experience of types and flavors of blends than any earlier

generation. The internet amplifies this. We're as subject to group psychology and marketing as the public at large, but the

competition is intense. This is likely as good as it's ever been, though some of the old blends were, no doubt, very fine indeed.

 

[w4ti]

Dear escioe:
I didn't say aging tobacco or wine was hype or that these things couldn't age well. Rather, what I said was that if you didn't like it when it was fresh, why in the world would you age it to see if you liked it later? And in fact, I just had something of his that had nearly 15 years on it- and still didn't think it was anything other than mostly monochromatic from when I originally had some close to 15 years ago (at least, according to my notes). So, no, aging something you don't like immediately isn't silly at all. It's common sense. You even said it yourself, "I like aged tobaccos as much as anyone, but if I don't like a blend fresh, I'm not going to like it older."
My other point stands, too. It's the immediate sales that matter to a manufacturer, and Greg is great at marketing and hyping his blends to be even better in the future- which certainly induces immediate sales and helps to maintain the image that a blend was successful. I didn't say that practice was wrong, I was just making the same point above in a different way, that if you didn't like it in the first place, why would you lay down any? Just because someone, in this case someone who has a vested interest in the product selling, says it will be even better in 5 years or whatever doesn't mean that it will be THAT much better. It's just good salesmanship- and I wouldn't dream of faulting Greg for that, or anyone else who practices that sort of sales pitch.
I'm not cynical about aging tobaccos. I am cynical about believing that a blend will turn into something extraordinarily different than what it's "fresh" iteration is, as you mentioned yourself.
-w4ti

 

[cfreud]

The glorious thing about pipes is the variety — in the smoking vessels themselves and the different types of tobaccos. Everything here is opinion, and that's great. I'm an English/Balkan/Latakia smoker — whatever you want to call it. I agree with the original poster that, in my opinion, GLP and Seattle Pipe Club are some of the best out there. I love Plum Pudding. I'm stocking a lot of GLP. I agree with other posters that Russ at Pipes and Cigars is doing some fantastic stuff, Larry's Blend, Black House, and Magnum O, to be precise. I haven't been able to get my hands on White Knight yet, but I will. There are a lot of good blends out there. They may not be the precise match of Balkan Sobranie or John Bull or the brands of yore, but that's OK. It's a good time to be a pipe smoker.

 

[neverbend]

Some thoughtful posts here.
I've posted elsewhere that I age by accident, not intent. I put my new tobaccos in a box and my wife moves the box not to be found again for years. I did save some Elephant & Castle that I've opened over the years and their progression in ageing has been slow with pure Virginia while some latakias have proven to be past their best.
Changes are subtle in the Virginia blends and I do find that letting them breathe after opening helps but I agree with the post that a poor blend (at least to the taste of the smoker) won't do more than marry and perhaps make it somewhat more palatable.
All of my tobacco is at least 5 years old, much 14 and some as old as 29 years and yes, I do approach smoking these tobaccos with anticipation but more that I hope (especially with the very old blends) that it will still be recognizable. E&C The Deestalker, (a Virginia flake), at 29 years old with some 'decanting' is superb but others haven't fared so well.
The process is similar to ageing wine but the products are different and I suggest that like wines not all varietals are meant to be aged. While Clarets will age well, most whites do not. Beaujolais is meant to be enjoyed rather immediately. Availability of some tobaccos are different today than they were in the past and that should be a consideration. None of the 12 blends in the English competition in Chicago had any significant component of bright Virginia (although this was a prime ingredient in the past) and the probability is that these tobaccos won't age as well as their predecessors of similar type.
Given the changes in available leaf and the fact that ageing tobacco by intent (or accident as in my case) is a recent phenomena there are no experts but a there's a lot of conjecture on the subject. Know what you're cellaring and why and try to be more diligent about it than I've been, with a plan to open blends periodically to see their progress (with the understanding that many blends, especially those with latakia are at their best after only a few years) and I believe that you'll have the most success. Good luck.