Match Holiday Mixture by Sutliff

[Briar Lee]

$2.50 per ounce or $2 an ounce by the pound, from several online sellers.

Recommended

Here’s the description from Pipes and Cigars:

This is a match to the old Holiday Mixture. This classic American English-style tobacco is a combination of rich Burleys, including a nutty cube-cut, bright, sweet Virginia, smoky Cyprian Latakia, zesty Perique and a natural, toasted black Cavendish for a cool-smoking, flavorful experience. If you're looking for an all-day Latakia blend, Holiday Mixture is right up your alley.

——

Holiday and Revelation, and a few others, were the rare American drugstore tobaccos with Perique and Latakia.

The main component I taste is sweet, nutty tasting cubed burley, and there’s a delicious fruity sauce, and there’s only enough Perique and Latakia to add a little pepper and smokiness. I can also taste a bit of Virginia. It still has a wonderful room aroma. Overall this is a delicious, aromatic and satisfying smoke.

No bite, harshness or bitterness. This is about mild to medium strength, and a real pipe tobacco that used to be sold over the counter.

The next time you order online consider paying $5 for two ounces of Holiday. This is one of the classic blends we are fortunate to still have to choose from.

 

[didimauw]

How old is this sample?

Edit: I see it now. Very old. Lol

 

[canucklehead]

Nice pipe, is it a Willard? I like Sutliff's Revelation match, I'll have to try this one too.

 

[fMf Piper]

Sounds interesting. I have added this to the list of tobaccos I want to sample.

 

[huntertrw]

The original Holiday Pipe Mixture was manufactured by Larus & Bro. Co., Inc., of Richmond, Virginia, the creator of Edgeworth. If memory serves, Holiday was the first aromatic pipe-tobacco manufactured in the United States.

In the Fall 1999 issue of Pipes and Tobaccos magazine, William Serad reviewed a number of over-the-counter blends, including the Lane Limited-manufactured version of Holiday, and had this to say about it: "A blend! Latakia! Oh Joy! This is chunky, and has some partially rubbed-out short cut flake Burley and other ingredients. The box says it has five tobaccos, so there is probably some Virginia. It is fairly cool, and has a tangy taste, almost a little bitter. I liked it."

Being a fan of all things from Larus & Bro., after reading Mr. Serad's review I set out on a search for Holiday Pipe Mixture, but could find none. A business trip subsequently took me to the Kansas City, Kansas, and that necessitated a stop at Cigar & Tabac in Overland Park. There I described my quest to the proprietor who said that he could not help me, but knew someone who could, whereupon he introduced me to a Lane Limited representative who happened to be calling upon the store just then. The gentleman, whose name I do not now recall, took my name and address, and said that he would send a sample to me.

"Yeah, right" I thought to myself. Boy, was I wrong! A few days later the postman delivered an eight-ounce bag of their Holiday Excursion Pipe Mixture, and I have loved it ever since.

 

[telescopes]

Nice pipe, is it a Willard? I like Sutliff's Revelation match, I'll have to try this one too.

That's a Pipe Maker

Overseen by White Hall which was owned by Ben Wade

I haven't seen a bulldog Pipe Maker before.

 

[Briar Lee]

That's a Pipe Maker

Overseen by White Hall which was owned by Ben Wade

I haven't seen a bulldog Pipe Maker before.

Regardless of who made it, this was fraised on exactly the same machine that fraised the Star Grade and Briarlee squat medium Bulldog. Stems and stingers also are interchangeable between Pipe Maker, Briarlee, and Star Grades.

My bet is Lee sold a silent seconds line to White Hall.

There has to have been briar that didn’t grade to be Star Grade, Gold Coast, or Briarlee..





And whoever made Pipe Maker, some have that bullseye with a red dot, others with a blue dot, if the bullseye didn’t fall out, which it often did.

They also smoke like Lees, the same sweet cure was used.

 

[telescopes]

I disagree. It is possible that the same factory may have made them, but I see many differences in briar quality and stem quality. I can put many different stingers in my Pipe Maker Pipe. My Willard stingers work in them. Did Lee make Willard? No, Dr. Grabow did.

It would be safer to state that you find many similarities rather than state it as an absolute. Regardless, Whitehall owned the Red Dot trademark. The evidence available suggest that this is the case.

 

[Piping Abe]

I got some Holiday Mixture to try with my IPSD order. I had to actually weigh it because there was not a lot of tobacco for 4 oz. Half this tobacco must be moisture/PG/whatever. I smoked it straight outta the bag and it was sopping wet. Constant relights. But I loved what I was tasting.

So I dried it for 24 hours, still sopping wet, constant relights. 48 hours, same. Could never enjoy the smoke.

30 seconds in the microwave did not help either.

I left it in direct sun. It dried to a crisp. And I still had issues. I love this tobacco but to me it is just not worth the work.

So how is the moisture level for you guys and how are you preparing the blend? This rough cut is terrible in my opinion. And they must really take a water hose to the tobacco before they ship it.

The topping is Marshmellow by the way. Delicious.

 

[LOREN]

I’ve tried Match Holiday Mixture by Sutliff and found it very enjoyable. I should order again.

 

[Briar Lee]

I got some Holiday Mixture to try with my IPSD order. I had to actually weigh it because there was not a lot of tobacco for 4 oz. Half this tobacco must be moisture/PG/whatever. I smoked it straight outta the bag and it was sopping wet. Constant relights. But I loved what I was tasting.

So I dried it for 24 hours, still sopping wet, constant relights. 48 hours, same. Could never enjoy the smoke.

30 seconds in the microwave did not help either.

I left it in direct sun. It dried to a crisp. And I still had issues. I love this tobacco but to me it is just not worth the work.

So how is the moisture level for you guys and how are you preparing the blend? This rough cut is terrible in my opinion. And they must really take a water hose to the tobacco before they ship it.

The topping is Marshmellow by the way. Delicious.

My two ounce sample is about 2 1/2 years old, and is almost powder dry by now.

The makers put something in the blends to keep them palatable and moist.

In the end, time always wins.

 

[Briar Lee]

I disagree. It is possible that the same factory may have made them, but I see many differences in briar quality and stem quality. I can put many different stingers in my Pipe Maker Pipe. My Willard stingers work in them. Did Lee make Willard? No, Dr. Grabow did.

It would be safer to state that you find many similarities rather than state it as an absolute. Regardless, Whitehall owned the Red Dot trademark. The evidence available suggest that this is the case.

Whoever made Pipe Maker made above the normal quality drug store pipes.

This one was hand rusticated, and well made.




Lee made pipes, but he didn’t make pipe making machines, and likely didn’t make the screw in mortises, tenons, and stingers himself.

In the forties American pipe makers churned out about thirty million new factory pipes a year.

There were a lot of aluminum parts and automatic pipe making machines needed, you know?

They might have all bought from the same vendors.

 

[burleybreath]

The original Holiday Mixture (or whatever it was in the '70s) was the only pipe tobacco in my experience that had a component that dissolved the surgical rubber lining of a quality roll-up pouch I owned. Whatever the darker bits were, you could see where they ate into the lining and embedded themselves. Prying them out left a hole. Getting the pouch relined isn't worth the effort, I discovered. Should have used a cheap vinyl pouch, but how was I to know? (Just sayin', for the hell of it.)