Russ Quellette Perique Batch Blends
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"In fact, it nearly went extinct until Mark Ryan rescued the operation from the brink of collapse. "
This is false. Mr. Ryan deserves credit for furthering the "comeback" but he came in five years after the fact five years after the fact:
RAND POINT, La. — About 15 years ago, the world supply of the pungent Cajun tobacco perique was down to about five barrels. One of the rarest tobaccos in the world, it comes from St. James Parish, about 50 miles west of New Orleans.
The market had been declining since a peak in the 1920s, and Percy Martin was the only full-scale farmer left. A few bad seasons had knocked his production down to the point where perique was on the verge of extinction.
Mr. Martin died last year, but not before he saw the tobacco he had spent his life with make a nearly miraculous recovery to what might be its biggest business success. His son Ray took over the farm, and this spring Ray Martin has 236 barrels sitting on his barn floor — the most he could remember seeing, ever.
“I started getting more people, must be five years ago,” Mr. Martin said. “We just kept it going. We were the last ones planting.”
"The backbreaking labor associated with that preindustrial process, combined with a succession of storms and low prices, had led to a long period of attrition. When two tobacco enthusiasts, Christopher Brown and Matt Nichols, decided around 1998 to go see where one of their favorite products grew, they were shocked to find just a few acres of farmland left.
Mr. Brown and Mr. Nichols resolved to do something to preserve perique. They helped Ray Martin send samples of his tobacco to major companies, and one of them ended up on the desk of Mike Little, now the president of Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, which makes American Spirit cigarette."
“I was just enamored by the process and so impressed by the work ethic of these farmers,” Mr. Little said. “And the end product you get is just this very unique, very spicy tobacco product. Being an old tobacco guy and a blender, it was a real experience.”
"In 2000, American Spirit introduced a perique cigarette, giving Mr. Martin the consistent buyer he needed. Over the years, American Spirit and its perique blend kept expanding, finding plenty of willing buyers in America and overseas. Mr. Martin also runs a processing plant for the growing ranks of perique farmers.
In 2005, a North Carolina businessman named Mark Ryan bought an old processing facility in nearby Convent, La., with a lineage going back to Pierre Chenet, thought to be the first Westerner to produce perique. Recently, he added to it. Mr. Ryan has more demand than he can fill with his local farmers, and augments his barrels with tobacco from places like Kentucky, Virginia and Canada, as his predecessor had done for years as more and more farmers left the business."
Mr. Martin’s barn is a jumble of a century of cobbled technology. There are new presses made out of metal, old presses made of logs with the bark still on, and cop-cops with nail holes worn through them lying on the floor. Increased production has brought increased scrutiny and regulations, both from the government and American Spirit, but by and large the process looks the same as it did in the early 20th century.
“It’s about as high-tech as it can get,” Mr. Martin said."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/us/tobacco-lovers-discover-mystique-of-perique.html?_r=0
This is false. Mr. Ryan deserves credit for furthering the "comeback" but he came in five years after the fact five years after the fact:
RAND POINT, La. — About 15 years ago, the world supply of the pungent Cajun tobacco perique was down to about five barrels. One of the rarest tobaccos in the world, it comes from St. James Parish, about 50 miles west of New Orleans.
The market had been declining since a peak in the 1920s, and Percy Martin was the only full-scale farmer left. A few bad seasons had knocked his production down to the point where perique was on the verge of extinction.
Mr. Martin died last year, but not before he saw the tobacco he had spent his life with make a nearly miraculous recovery to what might be its biggest business success. His son Ray took over the farm, and this spring Ray Martin has 236 barrels sitting on his barn floor — the most he could remember seeing, ever.
“I started getting more people, must be five years ago,” Mr. Martin said. “We just kept it going. We were the last ones planting.”
"The backbreaking labor associated with that preindustrial process, combined with a succession of storms and low prices, had led to a long period of attrition. When two tobacco enthusiasts, Christopher Brown and Matt Nichols, decided around 1998 to go see where one of their favorite products grew, they were shocked to find just a few acres of farmland left.
Mr. Brown and Mr. Nichols resolved to do something to preserve perique. They helped Ray Martin send samples of his tobacco to major companies, and one of them ended up on the desk of Mike Little, now the president of Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, which makes American Spirit cigarette."
“I was just enamored by the process and so impressed by the work ethic of these farmers,” Mr. Little said. “And the end product you get is just this very unique, very spicy tobacco product. Being an old tobacco guy and a blender, it was a real experience.”
"In 2000, American Spirit introduced a perique cigarette, giving Mr. Martin the consistent buyer he needed. Over the years, American Spirit and its perique blend kept expanding, finding plenty of willing buyers in America and overseas. Mr. Martin also runs a processing plant for the growing ranks of perique farmers.
In 2005, a North Carolina businessman named Mark Ryan bought an old processing facility in nearby Convent, La., with a lineage going back to Pierre Chenet, thought to be the first Westerner to produce perique. Recently, he added to it. Mr. Ryan has more demand than he can fill with his local farmers, and augments his barrels with tobacco from places like Kentucky, Virginia and Canada, as his predecessor had done for years as more and more farmers left the business."
Mr. Martin’s barn is a jumble of a century of cobbled technology. There are new presses made out of metal, old presses made of logs with the bark still on, and cop-cops with nail holes worn through them lying on the floor. Increased production has brought increased scrutiny and regulations, both from the government and American Spirit, but by and large the process looks the same as it did in the early 20th century.
“It’s about as high-tech as it can get,” Mr. Martin said."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/us/tobacco-lovers-discover-mystique-of-perique.html?_r=0
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