For the newbies, and oldies

Agreed. Esoterica products are good, but not that kind of good. Before the panic set in for Penzance, I tried it and found it to be an OK blend, but not absolutely a paragon above all others. I've still got a bag or two that have been sitting for the past 5 or so years. If I can remember where I tossed them, I may try it again. Penzance seems to have become a lemming magnet.

I too have basically given up on Esoterica Blends as well. I've been able to secure some of there stuff over the years, and now feel the hunt is no longer worth the reward. Don't get me wrong, if I run into some in the future, I will not hesitate to buy. But I am no longer actively searching for it.

I'm torn. For me, Esoterica makes three of the best blends I have ever smoked: Penzance, Stonehaven, and And So to Bed. Thankfully, I've got 30+ tins of Penzance in the cellar, so I don't have to decide not to smoke it anymore; I can have a tin a year probably for the rest of my life. And while I'm not inclined to pay the current eBay rates, I'm certainly not going to stop acquiring it at normal retail prices.
But honestly no one else is producing blends that taste exactly like the Esoterica/Germain blends. And that makes them worth seeking out when possible. For me.
Bob

I can't imagine obsessing on a blend because it's extremely difficult to buy. If a company can't

produce enough of its product to meet the demand, it appears to me that the competition is all

over them with blends equal or better to any individual's taste. The bulk and tin tobacco market

is in its glory, with blenders working their hearts out to come up with beguiling tastes and fragrance

to suit every taste. Unattainable or overpriced tobaccos are nifty, when discovered, for special gifts

or personal prizes, but not worth too much thought. When I finally caught up with Cuban cigars

outside the U.S., I had some truly pleasant smokes, but I still like and liked Dominicans decidedly

better. Unattainable doesn't mean great; it just means difficult to purchase.

Never been able to get my hands on any and at this point really dont care. If I have to bend over backward in order to give a business my money then it isnt worth it in my opinion. I'm quite content stalking up on 2-3 of my favorite "sleeper" blends :lol:

When you could buy Penzance regularly I smoked some from time to time. A really good blend. I like having the tins around after they're finished to hold other tobacco. They fit nicely in the pipe bag.
If I could buy it for $15 a tin now, I'd buy a few once in a while. Since I can't, I'll happily smoke Gaslight and Quiet Nights and the other full latakia blends I like just as much, if not more, than Penzance.
You see this rarity-chasing in the craft beer scene, too. People pay $50 a bottle for whatever barrel-aged Dark Lord stout from Three Floyds, and pay triple that on the secondary market. No thanks. I'll drink other beers that are just as good, if not better, for 10% the price.

mso489:
I would argue that Esoterica blends have been great long before the current craziness. Ten years ago, you could walk into any good pipe shop and find stacks of Penzance and the other blends. Seven years ago, you could order any of them from SmokingPipes.com without any worry that they'd be out of stock. And some of us were praising these blends to anyone who would listen for all of that time.
Apparently, though, Esoterica recently reached the tipping point where all of that early praise has finally broken through to the pipe smoking world at large. And it's only in the last few years that the brand's popularity has outstripped supply.
Bob

I'm with you on the Esoterica stuff. It's great but not worth the fuss. That being said, it seems that Sam Gawaith stuff goes through the same fuss to a lesser degree but I seem to play that game.

Rmbittner - I think that cellaring has also reached the tipping point in the last few years. Casual smokers are stashing away pound after pound and the serious hoarders seem to put away hundreds of pounds in a less than year. (cough...Peck....cough).

I would argue that Esoterica blends have been great long before the current craziness. Ten years ago, you could walk into any good pipe shop and find stacks of Penzance and the other blends. Seven years ago, you could order any of them from SmokingPipes.com without any worry that they'd be out of stock. And some of us were praising these blends to anyone who would listen for all of that time.

Click to expand...

If you look through the old, old alt.smokers.pipes board, you can find a younger Greg Pease talking about loving Penzance. This is back in the late 90s.

"I think that cellaring has also reached the tipping point in the last few years."
Agreed. And I think all of us harping on "tobacco will never be cheaper," "companies may go out of business," "legislation and taxes may hamper future tobacco purchases" encourages those so inclined to stock up as much as possible.
Bob

I wonder if this could eventually happen to a blend like one of the Frog Mortons. McClelland could use current sales to establish their tobacco supply for it, and because everyone suggests it to every Tom, Dick, and Harry as the messiah of tobaccos, it could create a demand that outweighs supply or production speed.
After watching how, when Brian mentions a blend on the radio show, hoards of people all end up buying a tin of it that very week (yes, I am guilty myself). Just peruse the string "What are You Smoking?", and look back at when he mentioned the HH Old Dark Fired, and see that most of us went out and tried it. And, you won't find it in any of the previous months.
When I first came to this forum, I had just made Astley's 109 my absolute favorite, and several of us had a string on here about that blend, and low and behold I couldn't find it anywhere online for the next two weeks. Whether we had anything to do with it or not, it smelled stronger than coincidence.
It would probably be wise to keep a favorite blend to yourself, unless you want other people to all rush out and try it. And, possibly drive the price of it up.
BTW, the Froggy blends are absolutely wonderful, LOL... as I'm just not much a fan of the latakias ::

I started smoking a pipe in 2007. At the time I had no problem getting a tin of Penzance when someone recommended it to me on one of the forums. I still remember raving about it to a friend and fellow pipe smoker. Unfortunately, I didn't order any more as I had quite a few other blends to try.
I put down the pipe at the end of 2008 (went back to cigarettes unfortunately). Last year I decided to pick up the pipe again after having quit the cigarettes a couple of years back. I was extremely bummed to find Penzance was no longer available because it was by far my favorite of all the blends I tried in 2007/2008. I still had a bit left in my tin from 2007. It had dried out but I re-hydrated it and smoked it and it was pretty good. Then in the summer someone posted on the forum that there was a tobacconist in AZ who had a few 8oz bags of Penzance in stock selling for retail price. I jumped at the chance to buy the last 2 bags. It is fantastic stuff...not worth what people pay for it on eBay, but by far still my favorite blend.
I'll pick up as much as I can whenever I stumble across some more at or near retail, but only because it's so hard to find. If it was readily available I'd be much more likely to just pick up a few tins now and then.

Seems like they are pulling a 'Disney' and withholding it to drive the price

I had a similar experience to Broth. I bought my first tin of Penzance in 2007, and thought it was pretty good but never restocked. Quit pipe smoking for a few years and thought about throwing one of the tins in my cart when stocking up. I was absolutely shocked to see that it was now $20/tin and backordered forever. It's a good blend, but I can't quite understand the hysteria surrounding it at the present moment.

chops:
You're misinformed.
First, Esoterica isn't driving up any prices. They haven't increased their prices at all. The high prices are coming from the opportunists on eBay -- and, I've seen here, one retailer who has decided he wants to take advantage of the marketplace. I guarantee you that none of those excess profits are making their way to Esoterica.
There has been much explanation here of why these blends are in short supply. But the short answer is that Penzance, for example, is produced by a very small company, on a single machine that is over 100 hundred years old. They aren't going to be buying any more machines like that -- even if they were available, which they aren't -- to meet the current heightened demand, which may or may not last. And that machine -- due to the fact that it has pressed the same blends for much of its life and, no doubt, contributes quite a bit of "something" to those resulting blends -- is not something that can be duplicated at this point.
But we're talking about a tiny company of fewer than a dozen staff, located on one of the Channel Islands.
Bob