I've been smoking since the early '70's and to be honest, to me, real tobacco has always been either a Virginia mix or an English. I was never one for true, pure aromatics and though in hindsight, some blends were /considered/ aromatic, I'm talking about the stuff that sounds more like candy than tobacco--- you know, cherry, maple, pancakes, mint--- all that stuff--- I always felt that was more for people who really did not like real tobacco per se, but just as a conveyance for a flavor or aroma they liked.
But to be honest, a lot of you guys surprise me, many years ago I scanned the recommendations for what people really liked (on the web somewhere) and tried many of them. A lot of them were OK, but nothing I'd buy again. Many of them I did not care for at all. Scanning current pages here I find few of those old favorites still on anyone's list. It seems a lot of the consumer market is geared towards people getting bored and always looking for something "new." But how "new" can something really be when fundamentally, if you look at the blends, you find nearly all of them made from the same things, and often in similar combos?! Virginias, Burleys, Orientals, Cavendishes, etc. I quickly found out a few axiomatic truths, for myself at least:
1). There are no bad tobaccos, only bad blends.
2). You can always make a better blend for yourself than you can buy, because you know what you like best.
In the early day, I tried a lot of OTC stuff in pouches; like Paladin, Mix.79, Capt. Black, Sail, Madeiro Gold, Edgeworth, and so on, but there was something lacking in these. Then I tried MacBarens Virginia No.1 and discovered I liked the sweetness but not the bite, but that lead to another axiom:
3). The right pipe for the right tobacco.
Today I smoke some gentle aros as a diversion, but like the virginia and the english blends, I like subtlety, depth and complexity rather than a 1-dimensional tobacco that is EXACTLY the same in look, cut and taste, puff after puff, bowl after bowl, or a flavor that is overpoweringly, unmistakably and obviously just one thing and one thing alone.
For one thing, there is just too much hype out there for me. I don't believe in marketing that tells me (subliminally or to my face) that this blend is best for the morning or evening, or will remind me of being at a baseball game in the Spring with the blossoms on the trees! Also, I've found many popular blends by Big Names to apparently all be the same tobacco! Just a subtle (very subtle) difference in flavoring. At some point, minor differences get to be too minor, I believe in a few major types of tobacco that are far and apart different that I can smoke the rest of my life. A sweeter, virginia type with body and roundness, a spicier balkan type but with smoothness, and a flavored tobacco that has subtly and depth and nice aroma, but with restraint. And that is why I blend for myself because it takes only a minor change to push a blend from being too demure to being over the top and I find most commercial blends simply get it wrong (for me at least). To me, if you truly like a tobacco, you are going to like it morning, noon and night, bowl after bowl. So with that in mind, I mostly smoke my own blends now, and they evolve. I look forward to every bowl because I know each will be a unique experience.
First and foremost, I like to mix different tobaccos: ribbon-cut, steamed and pressed, roll cake. Each will give a different variety of flavor and burn. Blended well, but not to a degree that you /totally/ destroy their individual character. And for whatever you might not like in one tobacco, there is another that will pull it in the right direction to offset its negative characteristic.
I like my Virginia to be sweet, but not too sweet. A like it dark and contrasty as well. I like my Balkan blends to be spicy, but subtle, not too edgy or dry tasting. And I like my aros to be tamed down--- pleasing flavor that does not jump out and shout one thing or another, but is subliminal, and with a complex and ever-changing aroma that gives hints of this or that. I also like to age my tobaccos a lot, put them in glass jars with a little air and let them go to town for a number of years to round them out.
So what does that presently leave me with?
For my "English Blend": (portions are an approximation):
8 parts Royal Yacht
6 parts 965
8 parts Gaes 4:1
4 parts Nightcap
1 part Kensington
1 part Odyssey
1 part Renaissance
1 part Mephisto
1 part Charing Cross
1 part Caravan
20 parts Mississippi River
6 parts Virginia No.1
For my Virginia Blend:
Dark Star
Danish Slices
Dark Twist Roll Cake
Royal Estate
Deep Hollow
Navy Flake
2035
Vanilla Creme
And for my aro, roughly equal parts of the following:
Blood Red Moon
MacB Virginia No.1
Mississippi River
Sutliiff Chocolate Mousse
YMMV but that is what works for me. Now, you might look at these and see some overlap, and that is by design. And the next time, I will likely try a different cherry than BRM and maybe Bob's Chocolate flake over Sutliff's. That is how you learn. The pleasure is in the creation, and there are no failures, because as you go along, you learn to get a feel for what works and by adding this or that, you WILL end up with the smoke you want!
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