My Newest Custom Blend

That sounds pretty great. Cool story, too.

You're very lucky to have a B&M in your small town and even luckier to have a tobacconist who is willing to custom blend for you. Your mixture sounds good. Give it a month to meld and then go from there. It could tur out to be a commercial success for your shop and that would be the ultimate win-win.

Cool, but what is James River red virginia? I couldn't find a link to it anywhere. Is this a blending bulk?

Sounds very tasty.

What are you going to call it?

randelli, this sounds excellent, a good classic English blend. If this continues to be pleasing to you, I'd keep it in supply. Some of the best smokes I've had are home mixes, not really blends since I'm not a blender, and I neither press nor age the leaf, but just mix them up, maybe dry them a day, and pack and smoke. But if I stop and think about what I'm doing, the results are fresh, interesting, and surprisingly good. Usually I mix what's on hand -- a standard quality Virginia, a similar burley, and then flavor it with considered amounts (a pinch or two or three) of Lat, Per, Cav, etc. Toward this end, I have recently availed myself of the discount on C&D bulk blends to get Turkish and cigar leaf, to see what these do as flavoring agents. I'm mostly a non-aro guy, but have had luck with limited amounts of flavored black Cavendish. If you like experimenting with mixing it's engaging. I mostly mix just two or three bowls and then move on to a slightly different mix between bowls of professional blends.

Sounds like you're on the right track. If it's good to you then it's a good blend.

It does sound really interesting. I love Red Virginia.