P & C Now Offering Custom Blends To Order

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sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
19,630
44,855
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
I just saw the announcement in my email. Since P & C has made this public I can now attest to how good this program is. Several months ago, I contacted Russ about finding a replacement for one of my favorite The Smoker Ltd blends, Easy Chair. It was not among the blends that Russ had revived.
Instead of suggesting an alternative, Russ offered to blend me a batch of it and I am one very happy man! Since they weren't quite ready to announce that they were offering this service, I couldn't say anything. Now it's official!
Thanks Russ. You are the man!

 

salmonfisher

Can't Leave
Feb 12, 2014
331
0
Sigh.....I wish I wish they would ship to Canada, love their progressiveness and marketing savvy.

 

sfsteves

Lifer
Aug 3, 2013
1,279
0
SF Bay Area
well, I'm jazzed about this and plan to start on a blend right away ... it's something I've already given some thought to and I've even made a few 'experiments', so I've got a pretty good idea how to proceed ...
Super concept, Russ ...

 
May 31, 2012
4,295
34
Damn, this is awesome.
Stonehaven replacement, here I come!
I wonder how close he could get?
Really, I'd like a version with more heaviness,

a stout dark pressed cake cased with black treacle,

hmmm, if it actually works out,

I'd call it

Stonehaven't

! ! ! ! ! ! !

:puffy:

 

teufelhund

Lifer
Mar 5, 2013
1,497
3
St. Louis, MO
The only bummer is you really can't tweak small orders. The smallest increment is 1oz or 12% on the smallest order so for something more complex you'd end up having to buy a pounds worth to get your roughly 6% Perique for the blend(Selecting 1oz); and I'm not going to gamble with $60/lb. I understand the 8oz order minimum; but I wish you could do half ounces. Sometimes I like Perique, but 12% depending on how it turns out could be too much and then I have a bunch of tobacco I won't smoke or have to mix with CH into some sort of frankenblend.

 

woodsroad

Lifer
Oct 10, 2013
11,591
15,311
SE PA USA
teufelhund:
$_3.JPG

$5.64, shipped.
I have one, and it is accurate and repeatable to within one gram.

 

natibo

Part of the Furniture Now
Nov 10, 2013
610
1
Cincinnati, OH USA
I think we need a forum category for this where one can say what their looking for, propose a mix and then have Russ comment on it.

 

msandoval858

Part of the Furniture Now
Jun 11, 2012
954
3
Austin, TX
I'm pretty excited about this and going to be trying something in the near future. I have something in mind with a crazy % of Latakia :)

 

froggie

Lurker
Apr 1, 2014
13
0
I REALLY like the idea, but 65 bucks a pound plus shipping is a little spendy for something that probably won't turn out. Plus, wouldn't the mixture need to merry a bit? I'm doubting that even if the ratios are correct, it'd be ready to smoke right away...that's said, I almost wanna see what a 50/50 latakia/perique would taste like! :D

 

froggie

Lurker
Apr 1, 2014
13
0
Or how cool would it be to be able to order a "starter kit" of all the different base tobaccos (maybe 4 ounces total) and let us tinker around at home and then be able to order a half pound of what we came up with?

 

woodsroad

Lifer
Oct 10, 2013
11,591
15,311
SE PA USA
Froggie, you can order all the blending tobaccos that you desire, right now. P&C and 4Noggins both have great selections of blending stocks. Rich at 4Noggins will always answer emails about what he sells, and he's a knowledgeable blender. Early on in my pipe obsession (why, it's been....almost 9 months now!) I decided that I wanted to try my hand at blending. I ordered 4oz of every blending tobacco that I could find, and a good number of various processed Virginias. I test smoked all of them in new cobs, then set about to blending. It's a lot of fun, and I haven't mixed up anything (yet) that I don't enjoy smoking.
Hint: If you want to be able to finely adjust, then repeat a blend (that is, if you are keeping good records) then batch sizes should be no less than 100g. Anything less and you will be dealing in amounts that are quite small (i.e. A 5% addition of Perique is only 5gr in a 100gr batch), requiring very careful weighing and mixing. In general, the larger the batch, the easier it is to reproduce.
Now, it seems to me that once you've had the fun of working up a blend that you like, at a cost of perhaps $25-30/lb, it would be a little...odd...to spend $60/lb to then have someone else mix it up for you. The My Own Blend idea will work out best for folks who will be ordering a pound or more of relatively simple blends, and who then want to make that blend available for others to order. A neat idea.
Now if STG would start importing the real My Own Blend, I would be a very happy camper.

 

pitchfork

Lifer
May 25, 2012
4,030
605
This is an interesting idea, but just 20 blending components, several of them aromatic, is pretty limited. I'm with woodsroad on this -- you can do a lot of this and more on your own. I've made Vapers, Vaper-Orientals and Latakia blends on my own that I really enjoyed. But just experimenting at home was half the fun. By the by, woodsroad shared with me a Latakia blend he made a while back that is truly top-notch -- all made with various blending components he bought individually.

 

judd

Starting to Get Obsessed
Feb 3, 2014
127
1
This sounds interesting, I like Latakia, Oriental and Perique. But I'm not sure what % of each I would use. Just noticed this is my 100th post! Small in comparison to some, but I'm getting there.

 

blendtobac

Lifer
Oct 16, 2009
1,237
213
Just to let you know that we're listening, we will make the individual components available for sale separately, if you want to experiment at home before creating something in MOB. Keep checking the site, and we will have each of the available tobaccos labeled for individualsale, soon.

As far as the smaller quantities go, it's a matter of labor. It takes about the same amount of time to put together 8 oz. as it does for 2. The labor cost can be covered at 8 oz., but it would drive the smaller quantity prices beyond what would be reasonable. That's also why the price per ounce goes down for larger amounts.

We'll continue to add new components as time goes on, but we wanted to keep it simpler at first, so it didn't seem so daunting.

Actually, we're trying to work with STG to bring in some of the MOB tobaccos from Denmark. If you want to drop me a line at russo@pipesandcigars.com and let me know which blend(s) you're interested in, I'll add it to our list of requests.

Also, if you want to try our My Own Blend program, but are not sure about something, feel free to write me at the above email address.
Russ

 

rmbittner

Lifer
Dec 12, 2012
2,759
1,994
Judd: Recipes for tobacco blends are out there. "All About Tobacco" by Milton Sherman includes a half-dozen or so recipes for various types of pipe-tobacco blends, most of them "American" versions that include burley in addition to the occasional latakia and perique. But for English blends, he suggested these very basic starting points:
80% Virginia

15% Turkish

5% Latakia
He goes on to specify Virginia Bright as the base tobacco, while the Turkish could be a combination of 5 varietals that he singles out (although not all are available anymore).
For a blend with perique, he offers this basic approach:
80% Virginia

15% Turkish

5% Perique
And for one of his American-style blends:
70% Burley

25% Virginia

3% Perique

2% Latakia
Sherman's book is from 1970. I'm sure there's a ton more information -- probably with specific weights/measures -- available on the Internet these days.
Bob

 

gtclark

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 3, 2013
512
3
Thanks for the starting point, Bob. It's interesting to see how the percentage of Latakia in English style blends has been creeping upwards since the 70's. I would not have guessed 5%.

 

blendtobac

Lifer
Oct 16, 2009
1,237
213
If you click on the name of the components in the grid list, a window will open that gives some thoughts anout usage. And as I mentioned, you can always send me an email with questions.
Russ

 

froggie

Lurker
Apr 1, 2014
13
0
Thanks for listening Russ, and thanks for the info, woodsroad! Proof of how awesome our community is. Now if I could find a recipe for the upcoming Missouri Meerschaum blends... :)

 
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