What a great guest. I hope that Brandon's able to make the NOLA Pipe Show, I'd love to meet him. Congratulations on putting out a very interesting and informative show. It was good to learn that someone other farmers are out there growing perique. There was a big issue in the 90's that Percy Martin was going to stop growing it because it wasn't wroth growing as he couldn't get a good price for it. Poche who did the processing wouldn't pay him enough. Some local guys who had a tobacco shop on Magazine St. started distributing it and saved Percy's perique operation. They used to sell pure perique in mason jars. It smelled wonderful and tasted great but was whole leaf pretty much, it wasn't cut at all. It was a pain to put it on a cutting board and chop it up with a knife to smoke it. I still have 5 jars of the stuff. Smells incredible though.
I guess when Mark Ryan was on and talking about the farmer who had a big crop that was exclusive to cigarette manufacturers, he must have been talking about Percy Martin. I didn't realize that all these guys, Gravois, Poche, and Martin were all related but it makes sense. It's good to see Brandon hitting the books to produce even better quality perique tobacco. Thanks for the great show.
Yours truly,
AnchovyD