The General Takes the Horse Home

oldreddog · Dec 5, 2016

http://pipesmagazine.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/album/11719/20161205_142852-600x337.jpg
I am just about to fire this up.
I don't know if I am the first in Ireland to smoke the new Warhorse Bar and I don't care either!

Happy Monday to me.

pitchfork · Dec 5, 2016

You'd better hand on to your saddle if you're planning on smoking a full bowl with that pipe!

oldreddog · Dec 5, 2016

Pitchfork I usually smoke rope in this pipe and I have the afternoon free. So I should be grand.

ashdigger · Dec 5, 2016

Oldreddog, good luck today. If I smoked that much Warhorse in a single setting, I would need the afternoons of seven days off and an embalmer at the ready. :mrgreen:

cynicismandsugar · Dec 5, 2016

May your Monday be long and mellow!

jpmcwjr · Dec 5, 2016

Enjoy! I bet that's Irish crewel or needlepoint or embroidery or some such??--very nice.
For those who don't like to click through....

oldreddog · Dec 5, 2016

Thanks lads.

Quater way in.It's rather like a digestif so far,just as well I had a french style lunch.
Well spotted jpm twas made by the nuns up in St. Claberts.

Thanks for the photo fix too,I have not yet mastered the art on my drone phone.

mso489 · Dec 5, 2016

Sometimes that's just the ticket.

simong · Dec 5, 2016

Nice to see people far & wide getting to smoke this blend, finally. Is it just me or did it seem like years that discussions & opinions went on here on this forum, about this blend before it hit the shelves? Looking forward to your opinion on this one oldreddog. Regards, Simon.

cossackjack · Dec 5, 2016

Yes, War Horse & MM General is a good combination.

MM General - a good choice for flakes, regardless of their strength. Generals & Cossacks (aka Oom Pauls) are great for working outside.

I have one or more dedicated to each family of tobacco blends (Latakia/Balkan, Burley, VA-VA/Per) & a ghoster, SG 1792. I also have several MM General-wardens for long sit-down smokes.

prairiedruid · Dec 5, 2016

I love my MM Generals for flakes and broken flakes....have one dedicated to Bengal Slices. But if I loaded a General full of War Horse Bar and smoked it I'd be comatose for a week!

oldreddog · Dec 6, 2016

Simon when I started kicking round here first condorlover and his squad were getting mosad on board to crack the dna of the original.

Its a strange beast on first impressions.

The tin note is as strong as Ennerdale Flake although not as shampoo like, more chocolate like. Quite similar to Bengal Slices,minus the latakia of course.
The smoke itself reminds me of smoking Revor and Condor plug,in that the topping remains through the bowl.However the topping remains through the smoke were as with Revor and Condor you can start to taste the underlying tobacco after the first quarter. With WH I didn't get much tobacco flavour as the topping held strong throughout.

Although toward the second half of the bowl the flavour began to change from the sweet floral chocolate to a more medicinal herbal Swedish bitters taste.
I hope that after being open for a while that the topping will diminish somewhat.
I'll be smoking a few more bowls and get more comfortable in the saddle before I give this one a blue ribbon.

condorlover1 · Dec 6, 2016

I am fascinated by different peoples take on our product. We actually had it analyzed to try and tease the DNA out of the damned thing Jurassic Park style! I have commented elsewhere on here that the original War Horse was made from very low grade African tobacco which was often advertised as 'Empire Blend' or 'Empire Grown' and as such was doped up to the max to mask the inferior tobacco used but still allow a profit to be derived from selling in a highly competitive market place. It should be remembered that War Horse was the Captain Black of yesteryear and may possibly be one of the first mass market pipe tobaccos. The fact that is survived even in limited form until the early 1980s is testament to its devoted following and mass marketing appeal and is similar to that other great Victorian survivor of early mass marketing - the Woodbine cigarette which is still around even today.

pitchfork · Dec 6, 2016

oldreddog,
I think you'll find the topping dissipates nicely after a week or two. It's still there alright, but in more moderate proportions. I smoked some last night (tin open for about 3 weeks) and the tobacco flavor was front and center from the start.
My understanding from Russ O and the STP folks is that ideally the bars would have rested a bit longer after production, but the FDA deadline loomed.
By the by, condorlover, my Belfast friend remembers smoking War Horse into the late 80s or early 90s (unless that was the Bushmills talking).

condorlover1 · Dec 6, 2016

The small red packs that were the same size as the Condor plugs would have been it. I last saw it for sale whilst traveling in the North of England in the early 1980s and sadly didn't buy any. I am sure it may have lurked around in Ireland until the late 80s or early 90s although I have not come across any but thats not to say it isn't possible Pitchfork. We got our hands on a box of sealed red ones which had the words 'War Horse' on them and looked just like a Condor plug and they dated from the very end of the 1970s or maybe early 1980s since they came from a closed corner shop that ceased trading about that time and we used them as the comparison when we had Jim Inks smoke his way through every prototype iteration of the damned thing!

blendtobac · Dec 6, 2016

My understanding from Russ O and the STP folks is that ideally the bars would have rested a bit longer after production, but the FDA deadline loomed.

That's 100% accurate. I found that after popping the first tin from the full-scale production run, the topping was more intense than I had intended, but after a few days it calmed down, and in about a week it was ideal. Hopefully, the next run will have a bit more time to settle before tinning.
Russ

oldreddog · Dec 6, 2016

Simon thank you for your musings. I have followed your and Dan's endevors since the boozy lunch that the possibility of resurrection was discussed.

Pitchfork thank you for the reassurance I'm happy that in such a brawl of flavours the tobacco wins on points.
Russ thank you for not dismissing the STC headcases! I'm reminded of lads like Obree and Brittan in this case. Fair play for getting in front of the fda.

I think jiminks should do the scratch and smoke comic of Dan Dared and the Red Barred Riders.

condorlover1 · Dec 7, 2016

I think if you 'scratch & sniff' Jim Ink's he smells of War Horse RR/Bar as we have put the poor fellow through hell testing the stuff. He doesn't get mail from me anymore, just things addressed to 'The Crash Test Dummy'! The man is the ninth wonder of the world!

The General Takes the Horse Home

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