Relearning Latakia
-
G. L. Pease - Aug 3, 2023
- 6 min read
“Harry, I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have the definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.” –Special Agent Dale Cooper
In my pre-coffee state of mind this lovely, blessedly cool morning, I wanted something a little different. I’ve been on a mostly steady diet of Virginia blends for a while, and wanted a change of pace. I grabbed a favorite pipe from the rack, well suited to the tobacco I’d chosen, a wonderful, well-aged, full Latakia mixture, packed the bowl, struck a flame, and experienced what can tactfully be described as an unexpectedly dreadful smoke, as though the fires of hell had engulfed the tobacco. Seriously. What happened?
It’s safe to say that Latakia is one of, if not the most polarizing of tobacco types. Some love it, others loathe it; few seem to be indifferent. Those who enjoy its exotic nature might report that it reminds them of campfires, saddle leather, incense, peated whiskies or even stewed fruit. It can sometimes evoke black cardamom, anise, or amplify the delicate floral notes of oriental leaf when used in small quantities. Its detractors, on the other hand, might be inclined to use rather less complimentary descriptions like tire fires, creosote, brimstone, or burning camel poop, and can’t abide it in even the tiniest percentages. (Addressing that last thing, I’ve said many times that the only smoldering dung is that used to fuel the myths about Latakia. It’s actually a variety of herbs and woods that are used in the fumigation process, though I suppose the camel dung thing might be considered awkwardly poetic by some.)
Personally, I’ve had a long and happy relationship with Latakia, and that continues to this day, especially in the cooler months. When the mercury rises, I do gravitate towards either lighter mixtures, or other types of blends entirely, but after all these years, my deep appreciation of this delightfully exotic leaf remains steadfast, and it isn’t likely to die anytime soon. I will reluctantly admit that if my first experience with Latakia mixtures had been similar to this morning’s, however, I might have been inclined to throw the whole kit in the fire and give up pipe smoking entirely, and that could be exactly why some people are so vehemently opposed to the stuff. Fortunately, my long history with both this blend and briar precludes one anomalous experience from catalyzing such rash behavior.
Latakia is really one of the most fascinating of tobacco types, wonderfully aromatic and profoundly multi-faceted. As a subtle spice, it can add unique depth and dimension to a blend. In higher percentages, its assertive flavors and aromas make a bolder statement. And, yes, it can certainly have a tendency to steal the spotlight if used in large amounts, and very heavily laden blends can possess a sort of “sameness” that robs them of interestingness, but there’s a broad spectrum of mixtures between the extremes that I’ve always enjoyed exploring.
But, what happened this morning? It wasn’t the pipe, and it certainly wasn’t the tobacco; both are reliably stellar performers, and generally get along famously with one another. The answer lies in two or three things that, in my decaffeinated state, I had neglected: The tobacco was too moist, I’d neglected to clean the pipe when I last put it up, and I was a bit too eager in my lighting.
To age well, any tinned tobacco blend needs to have some moisture, but to deliver its best smoke, a Latakia mixture should be fairly dry. While Virginia blends rely on a bit of moisture to carry their sweetness through the smoke stream, that same moisture content can result in a harsh smoke with most mixtures. Also, it’s been my experience that Virginias are, in general, a bit more forgiving of a pipe that’s less than spotlessly clean. (There are some who believe, in fact, that Virginia blends actually improve if the shank is allowed to get a little tarred up. I won’t go that far, but caveat fumator.) Finally, while all tobaccos respond best to gentle lighting, this is especially true of Latakia mixtures.
I know the smoky stuff isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay. If you don’t like the stuff, or don’t think you do, but can maintain an open mind, I’d like to suggest trying a couple of things before casting all these wonderful blends into a personal oblivion. There are many “styles” of Latakia mixtures to explore. Some are structured on a foundation of Virginia leaf, others will present a richer orchestration with dominant oriental components, and some may have additional condiment tobaccos added, like perique or dark-fired Kentucky. Each has its own personality, and different styles suit different moods and different tastes. And, “fullness” has less to do with Latakia content than many believe. When blended with orientals, Latakia will tend to make a more powerful statement than when the same amount is blended solely with Virginias. Additionally, while these mixtures tend to be “strong” in flavor, they tend to be “mild” with respect to nicotine.
So, if you haven’t tried a Latakia mixture and are curious about them, or if you have and had a less than wonderful experience with them, some tips that I found myself re-learning today might be of value, and a little exploration might lead you to a new favorite, or at least expand your repertoire a little.
The mechanics are pretty simple. First, choose an appropriate pipe. I prefer smaller bowls in general, especially for more robust mixtures, and that’s where I’d start. If the pipe hasn’t been thoroughly cleaned, a few pipe cleaners lightly moistened with the alcohol of your choice, followed by a couple dry ones will get the shank ready for the new experience. (When I don’t have lab-grade ethanol on hand, I like the highest proof vodka I can find for this.)
Then, let the tobacco dry out a bit more than you think is right. I’m not talking about dry as mummy dust, but it should be a bit fragile when handling it, not springy. Fill the bowl gradually to the top, and press the leaf gently, just enough to settle it. I like to tap the side of the bowl as I’m filling to close up in any air gaps. We’re not after a dense pack, but one slightly more solid than gravity fed.
Finally, light the pipe gently. Holding the flame above the bowl, draw gently to coax the leaf to begin smoldering. Once the entire surface has charred, settle the surface using only the weight of the tamper and, this is important, set the pipe down for a minute or two. I’ve never understood what’s going on here, why this little ritual works, but it’s been consistently true for me forever, so I’m comfortable passing it along. This short rest, not the same as the so-called Delayed Gratification Technique (DGT), weaves some sort of magic that makes the rest of the smoke gentler, sweeter, and more flavorful. Just try it.
Finally, gently relight, and smoke slowly, sipping and savoring the experience. It might take a few sessions to acclimate to, and fully appreciate the complexity of the tobaccos, and even then, you might still find that Latakia is just not your jam, but at least you can take comfort in knowing you’ve given Abourihm, the “King of Flavor” its best shot.
-glp
(Photos by G.L. Pease)
Written by G. L. Pease
More Pipes and Tobaccos Articles
Recent Posts
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowl’s surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the work’s been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once I’d cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but it’s how I roll. If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. There were none of the usual vanilla, cherry, berry or anise notes of typical aromatics, nothing that could be compared to aftershave or deodorant soap, but something almost musky, a little earthy, something exotic. The shop’s owner couldn’t tell me what was in it, how, or where it had been produced. The old blend had been retired before he’d bought the place. The printed catalogue gave no clues, either, other than being overprinted with the word “DISCONTINUED” in bold, rubber-stamp type. (And, I don’t recall it as being “highly aromatic” as the description indicates.) There was still quite a bit in the jar. Being, at that point, an intrepid explorer of all kinds of tobaccos, whether I thought I’d like them or not, I had to give it a try. It was burly based, but also comprised a good measure of virginia leaf, and maybe some other varieties; I didn’t have enough experience at the time to really pick it apart. But, that aroma was unlike anything I’d experienced before or since. It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasn’t. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply can’t. I won’t. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
