Mel Feldman’s The Smoker Blends Are Back!
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Kevin Godbee - May 1, 2013
- 2 min read
“The Smoker” Blends to Become Available Again at PipeandCigars.com
Starting in the 1930s, Albany, NY was home to a legendary tobacconist- The Smoker. The shop was a mainstay, operated by Solomon Levin, first on Madison Avenue, and after being sold to Mel Feldman in 1973, moving to Washington Avenue not far from the Capitol building in the 1980s.
Many pipe smokers looked upon the shop as the place to search for estate pipes of all kinds. The owner for the last thirty years of its existence (the store closed in late-2011), Mel Feldman, has been well known for his knowledge of estates, and particularly Barlings. In fact, Mel picked up the nickname “Mr. Barling” for his extensive background regarding that iconic brand.
But Mel and his shop were also renowned for the widely varied house blends that he made by hand, one pound at a time. When Feldman began appearing at the consumer pipe shows, which began in the eighties, many people around the country were finally exposed to these wonderful tobaccos and became fans. In response, Mel worked with Cornell & Diehl to take his fourteen most popular blends and have them tinned. As a result, even more people became steady customers of The Smoker.
After the new millennium arrived, Feldman realized that the hassle of day-to-day operations wasn’t worth the strain, so he turned to mail order. Unfortunately, due to a questionable interpretation of the laws, New York State forced him to close. It seemed that the devotees of his blends wouldn’t be able to purchase them any longer.
In early 2013, the owner of Pipes and Cigars.com, Scott Bendett approached Mel about the idea of bringing back those original tinned blends, some of which date back to the 1930s. When he expressed interest, Feldman worked together with longtime friend and blender for Pipes and Cigars.com, Russ Ouellette, to recreate those blends.
When Feldman was satisfied that the blends were up to his standards, an agreement was made to have them tinned for sale through Pipes and Cigars. As a bonus for his customers, Mel pulled out the formula for a blend that he had made for well-known pipe and tobacco collector Fred Goldring, and with Mr. Goldring’s blessing added that to the lineup.
To reintroduce these blends in grand style, PipesandCigars.com will distribute samples of the blends at the Chicagoland Pipe and Tobacciana Show on May 4th and 5th, in St. Charles, Illinois at the Pheasant Run Resort. At the same time, 1.5 oz. tins will go on sale on the website.
Written by Kevin Godbee
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When I first started with the pipe as a quirky and precocious teen, the only tutelage I had at my disposal were scenes from old movies in which a well dressed chap would stick his pipe into a pouch, scoop tobacco into the bowl and press it down unceremoniously with his thumb. Then, with great flourish, he’d strike a match and light the thing with all manner of cinematic excess, puffing up vast clouds of smoke falling just short of completely obscuring his visage. While it may look good on film, it’s a terrible approach to actually enjoying the thing. Somehow, though, this “technique” seems to have survived in the contemporary vernacular, at least to some extent, even with bit-loads of information handily at our fingertips that should dissuade us from the practice. 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Before we begin, I should tell you: this tobacco review is being written by an A.I. Not the fancy new GPTs or their ilk; no, this is last century’s meat-and-bone, all-organic model. To be fair, a large part of what we call knowledge is merely the accumulated perceptions and impressions gathered from a life wandered through, synthesized into a spongy mass of what-it-is-that-we-think-that-we-know. The algorithm for this prompt is simple enough: pump thousands of bowls of smoldering plant matter into a gaping maw, cross-reference the chemical sensations with all other matter previously ingested or inhaled, sieve it all through the diffuse and fractal twin lens of memory and emotion, and churn out a panoply of adjectives that attempts to convey the sensations to someone who hasn’t experienced it yet. Odds are that a diligently trained monkey could succeed half the time; if this reviewer nears fifty-one percent then that would qualify as an unrivaled success. 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I’m so glad to hear this news