Today's Smoke: Just another
Blackstone Cherry Cigar as I type, before I do another day or so disappearing act doing the drying, prepping and canning thing.
Two noteworthy smokes yesterday, using recycled and cringeworthy snaps:
#1 - in my pipsqueak
McQueen Miniature Fable, biased for Orientals, a very nice smoke (in the first of this category I've tried to smoke since being prescriptionized by the medical profession), with
Amphora Absolute (Rich in the US). Chose this one because unlike others in this category, it smokes without as much nuance as say, Steamworks, Sunday Picnic, Savinelli 140 or other more complex fodder. It's rich and full, and I think the US designation more fitting. I'll use "Rich" from now on. Nice little briar pipe from McQ, giving me just shy of half an hour of relaxation. Taste still somewhat dilute, but fine by me.
#2 - A bit of a bummer. No secret I'm a longstem fan, but I've been absolutely surprised at the tiny pair of Brog Nosewarmers I have, and how much I like smoking them. The amber version of the shown pipe is smoking fabulous, and is fully broke in. Secret to these tiny things is that you have to smoke them SLOWLY. Very Slowly. Y'er pretty close to the furnace.
I hadn't smoked the
black version of the Little Brog, which I've designated for English Lats, in quite a while. These little fellas have a surprisingly large bowl, and give me the hour plus smoke I like in the afternoon, especially with Lats. Not today. I loaded it with anticipation with my own
"Basic English", and from the first puff I realized, being in a somewhat braindead state, that this pipe had only been smoked twice. Not nearly broken in. So I suffered for an hour with a really good home blended tobacco, mixed (nixed?) with the added flavours of burnt varnish and bowl coating.
Oh well. It's one step farther to being an afternoon go-to pipe. Time to stop whining and get to cleaning and washing my canning jars and other fun things.
