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  1. atboth

    C&D releasing a blending kit

    Virginias (ribbon or cake): can be all of a blend. Latakia: anywhere up to fifty percent. Twenty five to forty. Turkish: more than twenty five percent is excessive. Twenty is good. Burley: at twenty percent, it starts to become a Burley blend. Perique: four or five percent is fine. More is...
  2. atboth

    How Does Burley Age?

    Some of the Bob Runowski blends age spectacularly well. Old Joe Krantz, Haunted Bookshop ...... I've got a short piece on his stuff here: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2015/09/appreciating-morleysson-blends-by-bob.html
  3. atboth

    How long to break in Pipes

    It usually takes twelve to fifteen smokes for a basic break-in, around thirty for a proper job. In the case of Dunhills considerably more, for Savinellis you will often find that it's nice by around the sixth or seventh. This assumes, of course, that you sanded out the nasty pre-carbon that...
  4. atboth

    This Is Madness

    My favourite warning, on the package for an itch medication: "Do not insert directly in anus". Two things: 1) Thanks for putting that image in my head; it's filled up with toxic sludge already, and that is something I did not need to think about; and 2) What else needs that warning message? I...
  5. atboth

    Trying Perique blends: PS Luxury Bullseye Flake & Savinelli Doblone d’Oro

    Try Germain's Royal Jersey Perique mixture. Most Germain's tobaccos are packed too wet to smoke immediately (which also determines how they age in the tin), but a little bit of drying works wonders. They are delightfully old-fashioned.
  6. atboth

    Esoterica Tobacciana - A History?

    I seriously doubt that anyone buying Germains could ramp up production. It would require a major investment in machinery and equipment, as well as sourcing a larger supply of basic tobaccos. Which, given that these would have to be processed and aged specifically for the blends they produce...
  7. atboth

    What Did You Start With?

    When I was in my early teens I would go to the local bookstore regularly after school to spend several hours reading in the stacks. The tobacconist next door had a pipe in the window with which I eventually become obsessed. A few weeks before my fourteenth birthday (1973), I finally bought it...
  8. atboth

    Tobacco storage question

    If it's wrapped in plastic, jar it. Plastic and tobacco eventually react, and there will always be a gradual loss of moisture. Glass is non-reactive.
  9. atboth

    Ennerdale Flake

    Tried it in 2010. First thing that came to mind was the whiff of urinal cake in a bar bathroom, as well as a suspicion that it was meant to be smoked in strip joints. Underneath that bizarre perfume it's actually decent flake, but the smell is too disturbing for normal usage. Don't bother...
  10. atboth

    Old Joe Krantz

    I popped open a tin of Old Joe Krantz by cornell and Diehl that had been sitting on a shelf since autumn of 2007 recently. It had puffed up to the extent that it was destabilizing a stack of tins, which seems to be the case with many of the C&D tobaccos I purchased that long ago. Pretty darn...
  11. atboth

    Pipe Smoking and My Girlfriend

    My ex didn't like my smoking. We were together for more than twenty years, and we're still very good friends. She still doesn't like my smoking. Don't hide the pipe. It's as much a facet of your personality as those darn handbags probably are of hers.
  12. atboth

    Recent Tobacco Review Observation

    I agree with the objection to the "I don't smoke xxx tobaccos, but..." reviews. But another objectionable habit is the lognwinded gaffer who starts off with "I sat down in my favourite leather armchair with my priceless Dunhill Rootbriar from 1955, wearing a smoking jacket I inherited from my...
  13. atboth

    Kalifornia Suks

    Well, Maduroman, as a resident of San Francisco I have to say it really isn't that bad. I frequently walk around with a lit pipe in my mouth, and so far I've had mostly positive feedback in the neighborhoods where suburbanites and out of towners seldom come. Except, of course, for tofu-snarfing...
  14. atboth

    Ghosting One's Mouth

    Never had that happen with Erinmore or any other tobacco. And I've smoked quite a few tins of EF since I got over my revulsion from the two times I heaved all over the pavement because of Erinmore back in 1974. Underneath the reek of teenage harlot, it's actually a very pleasant flake. And...
  15. atboth

    MacBaren HH Vintage Syrian

    Stockpiled forty tins of it in the year it first came out. But I've been too busy with other blends to smoke any recently.