A Rumination on the Continuity of Velvet

[Briar Lee]

As my hair turns to silver I can recall tobacco smells from fifty and sixty years ago, during my youth, and the old men in the barber shop mostly smoked either Prince Albert or Velvet, pinched out of little tin cans they carried in their front bib overall pocket.

Velvet and Prince Albert had distinctive aromas, both of which smelled like the promise of heaven to me.

Harry Hosterman smoked Prince Albert and gave me the wrappers so I could buy $2 Old Timer pocket knives with so many empty wrappers. Even now when I walk by my father’s milk barn I can recall the sweet licorice laced smell from his pipe. When I was old enough to smoke I naturally preferred Prince Albert, and I believe the blend today approximates what it tasted and smelled like then.

But Velvet has changed over the years, as I recall. The old Velvet advertisements boasted how Velvet was aged two years in oak barrels, and flavored with real maple sugar. Perhaps it still is, but they no longer brag about it.

As I understand tobacco history, Prince Albert was the first highly flavored, dual purpose, crimp cut moist tobacco sold in a small tin, instead of a sack. Velvet came along shortly afterwards. Price Albert sponsored the Grand Ole Opry, and became the butt of jokes about calling a whiskey store and asking if they had Prince Albert in a can, and demanding his release. Velvet always seemed to play second fiddle, the Lincoln instead of the Cadillac, Pepsi instead of Coke, and the lawyer of lines in songs where mothers were urged to raise their children to be doctors and lawyers, and such.

For years I’d occasionally buy a package of Velvet, and found it hotter burning and not quite the same as years ago. In recent years the Scandinavian Tobacco Group Lane Ltd. has acquired Velvet and restored the blend to as I remember it.

I’m smoking a bowl of Velvet now, and my wife and assistants love the aroma, and it tastes sweet and mild.



I wonder if the original Velvet formula is somewhere in a safe the way the formula for Coca Cola is rumored to be?

They shouldn’t change it, but a return to the little pocket tin would be welcomed.

When they discontinued the tins and used the foil luxury pouch with the Danish Freehand on the package is when I think Velvet went downhill, but I can’t be certain, it was too many years ago.

 

[Ahi Ka]

If you want some original velvet you need to contact @rodo

 

[mso489]

I have a pouch of Velvet on hand. I find it even further on the mild side than Prince Albert, not tasteless, but almost distant in flavor. Now and I then, it's a nice smoke. I was curious about it for a long time, but finally gave it a try.

I find SWR and SWR Aromatic a little more engaging. I like Granger. And Amphora Burley. A little more burley taste in my burley.

 

[anotherbob]

those tins aren't coming back. Unless you start your own factory. A bit much work to make a package that while very pleasing probably won't create any loyal customers or at least not enough to justify convincing someone else to redevelop a product that isn't ideal under modern conditions (if it was they'd still be making them and making them the way they did, but they don't because other things serve the need better well at least to the people selling our favorite poison).
Kidding about the poison part sort of though if you eat a whole tin of tobacco you'd have poisoned yourself.

 

[anotherbob]

I have a pouch of Velvet on hand. I find it even further on the mild side than Prince Albert, not tasteless, but almost distant in flavor. Now and I then, it's a nice smoke. I was curious about it for a long time, but finally gave it a try.

I find SWR and SWR Aromatic a little more engaging. I like Granger. And Amphora Burley. A little more burley taste in my burley.

I one time passed an old man smoking a pipe outside of burger king and I was so tempted to ask him what he was smoking because it had a shocking lack of room note. My best guess is velvet now.
Stupid side note. One time smoking my pipe I passed an old couple and the man gazed at my pipe the way someone who just got out of the hospital for a massive heart attack gazes at their favorite cake. I felt bad actually.

 

[krizzose]

 

[rodo]

Did someone say they wanted Old School Velvet? Box, unopened, from (I was told) 1930s. It is like a Christmas miracle!!

 

[anotherbob]

Did someone say they wanted Old School Velvet? Box, unopened, from (I was told) 1930s. It is like a Christmas miracle!!View attachment 137372

but have you tried it yet? Each day you wait I am going to sneak into your house and borrow one of your books.

 

[rodo]

Tricky. Is it more valuable to sell as an unopened box (and thus more mysterious and collectible) or...try a tin, maybe ruined, maybe not, and...I don't know, ruin the mystery of it?

 

[anotherbob]

Tricky. Is it more valuable to sell as an unopened box (and thus more mysterious and collectible) or...try a tin, maybe ruined, maybe not, and...I don't know, ruin the mystery of it?

experience is far more valuable then cash. Cash is spent and gone. Experiences go with into who knows. Maybe the dirt maybe heaven. But you can keep using experience over and over. So in my opinion holding on to it is wasting the more valuable aspect. Plus I really want to hear more about it and I am going to keep trying to get my way through gentle harassment or until something else grabs my attention (which is probably about 10 seconds from now).
Wait you're not over 65 (and in incredible shape by the way) and in New York. If so please don't tell the police.

 

[rodo]

Ha! Thanks anotherbob. Yep, not yet over 65 but, there is another factor which you do not address: my wife. I already got her attention a couple of years ago with a Dunhill purchase. (You can read about how that went down on this website.) We'll see if Briar Lee wants to purchase a few tins and roll the dice. Then you can paypal me for another. The mystery awaits you...!

 

[Briar Lee]

Back in my childhood every grocery store carried pocket tins of Prince Albert and Velvet, and the other brands like SWR, Half and Half, Field and Stream, Carter Hall and the like came in foil pouches.

With Prince Albert or Velvet the customer could get a few little packets of cigarette papers for the asking, branded either Prince Albert or Velvet. I seem to remember SWR also having courtesy papers branded SWR, but those weren’t as common.

All the common drug store blends were highly flavored Kentucky burley, some with Virginia added. All were far older than me, dating back to the teens and twenties, each trying to get market share from Reynold’s Prince Albert, which at least around Humansville was the sales leader.

There was an old time piece of farm machinery called a stationary hay baler. The baler sat stationary, ran by pulleys, and the workers fed it loose hay using pitchforks. More than a few old men in the barbershop we’re missing an arm lost to this machine. They always seemed to roll smokes made of Prince Albert or Velvet using only one hand.

As Coca Cola found out when introducing New Coke, it’s unwise to change the original formula of any consumer product. The object of any mass market consumer item from a Big Mac to a Milky Way candy bar is to ensure the customer gets a product unchanged in any way from the last one, or the first one, they ever bought.

Kentucky burley hasn’t changed in over a century. The temptation for Liggett no doubt was to use younger, less aged leaf, and propylene glycol and corn syrup instead of maple sugar manufacturing Velvet. There are probably other flavorings in Velvet they tried scrimping or substituting cheaper ingredients. Lane seems to have restored Velvet, to as it was years ago.

The do gooders have deterred them from offering free cigarette papers.

But it still burns cool and sweet, in any pipe or cigarette.

 

[anotherbob]

As Coca Cola found out when introducing New Coke, it’s unwise to change the original formula of any consumer product. The object of any mass market consumer item from a Big Mac to a Milky Way candy bar is to ensure the customer gets a product unchanged in any way from the last one, or the first one, they ever bought.

one of the few conspiracy theories I feel personally holds some weight. Is the one that new coke was a ploy to keep people from noticing when they switched the real sugar to corn syrup in original coke. I don't say it's true but I feel like it is so possible.

 

[rorrer]

I don't have many recollections of Velvet, but man that Prince Albert sure brings back memories of growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

C.Rorrer

 

[Briar Lee]

I don't have many recollections of Velvet, but man that Prince Albert sure brings back memories of growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

C.Rorrer

I remember reading somewhere that Reynolds spent over a million depression era dollars a year advertising Prince Albert.

They got their money’s worth. At least three out of four old men in the barbershop smoked Prince Albert from my observation and the balance smoked mainly Velvet, and the other brands a tiny portion.

I never hear the Great Speckled Bird and Bashful Brother Oswald make a dobro cry without remembering how the stars of the Grand Ole Opry pitched Prince Albert.

 

[rodo]

Fantastic history, Briar Lee. Thanks much for sharing.

 

[Grangerous]

I’ve tried to like Velvet. I’ll revisit it again. But I find it unappealing. That said, it’s been around a loooooong time. — It’s earned it’s place and it’s still selling today so my opinion means very little.