Advice for Cellaring

[Streeper541]

As of late there have been alot of virgin pipers joining the forum proclaiming their eagerness to begin building their pipe collection and cellaring tobacco. Both great things, however, I would like to offer up a piece of advice on cellaring tobacco as a neophyte.

First; slow down and figure out what you like before spending alot of money. It's yours to burn as you please, but patience is a vital component of pipe smoking.

I would suggest purchasing a 2-5 tins/pouches from each of the major blend familes; Aromatic, Burley, English & Virginia, etc.

If you're unfamiliar with the various types of tobacco and their characteristics, a great article was published a couple years ago on Smoking Pipes.com I'll post the link below.

Try each of your chosen blends a few times. If they don't tickle your fancy right away, put them in a jar and come back to them in a few months... your opinion might change.

Secondly, try a couple different cuts to learn which you prefer smoking. You might fall in love with flakes or plugs.

Lastly, don't focus too much on tobacco reviews online. Tobacco reacts differently with each of us. We also all have our own particular leanings. I've seen tobacco with terrible reviews that people absolutely love as well as the opposite. There are some unicorns that, quite frankly, shouldn't be. I think you get the point... form your own opinion.

Anyhow, thats just my .02 on the subject. Take it for what it's worth. The positive side of the whole thing is that if you disregard my advice and spend a bunch of money on tobacco you don't end up liking... well, you're already in the best place to unload it...

Happy smokes. Here's to your journey.

Know Your Tobaccos: Blending Components | Smokingpipes.com

Want to blend your own pipe tobacco? First things first, you need to know your components. Check out this quick guide to get you started.

www.smokingpipes.com

 

[bullet08]

If time is of no concern, good advice. Tax is going up, so is tobacco price. Limited releases aren't gonna stay around, and even easy to get blends are sometimes hard to get. Learn to love any and all blends. Never smoked a blend I truly hated enough to dump. There was one, but luckily it won't be made any more.

 

[FurCoat]

Good advice.

 

[Jimmy_Jack]

Pretty strong words here. I agree very much with my throwing money like darts, hoping to hit a blend you like.

 

[That Guy]

Two words ..... Bulk tobacco! Cheap, almost always available, and the ability to only buy one oz to sample. Alot of my favorites have become bulk blends.

 

[ChuckMijo]

Advice for cellaring………. Keep it up!

 

[anotherbob]

I think cellaring as a new smoker is kind of silly. But just kind of. Better to wait and see what you like and how much you smoke. And don't forget you could lose it all in a house fire anyways. And everyone I've met that is eager to start in a few years will have a ton of something to off load and it's not always that easy to get rid of 20 lbs of something that your palate loved until it found out there are 50 other tobaccos that scratch the same itch better.

 

[kcghost]

Cellaring is a good idea but you hate to be buying a ton of English tobacco and then twenty years in find out that your tastes have changed.

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

If you're so new to pipe smoking, you don't have some ideas what you like, you don't even know if you'll continue smoking a pipe. It would obviously be absurd to start heavily investing in building a cellar. There may be a sense of urgency to immediately start building a cellar. I agree with the OP, hopefully common sense will prevail.

I would add, if your impatience wins vs your common sense, at least purchase popular blends that you can trade if your tastes change or sell if your smoking ceases. I'm confident one could sell 200 tins of F&T Cut virginia Plug rather quickly, for example. It may be a struggle to ever sell 20 lbs of Captain Black Cherry.

 

[Servant King]

And don't forget you could lose it all in a house fire anyways.

But if this happens, on the plus side, the answer to the eternal question will finally be answered: does house fire smoke taste good on the retrohale or not?

 

[anotherbob]

But if this happens, on the plus side, the answer to the eternal question will finally be answered: does house fire smoke taste good on the retrohale or not?

no it is horrible.

 

[Servant King]

no it is horrible.

I'll take your word for it.

 

[karam]

Cellaring is a good idea but you hate to be buying a ton of English tobacco and then twenty years in find out that your tastes have changed.

OP take note of this, falling out of favour with Latakia is a common phenomenon.

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

OP take note of this, falling out of favour with Latakia is a common phenomenon.

Yes fully agreeing ,thats what happened with the undersigned

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

Two words ..... Bulk tobacco! Cheap, almost always available, and the ability to only buy one oz to sample. Alot of my favorites have become bulk blends.

Except for EU where bulk sales have been eliminated some years ago

 

[Streeper541]

If you're so new to pipe smoking, you don't have some ideas what you like, you don't even know if you'll continue smoking a pipe. It would obviously be absurd to start heavily investing in building a cellar

Cellaring is a good idea but you hate to be buying a ton of English tobacco and then twenty years in find out that your tastes have changed.

I think cellaring as a new smoker is kind of silly. But just kind of. Better to wait and see what you like and how much you smoke.

All great examples which support my original post. Again, I'm not trying to knock anyone's joy, just trying to offer guidance for those just joining the forum who are new to the hobby.

 

[HopHand]

I'm guilty of this. Starting as a pipe smoker after cigarette taxes got to high left me with a sense of urgency. In the beginning if I thought I liked a blend I stocked up only to find on a few that the appeal wore off in a few weeks. While I'll still smoke almost all of them a few of these lbs will probably take me a life time.

 

[briarbuck]

My advise, spend as much as you can afford on tobacco right now and don't stop until you have a life times worth. Prices will NEVER be cheaper than they are today.

 

[Inspired Idler]

Yes fully agreeing ,thats what happened with the undersigned

Ditto.

 

[cigrmaster]

When I was deciding what to put in my cellar I would buy tins of things I thought would be a good fit for me. A test tin is what I called them and I would smoke as many bowls as needed to decide whether it was worthy of putting in my cellar or not. I built 80% of my cellar within in a year. It was a 20 plus year supply with me smoking around 12 pounds a year. I told myself don't add anything unless it was really aged tins that were priced right.

Fast forward to around 4 years later I added things I felt would be great blends especially with 8-10 years of age on them. I had tons of tobacco but freaking TAD got a hold of me and before I knew it I added some of the following.

Things like Dan Tobacco Salty Dogs, Peter Heinrichs Curly Block, Butera Royal Vintage: Dark Stoved, 2013 Capstan Gold Ready Rubbed, Savinelli Doblone d'Oro and Orlik Dark Strong Kentucky were all added after I thought I was all done cellaring. I also was buying aged tins from Pipestud and who ever else wanted to sell stuff I liked at reasonable prices. I thought I was all done in 2013 but I just had to look for new stuff to add. I got lucky when Orlik Dark Strong Kentucky hit the US market again. I did my test tin and then bought 100 tins for 7.01 a tin for a 50 gram tin. A few years later it was taken off the US market again. I am so glad I jumped on it and went deep.

I used to love English blends but when I took a bit of time off the pipes and was just smoking cigars, when I went back to the pipe I hated English blends. I got lucky that most of my cellar was Murrey made Dunhill tins.