Aging tobacco in my own lifespan

[puffnshoot86]

Age/Dont Age its your choice. Some blends do need to sit for a couple years before they start getting really good. Look at bulk available blends.

 

[Chasing Embers]

aromatics very rarely benefit from aging

That's a good thing. I've got Altadis, now Sutliff, blends jarred from the mid 2000s that taste the same as newly bought.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

After 35 years of smoking pipes having tried some 60 plus varieties I would say I have a bit of knowledge. I've tried older tobaccos in the 5 year range once in the 20. I'm not seeing a difference. But your mileage may very as they say.

LOL, then be a little more clear in your OP, which was about what “others” have told you. Sounds like you don’t discern a difference, so question already answered! Some do, more power to ‘em. Still all going to be trust your own experience in the end.

 

[mso489]

IMHO, burley does not usually improve a great deal with age, though I feel like I have experienced exceptions, but it does preserve well. So though burley isn't a good candidate for aging for improvement, it lasts an amazingly long time if stored properly.

 

[AppalachianPipe92]

As said, age isn't always better - even for Virginias. Those sweet, topped VA flakes like Astleys and such, those are prone to going souring (the topping that is). I have enough for the next 5 years and I worry even that may be too long for some of them, we will see.
The stuff im deepest on are VA or VaPers that have very little to no topping. I expect to smoke them within a decade, and hope to buy more throughout that decade so I have these blends for the remainder of my life. There's no way I'll smoke everything I have before then, so at this point I can only hope it ages well over a long period. 20+ years is a long time for tobacco in todays tins. A big pro with McClelland is they knew how to tin tobacco to hold its seal for a long time. I've cracked McClelland from the 90s that wasn't dust and smoked fantastic. Most manufacturers now don't tin with this in mind, they tin for you to smoke it upon receiving. This is where jars help. But even then your not guaranteed a better tobacco.
I personally just buy what I enjoy, and as much of it as I can, hoping that it's still good when I get to it - whenever that may be. I wouldn't buy a tin expecting excellence in 35 years.

YMMV

 

[proteus]

LOL, then be a little more clear in your OP, which was about what “others” have told you. Sounds like you don’t discern a difference, so question already answered! Some do, more power to ‘em. Still all going to be trust your own experience in the end.

You are right. I should have been more clear in that regard. My concern was firstly more around the time and secondly about the improvement.

 

[sablebrush52]

Some of my fellow pipe smokers tell me they have tobacco which was bought in 1990 and carefully stored and aging still. At my age of 52 I may not last 35 years from now if I started aging tobacco that long today. I don't see the point of buying tobacco and letting it age for me in my case because I want to enjoy it today not when I'm close to 90 years old. If I make it that long I probably won't buy green bananas as the saying goes. Even 10 years is too long for me.

Perhap one to five years would be sufficient but I'd like not to waste that time were it not.

I suppose perhaps aging is meant for the next generation if the aging process all goes well.

I find the process of aging runs antithetical to the process of smoking. Maybe for some folks it's for different reasons. I just don't see them.

Aa for me, in the tone of Dr. McCoy, "Dammit Jim I'm a pipe smoker not a tobacco museum curator!"

Thoughts?

Here’s one man’s opinion.
You don’t need to wait 35 years.
You don’t need to wait 5 years.
You don’t need to wait at all.
Aging of tobaccos is a choice, not a necessity, and here’s why.
The better makers, like Gawith and Hoggarth, are selling already aged blends, released when they are ready to smoke. That released version represents what the blender considers ready to smoke. Further aging will result in changes to the flavors. Whether that change is an improvement is up to the individual to decide.
Some brands release blends with “young” tobaccos, like PS-LBF, which tastes like cardboard fresh and ripens in 4 or more years, but by and large, G&H, and Germain’s, release already aged blends, ready to be enjoyed.
Sutliff blends are also pretty much ready to go, and some of them, like their Cringle Flakes, are blended from aged components. 6 months marries up those components.
People buy into ideas uncritically, applying them without thought. Not everything is the same.

 

[logs]

Sounds to me like haven't smoked much vintage tobacco. Just buy a couple of 10 or 15 year old tins off Pipestud and try it for yourself. I believe the fascination will wear off when you realize it's still just pipe tobacco. Sure, it gets smoother and less edgy with age but it's not a radical "see the face of God" smoking experience. Once you realize you're not really missing that much you can settle back and stop worrying about it. Just enjoy what you have.

 

[telescopes]

Everything peaks. What goes up comes down. Aging, for the moment, is a marketing ploy to oversell tobacco that has been hoarded and has resulted creating shortages. When new blends of Esoterica or whatever is unicorned, become available, the hoarders use aging as a marketing ploy to differentiate their hoarded tobacco from what is currently available so that they can justify marking up the price of tobacco blends that are currently available.

That is all.

 

[FurCoat]

I am 51 and have cellared about 200 pounds of tobacco. I'm not buying tobacco unless something strikes me as a must have. I didn't accumulate my stash to age but rather to hedge against rising prices, lack of availability and laws like the one just passed in Hawaii against shipping of tobacco. I have 4 boys that smoke pipes so anything I leave behind will be put to good use.

 

[woodsroad]

Aged tobacco is interesting and sometimes decidedly better than a fresher tin or jar. However, aging has become a fetish, and it's all kind of silly. The majority of blends smoke well right out of the tin, fresh from the blenders. In fact, usually, the tobacco has been aged sufficiently already. At least half the time, you'd prefer the fresh version to the aged version if you could compare.

So if you want to smoke some aged tobacco, go ahead and age it a few years, or buy it aged if you can find it at a reasonable price, or if you want it at an unreasonable price. But anyone who thinks every blend must be aged six or eight years, or at all, is misled.

I have a bunch of aged tobacco simply because I buy more than i smoke, so it accumulates. I have some Dunhill labeled tins, some McClelland, and a number of other blends that have been around some years. I will pretend it is all superior for its age, but I don't take it seriously. If I want to crack open a new tin fresh from the blender, I sure will. Let's be real about this.

Bingo.
I have some blends going back to 90’s, and a lot of blends going back to the 2012-2016 range. It is interesting to see how they’ve changed. But there are so many new blends (and new versions of my older blends) that I greatly enjoy. It’s a game, an experiment, to age tobacco, but by no means the key to Nirvana.

Relax, don’t worry, pop a new tin and enjoy.

 

[sablebrush52]

Everything peaks. What goes up comes down. Aging, for the moment, is a marketing ploy to oversell tobacco that has been hoarded and has resulted creating shortages. When new blends of Esoterica or whatever is unicorned, become available, the hoarders use aging as a marketing ploy to differentiate their hoarded tobacco from what is currently available so that they can justify marking up the price of tobacco blends that are currently available.

That is all.

Aging certainly can be a marketing ploy, as in the case of C&D’s Cellar series, that took the cost of holding back the blend until ready and put it on the customer who gets to wait for the young tobaccos to age.
But mostly it’s something that some people, like Greg Pease, have evangelized because they really like the results.
I’ve enjoyed literally wondrous smokes where the Virginias developed a caramel like sweetness that is absolutely the product of extra years of aging.
But, that’s NOT guaranteed to happen. The results of aging can vary widely, and some of those changes may take a blend in a direction that I don’t like as much as fresh. It’s a personal response.
As for the Esoterica craze, that’s caused by buyers, with sellers responding to the unearned advantage thus provided. And there’s more to it than just that. Components are getting swapped out, creating marked changes of different blends. So there is a value to buying blends that maintained the flavors that were the hallmark of these blends. I wouldn’t waste a nickel on the post 2020 stuff, based on having smoked it.
So while there is an element of the carnival barker to all of this it isn’t the whole of it by any means.

 

[Auxsender]

Sounds to me like haven't smoked much vintage tobacco. Just buy a couple of 10 or 15 year old tins off Pipestud and try it for yourself. I believe the fascination will wear off when you realize it's still just pipe tobacco. Sure, it gets smoother and less edgy with age but it's not a radical "see the face of God" smoking experience. Once you realize you're not really missing that much you can settle back and stop worrying about it. Just enjoy what you have.

Perfectly stated. “It’s still just pipe tobacco”.

 

[lraisch]

I rejected the idea of aging until I had my own experience of it.

I tried a light English blend that I had kept for 7 years because I just didn't get around to trying it. I enjoyed it so much I immediately ordered more. The first fresh tin I tried was disappointing. I put the others away and tried them later with 3, 5 and finally 7 years of age again. The change was easily discernible and each of them was an incremental improvement. I have since tried the same blend with 10 and even 20 years of age and find that the tobacco starts to fade with that much time in the tin. I have since repeated this test with 3 other similar English blends and find the same pattern. For those other blends 5 years seems to be optimal.

I haven't smoked aromatics for a long time, but I find no such improvement with Burley and I'm currently aging some Virginias to see if I can find one I like.

 

[Davy]

Some of my fellow pipe smokers tell me they have tobacco which was bought in 1990 and carefully stored and aging still. At my age of 52 I may not last 35 years from now if I started aging tobacco that long today. I don't see the point of buying tobacco and letting it age for me in my case because I want to enjoy it today not when I'm close to 90 years old. If I make it that long I probably won't buy green bananas as the saying goes. Even 10 years is too long for me.

Perhap one to five years would be sufficient but I'd like not to waste that time were it not.

I suppose perhaps aging is meant for the next generation if the aging process all goes well.

I find the process of aging runs antithetical to the process of smoking. Maybe for some folks it's for different reasons. I just don't see them.

Aa for me, in the tone of Dr. McCoy, "Dammit Jim I'm a pipe smoker not a tobacco museum curator!"

Thoughts?

I think you should consider it.
It doesn't have to be 30 years + for you to benefit from the aging process.
From memory, without digging to give you precise figures, the peak period for significant results are around 5-7 years. Then, the aging process (i.e. changes) start slowing down.
So, yes, 5 years would work wonders on your tobacco.
And 10 years would yield great results.
Get started, mate.

 

[telescopes]

Aging certainly can be a marketing ploy, as in the case of C&D’s Cellar series, that took the cost of holding back the blend until ready and put it on the customer who gets to wait for the young tobaccos to age.
But mostly it’s something that some people, like Greg Pease, have evangelized because they really like the results.
I’ve enjoyed literally wondrous smokes where the Virginias developed a caramel like sweetness that is absolutely the product of extra years of aging.
But, that’s NOT guaranteed to happen. The results of aging can vary widely, and some of those changes may take a blend in a direction that I don’t like as much as fresh. It’s a personal response.
As for the Esoterica craze, that’s caused by buyers, with sellers responding to the unearned advantage thus provided. And there’s more to it than just that. Components are getting swapped out, creating marked changes of different blends. So there is a value to buying blends that maintained the flavors that were the hallmark of these blends. I wouldn’t waste a nickel on the post 2020 stuff, based on having smoked it.
So while there is an element of the carnival barker to all of this it isn’t the whole of it by any means.

I 100% agree. I do find that Virginias can and often do develop a richness that is much more enjoyable with aging. I absolutely agree that this can be the case.

Yes, you are right that certain tobacco blends have changed, and not for the better. Older blends can demonstrate flavor notes that once were all the rage. But of course, that last point, as you indicated, has nothing to do with aging.

Now that you pointed it out, if buyers continue to rave about aging, producers will be happy to transfer the costs associated with aging the product back on to the buyer. Hmmm.


Idiots... they are everywhere.

 

[sablebrush52]

Now that you pointed it out, if buyers continue to rave about aging, producers will be happy to transfer the costs associated with aging the product back on to the buyer. Hmmm.


Idiots... they are everywhere.

You’re just figuring that out?

It’s the cornerstone of human history.

Setting aside the broader context and returning to aging blends, idiots abound, and marketers are there to milk them.
Aging has potential benefits, but not assured, nor predictable benefits.
When we entrust our purchases to the aging process our understanding of how it works is limited.
I’ve split up boxes of Full Virginia Flake into fresh virgin canning jars, pulled from the same pallet, filled within seconds of each other, placed next to each other on the shelf and left completely undisturbed for almost a decade, and the contents aged differently. Same source, same processing, same storage environment, different results. Some minute unpredictable factor is involved, and that also happens with commercial tins.
When one is buying vintage tins it’s a complete gamble and only idiots believe otherwise. But for many the gamble is worth the risk and the odds are acceptable, and fair enough. Just be aware that you’re buying mystery tins.
Personally, I don’t buy blends to age them. I buy so that I’ll have a favorite blend available when I want to smoke it. Blends disappear, get altered, get ruined by successor producers, etc.
Aging happens and sometimes I like what’s happened and sometimes I don’t.
For example, I really liked McClelland 2015 fresh. I liked that clean fresh edge it had when released better than its aged flavor. But I’d rather have aged 2015 than none at all. That’s my trade off.

The idiots uncritically believe aging “improves” everything and there are plenty of people happy to take their money, and even allow them the “thrill” of becoming part of the process by selling these idiots tins of unready product “meant” for further (unpredictable) aging.

The rest of us know that aging tobaccos allows changes and that some of that change may be experienced as good or even great, and some of it will be minor or disappointing, and eventually it will all become mulch.

 

[logs]

Aging certainly can be a marketing ploy, as in the case of C&D’s Cellar series, that took the cost of holding back the blend until ready and put it on the customer who gets to wait for the young tobaccos to age.

Actually I'm rather fond of the cellar series. Chenet's Cake and Joie de Vivre don't need any cellaring so far as I'm concerned. Plus, I'm too lazy to wait 10 years.

 

[crashthegrey]

I cellar more to future proof than to age, but the result is the same. Thankfully I cellared McClelland blends so I can still enjoy them today. My cellar will be a treasure trove in years to come. Memories and old favorites, maybe some mold here and there, but so it goes.

 

[anotherbob]

Aged tobacco is interesting and sometimes decidedly better than a fresher tin or jar. However, aging has become a fetish, and it's all kind of silly. The majority of blends smoke well right out of the tin, fresh from the blenders. In fact, usually, the tobacco has been aged sufficiently already. At least half the time, you'd prefer the fresh version to the aged version if you could compare.

So if you want to smoke some aged tobacco, go ahead and age it a few years, or buy it aged if you can find it at a reasonable price, or if you want it at an unreasonable price. But anyone who thinks every blend must be aged six or eight years, or at all, is misled.

I have a bunch of aged tobacco simply because I buy more than i smoke, so it accumulates. I have some Dunhill labeled tins, some McClelland, and a number of other blends that have been around some years. I will pretend it is all superior for its age, but I don't take it seriously. If I want to crack open a new tin fresh from the blender, I sure will. Let's be real about this.

yeah but anyone can buy a tin. Not everyone can have an old tin. It's like you don't understand how much having things other people don't makes up for things like having no life or personality. Seesh.