Blending Blends

[OwlTellYa]

Do you have a favorite blend of commercial blends?

I am new to all of this and am just playing around with stuff. I recently made a blend that I really like. It’s 1/3 Davidoff Red, 1/3 Sutliff Whiskey Cavendish, and 1/3 a local burley blend (Park Lane Fireside). I topped it with a little Amphora Virginia that I had left in the bag. There’s a lot going on in the blend, but it’s full, rich, and it burns slow and cool with very few relights. It does not bite. I might have stumbled onto something I really like.

 

[proteus]

OJK Blue and OJK mixed 50/50
Sut 704 spiced rum mixed 50/50 with Sut D64 Queen Anne Revenge
WCC Simply Red and Simply Orange 50/50
CD Opening night and Sut 507C VA Slices
SWR and SWR aromatic 50/50
Newm 400 and Newm 403

 

[Bbailey324]

Sutliff Rum and Maple with Sutliff spiced rum about 60:40. Picks up the rum note in R&M.

Sutliff Black Cordial with Sufliff Va Slices about 70:30. Gives a tobacco flavor and cuts the sweetness of black cordial.

 

[elvishrunes]

I enjoy captain black white 50%, and Orlik 50%, or any Virginia flake with any vanilla cavendish aro. You get the vanilla aromatic but more body and nicotine.

I also used to buy C/D single tobaccos bulk and blend them and jar them for a year to mix flavours, works well. However, I now prefer my Ennerdale or Nightcap, so no more home blending.

 

[Sigmund]

Ive mentioned a couple before. I call one Psychoanalysis. One of my favorite.

1/2 St Bernard Flake
1/2 Salty Dogs
a generous sprinkle of blending Lat

The Salty Dogs adds some heavier sweetness and the lat peeks in and out of the blend


A second

Half and Half again...

Marlin Flake
Wallace Flake
Blending Lat

This is a rich blend and while Wallce flake is good it has a bit too much Burley for my virginia tastes. Its good without the lat also.

Im not in the US so Its harder having a huge cellar. You learn to get variety in different ways.

 

[El Capitán]

Sutliff vanilla and half and half at a 75-25 mixture is nice.

 

[Sigmund]

Also from my cheapo spanish stash I mix and DRY part Alsbo Gold and some virginia/burley/cavendish blend. It will still bite you a little if you smoke it fast but its actually a nice smoke on occasion.

 

[yanoJL]

Haunted Pirate Ship seemed popular on the forums for a minute (Haunted Bookshop + Pirate Kake)

I like adding a touch of a chocolate blend like Boswell's Piper's Pleasure to an English like Kramer's Father Dempsey. The chocolate/Latakia mix works for me.

 

[Oddball]

Mac Baren Dark Twist 50/50 with either HH Bold Kentucky or HH Old Dark Fired.

The Twist is sweet and mild and either of those two give it strength and some savory notes.

 

[Jesster109]

Have added BCA to a couple of blends that were just so-so to try to help them. Turns out it was just sweeter so-so. The only mix of commercial blends that I consider a success, was adding 5 Brothers to Butternut Burley 50/50. To me tasted exactly the same and the smoke was strong enough to be interesting.

 

[RudyG]

Odyssey and Balkan Blue 50/50, close to my taste as the old BS white

 

[kcghost]

Ain't mixing no tobacco no other tobacco. Nope, ain't going to do it.

 

[Sigmund]

Lol

I aint gonna stop

 

[proteus]

All 50/50
Try
Boswell Blend 35 and Boswell Premium Burley
Boswell Northwoods and Boswell R.R. Station
CD Granby Station with Boswell Bear Blend
Boswell Countryside with Boswell Titus

 

[Stoaks]

OJK Blue and Newminster 400 at around 50/50. Gives some body to the Newminster to prevent me from freight training in a chase for flavor.

OJK Blue and RLP-6 about 3:1. Makes for a nice, old-timey, pipe-y tasting bowl with a crowd-pleasing room note. Also helps me get rid of the 4 ozs of RLP-6 I bought and find too cloying and devoid of nicotine to smoke on its own.

 

[Lumbridge]

I like to experiment with adding latakia to existing blends to give them that whisper of extra smokyness that I crave. A bit of an English blend or straight blending latakia added to a codger blend or an aromatic can really kick it up a notch. I've found that the results of these experiments tend to taste best after being allowed to sit in a jar for a few months.

 

[proteus]

@Lumbridge yes this is true. About 3 to 6 months. The flavors have to marry. Do you Latakia take thee Virginia to beest thy wonderfully paired flavoring...

 

[ahouston]

Blending at home is a great way to earn respect for real blenders who manage to make new flavors from their work. I've tried blending and it almost always ends up tasting like a generic English.

 

[Gimlet]

I like to experiment with adding latakia to existing blends to give them that whisper of extra smokyness that I crave. A bit of an English blend or straight blending latakia added to a codger blend or an aromatic can really kick it up a notch. I've found that the results of these experiments tend to taste best after being allowed to sit in a jar for a few months.

I've tried that with latakia but seemed to come unstuck more often than not. Maybe because when I started out I bought a load of loose pure latakia and tried it straight and didn't like it. It wasn't the smokiness more a medicinal astringency I found off-putting, But occasionally when I got it right it added a nice spicey kick to the bland blends I started out with.
Bought a tin of Peterson's 965 today and didn't expect to like when I opened the tin. I'd read description which put the latakia in the background but it definitely isn't. Or at least not to me. I find it quite robust, however there's a nice natural sweetness in the background from the virginia and it's working rather well as an evening smoke. I'm trying it in a Vauen Mokka which I don't otherwise smoke much and I must say it's growing on me.

 

[Doctor Chopper]

Great thread. I never mix myself. In my mind, I don't think I can blend better than someone like @glpease or @jeremyreeves et.al. There are way too many great finely tuned blends for me to try and do any better.

That is just me, I love hearing what you all are doing as you experiment with blends.