This will be a long and tawdry tale. Go load a bowl and grab a libation and then come back. There, are you more relaxed?
When I first started smoking a pipe, I smoked English blends almost exclusively. Eventually, I gravitated toward VA flake blends, and have smoked VAs pretty much exclusively the last 7 months or so. As you might expect, the vast majority of my cellar consists of VA blends. However, several weeks ago I tried a sample of an English blend called Princes Street Mixture that was sent to me by Dick Silverman at Chief Catoonah Tobacconists, and I really enjoyed that sample for a change of pace from the VAs I was smoking.
Since then I have been craving English blends more and more.
That was background. Now we get to the meat of the story.
So, today I am in Boston and several hours ago I walked from my hotel down to the highly regarded LJ Peretti. Here's a shot I took on my blackberry as I approached:
Sidebar: Who in God's name would ever buy yellow running shoes and actually wear them in public?
In any event, I entered the store and was greeted by a couple of gentlemen. Now, I don't mean "greeted" in the Canadian sense of the word (i.e. a very polite exchange of pleasantries) - no, Bostonians are a tad more brusque than we are used to north of the border. In any event, I lived just outside of Boston many years ago when I went to university there, so I am quite familiar with the Boston vernacular. I didn't flinch, lol. Once we started chatting about pipes and tobacco, everything became much more pleasant.
Now, why the thread title?
Because I sampled a whole bunch of Peretti tobaccos while I was there - all English blends - and I absolutely adored almost all of them. They certainly weren't shy about giving you samples either - I had my Castello stack billiard with me (a very large bowl indeed) and at first I was a bit shy about putting tobacco from the sample jar into my 10 gallon pipe. The gentleman could obviously sense my reticence and said "Our tobacco is your tobacco, fill 'er right up." And so I did.
But wby am I so upset you ask? Because I think I am probably going to continue to smoke English blends on a regular basis along with my beloved VAs as part of my normal rotation. This means my cellar is vastly unbalanced, and the last thing I want to do is to started buying more tobacco.
And what exactly did I do as I was leaving LJ Peretti? You guessed it, I bought five of their 8 oz tins - Tashkent, Omega, Royal Blend, Oriental No. 40, and Cuban Mixture.
Damn them!
When I first started smoking a pipe, I smoked English blends almost exclusively. Eventually, I gravitated toward VA flake blends, and have smoked VAs pretty much exclusively the last 7 months or so. As you might expect, the vast majority of my cellar consists of VA blends. However, several weeks ago I tried a sample of an English blend called Princes Street Mixture that was sent to me by Dick Silverman at Chief Catoonah Tobacconists, and I really enjoyed that sample for a change of pace from the VAs I was smoking.
Since then I have been craving English blends more and more.
That was background. Now we get to the meat of the story.
So, today I am in Boston and several hours ago I walked from my hotel down to the highly regarded LJ Peretti. Here's a shot I took on my blackberry as I approached:
Sidebar: Who in God's name would ever buy yellow running shoes and actually wear them in public?
In any event, I entered the store and was greeted by a couple of gentlemen. Now, I don't mean "greeted" in the Canadian sense of the word (i.e. a very polite exchange of pleasantries) - no, Bostonians are a tad more brusque than we are used to north of the border. In any event, I lived just outside of Boston many years ago when I went to university there, so I am quite familiar with the Boston vernacular. I didn't flinch, lol. Once we started chatting about pipes and tobacco, everything became much more pleasant.
Now, why the thread title?
Because I sampled a whole bunch of Peretti tobaccos while I was there - all English blends - and I absolutely adored almost all of them. They certainly weren't shy about giving you samples either - I had my Castello stack billiard with me (a very large bowl indeed) and at first I was a bit shy about putting tobacco from the sample jar into my 10 gallon pipe. The gentleman could obviously sense my reticence and said "Our tobacco is your tobacco, fill 'er right up." And so I did.
But wby am I so upset you ask? Because I think I am probably going to continue to smoke English blends on a regular basis along with my beloved VAs as part of my normal rotation. This means my cellar is vastly unbalanced, and the last thing I want to do is to started buying more tobacco.
And what exactly did I do as I was leaving LJ Peretti? You guessed it, I bought five of their 8 oz tins - Tashkent, Omega, Royal Blend, Oriental No. 40, and Cuban Mixture.
Damn them!
