Daughters & Ryan, The Best or The Worst?

Log in

SmokingPipes.com Updates

Watch for Updates Twice a Week

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

Status
Not open for further replies.
Dec 6, 2019
5,110
23,438
Dixieland
Haha yeah if you are looking for best volume for the money I think you’ve found it. I bet it’s drier than low country though I haven’t tried LC.
I got the 2 lbs and it looks like it got 5.

It does burn faster, all the big volume stuff. Seems like its kind of an optical illusion. Damn sure makes you feel better about the quantity you bought though.
 

Jaylotw

Lifer
Mar 13, 2020
1,062
4,069
NE Ohio
Ryback is a decent Drum replacement, not the same but a similar Halfzware shag. Ryback gold is good, too, but I’ve always preferred the regular-both for when I was rolling smokes and now, in a pipe. It’s a great, full bodied DFK blend that is dirt cheap yet real, true high quality stuff. You’ll like it!

I’ve loved every D&R product I’ve ever tried. I think the poor reviews are from people used to thicker ribbon cut tobacco, wetter and more traditionally presented, and also that a lot of people are biased because D&R has always been a RYO brand and many of their blends have stayed essentially the same since the start.

I’ve been wondering, though, when we’ll start to see D&R prices slowly rise. They’re almost too good of a value...
 

Misanthrope

Can't Leave
Apr 26, 2020
367
1,128
Texas
I haven't tried any D&R tobaccos yet. Every review I've seen is either very positive or very negative, no in between. I just ordered a 3.5oz container of Ryback, in the hopes that it will be somewhat similar in a way to Drum halfzware which I smoked as a kid in RYOs and like in a pipe now, but it's prohibitively expensive here these days. I like dry, unadulterated tobaccos, so I think I'll like it.

I also like the descriptions of the Rimboche blends and was curious about them.

What's the consensus on D&R tobaccos, are they an awesome deal for great pipe smokes, or are they stinky flavourless cigarette filler?

Ryback isn’t particularly close to Drum. It reminds me a bit of ketchup, barbecue sauce, that sort of thing, crossed with a campfire. It was strongly flavored enough that I cut it 50% with Three Sails to tone it down a bit, and I’d probably like Ryback Gold more than Ryback by itself.

I liked Three Sails. but I don’t think I’d smoke it in a pipe because it’s a similar fine shag cut as Drum, Drum in a pipe is a wall banger, and Three Sails as a RYO/MYO tobacco makes Drum feel weak in comparison, so I don’t think I’d even get a third of the way through a bowl before the room started spinning.

I can’t get any D&R tobaccos locally here in Washington, and online tobacco orders are a $10k misdemeanor here, so I didn’t get a chance to try their other blends.
 
  • Like
Reactions: canucklehead

Misanthrope

Can't Leave
Apr 26, 2020
367
1,128
Texas
Against the retailer or against the recipient?

Both, but recipient is easier to enforce, and they’re apparently good enough at annoying retailers that 99% of them won’t even ship here.

Supposedly, they’re slack about enforcing it because they care more about smuggling and bootlegging than they do about Joe Pipesworth ordering a tin off the Internet, but I don’t think there’s a tobacco out there that I’d be happy to pay THAT much for, so I’m not particularly eager to roll the dice.

Edit: it’s a $5000 fine, not $10k. I don’t know why I put $10k in my previous post.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: BROBS

Spinkle

Part of the Furniture Now
Sep 16, 2019
892
5,954
43
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Both, but recipient is easier to enforce, and they’re apparently good enough at annoying retailers that 99% of them won’t even ship here.

Supposedly, they’re slack about enforcing it because they care more about smuggling and bootlegging than they do about Joe Pipesworth ordering a tin off the Internet, but I don’t think there’s a tobacco out there that I’d be happy to pay THAT much for, so I’m not particularly eager to roll the dice.
Don’t blame you - I find it surprising though. Presumably if they had the ability to track online tobacco orders they could intercept them to charge duty just as easily
 

Misanthrope

Can't Leave
Apr 26, 2020
367
1,128
Texas
Don’t blame you - I find it surprising though. Presumably if they had the ability to track online tobacco orders they could intercept them to charge duty just as easily

Yeah, I was surprised myself. I didn’t actually know it was illegal until I went looking for an excise/use tax form for self-reporting tobacco purchases and found nothing. (I’m self-employed and file quarterly B&O tax returns and have to report use tax anyway, but out of laziness, I tend to favor retailers who collect WA state tax because I don’t want to deal with any more paperwork than I can get away with)

So, I ended up having a local B&M order in whatever they don’t routinely stock. There’s a 95% wholesale tax on pipe and rolling tobacco, so the prices are eye-watering and the selection meager.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BROBS

Spinkle

Part of the Furniture Now
Sep 16, 2019
892
5,954
43
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
There’s a 95% wholesale tax on pipe and rolling tobacco, so the prices are eye-watering and the selection meager.
We have it much worse up here when it comes to taxes believe me. There is no law against ordering tobacco from the USA though - if it gets caught by customs they charge. I only get caught about 25% of the time, and even then they often only charge sales tax and forget the duty on tobacco. Sounds almost like its de facto better to be living in Canada than Washington state, I find it a bit astonishing that a sub-national government (state) has the authority to inspect goods coming in from other US states.
 
  • Like
Reactions: canucklehead

subsalac

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jan 9, 2018
277
1,124
Let's put it this way. Like in any area of production/service, as a producer of tobacco, you have a tension before you-- the tension between making money and make good products. It's possible to do both, but very hard. You usually have to compromise. Do you want great tobacco? Well there's not much of that, and not lots of buyers, because not everyone who consumes tobacco on earth is a tobacco connoisseur. If you give the average smoker crap that's heavily adulterated to hide the fact that it's crap, or heavily marketed as the greatest thing since sliced bread, they'll buy it, and you'll make money(or the retailers will buy it and it can sit and age), but you won't be making great tobacco. If you make great tobacco however, you won't have much of it to sell, and you'll have to charge a lot for it to compensate, and your business won't be a lucrative giant.

Perhaps it sounds elitist to even suggest that crappy tobacco and high quality tobacco exists, but this is a philosophical question-- the "smoke what you like, like what you smoke" doesn't try to address this problem but instead is more of a courtesy and gentlemanly agreement to never shame anyone for liking something, this I fully support.

I have my own opinions about which brands tend to push that slider aggressively towards the "business" end but that's neither here nor there. The point of all of this is, Daughters and Ryan seems to be the exception to this. It feels like cheating to smoke Rimboche AP knowing what I paid for the bag. And when I watch Mark Ryan speak about tobacco, it makes more sense. We'd have a lot less crappy tobacco out there if everyone had his philosophy and values on blending.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.