Effects of Altitude on Smoking Certain Blends?

[PaulRVA]

Its really hard to light a pipe below sea level.

New Orleans says hello!

 

[dingdong]

Altitudes certainly have some effect - but attitudes - now that is something else entirely i.e beach people vs hill people

 

[Wheels]

Its really hard to light a pipe below sea level.

Not at all. I did it many times in the Navy. The problem starts when you've been submerged all day and the air gets so thin a match won't stay lit.

 

[Wet Dottle]

As someone who lives in a high altitude desert climate (6,040 ft above sea level, in the Rockies of Colorado), and who often travels up and down the mountains with a pipe, I can tell you that I never felt any effects from altitude. Things like air humidity, weather conditions, type of pipe, packing, etc, are much more important. This is, of course, my opinion. I'm also a guy that smokes any blend without drying it (on the contrary, I take great care to prevent it from drying below the level it is when the tin is first opened) and have no issues with St. Bruno. Actually, the older St. Bruno used to be even more moist than it is today, and I never had problems with it then, either.

 

[mpjetset]

St. Bruno... i found a couple of old tins purchased around 2000 and don't recall it... that's not the little tin that tastes like Vicks, is it? All I remember is that I wasn't in love with it back then; what do you think I can expect now?

 

[sablebrush52]

I wonder sometimes if some blends were optimized for the technique of putting a small glowing coal in one's pipe.

I work from home and I tend to smoke in the afternoon while reading or editing. Work has been frustrating me quite a bit over the past couple years, so perhaps it's unsurprising that I've been smoking too fast.

I doubt that any company would optimize a blend in such a way. It would be a very poor business decision with a doubtful outcome.

I've enjoyed my pipe whenever I visit Santa Fé, 7200 ft, with no issues and no need to change anything. Same for in the mountains high above Taos, so even with the lesser oxygen it works the same.
Blends and cuts have different burning characteristics, so you just have to become familiar with how a blend works that you want to smoke.

 

[Hillcrest]

Its really hard to light a pipe below sea level.

unless its perique ?

 

[hilbertastronaut]

St. Bruno... i found a couple of old tins purchased around 2000 and don't recall it... that's not the little tin that tastes like Vicks, is it? All I remember is that I wasn't in love with it back then; what do you think I can expect now?

Mac Baren's iteration of St. Bruno looks superficially like Peterson's Irish Flake or even HH ODF, but has a mild flowery top note and smokes completely differently (for me, at least). I've heard that Mac Baren changed the formula for St. Bruno quite a bit. I get "Vicks" cherry cough drop notes from Sutliff's War Horse Bar, but not from this St. Bruno.