How do you Choose What to Smoke?

[Aomalley27]

I’m a huge 965 fan; so that gets smoked a lot. But generally it depends upon the season: Winter I prefer straight Vas, but will smoke “Christmas”Aros from now until January (Christmas Cookie, Kohlhasse & Kopp Winter Blend, Bought The Storytellerspipe Holly King this year?, used to smoke Peterson Christmas/Holiday blends until they stopped shipping them to USA around 2016).
Spring means English/Balkan... but only Robust blends, so heavy on the Latakia, Northwoods, Peretti English 201, Railroad Station, Pirate Kake.
Summer means light English, (EMP, 965, Tashkent, Frog Morton Across the Pond) And a few select Aros (Brigadier Black Gettysburg, Apple Streudel, Sweet Galenas)
Fall is all about the English/Balkan... Light in the morning, medium (Royal from Peretti, Railroad Station from Boswell’s) in the afternoon, and heavy at night.

 

[olkofri]

No rhyme or reason. Sometimes just because it's the easiest to get to.

^^
This.

 

[WildTurkeySurprise]

I have pint and half-pint jars: a dozen jars per carton, three cartons of each size, loaded with tobaccos across the entire spectrum, and if I don’t have one in mind beforehand, I’ll pick a carton and decide from those twelve. Also, if I open a new tin, I’ll lean on it pretty heavy for awhile.

 

[WNCLEE28466]

I typically smoke something in the AM, and progress to stronger, and more punchy tobaccos/blends as the day wears on. I guess this is a type of rotation in a sense. Also, I tend to stay in the realm of 5 to 6 opened tobaccos at a time. Whether you have a small store of tobaccos or more. I opened TOO many 'baccas at one time and paid the price with dry, harsh blends that needed constant re-hydration. You'll learn not to be wowed by quantity, but appreciate better, more select 'baccas...

 

[eljimmy]

I decide on what family/genre I want to smoke and go through the list and pick. I only smoke at night so this works for me. which reminds me, I have to update this.

 

[karam]

Good question. With VaPers which make 75% of my smoking it is a balance between stuff I really like and stuff I want to finish so they are out of mind. Moving towards making a cellar of having just 10/10 blends for my tastes. The other 25% is DFKs and Lakelands for which it is a question of mood.

 

[jewman22]

Depends on the day, and the weather, and what i'm in the mood for, and what I just ate. Choose a blend, the hard part is figuring what pipe to use.

 

[Christos D. Tsatsaronis]

More or less like this:
1 bowl per day, in the morning.
4 tobaccos open: 1 Virginia (or Burley), 1 Latakia, 2 Aromatics.
Smoke them in turn: Virginia, Aromatic, Latakia, Aromatic.
And life goes on...

 

[Sgetz]

If you cannot decide then number your cellar and pull number from hat! It's not an important choice. You can always toss it if you don't like it.

 

[OzPiper]

I almost always choose the pipe first.
Then the blend follows.
(I have pipes for English/Balkan blends, Virginia/VaPers and aromatics).

 

[solideogloria86]

No science to it. It's the same as standing before a cabinet full of different snacks and picking whichever one I want in the moment.

 

[Duck]

As I go through the day I usually progress from mild to very strong tobacco. So I might have twenty, but only three or four of a particular strength. Deciding between three or four flavours isn't overwhelming, I just pick the one I'm in the mood for.

 

[condorlover1]

Whatever it is its going to be some form of plug or twist. My choices are purely based on the handful of blends I smoke and what I left out on my desk from the previous day.

 

[Bobby Bailey]

It's just what I feel like at the moment.

 

[mso489]

I'm rarely organized in any way. I don't smoke in the morning just because I'm busy. After that it is impulse. Strong or mild, any genre I have on hand.

 

[hauntedmyst]

For me it's a rather complicated process. First I have to consider what day of the week it is, then factor in the time, weather, my geographical location and I enter it all into my Tobacco Excel Choice spreadsheet. After that, I factor in the position of the stars, lunar cycle and the previous weeks worth of astrology readings, not only for me but also for my extended family. After converting all of that into their numerical values, I hack into the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's super computer (Never on the part running national security. I usually use the part running cold fusion scenarios. Cold fusion? Come on! The guys at Monster Energy seem to have clearly solved this long ago, those cans seem to stay cold forever!) and run through a Riemann Hypothesis application which is then divided by the same numbers run through The Erdős-Strauss Conjecture and 15 hours later I have my answer. Those super computers are something else. Though I did stump it when I asked it "Why is Kathy Griffin even remotely famous?"

Or I just go outside, open my tobacco cache and pull out whatever strikes my fancy. Six of one...

 

[Swede74]

It all depends on the mood I’m into!
I have always 8 jars i rotation. When one is empty i opend a new tin from the cellar!

 

[myhyeung]

Difficult choices can often be reduced to dichotomies. Think of a blend, imagine the smoke in your mouth and the flavors fill your nostrils, you're either happy or you're not. If not repeat the process with another.

Only choose right before you get to smoke. Countless times I think of an after dinner heavy earthy cigar the whole day. Take the stick out after shower, caress and sniff the wrapper, eat dinner then put it back, and reach for a bowl of light grassy VA. You never know what you want until you get to actually have it.

 

[alexnc]

This is probably not the question for the people that have 2 and only 2 tobaccos at hand all the time, but more for the folks that have a larger amount of different tobaccos.

How do you decide just what to smoke? With my cellar getting larger I am also finding it increasingly harder to choose what to smoke. Do you have any tips or thoughts?

I have the same thing, I even think I know what I want and then it doesn’t work for me. I have a huge cellar of jars. What I used to do, and I’m going to try again, is to intentionally change genres every week. I usually binge one group, like lakelands or vapers, and then change to a different group like burleys or English. My groups may not make a lot of sense, like one is ‘rum’. It seems like my palette goes flat if I don’t switch it up.

 

[MAH]

I decide on what family/genre I want to smoke and go through the list and pick. I only smoke at night so this works for me. which reminds me, I have to update this.

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Eljimmy,

is that excel, or something else? How are you classifying each blend, based on tobacco reviews.com?