Betcha someone will buy the recipe someday if Mike and Mary find a worthy blender with the talent and a plan (connections) to secure the right leaf.
Unfortunately, Mike's not securing it for the simple reason that it can't be secured, anymore. And if he can't, others can't.
He worked with cigarette sourcers who for years got early, mid, and late harvest VA separately. They'd hold leaf for 3 years for him, because he wouldn't consider it before then.
Then he'd have samples of many different lots sent to him, and host tasting parties in Kansas City, determining which lots would work with which of his offerings.
Almost all VA leaf is now harvested all together. With this trend, Mike could no longer separate out the precise lots he needed to do what he did.
He can't sell his recipes now because they depended on components that are no longer available in the same way. What anybody else would do with his recipes would therefore have to be a bastardization, at best.
Even if some tobacco producer turns back the clock on VA harvesting so that boutique blenders can try to do what Mike did, the cost would be exorbitant because it would be an intentional step away from current "efficiency" for artisanal reasons.
At least, all the above is what I've been told by a friend of Mike's. It's third-hand through me, so take it with a grain of salt.
Alas, for now. Yet I hope for a renewal of good things in the ages to come...