Mixing Blends

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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,960
14,335
Humansville Missouri
I’ve made my own blends, and been satisfied with the results. I reserve the right to try and blend some more at home.

But our friend Jim has reviewed nearly 3,000 different commercial blends that we can buy, so we don’t have to.

Imagine if you will, instead of a kitchen table and a few kinds of different commercially available tobaccos bought at retail to blend, you had access to a tobacco factory. You could buy raw leaf by the truckload, and casings and toppings by the drum. But, if you were not good at it, and didn’t make a tasty product, you’d not do it long.

My old buddy Jack was a philosopher, machinist, inventor, raconteur, pilot, and manufactured the only brand of arial wire marker sphere on the planet anybody ever heard of. Anybody could do it with access to a fiberglass chopper gun and and a barn, but Jack sold his Tana brand in 160 counties around the world, to cities from Kathmandu to Timbuktu, as he’d proudly claim.

Jack sometimes would take a pull from his Dutch Masters President and say, my little outfit is the General Motors of wire markers.

When General Motors sells a car, it has to work in Death Valley, climb Pike’s Peak, run all day at 80 on the interstates, start in Nome Alaska, not rust in Chicago, and Billy Joe at the parts shop must have parts for sale so Fred at the corner garage can service and repair it.

You have to get up awfully early in the morning to get ahead of an engineer who works for General Motors, he’d say.

Somebody at Lane keeps the recipe for Smoker’s Pride Cherry Cavendish.

He’s better at blending than I’ll ever be.
 

Auxsender

Lifer
Jul 17, 2022
1,106
5,698
Nashville
About to light up some Newminster 403 mixed 2:3 with Peter S Bullseye. I’ll report back.
Excellent. A lil sweet, a lil smoky, but always big tobacco flavor. I can’t do the jiminks perception of flavors so I’m gonna leave it at that. I will combine these two again.
 

Oddball

Starting to Get Obsessed
Dec 29, 2022
272
1,337
TN
Mac Baren Dark Twist mixed with about half either Bold Kentucky or Old Dark Fired. The HH flakes give the sweet dark twist some body and some welcomed umph!
 

Scottmi

Lifer
Oct 15, 2022
3,922
57,215
Orcas, WA
Finished the first pressed cake today. Sooo nice...just glides into an easy bliss. I particularly like that this goes well with beer (so many don't in my experience). I think it is the perfume/incense that supports the tang of the beer (an IPA with a low IBU of 41) and the Latakia doesn't fight it. Developing the story, I do believe the ghost is a dandy with a bowtie, and a name that starts with "M..." I really liked the thin puck that 10 grams resulted in. Just started next press with 20 grams of each ingredient, divided up into four 10g portions, and separated with waxed paper rounds to see how that does keeping the pucks/cakes separate. A week at a time has been good for the pressing.
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Released the latest batch of 40 grams. Pressed down more than I expected! The wax paper separations came apart with a bit of effort and peeled right off after separating. I would not do that again. A 40 gram (weighed in at 43 grams just now..hmm, scale may not be the most accurate) puck is a nice size. Dense wafers. Jarred up. Will leave these be for maybe a couple weeks...
IMG_3003.JPG IMG_3004.JPG IMG_3006.JPG
 
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LudwigB88

Starting to Get Obsessed
Nov 4, 2023
259
377
I’m very curious about the idea of mixing blends. Will it defeat the blender’s original purpose ? Will it be complimentary or just a muddled taste mess ? I have been mixing Pease Samarra with Westminster, 50/50. Samarra is edgier with perique and very complex. Westminster is rounder and sweeter and more of an “all day English.” I had about 30g of Samarra that I mixed with 30g Westminster and it’s very nice. The thing is I love them both and rather than switch between them, I figured I’d try mixing. It seems to be a very nice smoke. In fact, my guess is that the two blends have allot of the same components. Any thoughts ??
 

mingc

Lifer
Jun 20, 2019
4,238
12,568
The Big Rock Candy Mountains
I’m very curious about the idea of mixing blends. Will it defeat the blender’s original purpose ? Will it be complimentary or just a muddled taste mess ? I have been mixing Pease Samarra with Westminster, 50/50. Samarra is edgier with perique and very complex. Westminster is rounder and sweeter and more of an “all day English.” I had about 30g of Samarra that I mixed with 30g Westminster and it’s very nice. The thing is I love them both and rather than switch between them, I figured I’d try mixing. It seems to be a very nice smoke. In fact, my guess is that the two blends have allot of the same components. Any thoughts ??
Please stop. You're upsetting the balance of the Universe.