I’ve been going through my jars and tins as I move some things over to Mylar. I popped a 3 year-old jar of C&D Bright Virginia Ribbon. Very tasty at this point. I didn’t smoke any of it when it was fresh at all. 4 ounces in 2 jars. I’ll never smoke it all up on its own I figure.
I’ve got all these jars of blending tobacco. The Granulated Perique is about 5 years old now. The Dark Burley from 2020 is superb. I mean, I love smoking it straight. It’s not quite as good as pure Semois, but close. (I was less enamoured with the 2022 batch.) The Izmir is also 4 or 5 years old. All good stuff. A bunch of Dark Fired Kentucky, and Cigar Leaf, and some Stoved Virginia, and a small jar of Latakia. I probably only ever bought an ounce of it to sample.
Oh well. I guess if I empty these jars and throw a bunch of stuff together I can clear some space! Haha.
Here’s what I came up with. (The percentages are rounded and based on weight. I used close to 9oz of loose tobacco. A little spillage and some sampling left me with 8.3 ounces of pressed cake and about 1/2 oz of loose.):
24.5% C&D Dark Burley (77% 2020 batch, 23% 2022 batch)
22.25% C&D Bright Virginia Ribbon
16.75% C&D Dark Fired Kentucky
11% C&D Izmir
5.625% C&D Chopped Cigar Leaf
5.625% C&D Granulated Perique
5.625% Sutliff Stoved Virginia
5.625% Sutliff Vanilla Custard
3% C&D Latakia
In a Ziplock bag, I pressed the blend between 2 pieces of plywood with 11 clamps for 5 days, tightening the clamps once or twice a day.
You can see some tobacco juice accumulated near where I poked a tiny hole in the Ziplock bag to let the air escape. It looks purple. Is that from the Vanilla Custard Aromatic or the Stoved Virginia? With no added casing, the tobacco is dry enough than nothing leaked out. I wonder if it will hold together when I unclamp it, or just crumble into a more melded blend.
The slab is 10.25" by 6.25" by 3/8". It turns out I can pick up the whole thing. It’s a solid cake. Crumbly around one edge though. I could cut it and re-press it to further meld the tobaccos…add a little casing...
On second thought…nah. It wants to be smoked!
I cut it up into 6 pieces using a sharp cleaver.
I was after a balanced, complex, smoky, burley-dominant blend, with a decent amount of nicotine, and ever so slightly aromatic. (The Burley — counting the Dark Burley, Dark Fired Kentucky, Cigar Leaf, and Perique combined — is 52.5% of the blend.) Flavour-wise I had somewhere between Amphora Original and Epiphany, or Revelation Match in mind, I guess, but with a lot more heft than those. Less aromatic than Amphora. More Nicotine. That’s what I was after. A strong, slightly aromatic, kitchen sink blend. I didn’t use any Red Virginias. Just a bit of Stoved. Next time I’ll probably try blending the Bright with a little Red before mixing it with Burley.
The blend is mostly pure, aged tobacco, with no added casing. Fairly dry. Ready to smoke. Like a C&D crumble cake, but a little sloppier.
The end result is slightly closer to Amphora than Epiphany or Revelation Match, in terms of flavour, due to the DFK being well present. The Latakia is just right. Even at 3% it gives the slight hint of an English. It’s there. The Turkish leaf helps that impression along I guess, and adds some spicy sourness. The Vanilla Custard is highly evident when you smell the blend, but less so in the smoking. Maybe that will mellow down over time. It smells quite tangy, and the Perique comes through too. I can smell the Perique from a couple feet away, but when I stick my nose in the bag it smells like vanilla and cream, with a lot of tanginess from the Virginia and Izmir. There’s a deep foundation of cereal grain (Cheerios), slight cocoa, and a wisp of smoke too.
If I tried to recreate this, I’d go with 50/50 Vanilla Custard and Black Cordial (a cherry aromatic). I could tweak things here or there, but this contains all the tobaccos I like, and the proportions are really pretty good. It’s a little too aromatic for me as a first impression, but it doesn’t taste that aromatic, so overall I’m quite happy with this little cellar clearing, space-saving experiment.
8.3 oz of crumble cakes and 0.3oz of loose bits. Perfect! I’ll enjoy this for a few years.
I should have called it Valentine’s Cake, not Flake! Oh well.
I’ve got all these jars of blending tobacco. The Granulated Perique is about 5 years old now. The Dark Burley from 2020 is superb. I mean, I love smoking it straight. It’s not quite as good as pure Semois, but close. (I was less enamoured with the 2022 batch.) The Izmir is also 4 or 5 years old. All good stuff. A bunch of Dark Fired Kentucky, and Cigar Leaf, and some Stoved Virginia, and a small jar of Latakia. I probably only ever bought an ounce of it to sample.
Oh well. I guess if I empty these jars and throw a bunch of stuff together I can clear some space! Haha.
Here’s what I came up with. (The percentages are rounded and based on weight. I used close to 9oz of loose tobacco. A little spillage and some sampling left me with 8.3 ounces of pressed cake and about 1/2 oz of loose.):
24.5% C&D Dark Burley (77% 2020 batch, 23% 2022 batch)
22.25% C&D Bright Virginia Ribbon
16.75% C&D Dark Fired Kentucky
11% C&D Izmir
5.625% C&D Chopped Cigar Leaf
5.625% C&D Granulated Perique
5.625% Sutliff Stoved Virginia
5.625% Sutliff Vanilla Custard
3% C&D Latakia
In a Ziplock bag, I pressed the blend between 2 pieces of plywood with 11 clamps for 5 days, tightening the clamps once or twice a day.
You can see some tobacco juice accumulated near where I poked a tiny hole in the Ziplock bag to let the air escape. It looks purple. Is that from the Vanilla Custard Aromatic or the Stoved Virginia? With no added casing, the tobacco is dry enough than nothing leaked out. I wonder if it will hold together when I unclamp it, or just crumble into a more melded blend.
The slab is 10.25" by 6.25" by 3/8". It turns out I can pick up the whole thing. It’s a solid cake. Crumbly around one edge though. I could cut it and re-press it to further meld the tobaccos…add a little casing...
On second thought…nah. It wants to be smoked!
I cut it up into 6 pieces using a sharp cleaver.
I was after a balanced, complex, smoky, burley-dominant blend, with a decent amount of nicotine, and ever so slightly aromatic. (The Burley — counting the Dark Burley, Dark Fired Kentucky, Cigar Leaf, and Perique combined — is 52.5% of the blend.) Flavour-wise I had somewhere between Amphora Original and Epiphany, or Revelation Match in mind, I guess, but with a lot more heft than those. Less aromatic than Amphora. More Nicotine. That’s what I was after. A strong, slightly aromatic, kitchen sink blend. I didn’t use any Red Virginias. Just a bit of Stoved. Next time I’ll probably try blending the Bright with a little Red before mixing it with Burley.
The blend is mostly pure, aged tobacco, with no added casing. Fairly dry. Ready to smoke. Like a C&D crumble cake, but a little sloppier.
The end result is slightly closer to Amphora than Epiphany or Revelation Match, in terms of flavour, due to the DFK being well present. The Latakia is just right. Even at 3% it gives the slight hint of an English. It’s there. The Turkish leaf helps that impression along I guess, and adds some spicy sourness. The Vanilla Custard is highly evident when you smell the blend, but less so in the smoking. Maybe that will mellow down over time. It smells quite tangy, and the Perique comes through too. I can smell the Perique from a couple feet away, but when I stick my nose in the bag it smells like vanilla and cream, with a lot of tanginess from the Virginia and Izmir. There’s a deep foundation of cereal grain (Cheerios), slight cocoa, and a wisp of smoke too.
If I tried to recreate this, I’d go with 50/50 Vanilla Custard and Black Cordial (a cherry aromatic). I could tweak things here or there, but this contains all the tobaccos I like, and the proportions are really pretty good. It’s a little too aromatic for me as a first impression, but it doesn’t taste that aromatic, so overall I’m quite happy with this little cellar clearing, space-saving experiment.
8.3 oz of crumble cakes and 0.3oz of loose bits. Perfect! I’ll enjoy this for a few years.
I should have called it Valentine’s Cake, not Flake! Oh well.
