Nicotine Strength

[chopper]

I don't ever recall being affected by nicotine in any tobacco I've smoked....be it cigarettes,cigars or pipe tobacco. I'm not saying that to make out as being tough I'm not. I suspect it's because I've been smoking for 50 years since I was 15 and my body got used to it.
Alcohol is a different story....doesn't take much to get me giddy.

It's odd how different types of alcohol affects drinkers differently.
It was not unusual for me, in my wilder days, to drink an entire bottle of bourbon at a party and I could still walk a straight line.
Too many beers on the other hand made me a dopey drunk.

At 14yo a mate & I often went into town to buy exotic foreign cigarettes like Gitanes, Sobranie, Camel non-filter just to name a few, and can't recall ever being overly affected by nicotine.

Since ditching a 30-40 cigarette addiction for a pipe, I choose blends with no more than mild Vit N.
When I smoke a bowl of anything a little stronger nicotine wise I notice it.

Whether that sensitivity is a matter of age [61yo] or tolerance I couldn't say.

 

[Effortlessdepths]

Ibcant agr

Tobacco has much more nicotine than we can absorb. I went to a talk by Mark Ryan about periques, and he and Russ Oellette said that Virginias have way more nicotine in them than we give them credit for, but we merely can't absorb them because of the acidity. Also, this is why we don't see many heavy nicotine aromatic blends, because the topping makes it so that we don't absorb any of it.
Perique doesn't have nicotine, per say. The fermentation process changes the nicotine molecules to more complex molecules, so technically, they have none, but yet, when blended with a Virginia, it eases the acidity, to where we absorb more of the nicotine from the Virginias, or whatever is in the blends.

Sometimes our moods, foods we've eaten, or body chemistry affects how much we can absorb as well.

Day to day, pipe tobaccos affect me differently throughout the day.

I cant agree more. One thing that kills the taste of good tobacco more than anything else is divorce.

 

[Effortlessdepths]

I don’t get much nic from those ropes, personally, but I’m probably not a good judge of nic content. Picayune is my go-to for a little nicotine, and I haven’t found many blends that come close to matching its strength.

I have yet to find a blend that approaches picayune either. HH bold Kentucky and Kendal Kentucky sort of come close, but the buzz isn't the same. I have some wild rustica tobacco coming (not HH rustica) and I am trying to track down some cotton boll. I have 1.8 lbs of picayune left but I smoke 2 bowls of it a day so I can't see it lasting more than another 2 years.

I have a very high nicotine tolerance too, and I was never a cigarette smoker. Even cigars don't come close to picayune for me, except for the really dark and large ones, and even then it takes a good hour for the nic buzz to set in. Pipes are faster

 

[Effortlessdepths]

We've had some extensive threads in the past about nicotine overdose. It is very interesting. I've learned a bunch. Nicotine releases stored sugars into your blood, causing you to either feel a rush of extra energy or feel drained and sleepy. It affects people differently due to body chemistry and fitness. I am fairly fit, as I ride bikes, walk, swim, and work out at the gym, on top of farming and running the small orchard. I also never sit down, hardly ever, except to work at my jeweler's bench. I even only watch TV when I am working at the bench. So, I get drained easily when I smoke to the point of overdose.

Overdose is depleted sugars, which makes your stomach queasy, your head spins, and a feeling of nausea. I love this... but only just before bed. It knocks me out better than any prescription sleeping pill. In fact, I required sleeping pills to sleep for decades before I found pipes. Since smoking pipes, I have not had to have a pill at all. I just smoke the super strong blends in a huge pipe just before bed, then slip on over into bed andf sleep like a baby. But, if I get that overdose feeling when I don't want to be sleepy, I just eat a small bite of chocolate. I keep some of those small Halloween candies in my pipe bag, and a small bite of one is all I need to snap out of that queasy sick feeling.

Wow, I didn't know it releases sugars. That must be the glycogen stores in your liver, so that makes sense.

 

[Effortlessdepths]

Well, I would certainly agree that because both the sheer quantity of tobacco, and the types of tobacco used, cigars probably have a lot more nicotine on average... BUT! Consider the way we smoke them. For me, I tend to puff on a cigar every 60-90 seconds, sometimes even 2 minutes or more between puffs. I tent to puff a lot more frequently with a pipe, so even though the quantity of nicotine in a cigar is much more than a bowl of tobacco, I may be absorbing more nicotine over the course of an hour smoking a pipe versus an hour smoking a cigar.

As for OP's experiences... Brown No. 4 certainly is one of the strongest pipe tobaccos available, but it is still an enjoyable smoke for me. Sometimes these strong tobacco get reputations that are a bit extreme. I respect the rope's power and tend to smoke it when I really crave nicotine, and find it makes a wonderful breakfast with a bit of coffee! I tend to feel the stimulating effects from nicotine, so this combination gets my day off to a good start!

I second your comment on nic absorbtion from cigars

 

[Mtlpiper]

The G&H ropes never got me with the nic... oddly though, I find I sometimes get a strong nic hit off the Dark Birdseye / Kendal Dark. Also, their Dark Plug does it (less so the flake).

Then again, I smoked heavy Italian and Nicaraguan cigars for years. It's been a while since I had a case of the spins.