Please "School Me" on Perique.

[visualmemory]

I've just got a morning bowl of Mc Conell's Red Virginia (which is... red virgina with touch of perique) and here it comes. The black pepper taste is very prominent, fermented fruit tastes takes the back seat. So far what I know - perique it's some tobacco strain which sits fermented in it's own juices in barrell for some months. I've tried some blends with perique and now I really don't know what to expect from one, don't know if I like it or not, just try to try different things. My experiences so far:

Frist time Gawith's Cabbies - it was long time ago but I remember it to be definitelly fruity and sweet.

Solani virginia flake with perique - strange tin note like a coughing syrup or some medicine, similar taste, not spicy but ghosted pipe with black pepper taste like crazy.

Second time Cabbies - just vinegar, can't say more.

Covent Garden, English blend, peppery but it just fits.

So there is one perique or differents periques? How does it behave, does it mellow with time or change? Maybe it's because I'm retrohaling so it's more prominent?

 

[Streeper541]

There are a few different Periques. All are grown and fermented in Louisiana, near or around, the Mississippi river basin. Perique, like Cavendish, is less about what type of leaf it contains, and named more for the curing process.

To the discerning palette, each tastes different. It does mellow a bit and get even better with age.

Hope that answers your question.

 

[Briar Lee]

The question “School me on (whatever)” was a ubiquitous way old time Scots tradition Christians asked questions of their Daddies and other wise men when their Mamas were out of earshot, in Southwest Missouri fifty years ago.

For a hillbilly boy to ask his Mama to school him on something resulted in invariably in two things happening.

First, her wrath and anger would be instant and fierce for talking like a hillbilly. A lecture would commence on proper grammar and how to sound educated when asking questions.

Then after a severe ass eating for talking hillbilly finally wound down Mama would direct her son to one of the hundreds upon hundreds of books found in every old time Christian (only) home.

I clicked on this question thinking it was one of my own, and I’m delighted to play the part of wise old sage.

The best article I’ve found to date on Perique is here:

A Closer Look at Perique | Smokingpipes.com

Perique is an incredibly versatile blending component and one of the most interesting and complex types of tobacco.

www.smokingpipes.com

The main curiosity of Perique is that only genuine Cajuns in the bayou country of Louisiana still take tobacco and press it three times into used bourbon barrels.

Since all sources seem to agree a Cajun named Pierre Chenet was responsible for the first commercial marketing of Perique (which was named after him) in the first part of the 1800s he no doubt had an extremely beautiful wife to support, and a source for used bourbon barrels, and he made a valuable tobacco to sell in order to indulge her.

Ever since time began, good men have had to keep Mama happy, or else nobody is happy.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Think of perique as if it were a spice, like cinnamon. Not like cinnamon in flavor, but like if you use a little it adds sweetness, if you use a lot it is hot and peppery. A dash of perique gives the blend a whole different flavor than if you use a bunch. Also, how long the blend ages makes a big difference. Peppery turns to stewed fruit with pressure and age. A skilled blender can pull out many different flavors with just two ingredients, depending on variables of ratios, and how it’s processed. This is why we have hundreds of different VaPers.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Good replies. Thank you, gents. Demands for information work better with a softener. So I added "please" to the title.

 

[bullet08]

Key word is "skilled" blender. Some blend can make my tongue feel like it's been ran over. Others bring out wonderful fruits.

 

[visualmemory]

Simply I just stole the topic title since last time when I was trying to be too funny with topic name I got busted by the mod. Apparently I've just got busted again. I didn't choose the thug life...
It's an interesting read. I like treating things in more broad setting like a part of culture. Comparing apples and oranges, but there is a very interesting book on fermentation (food not tobacco) which shows some traditional recipes in context of local culture and tradition. Some very regional and unusual ones. I would love to read a book like that on a pipe tobacco nad blending. Haven't found one yet.

It's a good story too and have a good protagonist. Interesting thing I wasn't aware of that perique can be both spicy and sweet/fruity. I was convinced It was either one depending on how ripe the blend is. Lot of things Jeremy is talking of I found to be true in my own experience. But I've got just a little pinch of used car salesman vibes while it seems to enchance every tobacco and I've lost it when he is talking about umiami thing. It always gets me when someone is talking about umami and tries to make it mysterious "5th flavor" which enchances every other flavor and it's super secret very "you might not get that" thing. I'm no cook. I'm not asian. It's super simple. Just get some MSG. In asian takeouts they use it like salt. Taste a pinch - pure umami. Now you can get that note in soy sauce, or potato chips.

When he's talking "The more Perique you add, the more complex flavors it has to offer, like mushroom and soy sauce, along with the stone fruit kind of notes" yayks. I can't fight first thing I can think of is a pepper bomb. But who I am to talk like that about humble man who knows his craft. I'm no head blender of very successfull tobacco company. I feel he's involuntarily overselling a little his fruits of labor in non malicious way. Oh well maybe I've just had to argue with someone.

 

[Chasing Embers]

The effect of Perique depends on the tobaccos in the blend that it's interacting with. Try some straight, it's a completely different experience. The title was fine as was.

 

[visualmemory]

Yes I feel this this way. It's "interacting" not "enhancing". The remark about tasting pure perique is good (regarding me writing about tasting pure MSG) unfortuntely where I live I can't get blending Perique and even if I could get one I don't plan making my own blends.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Yes I feel this this way. It's "interacting" not "enhancing". The remark about tasting pure perique is good (regarding me writing about tasting pure MSG) unfortuntely where I live I can't get blending Perique and even if I could get one I don't plan making my own blends.

No need to use it as a blender, it's great by itself.

 

[sablebrush52]

So there is one perique or differents periques? How does it behave, does it mellow with time or change? Maybe it's because I'm retrohaling so it's more prominent?

There are lots of different Periques. Flavors vary on where the leaf is grown, how it's harvested, how it's processed. The best known and most prized is that grown and harvested in St. James Parish. There are others grown in other Parishes that are wonderful, just a bit different. St James hold no lock on quality for me.

There's also Acadian Perique, which uses leaf grown and processed outside of Louisiana that is blended with Louisiana Perique. Commercial blending Periques may undergo further processing, may be blended with processed Kentucky, or other leaf. And there's the alchemy that happens when various leaves are combined in a blend.

Periques vary in flavor, with some being peppery and others being more fruity. Some have notes of olive, and others coffee. Whatever Perique was used in the Cope's and A&C Petersen versions of Escudo would lose its white pepper over time and develop a wonderful fruitiness that the current crap version does not.

I have a good stock of Perique that I got from La Poche, several pounds of it that were gifted, so I feel like what I have is about as close as I'll get to the original varietal without "improvements". I use it in doing the occasional home blend. Percy Martin Jewel Of St James Perique, if you can find it, makes a wonderful addition to a blend. I found McClelland 35 Stave Aged to be a bit of a snooze, but the Percy Martin Perique worked wonderfully well with it.

 

[cigrmaster]

I have a lot of 2012 Solani 633. I also have a big batch of 2002 Solani 633 and the 2002 has much more pepper flavors than any Vaper I have ever smoked. All around I prefer the 2012 as I have to be in the mood for the 2002 pepper bomb. I don't believe it is the age that made the 2002 pepper bomb, I believe it was the amount of Perique they put into the blend. One thing about the 633 I always loved was it smoked great out of of the tin getting better as it aged. I only bought 50 gram tins of the 633 as the big tins were not vacuum sealed and needed jars which I despise.

 

[timt]

The title was fine as was.

WTF, a mod critic? Careful now, you're flying a little too close to the sun.

I love perique. My new found love is perique with latakia. This tin of Quiet Nights I'm currently smoking is superb.

 

[Briar Lee]

I’m older than five tastes, Miss Charlotte only taught us sweet, bitter, sour, and salty.

There’s always a rebel and the boy who’d become her son in law later on said,

Whoa, Miss Charlotte, how does cornbread and apple pie and hominy grits and bacon all come from only four flavors?

She smiled and said Steve, you’ll share your book report with the class on that subject next week, but you’ll not have Charla (her daughter) help you.

Then she looked straight at me and said Marsha (her other daughter) can’t help him either.

But since she didn’t say anything about me not helping him Steve and I had a good time with my Mama helping research the subject.

Taste - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

We didn’t know it then, but Steve was right about bacon being savory, or Unami , whichever name you call how good a piece of fried meat tastes.

Back then a good home library started at at least several hundred books.

Today we have 60,000 just on the Gutenberg Project alone.

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is a library of free eBooks.

www.gutenberg.org

Some of the best schooling is what you discover yourself by reading.

But unless someone asks a question where do you start learning?

 

[drastic_quench]

Buy a tin of GL Pease Fillmore. It is my very favorite in all of pipe tobacco, and it is practically mandatory to try for va/per smokers. The perique is assertive and unmissable, but well short of harsh. After you crack open the tin, put the plastic lid back on and leave it alone for a couple of days because there's some weird quirk where it is initially a little muted out of the tin, but then it's full pepper spiciness comes through unmissably. The red VA provides a creamy thick base with a little tang to compliment the peppery zip of the perique.

 

[visualmemory]

I wrote something really silly, then deleted it, then again something and it was just some stupid joke on an old internet picture and decided I need some proper sleep and then try to post here more. Little information overload with being more than one Perique. I consider smoking it saute just for the experience but I'm afraid I'm in Europe and generally for many reasons there is no American made tobacco on the market. The trafika I'm using is pretty well stocked up and they got like everything which is on the local market (plus some more unusual things), some English Gawiths, some Dan Tobacco, Mc Conell's, Solani, whole Mc Baren Amphora line ect. I found even some blending Latakia and some blending Virginia but unfortunatelly no pure Perique. I even don't know If there is any avaliable off States.

So gentlemen and scholars I'm steering off to bed.

 

[visualmemory]

M'kay, I was thinking about rambling about how umami and savory are different things in culinary and how you wouldn't like instant ramen taste in your tobacco but apparently I'm not in my "man yelling at the clouds" mood. I think that bold flavor of soy sauce Jeremy of C&D was talking about is that aged good very dry wine taste of some more fermeneted Virginia plugs. But I'm not sure.

About Perique, at this time I have only one blend containing it which is Red Virginia of Mc Connell, will try to age it more. There are some very interesting cider like fruity notes but with a spoon full of black peper.

And also I think i lied once here, the VaPer with coughing syrup taste was Illsted not Solani.

 

[phdaemon]

M'kay, I was thinking about rambling about how umami and savory are different things in culinary and how you wouldn't like instant ramen taste in your tobacco but apparently I'm not in my "man yelling at the clouds" mood. I think that bold flavor of soy sauce Jeremy of C&D was talking about is that aged good very dry wine taste of some more fermeneted Virginia plugs. But I'm not sure.

About Perique, at this time I have only one blend containing it which is Red Virginia of Mc Connell, will try to age it more. There are some very interesting cider like fruity notes but with a spoon full of black peper.

And also I think i lied once here, the VaPer with coughing syrup taste was Illsted not Solani.

From WebMD

Umami is your fifth basic taste alongside sour, sweet, bitter, and salty. Japanese scientists discovered this fifth flavor in the early 20th century and called it "umami," which translates to "savory".

From Wikipedia:

A loanword from Japanese (うま味), umami can be translated as "pleasant savory taste".

Umami is the "proper" term to describe savory, but because savory has been relegated to a "class" of food and not a flavor, it is no longer really used to describe savory. So they aren't really different, and both terms are probably OK to use.

visualmemory:

It's a good story too and have a good protagonist. Interesting thing I wasn't aware of that perique can be both spicy and sweet/fruity. I was convinced It was either one depending on how ripe the blend is. Lot of things Jeremy is talking of I found to be true in my own experience. But I've got just a little pinch of used car salesman vibes while it seems to enchance every tobacco and I've lost it when he is talking about umiami thing. It always gets me when someone is talking about umami and tries to make it mysterious "5th flavor" which enchances every other flavor and it's super secret very "you might not get that" thing. I'm no cook. I'm not asian. It's super simple. Just get some MSG. In asian takeouts they use it like salt. Taste a pinch - pure umami. Now you can get that note in soy sauce, or potato chips.

I think I agree with this. I've seen some people use umami to describe certain blends that have no business being "savory". There's very few blends I've had that I would describe using that word. Maybe something like HH Matured Virginias (which does have a meaty BBQ-like note to it), but most blends do not have a savory note. I've also read reviews describing blends as having worcestershire sauce notes to it...makes me wonder what the person ate before they smoked.

 

[coys]

Buy a tin of GL Pease Fillmore. It is my very favorite in all of pipe tobacco, and it is practically mandatory to try for va/per smokers. The perique is assertive and unmissable, but well short of harsh. After you crack open the tin, put the plastic lid back on and leave it alone for a couple of days because there's some weird quirk where it is initially a little muted out of the tin, but then it's full pepper spiciness comes through unmissably. The red VA provides a creamy thick base with a little tang to compliment the peppery zip of the perique.

Thanks for the recommendation! I’ve been considering VaPers but the only one I’ve tried was too spicy for my taste. Fillmore sounds perfect.

 

[bullet08]

I been thinking about what "school me" means. Then realized that my friends and I used it back in junior high. It means to take someone out at the end of school to give additional "schooling" by beating the shit out of them. Or am I thinking of some other term.