And that's the really funny part about (getting back to) the main thread topic... along with that Big Apple Pipes interview Leonard just did... he basically acknowledges all of this. That the older pipe smokers are smoking 1 blend (usually Capt Black) and have been forever and will be til they're laid down... while the newer/younger smokers are very much into exploring variety and small batch/higher quality/rarer varietals etc... yet after explicitly stating all this he then completely flies in the face of it when he explains how their strategy going forward is to cater to the former while torching their facility/market that catered to the latter.
Like I've said before, I believe Sutliff could have been pared down but kept and focused on this new craft market (barring serious crackdown from the FDA in which case C&D etc. will be just as affected). I think we would have happily paid any increased price and shouldered a *reasonable* amount of blend discontinuation. The only logical conclusion I can make from what they've done however, is that they assume they're gonna be able to strong arm the new generation into the same corale as the old... well, time will tell...
