Question About Bulk - Name Changes - Local Tobacco Shops?

[bphilli75]

An interesting thing happened today. I went to our local, small, cigar/pipe/candy store and was browsing tobaccos. I couldn't find Lane's 1Q, so I asked if they had it. "Oh sure," she said, "It's right there. It's the one labeled #1 Blend. It's our best seller." She pointed me to her shelf of many bulk tobaccos in ziploc style bags. As it turns out, this is the blend I started with about three years ago when I started pipes. The label on the bag just says "#1 Blend," Not Lane 1Q.
There are also blends on this shelf called...

- Closest to Captain Black

- Best Black

- Light English

- Cherry Cordial

- Lite Burley Without the Bite

- Best Balkan

etc. etc. etc.
She was swamped and shorthanded, and I didn't want to dig in with a bunch of questions, so I thought I would ask here. Is this common practice? Is it likely that several of these other blends are known blends, bagged up and labeled something different?
Thanks!

 

[ciderguy]

It is extremely common. Most tobacco shops no longer employ anyone to do hand blending for them. As such, their house blends are often bulk tobaccos from the major companies, or simple mixtures of bulk tobaccos. The few tobacconists that still do hand blending of custom blends are amazing, and you should consider yourself blessed when you find one.
- Closest to Captain Black : Maybe Lane's BCA or RLP-6

- Cherry Cordial : Possibly TK-6, but there are lots of bulk cherry blends

- Lite Burley Without the Bite : Likely Lane's BLWB (Burley Light Without Bite)
Just be happy she knew which house name was 1Q. One of my local B&M sells it on their website, but if you ask for it in the store they have no idea.

 

[neverknowsbest]

It is very common. It is kind of annoying and outdated because of the internet, but it used to make sense from a retailer's point of view (exclusive local customer base who only had the local retailer to buy tobacco from). Another layer of complexity is that there are a few retailers who have invented blends that were later adopted upstream by the manufacturers and called something else, so the retailer's name is actually the original one. The names "1-Q" or "LL-7" weren't ever supposed to be names the consumers addressed them by - they are backroom names. The internet changed this.

 

[jndyer]

It was nice for her to tell you which blend was 1Q. One of the local B&M's here that went out of business would not tell you what the bulk blend was called (he wanted to exclusively sell you the tobacco you liked which I totally get) If you came in and asked for 1Q he would not even point you to the "his" blend that was 1Q.

 

[bphilli75]

Interesting! Thank you all for the insights. This has me curious. I look forward to the shop owner and tobacco expert returning to work so I can chat with her about this. She is out with a broken knee (OUCH!) right now but is a very nice lady and will hopefully clue me in on what is what in her bulks.

 

[wyfbane]

This stymied me as well for a long time. I still don't have a 100% handle on it. I go into my B&M here in Tacoma and they have Wilshire, which i know is 1Q, North Sea (Stokkebye's Nougat) and they are pretty forthright about putting McClelland at the bottom of the label of the McClelland blend jars, but then there are others i am uncertain about. And when I go into the cigar Humidor there are big bags of Lane this and Stokkebye that.
I just can't keep track of that all and the sporadic research I am doing on old pipes. I am a single parent in the military for Pete's Sake.
Lol.

 

[andrew]

Yeah they do that at the B&M I used to shop at, they change the name on McClellands mixtures, like dark full english is regimental standard, three berry blend they call wolsely, it's kind of annoying. And then they have this leftovers mixture that they combine a bunch of leftover stuff and call it hyde park.