Re-thinking Wistfulness for Tobacco Exclusivity

[SBC]

Every once in a while, somebody here posts about the ideal of tobacco exclusivity.

I get it. Many of us hold in our minds the image of some old timer, remembered endearingly for always smoking a particular tobacco. There's a certain nostalgia attached to this image, and a certain regret (in some of us) that we'll never be that guy.

Now I know that many of you don't share this nostalgia. "Variety is the spice of life" has been your motto, and you've never felt wistfulness in this direction. That's fine.

But for my part, I have sometimes felt this wistfulness. I've wished that I represented something simpler and more rooted -- less influenced by the consumptive mode of a luxurious society.

But I'm re-thinking that (on this point), and here are three reasons --

(1) Like so many other things that we wax nostalgic about, the historic reality had everything to do with real-world limitations. There weren't many tobaccos available, and a guy picked the one he liked best. If we chose to impose limitations on ourselves (which of course could be a healthy spiritual discipline), we'd be doing something different than the historical reality we're talking about.

(2) What else do we feel this way about?
"Old Uncle Ernie only ever ate hot dogs. Literally. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, for 80 years -- nothing besides hot dogs ever passed his lips. What a rooted fellow. Those were the good-ol'-days when a man was content with one thing."
No, that would be weird.
We don't feel this way about food or drink or anything else -- why tobacco?

(3) Nostalgia attaches to an image, and it's surprising how quickly and easily it shifts when the image shifts. The hipster wants tweed and a carefully waxed mustache on Monday, but he wants plaid flannel and an unkempt beard on Tuesday, because the period-from-which-he-feels-alienated-du-jour has shifted. Likewise, if we think of 1950s grandpa smoking that one tobacco from that one Dr. Grabow, we wonder whether we should settle down to one tobacco, too. But think instead of hobbits. Do you imagine that most hobbits are rigid loyalists to Longbottom Leaf or Old Toby or Southern Star, exclusively? No. Hobbits are fond of nice things, and of variety in colorful waistcoats, and of smorgasbords at parties, etc. I imagine that their eyes might grow wide in wonder and delight at the variety in our tobacco cellars!

 

[WVOldFart]

I enjoy a variety of tobaccos, but I am trying to cut it down to about a half dozen regulars. I know when I was young, the old timers smoked one type of tobacco because that was what was available in our area. They also smoked one pipe until it wore out and then got a new one. Getting a new pipe required going into town which most people in our area did once a week to do their grocery shopping and their other needs. Today we have the luxury of many blends and many pipes. Times change and I'm glad that I have the opportunity to enjoy more than one type of tobacco and enjoy the many pipes that i have. Some times it is good to be living in this age.

 

[lraisch]

Your description of a hipster's "nostalgia du-jour" rings true, but the idea of earlier generations of pipe smokers being limited to one tobacco is a bit of a misconception.

Many people in the US were satisfied with the choices available to them at the local market, but more urban areas had a wide variety of tobaccos available.

There were also catalogs available in those pre-internet days and even offerings from Sears. Where I grew up in the 50s and 60s every city of any size had at least one tobacconist and every newsstand or drug store had a variety of pouches and tins.

My father had only one "bespoke" item in his life and that was a custom blend made and labeled for him by a local tobacconist.

 

[cigrmaster]

I have found that my 41 different flakes and plugs and one rope are plenty of variety. If people feel all they need is one blend and one pipe who am I to argue? That is what gives them enjoyment and no one should ever try to convince them their way is wrong.

 

[fireground_piper]

I’m of the type that can and has eaten a singular food for breakfast and lunch, 7 days a week, for years. Then I’ll change to something else and do that for years. Same brands and everything.

That being said, singular tobacco doesn’t do it for me. I have about 6-7 that Iv deemed my favorites and everything else i smoke, I do so just to get rid of it cause I bought it. My best bowls are the ones in my favorite list and at some point that’s all I’ll be left with to much happiness. That’s about as limited as I think I’d want to get.

 

[tmcg81]

I think about the idea of being a one blend guy a lot. It's not a problem for me with cigarettes. I don't have a Rubbermaid tote with a hundred different packs of cigarettes in it. Also, not a problem with beer. If I'm at a bar and there's Guinness, that's what I'm drinking 99% of the time. But pipe tobacco? I clearly need half a dozen Burley flakes because I need variety.

 

[simong]

It’s the internet. Before internet shopping, forums & all the discussions/hype most smokers stuck to just one or two blends.
A decrease in quality has played a part too, I think. More of an incentive to be forever looking for something better or wanting to try something different.

 

[jttnk]

I enjoy the variety for sure. Same with cigars and whiskey, trying new things, learning the different flavors and to interpret them. Endless fun.

 

[crusader]

Your description of a hipster's "nostalgia du-jour" rings true, but the idea of earlier generations of pipe smokers being limited to one tobacco is a bit of a misconception.

Many people in the US were satisfied with the choices available to them at the local market, but more urban areas had a wide variety of tobaccos available.

There were also catalogs available in those pre-internet days and even offerings from Sears. Where I grew up in the 50s and 60s every city of any size had at least one tobacconist and every newsstand or drug store had a variety of pouches and tins.

My father had only one "bespoke" item in his life and that was a custom blend made and labeled for him by a local tobacconist.

Have you ever tried your fathers blend? It would be so cool if you could get it reproduced for you.

 

[vosBghos]

Only been smoking pipe about half a year but I’ve thrown a lot of money and time at it as I’m pretty OCD about things I know nothing about. I like to deep dive into things. I think I’m approaching 100 blends at this point and I have a handful of favorites in each family and I expect that I will one day be making a monthly order of 3-5 tins with a cellar of 20 blends or so. The trick is finding blends that stand out and truly distinguish themselves from all others in the family , with Taste, Nicotine, and ease of prep and smoke. I have definitely found that in a few but with so many to choose from it can be quite overwhelming and I can see the beauty in the pre internet days.

 

[lraisch]

No, he stopped smoking years before I ever started. I do have one of his old pipes though. I smoked it a few times many years ago. It's a Yello-bowl with more fills in it then you would think possible. I only keep it now for that sense of nostalgia.

 

[isaac]

im really working hard on going deep in the cellar rather than wide. Ffirst world problem to be inundated with so many option.

There are a lot of great blends out there, but i dont need 200 open tins of various blends.

Currently working on finishing off blends I wont stop up on to get rid of these tins

 

[cigrmaster]

im really working hard on going deep in the cellar rather than wide. Ffirst world problem to be inundated with so many option.

There are a lot of great blends out there, but i dont need 200 open tins of various blends.

Currently working on finishing off blends I wont stop up on to get rid of these tins

When I built my cellar and committed to doing it in a year. I concentrated on blends I felt had a good chance of making the cut to be cellared. I already knew I loved my flakes so that part was easy. I then began buying a tin here and there and anything that looked remotely possible that would fit in to the genres I was cellaring. I was only buying Va, Vaper and Vaburs. I think I tried testing every possible flake blend that fit my tastes. I always got a test tin first and then smoked it till I decided it could make the cut in my cellar.

There were a number of flakes I did not go after. trying them and after all the testing I have 41 and almost all are deep.


I liked the idea of a narrower and deeper than wider and less deep. When I want to smoke a favorite blend I don't have to worry about running out, which is a nice feeling.

 

[bullet08]

Why would I want to be anyone else? I do what I want, when I want. I don't care someone smoked one blend for 40 years in a pipe. Good for him! That's that person. I'll smoke whichever blend or same as yesterday on one of the Peterson, and be happy. Or not.

 

[isaac]

When I built my cellar and committed to doing it in a year. I concentrated on blends I felt had a good chance of making the cut to be cellared. I already knew I loved my flakes so that part was easy. I then began buying a tin here and there and anything that looked remotely possible that would fit in to the genres I was cellaring. I was only buying Va, Vaper and Vaburs. I think I tried testing every possible flake blend that fit my tastes. I always got a test tin first and then smoked it till I decided it could make the cut in my cellar.

There were a number of flakes I did not go after. trying them and after all the testing I have 41 and almost all are deep.


I liked the idea of a narrower and deeper than wider and less deep. When I want to smoke a favorite blend I don't have to worry about running out, which is a nice feeling.

Im trying too reconfigure my cellar so to speak. No real sense in bulking up on Balkan or English blends. That being said, i load up on Peretti and Watch City as they are both independent blending shops. I would hate for productiton to stop for something I loved like Peretti Engllish 110/Tashkent or WCC blends like R&B or Rouxgaroux.
Now, im stocking up on virginia blends for the aging potential. Im trying to become better about not picking up every new release. Im finally done being disappointed with C&D Virginias and VaPer small batches. Their last englishes (Palmetto and From Beyond) were excellent. FOMO unfortunately is a real thing.

 

[K.E. Powell]

I think another factor is that, at least as the United States is concerned, nostalgia is something saturated heavily into our consumer culture, which is essentially de facto culture. Remakes, reboots, throwbacks, vintage collecting, revisionist histories, etc. All of it packaged and repackaged for ready consumption. Why make a new or better product when you can get your consumer base to develop an (often irrational) emotional bond with the product, and then play on that bond when necessary to rake in that sweet, easy nostalgia money?

Nostalgia has a way of seeping into the public consciousness when people have good reason to be pessimistic about the future as well, and boy howdy, are there plenty reasons to be pessimistic right now. It is therefore tempting to look back into the past, and do so with rose-colored glasses. As others have pointed out, the one-blend grandpa is mostly a fiction, and when it is true, it is true due to more mundane reasons (e.g. product scarcity, rural isolation, etc.) than whatever idealized fantasy we cooked up in our imaginations.

Nostalgia is a glamour, a spell. And though fun to indulge every now and then, one should never forget that nostalgia is more often than not a voluntary suspension of reason, a willingness to view the past not as it was, but as we imagined it to be. And, as an aside, any vice worth having complicates ones life, not simplifies it. I love pipe smoking, and it brings joy and even tranquility, but simplicity? An illusion of it, perhaps. But in reality, it is another complication, an attachment. From cleaning the pipes, to buying tools and tobacco, to trying to finesse questions about smoking to my dentist, it has not made my life easier. And I'm quite fine with that.

 

[Chasing Embers]

For the first 20 years I only smoked Carter Hall, Christmas Cheer, Schwab's Nautical, mail ordered pound blocks of Black Frigate, Camel Wide cigarettes, and chewed straight long cut Kodiak tobacco. I found out about online tobacco sales in 2013 and had some fun buying up new blends but now mostly smoke only two. I generally eat a few McDonald's double quarter pounder cheese burgers throughout my workday and only eat Zero candy bars.

 

[ThermionicScott]

I've come to realize that I haven't tried enough tobaccos yet to commit to a small handful for deep cellaring. So, my plan is not just to keep adding tins of my favorites, but also throw in one-off tins of things that sound interesting. It's probable that I'll only ever have one tin of some blends that end up blowing my mind, so my focus will be on enjoying them for the time being, and then letting go when they're gone.

Minimalism can be an attachment in and of itself.

 

[woodsroad]

Some people eat the same fast food meal every day. Some people have only one dog. Some people drive only one car and some people have only one spouse. I don’t endorse that kind of behavior, but it doesn’t mystify me, either.

What mystifies me is how a person can obsess ad infinitum over the choices that other people make.

 

[warren]

What mystifies me is how a person can obsess ad infinitum over the choices that other people make.

I put it down to lack of self-esteem, jealousy, envy and the like.