BTW, the aged tobacco isn't aged because I specifically wnated to age it. It's because I bought more than I smoked and built up stock. Not running out of a much loved blend was far more the aim than aging.
Should I Buy Aged Tobacco?
- Thread starter Cyxelsid
- Start date
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Thanks for the clarification. Sorry to pick your brain, but inquiring minds want to know. Do you not believe that aging makes the tobacco appreciably better, or just never set out and invested in cellaring to age the tobacco? Also if you don’t mind, do you keep track of your cellar with notes or a spreadsheet?
Thanks,
-Doc
My experience is that aging changes tobaccos and whether that change is an improvement or not is up to the individual smoker to decide. Sometimes I like the change and other times I don't. There's always a bit of a trade off within a blend.
Also, you can jar a particular blend in several jars simultaneously, store them side by side on a shelf for years, and find that they have aged differently. I've had that experience with FVF, for example. Same 250 gram box, jarred within a minute of each other, sitting together undisturbed for years, and developing differently.
There's also an assumption in all of this that blenders are releasing products before they are ready to be enjoyed, which is insulting to better blenders, who release their blends already aged and ready to be enjoyed. That's the model of the better English blenders. You may prefer their product with several more years of aging, but it won't be what the blender had in mind when the blend was created.
There are blenders who do output what I consider to be immature blends, and I'm guessing that they don't want to carry the cost of aging a blend before cashing in on it. I don't carry much from those blenders in my cellar. Too much uncertainty, and if some of the components taste "young" I don't really know what it's supposed to be.
Anyone who claims in advance that they know how a blend will age is, again in my experience, full of it.
So while aging has happened, it's never been the point. My McClelland 2015 now has about 5-6 years of aging and I enjoy smoking it, but I enjoyed it more when it was fresh. At least I have it to enjoy without getting corn holed financially.
So I have nothing against aging but don't experience it as a panacea. It's an option to me, but rarely a necessity.
And if some folks think that aging is the answer to everything (it's 42, BTW) that's fine for them.
As for keeping track of everything with a spread sheet, oh hell no. I like the mystery. Doing that kind of diligence feels too much like work.
I'll make a thorough and comprehensive breakdown and description of all of the color and lighting concerns for the 500 or more shots on an episode of Harley Quinn as that's part of my job, but smoking a pipe is leisure activity. I know that many people enjoy tracking their cellars and that's just fine, but for me it would be boring as hell.
^^^^^
Just going off piste
My exact experience with 50 years of cellaring wine and 20 years of cellaring cigars
I've only been back smoking a pipe in the past few years, so I don't have sufficient experience cellaring pipe tobacco.
A good way to try aged tobacco is in a blend that uses aged leaf. One I like is Fusiler's ration reserve which is available on pipes and cigars. Russ uses 10 year old virginia in that blend and its quite good.
My experience mirrors sablebruah verbatim. Some changes are good, some less so. All my tobacco is aged because I only smoke a handful of blends, and I’ve cellared deep. That turned out to be a good decision, as internet sales to my state stopped after I had built a meaningful stash. It’s much harder to accumulate more now.