I was curious if anyone has, or knows of a list of tobacco blends that use only St. James Parish Perique. I don't mean a 100% perique tobacco, but rather the source of the Perique constituent in the blend.
St. James Perique Blenders List?
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My understanding - and I will be corrected if I'm wrong - is that if it isn't from St. James County, it isn't Perique. It is a legally protected name, ala Champagne, Vidalia, or Bourbon.
That Rimbouche is so darn good, that every time I pop a tin, I smoke it and only it all day long till it is gone. A tin takes me two and a half days. I am reluctant to buy a whole bag, because I know that I would eventually burn out on it.
Mark Ryan owns D&R, and also was the guy who single-handedly saved the perique industry. So, for the good perique, his company is the place to start.
Mark Ryan owns D&R, and also was the guy who single-handedly saved the perique industry. So, for the good perique, his company is the place to start.
As I understand it, all perique on the market today is a mixture of traditional perique (call it Saint James Parish Perique), and Acadia Perique.
Acadian Perique, again if my memory serves me, is the Green River Burley plant, which is grown on the same farm as the traditional style, and processed in the same way as the traditional style.
I may be wrong, but I do not think the old school perique we read about from the past is available today.
Acadian Perique, again if my memory serves me, is the Green River Burley plant, which is grown on the same farm as the traditional style, and processed in the same way as the traditional style.
I may be wrong, but I do not think the old school perique we read about from the past is available today.
...except in the D&R Blend Rimbouche SJ. They also have one with the AP, called the Rimboushe AP. The Rimbouche AB uses something similar to Kentucky Dark Fired, but even spicier. All three are worth a taste, and it's from the Man himself. The guy who saved the process.
OK, on my wish list, Cosmic. Sounds interesting and a "must try" for the well rounded pipe blend palate.
Just don't get put off by how dry the blend will come right out of the tin. It is that way on purpose, and after tasting how delicious it is, you may just want to dry everything after that.
Ahhh crap!! The TAD has me, my mouth is watering, off to go order more Rimbouche...
Ahhh crap!! The TAD has me, my mouth is watering, off to go order more Rimbouche...
I am cynical when it comes to the perique mystique. It's got such a wonderfully colorful history and unique qualities that I'm fairly certain a good amount of the perique we get is more perique process. It's so unique and yet so revered that it seems implausible that someone would have to 'save' it.
I really wish the shipping wasn't so much for a single tin or I'd pull the trigger. But I will add it to my next bundle.
The problem was that the farmers stopped getting paid enough to raise their families, and people were dropping out in droves and selling off farm land. Same thing that is happening to farms everywhere. Heck, I had to step in and save my own family farm. Mark, worked to set up an exchange that got them premium prices for their efforts. There was a great interview on the Radio show a year or more back. Look for the Mark Ryan interview. Good stuff. He is a down to earth guy.
Thank you for the input guys. edgreen and cosmic, I just ordered a bag of the SJ and AB, but of course had to order other tins too for free shipping.. TAD took over, the rest is history. I'm really looking forward to smoking that SJ! Thanks again!
"Mark Ryan owns D&R, and also was the guy who single-handedly saved the perique industry"
Actually it was Mike Little of the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company that stepped in five years before Mark Ryan. And that was due to the efforts of Christopher Brown and Matt Nichols. It was cigs that saved Perique, not pipes. Ryan stepped in 7 years later and expanded what the men started years earlier.
"GRAND POINT, La. — About 15 years ago, the world supply of the pungent Cajun tobacco perique was down to about five barrels. One of the rarest tobaccos in the world, it comes from St. James Parish, about 50 miles west of New Orleans.
The market had been declining since a peak in the 1920s, and Percy Martin was the only full-scale farmer left. A few bad seasons had knocked his production down to the point where perique was on the verge of extinction.
Mr. Martin died last year, but not before he saw the tobacco he had spent his life with make a nearly miraculous recovery to what might be its biggest business success. His son Ray took over the farm, and this spring Ray Martin has 236 barrels sitting on his barn floor — the most he could remember seeing, ever.
“I started getting more people, must be five years ago,” Mr. Martin said. “We just kept it going. We were the last ones planting.”
Perique (pronounced peh-REEK) gets its distinctive flavor from barrel fermentation, a technique Louisiana settlers are thought to have picked up in the 18th or 19th century from the local Choctaws who aged tobacco in stumps. The current system has changed little since then.
After harvesting the plants, the farmers nail them to the rafters of a barn with a small piece of wood called a cop-cop, for the noise it makes. When the plants have dried, leaves are removed by hand and placed in oak barrels under giant jackscrews. Every few months, workers take all the leaves out, put the bottom ones on top and press them back under the screws. The entire curing process takes more than a year.
The result is a powerful experience. Fans describe perique as spicy, earthy and rich. It is a “condiment” tobacco, more akin to an intense habanero hot sauce than ketchup. It rarely makes up more than 15 percent of any given blend, and that is enough to make its presence known. Most people in St. James have a story about someone who tried to smoke or chew perique straight. It never ends well.
The backbreaking labor associated with that preindustrial process, combined with a succession of storms and low prices, had led to a long period of attrition. When two tobacco enthusiasts, Christopher Brown and Matt Nichols, decided around 1998 to go see where one of their favorite products grew, they were shocked to find just a few acres of farmland left.
Mr. Brown and Mr. Nichols resolved to do something to preserve perique. They helped Ray Martin send samples of his tobacco to major companies, and one of them ended up on the desk of Mike Little, now the president of Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, which makes American Spirit cigarettes.
In 2005, a North Carolina businessman named Mark Ryan bought an old processing facility in nearby Convent, La., with a lineage going back to Pierre Chenet, thought to be the first Westerner to produce perique. Recently, he added to it. Mr. Ryan has more demand than he can fill with his local farmers, and augments his barrels with tobacco from places like Kentucky, Virginia and Canada, as his predecessor had done for years as more and more farmers left the business.
Unlike Champagne or Cuban cigars, perique lacks a legal protection defining where it must be grown or processed. But for the purist, the only true perique is grown and processed in St. James.
Mr. Martin’s barn is a jumble of a century of cobbled technology. There are new presses made out of metal, old presses made of logs with the bark still on, and cop-cops with nail holes worn through them lying on the floor. Increased production has brought increased scrutiny and regulations, both from the government and American Spirit, but by and large the process looks the same as it did in the early 20th century.
“It’s about as high-tech as it can get,” Mr. Martin said."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/us/tobacco-lovers-discover-mystique-of-perique.html?_r=0
Actually it was Mike Little of the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company that stepped in five years before Mark Ryan. And that was due to the efforts of Christopher Brown and Matt Nichols. It was cigs that saved Perique, not pipes. Ryan stepped in 7 years later and expanded what the men started years earlier.
"GRAND POINT, La. — About 15 years ago, the world supply of the pungent Cajun tobacco perique was down to about five barrels. One of the rarest tobaccos in the world, it comes from St. James Parish, about 50 miles west of New Orleans.
The market had been declining since a peak in the 1920s, and Percy Martin was the only full-scale farmer left. A few bad seasons had knocked his production down to the point where perique was on the verge of extinction.
Mr. Martin died last year, but not before he saw the tobacco he had spent his life with make a nearly miraculous recovery to what might be its biggest business success. His son Ray took over the farm, and this spring Ray Martin has 236 barrels sitting on his barn floor — the most he could remember seeing, ever.
“I started getting more people, must be five years ago,” Mr. Martin said. “We just kept it going. We were the last ones planting.”
Perique (pronounced peh-REEK) gets its distinctive flavor from barrel fermentation, a technique Louisiana settlers are thought to have picked up in the 18th or 19th century from the local Choctaws who aged tobacco in stumps. The current system has changed little since then.
After harvesting the plants, the farmers nail them to the rafters of a barn with a small piece of wood called a cop-cop, for the noise it makes. When the plants have dried, leaves are removed by hand and placed in oak barrels under giant jackscrews. Every few months, workers take all the leaves out, put the bottom ones on top and press them back under the screws. The entire curing process takes more than a year.
The result is a powerful experience. Fans describe perique as spicy, earthy and rich. It is a “condiment” tobacco, more akin to an intense habanero hot sauce than ketchup. It rarely makes up more than 15 percent of any given blend, and that is enough to make its presence known. Most people in St. James have a story about someone who tried to smoke or chew perique straight. It never ends well.
The backbreaking labor associated with that preindustrial process, combined with a succession of storms and low prices, had led to a long period of attrition. When two tobacco enthusiasts, Christopher Brown and Matt Nichols, decided around 1998 to go see where one of their favorite products grew, they were shocked to find just a few acres of farmland left.
Mr. Brown and Mr. Nichols resolved to do something to preserve perique. They helped Ray Martin send samples of his tobacco to major companies, and one of them ended up on the desk of Mike Little, now the president of Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, which makes American Spirit cigarettes.
In 2005, a North Carolina businessman named Mark Ryan bought an old processing facility in nearby Convent, La., with a lineage going back to Pierre Chenet, thought to be the first Westerner to produce perique. Recently, he added to it. Mr. Ryan has more demand than he can fill with his local farmers, and augments his barrels with tobacco from places like Kentucky, Virginia and Canada, as his predecessor had done for years as more and more farmers left the business.
Unlike Champagne or Cuban cigars, perique lacks a legal protection defining where it must be grown or processed. But for the purist, the only true perique is grown and processed in St. James.
Mr. Martin’s barn is a jumble of a century of cobbled technology. There are new presses made out of metal, old presses made of logs with the bark still on, and cop-cops with nail holes worn through them lying on the floor. Increased production has brought increased scrutiny and regulations, both from the government and American Spirit, but by and large the process looks the same as it did in the early 20th century.
“It’s about as high-tech as it can get,” Mr. Martin said."
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/us/tobacco-lovers-discover-mystique-of-perique.html?_r=0
Acadian Perique is a mixture of St. James Perique and Perique-processed Green River Burley. To the best of my knowledge, no one is using the processed Burley straight, only as part of the mixture.
That said, Mark and I may be working on a project that will expand the number of blends containing St. James Perique.
Russ
That said, Mark and I may be working on a project that will expand the number of blends containing St. James Perique.
Russ
In reading the Cultivators Handbook of Natural Tobacco by Bill Drake, I did get the whole story. Bill worked with Brown and Nichols. So, I got the gist. But, if you listen to the Radio Show, you get a better idea of Mark's role. But, the thing in that quote that got me was...
The myths of perique just crack me up. I smoke straight perique occasionally. Its good, and sometimes hits the spot. It's just very one dimensional by itself, monotonous. To me, it doesn't have a "hot and spicy" taste till it has a little something to bounce off of, like a little Virginia. I always think of it as cinnamon, a little sweetens up a pastry, a whole lot makes it hot. But, by itself it's different, more like a cigarette. I don't even really get a huge nic hit, not like smoking straight Kentucky Dark Fired by itself. But, perique by itself gives me a neat acidic taste on my teeth afterwards.
I just think that the whole Allister Crowley thing is what gives people this misconception of smoking straight perique being insane or something. Or, maybe I am just crazy, ha ha! Hmmm.... I do like to smoke it naked ...except for my aluminum foil hat. But, it's not like it's in my usual rotation or anything.
The myths of perique just crack me up. I smoke straight perique occasionally. Its good, and sometimes hits the spot. It's just very one dimensional by itself, monotonous. To me, it doesn't have a "hot and spicy" taste till it has a little something to bounce off of, like a little Virginia. I always think of it as cinnamon, a little sweetens up a pastry, a whole lot makes it hot. But, by itself it's different, more like a cigarette. I don't even really get a huge nic hit, not like smoking straight Kentucky Dark Fired by itself. But, perique by itself gives me a neat acidic taste on my teeth afterwards.
I just think that the whole Allister Crowley thing is what gives people this misconception of smoking straight perique being insane or something. Or, maybe I am just crazy, ha ha! Hmmm.... I do like to smoke it naked ...except for my aluminum foil hat. But, it's not like it's in my usual rotation or anything.
Wow, wonderful informaiton. Much more than I bargained for. Thank you gentleman very much for the education! Um, I didn't need to know you smoke your straight perique naked with a foil hat cosmic, but I understand!
Thanks Russ for that nibble! I just today ordered my first tins of Fire Storm. I'm looking forward to the journey!
Thanks Russ for that nibble! I just today ordered my first tins of Fire Storm. I'm looking forward to the journey!
Somehow I left out the punchline on the cig angle. Here is the omitted paragraph.
"In 2000, American Spirit introduced a perique cigarette, giving Mr. Martin the consistent buyer he needed. Over the years, American Spirit and its perique blend kept expanding, finding plenty of willing buyers in America and overseas. Mr. Martin also runs a processing plant for the growing ranks of perique farmers."
I had read about this a while back when I got an interest in pipe tobacco beyond Capt Black. I have no doubt that Mark was the prime mover in the pipe tobacco arena. Regardless, it is a cool story.
"In 2000, American Spirit introduced a perique cigarette, giving Mr. Martin the consistent buyer he needed. Over the years, American Spirit and its perique blend kept expanding, finding plenty of willing buyers in America and overseas. Mr. Martin also runs a processing plant for the growing ranks of perique farmers."
I had read about this a while back when I got an interest in pipe tobacco beyond Capt Black. I have no doubt that Mark was the prime mover in the pipe tobacco arena. Regardless, it is a cool story.
As a side note, Drake left American Spirits to develop several heritage style tobaccos from seeds found in ancient native sites. Rustica was one of them, and it is the strongest plant in nicotine yet ever discovered. He also discovered several different types of orinoco, which is the ancestors of the Virginia strains. He then went on to found a big push in the homegrown tobacco movement inspiring all organic tobaccos, seed banks, and websites for home growers. So, it's like tracking a group of people who worked to shape tobacco culture in different ways.
Then I think they all knew someone who knew Kevin Bacon, ha ha!!
Then I think they all knew someone who knew Kevin Bacon, ha ha!!
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