Taking Stock of the Blenders in the Cellar

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rmbittner

Lifer
Dec 12, 2012
2,759
1,994
I don’t know if my tobacco cellar is deep or wide, both, or neither. I know there are still a number of brands/blenders that aren’t represented—some, like Ashton, Astley’s, and CAO, I’ve never even tried—but out of around 275 tins, this is my current breakdown of blenders and the number of blends that are represented:

Brebbia - 1 blend
Cornell & Diehl - 4 blends
Dan Tobacco - 2 blends
Dunhill - 3 blends
Esoterica - 2 blends
Gawith Hoggarth - 4 blends
GLPease - 11 blends
J.F. Germain’s - 2 blends
James J. Fox - 1 blend
MacBaren - 3 blends
Presbyterian (I didn’t know where to put this one!)
McClelland - 16 blends
Rattray’s - 10 blends
Robert Lewis - 2 blends
Samuel Gawith - 4 blends
Sutliffe - 2 blends

The one obvious-to-me brand that’s missing from this list is Peterson. I haven’t yet tried any of their “formerly Dunhill” blends, so those could well end up in the cellar. (And I haven’t felt the need to cellar any other Petersons that I’ve tried.) I’ve also never tried Sillem’s or Wessex, so those could definitely be added. My only Solani experience was Aged Burley Flake, but that could be added too—in addition to exploring more of their range.

I feel like this is a pretty broad range, but do folks here have favorite blenders that I don’t have represented at all? I favor non-aromatics, but I’m open to including tins from blenders that only do aromatics. And I definitely favor tins over bulk, so while I might pick up the occasional Lane or Stokkebye blend, it isn’t something I’m actively cellaring. But I love exploring new blends, so I’m definitely open to suggestions.
 

rmbittner

Lifer
Dec 12, 2012
2,759
1,994
John Aylesbury, HU, Hearth & Home, McConnell, Seattle Pipe Club could be some options for tins.

Wilke/LJ Peretti/Watch City Cigar/The Country Squire for bulk...or tins!

I could go on but that should get you going.
Looking over your list, I was surprised that I hadn’t included McConnell, since I know I love their “Oriental” mixture. Turns out, I’d overlooked it on my spreadsheet!
 

rmbittner

Lifer
Dec 12, 2012
2,759
1,994
Fribourg & Treyer.
Agreed; they should absolutely be represented. But every time I think about ordering something, it seems nearly everything is out of stock. I haven’t felt the need to do more legwork to seek them out beyond my usual mail-order suppliers (SmokingPipes.com and Iwan Ries). But now they’re definitely on my “list.”
 

litup

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 16, 2015
722
2,206
Sacramento, CA
Davidoff
Erik Stokkeybe 4th Generation
Fribourg & Treyer
HU Tobacco
Peterson
and a number of the "one blend brands" like St. Bruno, Presbyterian, Capstan, A&C Peterson (Escudo)
 
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I am amazed at the lack of Stokkebye. I have a whole shelve devoted to them.
F&T stuff, I can understand. They are ok, so so for me. I have several tins set back in hope that maybe one day they will taste better. But, yeh, I am not wasting time hunting it down. Actually, the Briary usually has them in stock, if someone wanted to hit them up.

For me, C&D is the one that I have the most diversity set back, tins and bulk. I need more variety from GLP.
 

Oddball

Starting to Get Obsessed
Dec 29, 2022
221
1,047
TN
It brings up an interesting subject I have been pondering for a while.


Last year I went on a cellar stock up binge. I basically created from humble cellar a few Sam Gawith tins I bought one day to the monstrosity that I have today. I bought European Blends that were 'hard to come by' when they dropped online, dropped at the local B&M or I picked up traveling for work. Then I bulked up by buying more domestic OR always available blends when they went on sale.
Then when I ran out of storage I looked upon on my own work and was a little shocked on how large my cellar had gotten, between basically March 22 and October.


As I've gotten deep into this practice, I also began to look at who makes what. Blenders buying up brands and sending them out.. (STG, K&K, C&D, etc)

It made me curious, does the branding matter? When I buy a brand based on ingredients or blends etc, that are made by the big goons, am I buying it over and over under different labels? This isn't a bad thing as much as it is just an awareness thing.


Even the one blend brands aren't brands anymore, they are blends sold under a brand made by the same one or two big blenders.

For a while I was collecting tobacco in full TAD but not because of FOMO, but because I wanted to have at least some representation in the cellar of good stuff from all over.. Now, I don't sweat if I don't have this label from that blending house, if I already have these other two or three...


Does that make sense?
 
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It made me curious, does the branding matter? When I buy a brand based on ingredients or blends etc, that are made by the big goons, am I buying it over and over under different labels?
Not really. I've heard GLP does a lot of his own sourcing, but C&D does the processing. I'm not sure how much of this. But, when you buy a GLP, you are not buying something made by C&D and just repackaged.

Like some of the Warped cigar stuff made by C&D. A blender may have a recipe and his own sources, but leaves C&D to do the blending with their equipment.

I am more skeptical of stuff that was associated with Lane before they were taken over.
 

crashthegrey

Lifer
Dec 18, 2015
3,810
3,566
41
Cobleskill, NY
www.greywoodie.com
Would definitely say Seattle Pipe Club. They have a few blends that are amazing. My favorite being SPC Plum Pudding SR. I have a few pounds of that in my cellar. If you are a Balkan/English lover, it's a great blend.
Unless they include these in Sutliff, who is the blender of SPC tobaccos.

I do not keep blenders in my cellar, they always want to be fed.
 

rmbittner

Lifer
Dec 12, 2012
2,759
1,994
I managed to stock my cellar with just five blends.
I admire people who can do that. I’ve thought myself about focusing on a single blend for each of the genres I smoke—which would get me to around 5 or 6, I guess—but over half of my best-loved blends are very difficult to stock up on these days. (I used to always have an open tin of Penzance going, for example.)

And, truth be told, I guess I really crave variety in my pipe tobaccos.
 

sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
19,621
44,833
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
Looks like you are wide and deep on McClelland, and not so wide on other makes. It's hard for me to recommend current releases due to the wholesale changes going on with subbing components and in some cases, changing flavorings, as the contents no longer represent what I bought just a few years ago.

That said, there are a few really exceptional blenders working with what they can get who continue to turn out new blends and I would look there. HU, blended by Hans Biedermann offers some of the most enjoyable blends being released. They use a lot of Empire leaf, so they're more fully flavored than what's currently coming out of the US.

KBV - Ken Byron Ventures - is a manufacturer of small batch releases, actual small batch, 30 lbs, not 500 lbs, that produces consistently interesting blends using remaining vintage stocks of tobaccos that they find here and there. A lot of what they release is aromatic, but they also release some excellent non aros.

Go wider with G & H, while they're still producing some great Virginias.

Lastly, check out Watch City Cigars blends. Offerings like Deluxe Crumb Cut, 558, Glass Slipper, and others are excellent smokes. Ernie, the blender, won't fake a blend. If he can't source the components he used to originally make that blend, it goes out of production until he can locate the ingredients for that blend. No sticking a changling in the tin.