I predominantly smoke one blend.
In the course of a year, I may smoke 4 or 5 blends total.
In the course of a year, I may smoke 4 or 5 blends total.
The One Smoke Gentlemen
- Thread starter damacene
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I’m enjoying variety while I have a stash. The reality is most of what I smoke after I’m 50 will be homegrown, and probably just one or two varieties of leaf. That excites me.
Agree ... different blends taste differently in various pipes as well so until one tries all the combinations its very hard to say this one forever ! ...
Usually I drink black coffee all day but sometimes I have another coffee variant such as cappuccino. The latter mostly when on holiday. I may even seldom use sugar and/or cream/milk. Black coffee for me, please. I am addicted. Can't remember a single day without coffee or tobacco, since about 1982. Smoked mostly yellow or blue Capstan for many years. But occasionally tried some similar quality blend. Of course when I started smoking pipe, I had to try every crappy OTCs, aromatics as well as the usually hyped unicorns. But Capstan satisfied my cravings during the day and didn't meet any serious competition, according to my taste buds and addicted psyche.
My dad smoked nothing but Granger from about age 15 to 65, when he quit cold turkey to take a job on a non-smoking campus. Since he smoked pretty much all day except during meals, it was one or the other, Granger or the job. He also only had one fully functional pipe at a time. He might keep the burn-out as a back-up if it still smoked at all. He smoked Granger only from the pouch. Once or twice when he was given a tub of Granger, he'd use empty pouches to carry it around during the work day. He had absolute brand loyalty. He departed life at age 89, as I have often said, licensed to drive without glasses. His smoking life included his commission as an Navy officer during WWIi, when he trained on both coasts of the U.S. and then was sent by transport to the Philippines where he was skipper of a YMS minesweeper. I was born about a year after he got back from the war.
The art of smoking a pipe I remeber it like it was yesterday my first pipe Dr Grabow Omega and a bag of some cheap bulk blend that taste horrible to me now I still have a ounce or 2 left in a old mason jar for memory sake but thats about all I tried it some months back and it was terrible had to dump the bowl out.
My point is over the years I set out to figure this pipe thing out and started to sample differnt tobaccos to see what I liked after a couple of years of sampling I landed on Frog mortons cellar that was my favorite, of course I would smoke others but I was starting to zero in on what I liked.Then McClellands closed up shop and my cellar ran low wasnt very much of a cellar only 2 tins of the old Frog Mortons Cellar I had stashed away but I savored those tins for a time while I searched for a clone or something close.
Again I found my self in the wilderness of options reading reviews and trying different recommendations like
North Woods,Shepards Pie,Bengle Slices etc, all terrific smoke but then it happened years after my belovd Frog Mortons Cellar vanished from my grasp. I found what I was seeking Samuel Gawith SQUADRON LEADER I can not explain it but I new my search was complete after the second bowel. It was almost spirtual in nature for me the great adventure in exploring different blends was not comming to a end but would be slowing down as I settled in to this blend that is resonating with me so well currently.
I will always sample different blends I feel while Iam still active in this hobby but the time has come for me to slow down on my sampling and start to work on my rotation with SQUADRON LEADER in the lead and Escudo Navy De Luxe and Shepards Pie as contenders for my rotion also.
So I say smoke what you Have, Be Thankful and when you find what you like stock your cellar deep as you can, for you never know when that favorite blend will disappear like a Puff of smoke.
Christ is King
My point is over the years I set out to figure this pipe thing out and started to sample differnt tobaccos to see what I liked after a couple of years of sampling I landed on Frog mortons cellar that was my favorite, of course I would smoke others but I was starting to zero in on what I liked.Then McClellands closed up shop and my cellar ran low wasnt very much of a cellar only 2 tins of the old Frog Mortons Cellar I had stashed away but I savored those tins for a time while I searched for a clone or something close.
Again I found my self in the wilderness of options reading reviews and trying different recommendations like
North Woods,Shepards Pie,Bengle Slices etc, all terrific smoke but then it happened years after my belovd Frog Mortons Cellar vanished from my grasp. I found what I was seeking Samuel Gawith SQUADRON LEADER I can not explain it but I new my search was complete after the second bowel. It was almost spirtual in nature for me the great adventure in exploring different blends was not comming to a end but would be slowing down as I settled in to this blend that is resonating with me so well currently.
I will always sample different blends I feel while Iam still active in this hobby but the time has come for me to slow down on my sampling and start to work on my rotation with SQUADRON LEADER in the lead and Escudo Navy De Luxe and Shepards Pie as contenders for my rotion also.
So I say smoke what you Have, Be Thankful and when you find what you like stock your cellar deep as you can, for you never know when that favorite blend will disappear like a Puff of smoke.
Christ is King
There were a few McClelland tobaccos that I could have smoked just them. I have not found a single tobacco to fill my needs since then. I would still like some variety occasionally, but there were a few I could have smoked 90% of the time.
I only smoke one blend.
AT A TIME!!!! Overall I have about 14 billion on hand. It’s goddamn mess.
I crave the simplicity of a small rotation at times as well. I also sometimes crave running into the woods, tearing my hair out and speaking in tongues, building a log cabin and never seeing people again.
Some things, we just have to accept, are not in the cards.
Although I will say with the above examples, whichever came first would inherently precipitate the other
AT A TIME!!!! Overall I have about 14 billion on hand. It’s goddamn mess.
I crave the simplicity of a small rotation at times as well. I also sometimes crave running into the woods, tearing my hair out and speaking in tongues, building a log cabin and never seeing people again.
Some things, we just have to accept, are not in the cards.
Although I will say with the above examples, whichever came first would inherently precipitate the other
Not down to strictly one single blend, but I am settling in to between one-two favored blends for each type of pipe tobacco that I enjoy (straight Virginia, Virginia-based, VaPer, English/Scottish, and Kentucky). Just enough variety for me. Don't think I could (or would want to) get it down to less than 3 blends if I had to choose.
For the sake of my bank account I wish I could be happy with just one blend, but alas, my ever changing mood for different flavors does not permit it. Although over the last year I have narrowed my choices to just a couple of go to blends to stock up on and only pick up a few limited releases or C&D Small Batch releases that interest me. I have so many unopened and untried blends on hand that even the FOMO side of me is finding it hard to justify new tobacco purchases.
Beer: Guinness (Occasional Boddingtons, maybe Kirin).
Cigarettes: It's been Marlboro (Red or Light).
Coffee: Cheapest member's brand at Sam's. After creamer, I can't tell the difference.
Pipes: Peterson.
Pipe Tobacco: Just about anything that will burn.
Strange enough, I really don't feel brand loyalty with pipe tobacco. Nor do I have any specific issues when I change between brands/blends/genres. If I smoke diff cigs than Marlboro, I get scratch throat. If I drink certain beers, I get hangover. But no issues with pipe tobacco. Why not enjoy something that won't stick me in the back?
Cigarettes: It's been Marlboro (Red or Light).
Coffee: Cheapest member's brand at Sam's. After creamer, I can't tell the difference.
Pipes: Peterson.
Pipe Tobacco: Just about anything that will burn.
Strange enough, I really don't feel brand loyalty with pipe tobacco. Nor do I have any specific issues when I change between brands/blends/genres. If I smoke diff cigs than Marlboro, I get scratch throat. If I drink certain beers, I get hangover. But no issues with pipe tobacco. Why not enjoy something that won't stick me in the back?
If I had to choose only one tobacco to smoke time and again it would be C&D Haunted Bookshop. It always hits all the right buttons for me and is the blend I reach for when I can't decide what I want to smoke and never leaves me wanting.
One blend. 558. Five Castello's. Lots of other blends and pipes I probably won't use including Dunhills. Black Columbian coffee only. Makers Mark mostly.
Yeah, I doubt there would be the same attraction to this notion if you changed the description from "one smoke gentleman" to " 1-blend dumbass"
I disagree about CS Lewis only being a one blend guy. I have read where he also enjoyed Erinmore. However, I have known a one-blend guy, an elderly gentleman that lived down the road from me that I used to have to drop in on daily for his kids. He was a Prince Albert guy, one pipe, one blend. He thought everything about how I collect and smoke pipes was ridiculous... but, then again... he thought everything was rather ridiculous. Ornery guy.
I will add to the rest that have said... you can do whatever you want. You want one blend, do it. But, I would suggest that you stock up on that one blend. You never know when that company will go tits up, nor whether they just stop or change that one blend.
Me? I prefer variety. I was a slave to one brand of cigarettes for decades, and now I just prefer to sample all that the world has to offer. But, good luck.
I will also add... the one reason that you may not see very many one blend, one pipe guys on here is that... what the hell is a one blend one pipe guy gonna talk about? Every post will be like "(insert blend name here) is all you need." And, then pretty soon that person would get bored and wonder off. How long they stick around would depend on how stubborn they are going to be about constantly posting the praises of that one blend. YMMV
I will add to the rest that have said... you can do whatever you want. You want one blend, do it. But, I would suggest that you stock up on that one blend. You never know when that company will go tits up, nor whether they just stop or change that one blend.
Me? I prefer variety. I was a slave to one brand of cigarettes for decades, and now I just prefer to sample all that the world has to offer. But, good luck.
I will also add... the one reason that you may not see very many one blend, one pipe guys on here is that... what the hell is a one blend one pipe guy gonna talk about? Every post will be like "(insert blend name here) is all you need." And, then pretty soon that person would get bored and wonder off. How long they stick around would depend on how stubborn they are going to be about constantly posting the praises of that one blend. YMMV
I'm definitely jealous of the old-time smokers who were content with one easily-available blend (or two.) The Internet has ruined us for contentment. 
Every so often, I'll be smoking something and think "yeah, I could happily just smoke this" but then I'll have another bowl of it later and change my mind. Revelation (and then C&D Epiphany) are my best example of that.
Every so often, I'll be smoking something and think "yeah, I could happily just smoke this" but then I'll have another bowl of it later and change my mind. Revelation (and then C&D Epiphany) are my best example of that.
Yeh, the majority of the world didn't live near a tobacconist, which were only found in big cities. And, most big cities now, weren't big cities back then. The majority of rural USA had to exist on what was available at the local General Store. Heck, until 1956, there weren't even gas stations as we know them today.
Even in the early 70's the General stores near us still carried locally grown plugs and twists. Your options definitely weren't like they were today, with the WWW and delivery. Hell, it took me six months from time I mailed in my order to delivery of my Sea-Monkeys.
Even in the early 70's the General stores near us still carried locally grown plugs and twists. Your options definitely weren't like they were today, with the WWW and delivery. Hell, it took me six months from time I mailed in my order to delivery of my Sea-Monkeys.