I quite like this small part of pipe smokers.
The One Smoke Gentlemen
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Me too. That one and 1 other constitute 95% of my smoking.
Same. My other is a is a straight oriental blend.
I grew up with parents that were smokers and ONLY smoked the red and white colored box (ya know what I mean!lol). So when I started smoking cigarettes at 17, that was all I would smoke too, except for the occasional “minty” pack here and there. But when I started smoking a pipe at 26, I was all over the place trying to find out what I liked. That subsided for the most part, I like englishes, Va’s and vapers, but I can’t really think of a blend that if I HAD to smoke for the rest of my life, I would be happy.
Hello Gents, its been quite awhile since I've been on the forum, but I thought I'd give an update. Shortly after this post I decided to go on my quest to see if I could find one tobacco that did it all for me. After a few months of rabidly smoking every blend I could and narrowing down genres and cut; I found about 10 blends that checked all of my boxes for flavor, ease of packing and smoking, nicotine fix, and gentleness on the mouth. After putting them in a rotation to see what bored me after awhile I landed on one blend that captivated me and had me coming back for more; My Mixture 965. It has all of the flavors I like in pipe tobacco rolled into one extremely smooth elegant package ,with a pleasant amount of nicotine to carry me through the day. At this point MM965 has gone beyond the level of a tradition; its an institution, which has passed from generation to generation of pipe smokers. It was revealing to see that my tastes may be as conventional as they come. The woodsy spice from the Orientals, the sweetness from the Brown Cavendish, and the smokiness from the latakia take me back to a time in which I never lived but still make me feel a sense of nostalgia. Its been my all day every day smoke for about a year and some change and isn't going anywhere from that spot anytime soon. Sure, I have a variety of things in my cellar I'll pull out for a treat and I'll even throw in a tin of Standard Mixture or Elizabethan from time to time to change things up. But MM965 has me coming back consistently. Have I become the One Smoke Gentleman? No, not really...But I have found that one blend that reminds me why I love smoking my pipe and that may well be a long lasting companion through this weird thing called life.
Cheers!
PS: Funny enough; the VaPer thing didn't last long.
Cheers!
PS: Funny enough; the VaPer thing didn't last long.
Nothing to say. Smoke what makes you happy.
Same here and now as the OP- 99% MM965.
I opened an tin of OGS in 2022, for summer, still smoking thru that tin.
I used to be a one blend, one pipe smoker. The blend changed. The pipe started to die. Things had to change.
Now, and for quite a while, Cabbies Mixture is my goto blend. Why, for heaven's sake? It's the most expensive SG blend, it goes out of stock, I'm living on the edge of disaster. But I love the stuff.
So, I buy other blends that can mitigate this, often very different blends which won't make me hanker after my true love. And have multiple pipes, which give me options with flakes or ribbons etc.
I don't think there's any turning back now. The trust in one for life has gone.
Now, and for quite a while, Cabbies Mixture is my goto blend. Why, for heaven's sake? It's the most expensive SG blend, it goes out of stock, I'm living on the edge of disaster. But I love the stuff.
So, I buy other blends that can mitigate this, often very different blends which won't make me hanker after my true love. And have multiple pipes, which give me options with flakes or ribbons etc.
I don't think there's any turning back now. The trust in one for life has gone.
I have 2 blends I smoke daily, 2 I smoke occasionally, and 2 I smoke maybe 1 or 2 times a year. That's all.
It’s not a delicate aged Virginia,
but I smoke D&R Two Timer Regular almost exclusively
but I smoke D&R Two Timer Regular almost exclusively
At one point I realized I had been smoking the same two blends everyday for a couple of years (along with others). I decided to try just smoking those two blends and cutting out all others. It didn’t last and now I rarely smoke what were my two go to blends. Not sure how that happened.
I do have my own blend that is a go to for me. I have made several variations of it, but they are basically one and the same.
Very cool to see you come back and update this thread after so long! I was sure planning on being a, "One smoke gentleman" when I started my pipe journey a couple years go, since I've always been just that when it came to cigarettes and hookah tobacco, but two years and trying 90'ish blends later and I never did find The One™.
What I have learned however is that I tire of aromatic blends quickly, I love the flavor of Burleys but they give me a scratchy throat and a cough, any amount of Perique gives me a scratchy throat and a cough too as do certain Orientals, but Virginias, Latakia, and Dark Fired Kentucky are all okay and don't cause me any throat irritation.
So, I now have a core rotation of four pure Virginias I really like that all have different flavor profiles. Sutliff 507C Virginia Slices for bright grassy lemon citrus, Mac Baren HH Pure Virginia for a darker bready flavor, Samuel Gawith Full Virginia Flake for it's green/black tea flavor, and G.L. Pease Union Square for it's dark earthy moldering leaf lifter profile that always reminds me of the autumn. I also enjoy a bit of Early Morning Pipe now and then when I want an English blend, and since I'm working on quitting smoking cigarettes right now I dip into a fair bit of Royal Yacht, Irish Flake, Dark Bird's Eye, and Nightcap as needed to scratch the nicotine itch. Weirdly Nightcap seems to be the only blend with Perique in it that doesn't irritate my throat.
In any case, I never did find The One™ but I did find a nice small selection of blends in a few different genres that I really enjoy! If it wasn't for my throat's absolute intolerance to Burley I'm pretty sure Briar Fox could have been The One™ for me, but alas the scratchy Burley throat was too annoying to deal with.
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There are a few blends I'd smoke exclusively, but I'm glad I dont have to.
When I started smoking a pipe, it was worth the intention of finding that One Blend to some morning noon and night. 2 or 3 pipes and one tub of something was the goal. Was. I thought it would be like cigarettes, or maybe cigars. They're all kind of similar enough to try a few and pick my favorite one or two.
Fast forward a few years and I can't imagine limiting myself like that. Not after learning about and tasting the wonderful variety. Now I have blends I'll never run out of, but I'll always have several different ones.
Fast forward a few years and I can't imagine limiting myself like that. Not after learning about and tasting the wonderful variety. Now I have blends I'll never run out of, but I'll always have several different ones.
In my younger days, I switched cigarette brands more often than my underpants. The same is not true now of pipe tobaccos; underpants are just shading it by a margin.
I fully support and encourage the wide variety of blends, special releases, different iterations of roughly the same components, and the wide selection of tobacco that pipe smokers can enjoy at any given time; it obviously keeps the industry chugging along and is a lot of fun to hobbyists, adventurers, and collectors. For me, I deeply value simplicity and was looking for a best friend rather than a series of fun and exciting acquittances in my pipe tobacco. I also prefer to collect classic British pipes for their history, class, and understated elegance; that's just me and what's wonderful about pipe smoking is that there are no rules and you can make it whatever you'd like.
Yesterday, I decided to pull out some jars of McClelland's I have in the cupboard and smoke a few bowls. Are they objectively of better quality than the current STG MM965? Maybe, I'm no expert. Do they taste better than MM965? Yes, they sure do and maybe if McClelland was still around I'd be smoking them instead. But even though I love them, they still don't feel like "my blend." I'll pull them out and enjoy them on special occasions, for milestones and high feast days; but at the end of the day I'll always come back down to earth with my Dunhill straight bulldog and a bowl of 965. It just feels like home.
Yesterday, I decided to pull out some jars of McClelland's I have in the cupboard and smoke a few bowls. Are they objectively of better quality than the current STG MM965? Maybe, I'm no expert. Do they taste better than MM965? Yes, they sure do and maybe if McClelland was still around I'd be smoking them instead. But even though I love them, they still don't feel like "my blend." I'll pull them out and enjoy them on special occasions, for milestones and high feast days; but at the end of the day I'll always come back down to earth with my Dunhill straight bulldog and a bowl of 965. It just feels like home.