There’s No Bad Pipe Tobacco

[Briar Lee]

It might be that a half century of pipe smoking has jaded me, to where I’m like a wino on skid row, about tobacco. If it smokes I like it. I don’t think there is a bad commercially available pipe tobacco on the market today. They are all good, some just better than others.

Even the cheapest bag of RYO cut “pipe tobacco” isn’t horrible. it’s extremely mild for such an addict as me.

But I do have, my least favorite tobaccos.

For codger burley I nominate Carter Hall as the least flavorful, and Match Country Doctor for the least flavorful pipe shop blend. They are both good, just not as bursting with flavor as other blends I have grown used to smoking.

Do you have a blend, to nominate as your least favorite tobacco?

Or maybe you think there’s such a thing, as bad tobacco.

 

[jaytex1969]

I have found blends with "kitchen" spices in them intolerable.

There is one with cinnamon and anther with ginger. Both nauseate me.

 

[sablebrush52]

Well, clearly you haven't smoked Holly's non Plus Ultra.

 

[Ahi Ka]

I need to get a lee pipe. That sweet smoking briar must be magic!

 

[OzPiper]

I have only smoked a minuscule number of blends relative to what's out there.
Of the blends I have smoked, I read reviews first before buying. So strict selection comes in reducing the risk of picking up a "bad" blend.
Even so, there have been a couple of blends I heartily disliked.
Not saying they are bad blends - just that I did not like them
Which is entirely different.

With wine - despite technical advances and plethora of wine-making courses, bad wine is still made everyday. But less so now than a few decades ago.
Bad wine also happens through no fault of the winemaker eg cork problems, smoke taint and incorrect storage esp during shipping
Prevailing "wine trends" (eg over-ripe, over-alcoholic, over-extracted and over-oaked monstrosities of the '80s, '90s and 2000s) can result in wines that are simply unpleasurable to drink, even though they are technically "sound" (and indeed some command undeservedly high "scores" and prices)

There seems to be very little complaint of bad tobacco batches (eg mould or infestation problems) in comparison to wine.
XS use of PG by certain producers seems to be the one of the most frequent complaint.
In part the generally higher standard in tobacco production may be due the much, much fewer (in fact, very few) tobacco producers relative to wine producers, so quality control overall is more uniform.

I think the pipe tobacco producers can get together for a group hug and congratulatory slap on the shoulders ?

 

[telescopes]

I need to get a lee pipe. That sweet smoking briar must be magic!

If the threaded was ended here, that comment would be perfect ?

 

[OzPiper]

I need to get a lee pipe. That sweet smoking briar must be magic!

I shall await your totally UNBIASED assessment with bated breath

 

[telescopes]

I’ve stated before that I have a handful of Lees. They consistently smoke well, perhaps better than average. Why? I have no real idea. They seem to be constructed well and the wood seems of a better than average quality. They do have a more dense feel then some of the other pipes of their time (Pipe Maker, Marxman, Grabow, Yello Bole, later made Kaywoodie, etc) and that may have something to do with It.

 

[hyperstar]

What you need is a matched drinks.

I used to hate Latakia tobacco and all the blends that contain it.

But, it all changed when I found the amazing synergy between Peated Whisky and Latakia.

 

[jwesthurl]

I’ve tried quite a few blends in my short time smoking a pipe and I’ve only come across one so far that I absolutely did not enjoy- Haunted Bookshop.

 

[Ahi Ka]

I’ve stated before that I have a handful of Lees. They consistently smoke well, perhaps better than average. Why? I have no real idea. They seem to be constructed well and the wood seems of a better than average quality. They do have a more dense feel then some of the other pipes of their time (Pipe Maker, Marxman, Grabow, Yello Bole, later made Kaywoodie, etc) and that may have something to do with It.

And they have been well seasoned with American codger burleys for half a century

 

[telescopes]

And they have been well seasoned with American codger burleys for half a century

Point taken

 

[mortonbriar]

What you need is a matched drinks.

I used to hate Latakia tobacco and all the blends that contain it.

But, it all changed when I found the amazing synergy between Peated Whisky and Latakia.

I like this pairing too. It's been a while since I have done this, but after my bowl, and the laphroaig are finished, I pour a small bourbon for 'dessert'...after all that peat and smoke it tastes SO sweet, like a mouthful of marshmallows.

 

[captpat]

There are a few blends I've found to be bad, I'm mean really bad. Bad enough to go straight to the trash or garden before finishing a bowl. There a many more blends that are in the don't buy again category they span from just a bit better than dreck to didn't do anything for me. This probably comes closest to what @Briar Lee calls "least favorite"

 

[JOHN72]

I can't stand overpowering aromatics. I mean, when the tobacco aroma is gone, and you just smell cakes or jelly beans with that chemical aftertaste. Highly artificial scents...........

 

[simong]

Tried plenty of distasteful (to me) blends, along with even more in the bland, boring & 'who'd smoke this shit' category. I'd hesitate to call any brand bad though as I'm sure the worst brand you can think of has it's fans, otherwise it wouldn't be commercially available. Having said that though, personally speaking I can't think of nothing worse than a bowl of Clan or Amsterdamer in one of those cheap Jack 'Lee' pipes.

 

[OldWill]

I suppose that there are probably many blends that I would call "bad", but with few exceptions I find that some combination of age, adding condiments, etc. improves them. But, Celtic Talisman??? I've found no way to make it palatable.

 

[Briar Lee]

In the small Ozarks town of Humansville, where I was born and raised, there are three enormously large cultivation barns for raising medical marijuana.

The starting pay there is so high, the old men in the coffee shop grumble it’s driving up the cost of living (in an economically destroyed former dairy farming town with buildings caving in all over downtown).

I don’t smoke marijuana, but my clients who do inform me that legal medical grade weed costs three or four times as much as bootleg cannabis, and is worth every penny, because the legal stuff is so much better.

https://amp.kansascity.com/news/local/article253249948.html

A merchant at a cheep booze and smokes shop in Humansville sells Half and Half for $3.50 a 1 1/2 ounce pouch. Whatever it costs to manufacture tobacco to smoke is what it’s eventually going to cost to manufacture marijuana, except tobacco has about a five hundred year lead in market maturity.

All the bad tobacco blends, died years ago.

Eventually there’s no market at all for inferior vices.

 

[kschatey]

Everything is "good" to somebody or it wouldn't be made and sold. I definitely have a pile of blends that are "bad" based on my preferences though. Plus I don't smoke enough and life is to short to smoke stuff that I don't like.

 

[didimauw]

I have a harder time trying to find something I like, rather than something I don't. I hate most blends I've tried. Thus hanging on tightly to the handful that I enjoy.