Three Friars
- Thread starter Mopiper
- Start date
Old Joe Krantz comes to mind for me.
Three Nuns.
If memory serves, Three Friars was intended to serve as a C&D alternative to Three Nuns.
If memory serves, Three Friars was intended to serve as a C&D alternative to Three Nuns.
To my mind, this blend is for pipe smokers not pipe and tobacco collectors. I cast no aspersions at the collectors, but Three Friars is one of the most under estimated blends available. For me, my process has been to try everything and then narrow down my choices to that which gives me the most satisfaction. Yes, I’m a codger that has been pipe smoking since 1972. I’ve been smoking C&D blends since the renowned Craig Tarler took the company to greater heights with the help of the equally renowned Bob Runowski. I’m just a guy who smokes pipes, and doesn’t have a wine cellar, but thinks that the old guys who smoked a blend or two regularly, explored the nuances of each of those blends and made them into “old friends”.
Sorry for the geriatric rant, but I think the pipe “community” is too enamored with quantity and variety and that flies in the face of us codgers who find our go-to blends to be trusted companions.
Apparently this cheap scotch has loosened my tongue and exposed my disdain for the deep wine cellar approach of too many pipe smokers.
Sorry for the geriatric rant, but I think the pipe “community” is too enamored with quantity and variety and that flies in the face of us codgers who find our go-to blends to be trusted companions.
Apparently this cheap scotch has loosened my tongue and exposed my disdain for the deep wine cellar approach of too many pipe smokers.
Well to each his own I guess. Thats basically what I have done myself. I'm down to only about 6 blends I really enjoy.
I hope I didn’t sound too dismissive of tobacco “collectors “, but I guess I’m more like my Irish grandfather who owned and smoked one pipe at a time, and one or two blends that were available where he picked up his daily newspaper. The pipe and the tobaccos became his solace against the crap that life threw at him. A pint and a pipe helped him cope. That’s where I am.
I quit the drinking but,a pipe does help me cope still.
I like variety but I feel like tobaccos are like people. If you hang out with hundreds of them spending some bits of time with one before flitting to the next, well you end up with a ton of acquaintances but not really with any good friends that you really know. It's the same with blends. It's a matter of personal preference what someone wants and what makes them enjoy something like pipe smoking. But in the rush to try everything it's almost like people end up not really trying anything. For example how many times do people even say it wasn't till smoking a blend many times that they really felt like they understood it or got what was so special about it. You could flip the script though and say that by sticking to just a handful of blends you're missing out on many blends you might enjoy a thousand times more. I guess the secret is to be aware of what trade offs you're making and the fact that you really can't have it all. I guess if you're happy or content that's what matters.
Well said. I concur re the idea that when you have too much variety at one time, you really “explore” none of the blends thoroughly. I wish “newbs” would slow down a little and learn to give a blend a chance. Not to mention the layers of fleeting flavors in their bowls that obfuscate the next blend they stuff in there.
Just imagine the potential for cellars full of tins of tobaccos that may never be smoked and unavailable to those that really love them.
Affluence is required for deep wine cellars, deep tobacco cellars. Nothing wrong with affluence, certainly, but the self indulgence that results is not attractive.
Old bastard rant over.
P.S. Question: Is western society becoming infantilized?
the one good thing about cellars is how they kind increase profits for blenders. Which helps us and helps keep our costs down. I remember before I got one record out (really small thing but it went to market and disappeared from the face of the earth), well before that I hated certain record collectors. These people would buy limited editions and rare obscure stuff in mass. So that in ten or 20 years they could sell one or two of them at hyper inflated prices. I later realized that many of the more avant garde or even just less popular bands I listen to couldn't afford to put out albums without making bullshit for those people to buy. I think people with big cellars that won't get smoked are kind of subsidizing our hobby. Just like those record buying speculative vultures.