Interesting. I have an 8oz tin of Our Best Blend, dated to June 1, 2004. Gallaher stopped making Balkan Sobranie in 2002. What would have been in that tin?Premal says it actually is Balkan-Sobranie White. Just re-labeled.
The rule only applies to retailers and manufacturers.If I buy a tin, or if someone gives me a tin, can I then share the contents with others?
craig: yes, the winner of each of the two throwdowns was chosen by a tabulation of the blind ratings supplied by three judges. there was also a people's choice winner, however, based purely on the popularity of each contestant's blend with chicago show attendees who chose to pick up and evaluate free samples available the day before the throwdown took place. that is what the three pounds of tobacco was for: supplying each judge with enough tobacco to do his comparisons to samples of the original blend that was being recreated, and preparing a large number of free packets for show attendees who wanted to try each blend. note that the circumstances surrounding the people's choice award were artificial; show attendees did not have access to the original samples of sobranie 759 (in the case of the first throwdown) or john cotton 1&2 (in the case of the second throwdown). so without a baseline for comparison purposes the three blends were being evaluated on a standalone basis. moreover unlike the judges, who had weeks to perform their evaluation and decent quantities of the various tobaccos to work with, the attendees had one sample and one day. the point of the people's choice award was to give attendees a chance to be part of the process and encourage attendance at the actual event; it should not be confused with the actual winner of the throwdown.With respect to the issue of samples, Russ, wasn’t the throwdown winner chosen by a three judge panel? That’s what the original rules stated. If so, then there’s not much of an issue. However, the rules also stipulated that 3 pounds of tobacco would be supplied by each entrant. That suggests sharing, at the very least. Last year, there were three or four tubs of blends in the smoking tent that you could sample for free, then vote for your favorite. I just asked the CPCC president, Paul Bender, about that last week and he said that they determined that the fee for entering the show was sufficient to satisfy the FDA rules for those particular samples. So, even if the winner were chosen by popular vote by the attendees, I would think it could work under those same parameters.
Was one of my favorites :crying:Sutliff's Balkan 957 was excellent