Okee doke.
Ya want new here I am!
I'm so new I haven't even smoked a pipe yet. Really sort of shocking for a 42 year old man. But so it is.
However, I have been smoking a good bit of pipe tobacco. Let me explain.
I have been into Make Your Own (MYO) cigarettes (I know eee gads) for some time now. And not the way of the stereotype....hand rolling with some kind of drugstore garbage like Top or Zig Zag. There is a faction of the make your own (MYO) world that has long been into enjoyment of luxury tobaccos, exotics and even blending.
For quite some time the primary source of high quality cigarette blends and blenders was Daughters and Ryan Tobacco. Mark Ryan (subject of recent interview here regarding his role in furthering production of perique)began to take MYO cigarette tobacco into a new strata a number of years ago by offering high quality and exotic blends for use in cigarettes. Some of his blends include perique, latakia,yenidge, basma and a variety of other exotic orientals. Very high quality leaf in the hands of a creative perhaps even edgy blender. Hardly the stuff of the Marlboro crowd.
Then when the tax structure changed some of us began to branch out and look for honest, natural, non-aromatic pipe blends and blending components. At first sure...it was motivated by cost and availability. But then some of us discovered what we'd been missing. Sort of a whole new candy store.
Many of us blend daily and maintain quite a stash of blends and blend components just like our brothers who enjoy the pipe. On a similar forum we talk of best storage methods, equipment, brag about our purchase and growing stash, bicker about the best Flue Cured VA, or Dark Fired Kentucky, and generally indulge in conversing about a fascinating hobby and style of life.
So, I bore you with all this to explain to some degree how it is I end up here.
Through much reading, much trial and error, and a good bit of smoking, I'm to the place where I want to open the door farther to the world of luxury tobacco.
I have my first pipe (a humble Missouri cob) and several samples on order from Pipes and Cigars. I also have several G&H blends (Kendal Dark, Dark Bullseye) Hearth and Home (Rolando's Own, Capital Stairs, VA Spice and others) on hand as they make a wonderful smoke in the other format.
When the brown truck arrives I plan to begin fumbling my way through pipe smoking virginity.
So all advice, tips recommendations are welcome...needed really. And I will check back with my experiences which I'm sure will be primarily rookie mistakes in the near term.
RJ
