A little late night pipe under the streetlight as I ponder what might make a good "All day, anytime" blend. First I ran through a cob of Cornell & Diehl Pegasus, now I've got it loaded up with Prince Albert. It's a cob so I don't particularly mind smoking it twice in the same day without giving it a rest in between.
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I've got my favorite Virginia, Burley, and English blends that I smoke regularly: Orlik Golden Sliced, Haunted Bookshop, and Early Morning Pipe. I really love them all, but none are something I'd want to smoke all day every day. Golden Sliced is a bit bright and Haunted Bookshop and EMP are bit dark, so I've been looking for something right in the middle between Golden Sliced and Haunted Bookshop that would be an easygoing all day blend.
For a long time I thought Carter Hall was that blend, but lately I've been noticing a little astringent chemical note from it that I never seemed to notice when I was less intimately familiar with the blend; and the same goes for Prince Albert. Pegasus is a nice clean smoke with no chemical notes, but I find all of C&Ds blends to have a few too many rough edges and be a little too harsh on the throat to smoke all day.
So what's next to try? I've been giving Gawith Hoggarth's Best Brown #2 a try and it's got a good flavor profile, though a bit strong in the Vitamin N department for me to smoke all day and the Virginias are a little more dominant than I'd like. I don't mind a bit of Virginia, but I think I'd prefer something more burley forward but still smooth without much in the way of rough edges.
I've got a pouch of Sir Walter Raleigh regular on the way from SmokingPipes to give a go, which I'm rather hopeful about since I've read that it doesn't have that chemical note I've been noticing in Carter Hall and Prince Albert lately, but I'd certainly be open to suggestions for other Burley forward all day blends to give a try!