***What Are You Smoking, December 2021?***

[AlanH]

I took my home blends out of the press this morning. I have 4 that I really like. I'm smoking some of the Black Balkan this morning from my unmarked straight grain. I used to call this blend Black English, but I tweaked the recipe, and it's definitely a Balkan now.

View attachment 115511

Very nice looking pipe!

 

[AuroraSurrealis]

Just finished a half of a bowl of HU Makhuwa which I set aside yesterday. It’s a really good blend and definitely worth all the hype. Had it in a group 3 Dunhill Bruyere from year 1966.

 

[AlanH]

Did you know the magi were firemen? They came from a fire.

Ha ha ?

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

Can’t smoke right now….

 

[jewman22]

HH Pure Virginia in a Rattray's Bare Knuckle author.

 

[Paul lec]

MB Black Ambrosia in a Peterson XL02,on a warm,gray Gulf Coast afternoon.

 

[JimInks]

Enjoyed a tasty lunch, and am close to finishing this bowl of Wilke No. 515 in a smooth dark brown medium bend 2021 Peterson POTY 4AB No. 45/500 military mount with a silver cap and a vulcanite black tapered AB stem. This was the blend Basil Rathbone smoked. Ice water and bergs is my drink. Just posted a bunch of KBV and Sutliff reviews at TR. Steady rain canceled my walks for the day so I had the time to post.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Lombard in my Growley bamboo poker.

 

[Winterreise]

Yes. Please do. Do you like Aly Bain?

I don’t know him , can you recommend me an album ? Thank you sir .

 

[Johnny_Pipecleaner]

LTF from 2005 in my Scott Klein Dublin Burner. Got my booster shot yesterday and expected the worst but I don’t feel bad at all besides the sore arm ?

 

[JimInks]

A third of the way through this bowl of first release Watch City Rouxgaroux in a smooth natural medium bend 2021 Peterson POTY 4AB No. 6/500 military mount with a silver cap and a vulcanite black tapered AB stem.

 

[edger]

I don’t know him , can you recommend me an album ? Thank you sir .

He was in the Irish band The Boys of the Louth. He is a Shetland fiddler. A great Irish trad band! Enjoy.

 

[Carol]

Scotty's Blend Anglers Dream from P&C in a MM Diplomat Cob.

 

[JimInks]

So you had "ice water with bergs" you used some regular ice so not to exhaust your supply of bergs. I follow now???

I can neither confirm or deny your comment due to security concerns.

 

[edger]

He was in the Irish band The Boys of the Louth. He is a Shetland fiddler. A great Irish trad band! Enjoy.

Lough not Louth(damn spell check!)
Lots of albums out there,BTW. I've seen them in concert years ago, and chatted with the Boys on a flight to Ireland once.

 

[Ettrick puffer]

I hope your son arrived well.
I am waiting also for the little lady. She is coming by plane on Wednesday.
Enjoy the family time friend from the North.

@Christos D. Tsatsaronis he arrived safe and well thank you ? you too my friend, I hope you and your family have a blessed time. So grateful to have family back at home.
Happy smokes
Ettrick puffer

 

[mso489]

McC's Dark Star, the discontinued masterpiece of Virginia leaf by a blender that's closed down for good, in a four square billiard panel blast Kaywoodie with a saddle stem. Just a few more bowls of this left in the tin. Then on to other long-neglected blends from the past, including two more McC's. The secret of Dark Star was to grate the big pieces and dry out the smaller pieces, for a nice even burn and only average relights.

 

[AlanH]

LTF from 2005 in my Scott Klein Dublin Burner. Got my booster shot yesterday and expected the worst but I don’t feel bad at all besides the sore arm ?
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I bought Scott Klein Burner to give as a gift but I am thinking of keeping it how does it smoke ?

 

[edger]

C&D Bayou Morning (good in the afternoon,too) in a Grabow Royal Duke apple with iced tea. This pipe is a really great smoker. As good as any pipe I own.

 

[EssJaySea]

I’m afraid I’m the laziest smoker on the forums today. In the middle of a bowl of We Three Kings in a BriarWorks as pictured.

I should have been more adventurous. @Tar Wheel was extraordinarily generous and sent me a few tins, including this year and last’s Crinkle Flake and Wessex Brigade Campaign Dark Flake and F&T CVP. I wasn’t prepared to store them properly after opening one.

Thanks to his kindness and a minor splurge at smoking pipes I am sitting on about a dozen different unopened and new to me tobaccos. As someone who has always stuck to B&M house blends in the past, this is fun and uncharted territory.

I also grabbed the Scotts billiard pictured with the C&D blends — it is a tad smaller than I expected (totally me as SP details everything well as we all know) but what got me was the slight tilt to the bowl. It is unlike all my other pipes.

I maybe should have broken it in with some Haunted Bookshop — but, again, lazy.

Why? Just got done paying for a new furnace— just installed. A little late to cancel Christmas but maybe Valentines Day will be reserved!! (It did offer me some time to work on my last project of the year, which is turning out to me a tad more time consuming than expected so that was one benefit.)

Happy holidays all.