Here's my morning smoke, and a brand new tobacco I've been trying out, C&D's Bourbon Bleu. It's not that I particularly like miniatures, but they have a definite purpose for me, in the land of ridiculous taxation on tobacco. Bourbon Bleu is one of the only six or seven C&D blends I can get from the Mohawk Reserve tobacco store, and it's CHEAP (for us) ie $49 per tin. To buy it in BC (not available), and to get it shipped from the US about 87 bucks. Enough whining. You've all heard it before. It is what it is.
Miniatures serve as great test pipes, and if the tobacco suits them, for a medium length of smoke. I can usually draw 25 - 30 minutes with this McQueen Barrel Rider. Not with Bourbon Blue. This is the fastest burning tobacco I've so far experienced. I got 18 minutes only. A medium small bowl in another pipe got 35 minutes. Granted, a very small amount of tobacco in each of these pipes, so this will do for short smokes, which I still do on occasion.
The whole purpose of using this type of pipe and trying this tobacco is to get a similar smoke from it, that will allow me to stretch out my favourites in certain categories. These are my "protected species", which my friends don't know about, and will not find out about - they reside in a little box in a drawer which says "Do Not Enter."
These three tobaccos I cannot get from any other source except the US, and as I'm now on the data base I cannot escape the gauntlet. Mad Fiddler, Black Frigate, and Bengal Slices are at the top of the list in their respective categories. Other than the black box, my friends smoke my tobacco when they visit. Works out though, because they all seem to prefer gooey aromatics (which I enjoy once in a while) or Englishes, which are a staple of mine, along with my favoured Navies and Orientals, which none of them enjoy.
It's a kind of "Kitty, bar the door!" attitude, but it is what it is.
Bourbon Blue, I find quite similar to Mad Fiddler, in that you're hit with a Perique blast, which tapers, and the Orientals and/or Virginias as in the case of BB, come to the fore and decrescendo to end the smoke. On a personal scale I give Mad Fiddler a 9.5 (nothing is perfect, eh) and BB a 7. A worthy alternate to a brisk morning smoke, whot not? There is nothing subtle about either tobacco, and they both go great with cold coffee.
Oh yeah. Get a load of the hideous tin that Oh Canada supplies us with. A far cry from the lovely graphics on the C&D products. The reverse side is worse. It's either a kid coughing or an old guy with a tongue cancer photo, with the usual usual.