What's Your Custom Blend Made Just For You?

[telescopes]

Years ago when I was just a college student, I picked up the pipe for myself. My childhood friend, Steve Metz, had started smoking a pipe, a Dr. Grabow. He loaded it with Captain Black and smoked it in the Student Lounge every day when we met. He complained about tongue bite and I shared with him a little about my dad's tobaccos and pipes. We went on over to John Dengler in Saint Charles, Missouri where we talked to John about pipes and tobaccos. I came home with a CAO Meerschaum and a basket pipe along with some tobacco John shared with us.

There was a Tinder Box near the college - heck, they were everywhere back then - and we both started smoking Crown Royal. It became our favorite. However, I disliked not purchasing my tobacco from John and I asked him to help me develop a similar blend that he could sell me. Little did we know that Crown Royal was really nothing more than Peter Stokkebye Vanilla Creme. Regardless, John worked and worked on several various custom blends for me - he did this for 1000s of customers (that number isn't made up).

We finally hit upon a blend that I thought was just right. It wasn't exactly Crown Royal but it was more subtle, drier, and less sweet.

Forty years later and I am still smoking that custom blend, purchasing it from John's son-in-law, Larry, who has taken over the business with his now deceased wife, John's daughter. Although I now know what constitutes that blend and am able to purchase the components directly for myself on line from other retailers, I don't. Steve's local Tinder Box doesn't carry Crown Royal so he now smokes their Sunset blend.

My question to everyone is this: Do you have a favorite custom blend of tobacco that is either made for you or is one that you have worked together that you have been smoking for years? What is it about that blend that you enjoy and how does it reflect. your own taste in pipe smoking?

I look forward to reading your replies.

 

[Coreios]

I just mix store bought brands. If somethings not sweet enough I just throw some black Cavendish into it, or whatever the case may be. I'll smoke almost anything.

 

[makhorkasmoker]

I have not been smoking "my" blend for years yet, but it is a blend I have been working on for the better part of a year. I have smoked a couple of pounds of it, so far, with minor tweaks, and I'm liking it, but still hoping to make it better.

It's basically a Burley-Turkish-Perique blend. I was inspired mainly by C&D's Big 'n Burley. I like Big n Burley. I'm not totally crazy about it, but it's in the general direction I wanted to go. I did some searches for basically unflavored Burley-Turkish-Perique blends, didn't find a heck of a lot, so I started working on my own.

I started with the basic components said to be in "Picayune"--a blend I never had the chance to smoke. So I have no idea of this actually tastes anything like Picayune. It was just a blending idea that led to something I found promising. Also, I didn't use D&R tobaccos (though I have used Ramback for the Turkish). I use C&D blenders.

Right now this mix is roughly:
50% Dark Burley
15% White Burley
15% Izmir Turkish
10% perique
5% red virginia
5% Kentucky Dark Fired


Flavorwise, it's a real shapeshifter. There's a lot going on. The flavors change dramatically depending on bowl size. Smaller and especially narrower bowls bring out a sweet-Turkish spice quality. Larger bowls can bring out flavors I'm not sure I like as well--including an almost "cola" like quality, complete with a "fizzy" sensation, maybe created by the peppery-ness of the perique, which really comes out for some reason with larger bowls. This is something I may try to "iron out" a bit.

I keep tweaking, but I can see myself smoking variations of this for a long time.

What I enjoy about it: it's a nice strong smoke with a lot of complexity and surprises, very difficult to get bored with. And--this is important--it suits me chemically. It doesn't hurt my mouth.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Having grown my own tobacco, I have to do some blending to get something out of it that I want to smoke. I've hit upon a few blends that I enjoy, but they aren't exact recipes, since I have to work them into twists to store them. But, I keep in inexact ratio of what I want, by counting leaves that I use in a twist. Works for me. And, I enjoy smoking the fruits of my labors.

Like McClellands, it's really hard to share my recipes, because it involves the processes. The cure, the color cure, the mix of leaves based on whatever they taste like for that year, and how I predict they will age out. Then whether I let them age with an acetobacter to encourage an acetic acid, or use a cavendish process with crock pots, or just twist and let them run.

Blending can be as easy as mixing so many oz of red Virginias with a basic white burley, a smidge of latakia, etc... but that is just a basic understanding. I like to explore what can and cannot be done. I'm a nerd that way.

 

[leonardbill1]

I know that it's not fancy, but I mix half Sutliff 515 RC-1 Matured Red Virginia with half Sutliff 507-C Virginia Slices (I tear the slices into relatively small pieces by hand), then jar it in quart mason jars and let it sit for a few months. An everyday smoke that I think is better than either one of its component parts and at a great price, especially if you hit a sale on Sutliff.

 

[The Algerian]

Sutliff 515 is a great mixer for sure. I can only handle big red as a mix.

 

[rmpeeps]

I have a blend I called “Jed’s Rock”.
In the late 90s I did some mixing of C&D blends and came up with it on my own.
I called and talked to Craig and asked him to do 8lbs of it. He called it interesting.
That was 1997 and I still have about a pound of it.

Jed’s Rock- Dec ‘97
Oriental Silk - 3 parts
Yale Mixture - 1 part

 

[Grangerous]

I have enjoyed a blend I call Match Granger. — I load a bowl of Granger, then hit it with a Match.

This is an interesting thread. I’m not very good and blending. Anything I’ve tried tastes predominately like one of the ingredients.

I would be interested in obtaining some unsweetened, black cavendish and experimenting with adding a bit more to Pegasus to “personalize” it to my tastes.

I do have some blending Turkish, Perique, Burleys etc, but like I’ve said, I’m not gifted in that area.

 

[newbroom]

I started reading this forum and learning about this incredible taste journey into soothing stresslessness of nicotine euphoria back in 2014. After years of cig smoking, mostly roll your own, and then mostly Drm or similar I got a corn cob at the drug store and within a month discovered this forum.
I got all the symptoms of every acquisition disorder, and soon had my postal carriers and delivery folks coming to my door with all sorts of pipes and tobacco.
As for my own blend, I do manage to create, using that word with humility, some smokeable mixes and most often do smoke from a huge plastic salad bowl with cover that I use to mix up about 2 oz. total or so each time, using various varietals mostly from Sutliff, including perique. I typically mix some burley, some VA, and of course, some perique. I've got stoved VA too as well as other representations and also I have the dreaded yet amazing Picayune.
As I have fought and seem to have won, several battles in life, I find the respite of a pipe and tobacco to be of the most enjoyable moments I have. Here's to your own mix, whatever it may be, and keep on puffin!

 

[AroEnglish]

I’d love to have my own blend. I’ve got a particular idea of what I’d like it to taste like but I don't know how to get there.

 

[SBC]

After McC went the way of the Dodo, I set out to create a FMC substitute. What I came up with is not a match, but a person who liked FMC might like this.

I call it "The Floating Log," after the inn in Tolkien's Frog Morton.

50% by weight Bourbon Barrel Aged Plum Pudding
20% by weight Boswell's Northwoods
15% by weight Country Squire Shepherd's Pie
15% by weight Just For Him's Whiskey Biscuit Gravy.

Of course the BBA PP has to be thoroughly rubbed out for this to mix well.

If jarred awhile, it's amazing how much of the bourbon infuses the other components (IMO there's too much bourbon in the PP to begin with, and this ratio perfects it).

I currently have about 8 oz. of it jarred.

 

[AJL67]

There are just so many tobacco‘s out there I really enjoy that I really haven’t bothered. I have done some things in a Home press which changes flavor slightly but that’s about it

 

[Grangerous]

About to smoke something interesting. I had maybe a bowl left in the bottom of a tub of Carter Hall.

I’d happen to have a bowl of Supervalue chocolate drying for two days and still too moist. Don’t ask. I added a 1.5 ounce pouch to a recent order. Curiosity. So unceremoniously into the Carter Hall crumbs it went

Then, knowing exactly what this will be, I couldn’t leave well enough alone, so I added the remnants from a 1 pound bag of Pegasus.

So the resulting mixture is one quarter Carter Hall/Choc Cav and 3/4 Pegasus. This should prove interesting. I’m on it! Later…

 

[canucklehead]

I have a few I've made for myself, current favourite is D&R Three Sails seasoned with Sutliff perique, WLT dark fired, and sliced up maduro cigar. My wife does not like the smell, it is a bit reminiscent of a barnyard. Tentatively naming it "Three Shits to the Wind".

 

[Sigmund]

As I mentioned in other threads. In France you can only get a few good things unless you get visitors with care packages. As a result I do a lot of in pipe recipies.

My latest and most favorite at the moment I call PsychoAnalysis

2 parts Dan pipe St Bernard Flake
1 part Salty Dogs you can lean towards half and half if you want it sweeter
a pinch of blending lat or english blend like emp or ashton artisian blend

This is a rich smoke with just enough lat peeking through now and again to keep things intersting and add another flavor layer.

 

[proteus]

I have a lot of custom blends I like made from leaf. Simplest is best so a blend by parts of 10 VA flue, 4 bright VA cav unsweetened, 1 izmir 1 basma 1 krumovgrad 2 DAC 1 perique.

Mixers of commercial blends I like the most are equal parts OJK and OJK blue.

 

[jpberg]

I have a blend I called “Jed’s Rock”.
In the late 90s I did some mixing of C&D blends and came up with it on my own.
I called and talked to Craig and asked him to do 8lbs of it. He called it interesting.
That was 1997 and I still have about a pound of it.

Jed’s Rock- Dec ‘97
Oriental Silk - 3 parts
Yale Mixture - 1 part

Yale was always an under appreciated blend.

 

[Chasing Embers]

A blend of Yenidje, Samsun, Red Virginias, and Perique infused with mango essence that I call Mihrimah.

 

[AppalachianPipe92]

I have many a home blend I really enjoy. Generally perique-heavy or oriental forward. Most consist of a Red dominant base with Bright supporting. Then I add Perique and/or Orientals to my preference. I'll usually make 4-8oz and stove 2oz of that while putting the rest in jars for later. When using whole leaf I'll make flakes or cakes. It's been fun. I know what I like and can tailor a blend to those preferences. I also write my recipes down and when I really like something I go back and make a pound or 2 to put away.

 

[Call Me Late]

I’ve just started my home blending journey but I’ve found that adding a bit of perique to a blend I don’t really like off the bat seems to make it a lot better.