Why the big love with English blends? Smell is terrible

[bigpond]

Many of the things that smell the "worst" taste the best. Think of how grey the world would be if the "stinky" factor put us off eating stinky cheese, truffle, oysters, whisky, tobacco...the list goes on and on.

 

[tbradsim1]

Smell depends on where you've been in your life, sticking s hog to butcher, smell of blood, hair scrapeing to get hog ready, pheww, walking in a barn cow shit and hay smell, going in a leather shop, saddles, boots smell, gunpowder smell after a flurry of doves has flown by, smell of a little baby, wet dog bringing you a duck you've killed. We don't appreciate how smell triggers the mind, especially as you get older, embrace the bad smells as it is a testimony that you're living on this earth.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

A fine Corinthian leather interior in a luxury automobile. A fine artisan built cedar closet. A fire built in the hearth out of two year old hickory. The smell of oak that comes from a newly popped bottle of Sauvignon. The aromas of old books in a library with ancient wooden shelves. The smell of a handful of crisp $100 bills. The smells of the night air while walking out over the pier at the river. The smell of saliva on a young woman's neck heated by passion and rage.
I was just adding a few to your list, Brad. ::

 

[toobfreak]

I used to smoke a lot of cigars and loved their aroma and flavor, but I never smelled a cigar that someone else was smoking when I wasn't that didn't smell like burning rubber to me!
Then there is the other effect for both gourmet foods and rotten pipe blends that the worse they taste or smell, obviously the more elevated and evolved palette you must have to appreciate it! So I think sometimes people force themselves to smoke terrible smelling stuff as a way of telling themselves they are either sophisticated or in the hopes that they will grow into it.

 

[mikestanley]

"I used to smoke a lot of cigars and loved their aroma and flavor, but I never smelled a cigar that someone else was smoking when I wasn't that didn't smell like burning rubber to me!"
Your friends must have smoked cheap cigars. A good, properly aged cigar smells wonderful. IMHO. : )
Mike S.

 

[toobfreak]

They weren't friends, and I don't know what they were smoking, but they stunk. I generally prefer Padron's, Aurora's, certain Acids on occasions, lots of others.

 

[dkaye201]

Different strokes for different folks.

Smoke what you like, like what you smoke.

 

[mso489]

English blends are to adult pipe smokers what coffee is to kids who don't drink it. It is an acquired taste that you might dislike at first, stay away from for a long time, but often eventually get to tolerate and then truly like. You might like to start with something like Nat Sherman 536, or even an aromatic with some English blend traits, like Iwan Ries Three Star Blue. On the other hand, no law says you have to meet the English blend challenge. Smoke what you like, as the old saying goes.

 

[thomasmartin]

I enjoy the smell of English blends. It's aromatics I can't stand.

 

[deathmetal]

Smoking aromatics, my observations, are like smoking cheap Flavored Cigars. Not all aromatics are like this, but the vast majority that I've smoked come down of the side of cheap flavored cigars.

There is truth to this. Some of them are quite good. I doubt I will ever have a flavored cigar, and generally dislike flavorings, but Prince Albert is quite tasty...

 

[ophiuchus]

What is your favorite cow shit tobacco, or tobacco with cow shit as an important flavor? And why?

 

[sablebrush52]

The smell from the tobacco does a great job of hiding the smell of the corpses in the library. This was the principle reason that English blends were developed.

 

[ophiuchus]

:rofl:

 

[toobfreak]

It's aromatics I can't stand.

There are so many different kinds of aromatics out there, that when someone tells me they don't like aromatics, I tend to just dismiss them. They probably smoke an aromatic and don't even know it. They certainly have not tried them all.
As to the smell of English blends, well, it is all about the flavor anyway, and things tend to smell different smoking them though I can't say I ever walked back into the room after smoking an English blend and thought to myself: PU!

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

I love a lot the smell of english (lat) blends but so far cant stand the taste too much, though in small amounts I'm Ok with them, for instance I liked that Newer Dunhill release 1938BB, and Stanndard Mix , but nevertheless these types always tastes too sour- bitter(harsh) but in the meantime creamy and full, yet another downside is the fact Englishes tend to chost pipe where in smoked,

 

[slfheinn]

Well, aromatics smell terrible to me,and taste like burnt candy. The furthest Ive come to aromatics is a rum rope.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

Slfheinn

Have you tried Frog Morton's Cellar?
Of all the Aromatic tobacco's I've tried it tends to be the Alcohol flavors that come through best. FMC combines that nicely with Latakia.
C&D Black Frigate is another popular option right now.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I've been smoking a bowl of MacBarons Latakia Flake a day. I'm not the biggest Latakia fan, but some blends with really good Virginias are nice spicy variation, when I want something different. Those flakes require a lot of drying, IMO. And, they have a very good Virginia, for a MacBaron product. ::

 

[thomasmartin]

@toobfreak

Of course I haven't tried all aromatics but I've tried quite a few in my 20Y+ career as a pipe smoker and I came to the conclusion many years ago that I can only enjoy English blends. The only thing remotely close to an aromatic that can smoke from time to time is a traditional flake such as Dunhill or Marlin which for me are not really aromatics strictly speaking.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Everyone says that the smell is awful, but at The Briary, among the cigars, Virginias, :::cough cough::: and aromatics, when someone first lights up a lat-bomb, it smells delicious to me, standing out from the other aromas. Even at the height of my disgust with latakia taste, the smell always intrigued me. I've spent many hours of my life watching the fire in the hearth, campfire, or bonfire, mesmerized by the dance of the flames and the aromas of hardwoods giving up their ghosts to the combustion. I get that mesmerized "feeling" when someone first puts match to latakia. It's like an instant trance. at least until they've gotten the bowl going, and then it settles into the background of aromas.
BTW, it kills me when I visit someone's house that has to stand on the porch to smoke, when they have a fireplace that they use. I don't get it at all. Why is saturating everything in the home with burning wood any better than the wonderful aromas of the pipe? sorry, distracted side note.