Your First Blend

[tinsel]

Recently I revisited, for the first time in what seems like an eternity, the very first blend I ever smoked. Middleton's Cherry.
It was enjoyable in a sort of nostalgic way. Kind of like visiting a friend you haven't seen in a very very long time. I remember lighting it and immediately thinking "Hey, I remember this!". I smoked it back in the days when I was also smoking 2 packs of nails a day. At the time, I didn't realize how much difference there was between blends and figured that it was probably a lot like cigarettes ... subtle differences at best. How wrong I was!
Around the time I gave up the coffin nails and started exclusively smoking a pipe, I also stocked up on a variety of OTC blends. PA, CH, CBW, SWR ... the list goes on. CH and PA became my go-to blends until I found the world of tinned tobaccos and never looked back.
As I sat here smoking some OGS and reading the forums, I happened up on the thread where someone is asking about how long it takes most guys to switch to aromatics ... and reading the responses (all very good I might add) ... and thinking about how so many people seem to think that all beginners start with aromatics and so on and so forth ... I started thinking about Middleton's Cherry again.
That got me to wondering ... what blends DO people usually start with.
So, I'm asking. What was your first blend? How long did you smoke it before you started branching out in the world?
Looking forward to your stories

 

[warren]

Walnut Blend? Long time back. Once! Then onto Sir Walter. Christmas break I was home. So to the local pipe shop where I was introduced to Dunhill blends and there was no looking back.

 

[dread]

Haha - I JUST did this two nights ago. A friend at work had been gifted what was the VERY first pipe tobacco I smoked way back in 1987. He didn't like it, but remembered that I had told him I used to smoke it. So he gave it to me. I lit it up and. . . . YUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK. I DID NOT LIKE IT. Oh well.
It was Borkum Riff Whiskey. :rofl:

 

[wilson]

It was a long time ago, so I'm hard pressed to tell you the first. Probably Captain Black White, though I remember smoking Amphora as well, so I can't say which was first. Nevertheless, in the beginning I smoked a lot of Captain Black White, Blue and Gold and some Amphora.

 

[sparrowhawk]

Knowing nothing about pipe smoking and tobaccos, I started with, as happenstance would have it, a Peterson Dracula: I've since been a Peterson fan. But the choice of tobacco was terrible: I smoked Captain Black Gold, unaware that this particular blend bites like a rabid rattlesnake. Indeed, before discovering this forum, I didn't even know certain tobaccos can bit you viciously. I moved on, with recommendations from the gents here, to less lethal blends like L 1Q, and with a bunch of great fellows sending me samples, discovered where my tastes lie. I'm still looking for new blends.

 

[drennan]

I drove around an hour to my closest B&M in France and bought a tin of SG Balkan flake, Dunhill EMP and Standard mixture. The first tin I cracked was EMP, my first bowl was whilst strolling down the river.

 

[grue]

Skandinavik Mixture. Bleh...

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

My first blend was MacBaren Scottish Blend. Yes, the memories are pretty vivid.
Ironically, Peterson Irish Flake and Five Brothers were also some blends I tried in the first week or two. I only smoked a few bowls of Irish Flake before I decided to blend it down with a bunch of Virginia and Latakia.

 

[judcole]

I think it was John Rolfe,but it was fall of 1968,so who knows. I started trying different drugstore blends almost immediately - and I mean late 1960s drugstore - Borkum Riff, yeah, but also Sail, Troost, Flying Dutchman. Never tried any of the classic American burley blends - not sure why. After about 3 years I started venturing into Campbell's Smoke Shop in E. Lansing, and a whole new world opened up for me. ::

 

[ray47]

My 1st blend was Middleton's Cherry Blend. After 2 bowls I threw the pouch away and didn't come back to pipe smoking for 2 yrs. To this day I can't stand the blend. I moved on to non-aromatics like Prince Albert and Carter Hall.

 

[mackeson]

The one I remember distinctly was Edward's Drury Lane when I really started the pipe in '98 --great aroma, not much flavor though. I kept smoking that and worked my way through the rest of their house blends over the next year before discovering that my palate prefers stronger flavors. I do have great memories of that aroma though.

Before that I don't remember the brand I picked up for the first time in '93 and I got a cob from a grocery store and some cherry blend. I smoked most of it, then used my pipe for Bugler & Drum cigarette tobaccos and didn't touch pipe tobacco for about 4 or 5 years.

 

[sthbkr77]

I'm fairly certain it was half and half, something I haven't revisited in 25 years. I should plunk down a couple bucks and record my current thoughts on it.

I know there was a fair share of Borkum Riff and the Captain in there too as I was a kid and only knew to go to the drug store where no questions were asked nor eyebrows raised when I spilled my treasures in front of the register.

The pipes were strictly Grabow's, I had about 4 if I recall, one being a meer lined giant pot.
I also remember going back about 12 years when visiting a tobacconist, I decided to get back in to the pipe world. The kind gentleman at the B&M did me a solid and sent me walking with a tin of OGS and a tin of Balkan Sasieni. Never before had I experienced latakia and his recommendation and description was all I needed to end up here with you vagabonds and ruffians.

 

[prairiedruid]

Way back in the year of 2015 my first pipe was filled with EMP. I went off the advice of the board that this was a good "starter" blend. Of course I packed it too tight and smoked way too fast and hot that first time but thru more research on the forum I quickly improved my technique and actually enjoyed the subsequent bowls.

 

[cortezattic]

Middleton's Cherry Blend & London Dock; Iwan Ries' 3-Star Blue; and like Jud in the late 60's, Borkum Riff, Sail, Troost, and Flying Dutchman. My first visit to Iwan Ries Shop circa 1969 was when and where I discovered British blends.

 

[jkrug]

So long ago I honestly don't remember. When I got back into pipes after a few years off the first blend I smoked was a bulk Brigham blend called Muskoka Mixture. ::

 

[sw0snuff3r]

My wife (then girlfriend) surprised me with a Chinese brylon pipe from ebay years ago. I think she was tired of the cigarette smell in the apartment. I went to my one and only local tobacconist and got a Brigham cherry aromatic, Wild Cherry I think. I had no clue how to pack a pipe or pace myself and had a horrible time with it. The pipe got red hot, I got terrible tongue bite and it tasted like ass. I put the pipe away and threw out the tobacco.
I continued with the smokes for a few more years until I took the time to research how to go about things properly. I went to that same tobacconist and bought a cob and paid an arm and a leg for a tin of Peterson University Flake. I had much better success this time and have been enjoying the pipe ever since.
I think that brylon pipe is packed away somewhere, I'll have to find it and try it again.

 

[shutterbugg]

First blend I smoked was a B&M English, probably a Lane bulk. I was asked by the girls in my college class not to smoke a cigar in class because "it stinks", but they all said they loved the smell of a pipe. I had planned on stopping in the drugstore for a cheap Grabow or Kaywoodie and a pouch of some cherry tobacco, but by sheer luck there happened to be a legit tobacconist on my way from campus. They had huge apothecary jars with house blends, and when I took the lid off one, the stench nearly knocked me off my feet. A devilish whim came across me and I asked the storekeeper if it smelled as bad lit and he said "worse". I walked out with an ounce of it and a Savinelli Punto Oro billiard.
Taught those stuck-up girls a lesson, and avoided the whole drugstore-OTC-cheap-varnished-pipe-garbage-tobacco scene and went straight to the good stuff. No doubt why I kept up with the pipe. I did try a slew of OTC blends later, some were not unsmokable, but none I ever put into regular rotation.

 

[mso489]

One of those aromatics from Tinder Box, maybe it was North Sea, which was/is a standard blend relabeled from Peter Stokkebye or Lane. This would have been in the mid or late 1970's.

 

[jefff]

Middletons Cherry here too. I was 16.

 

[aldecaker]

Long time ago and hard to remember for me as well. I think I purchased two pouches to start; Middleton's Apple and Bond Street. I do know for a fact back in those "fits-and-starts" pipe days several OTC's were involved. Captain Black, Borkum Riff, Carter Hall, the usual suspects.