It seems like Maltese Falcon was just released - I guess it has been about six months. Now Key Largo has been released, according to C&D. I’m looking forward to trying this one.

I dig the new art deco label design. I hope he sticks with that.

Greg’s description:

Deep, earthy and creamy. A distinguished broken flake of red Virginia tobaccos, small leaf orientals, and a measure of Cyprus Latakia, spiced with velvety cigar wrapper leaf. Key Largo develops throughout the bowl, offering a satisfying and sturdy smoking experience, with beautifully balanced, richly textured layers of cocoa, dark roasted coffee, leather, and a lively, lingering finish. Available in 2oz tin only

Surprisingly, cigar leaf does give a nice Latakia laced blend a creamy sort of feel. I love Robusto. Robusto is probably my favorite of Pease’s blends, so I’m obviously anxious to see how this one works for me. Red Virginias and cigar leave make a nice combo - I know this becuase I’ve smoked enough McClelland’s Dominican Glory Maduro to be sure. Add the Latakia….

More later….I need to go get this on order.

An employer in California has given his employees the ultimatum to quit smoking in 15 months or be fired. He has began refusing to hire smokers and extended the ban to employees with family members who smoke. His employees are subject to blood testing to ensure compliance with his rules.

Good for him.

That’s right. I’m outspoken on the rights of smokers, but even more adament about protecting individual and property rights. If this man doesn’t want smokers working for him, he should not be forced to hire them. If one doesn’t like his policies, don’t work for him.

No one has a right to work for this guy.

I can’t really blame him. We now live in a culture that believes it is someone else’s responsibility to pay for healthcare. If I am to be put in a position where I have to provide for your health care, I want some control over what you do about your health and how well you take care of yourself.

Whatever his motivation, it’s his property, his business, and his decision.

Of course, this is how it should be when it comes to bans on smoking in restaurants, bars, and other privately owned businesses. The owner should decide, not the government. It is intellectually dishonest to believe that, then turn around and say a employer shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions like this about whom he hires.

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. Visit ipsd.eu for more pomp and circumstance.

I thought this article from the NYT archives, dated 1911 was fascinating just for the fact that with our hobby, what was sound advice and information is still just as pertinant today.

Not to mention the fact you had an article about pipe smoking in the newspaper!

COLOR MEERSCHAUM PIPES BY MACHINERY; Smoke a Dozen at Once, and Do It Better Than a Tobacco Lover Could.
December 24, 1911, Sunday

Section: Cable News Wireless and Sporting Sections, Page C12, 974 words

” There used to be a time,” sighed the cigar store man, “when I made a substantial addition to my income coloring meerschaum pipes for folk who were too lazy or ignorant of how to do it for themselves, but as in the case of many other industries manual labor, if you can call smoking manual labor, has had to give way before the march of machinery.

The article coninues to provide some advice on coloring meers from a guy who smoked meers for a living - the guy actually made money for smoking a pipe! I know what I want to do for my second career.

Then there is also this article about a Russian czar, Nicholas I, who had a large diamond studded meer made to give as a gift. The recipient was worried about how long it would take to color the meer - he figured five years, so the czar ordered had it sent to the guard house to be smoked round the clock for two weeks.

The “order of the day” read:

Under pain of the knout, none shall smoke any other pipe but this. All the necessary tobacco shall be supplied. At the end of the fort-night the pipe was returned to its owner inscribed “colored in 15 days by order of Nicholas, Emperor.“

To be honest, I don’t remember when I even bought this tin of tobacco. I don’t know why I bought this tin of tobacco. It has been sitting in a drawer by its lonesome among a bunch of junk pipe parts for years, not with my beloved cellared blends. I’ve never given it much thought. In my mind, I figured it would be an over-sweet mess that would get tried and never finished.

This morning, I was in the mood for an aromatic. But not one of Vanilla, butterscotch, BCA type aromatics I generally rotate to on these occasions. Somehow, I recalled this was sitting in that junk drawer, waiting for me, unopened.

What a pleasant surprise. The leaf is excellent. I can easily make out the base of Virginias, and I’m guessing the burley component is something along the pedigree of Dark Fired Kentucky. But there’s just a touch - just the right touch - of that burley to give this blend what it needs. I’m guessing some of the tobacco is cavendish, but I’m not certain of that.

The tobacco is superbly well behaved. Straight from the freshly opened tin, and into a meer, it burns readily and dry with no need of relights with proper cadence. Not even a hint of tongue bite or bitterness from top to bottom. It produces generous volumes of smoke with a rich, smooth mouth feel and a sweet mellow taste.

I can’t figure out the flavor that its cased or topped with. It reminds me a little of Earl Grey tea or maybe peaches. It’s hard to pick out because the flavoring is noticeable, but it doesn’t cover up the tobacco flavor - it blends seamlessly with it. The overall taste and feel is very natural and clean. I don’t expect this would foul a briar or leave ghosts as it smokes so dry and the flavoring isn’t syrupy. After dumping the finished bowl, there was no visible moisture at the bottom of the bowl.

I highly recommend this blend to anyone except the most militant of purists who reject anything flavored.

I heard a nasty rumor lately this stuff has been discontinued. If there is any truth to this I’ll be disappointed. This blend is one I heard so many great things about, I just ordered a pound cold several months ago. Rarely do I take such chances, but rarely do you run across blends that have such a great reputation that sell for such a modest price. This choice turned out to be some of the best money I’ve spent on tobacco.

Speaking of rumors, its even been said this is the same recipe as the legendary Balkan Sobraine. I’m not going to hitch my horse to that wagon. (Or is it, I’ll never hitch my wagon to that horse? I’m not a cowboy.) Regardless, this is tastey stuff. And take this with a grain of salt, as I’m not an aficionado within this genre of pipe tobacco blends, but I do have open tins of other Balkans and English blends open, but I return to my ziplock baggy of this more than those.

I get the Orientals first and foremost in this blend. I can’t tell where the sweetness from the Virginia leaf ends and the richness of the Oriental begins. Latakia is present and noticeable, but not overpowering. The whole mix together is smooth, pleasant, and well balanced. The Virginias present a little tang, but no bite. This isn’t the fullest among the blends I like, but I’d smoke it any time of day, whether mid-morning with a few cups of tea or later than night with a bottle of Scotch.

Greg is at it again. He has announced a new creation based on Raven’s wing which isn’t with us any more due to the loss of some special Syrian Latakia. This new one is supposed to be similar, but uses Cyprian Latakia. I wish those Syrians would learn to get along with their neighbors and go back to making the good stuff.

I’ve been promising to do a blend based on the original Raven’s Wing using only Cyprus Latakia. I’ve done it, and this is it. The blend has a nice natural sweetness from the aged red Virginia leaf, and plenty of leathery, smoky Latakia notes. There’s an undercurrent of oriental spice, but its really the VAs and Latakia that dominate. I think it’s delicious, and it’ll be a perfect winter companion.

Out of my entire collection of pipes, there are less than ten that get the vast majority of use. They are mostly LJ Hearts. LJ’s pipes smoke the best out of any in my collection – that’s why they get smoked the most. I’m not a pipe collector, I’m a pipe smoker.

I’m also not a pipe rester. Each of my pipes has its own personality, blends that go well with them, and their own feel. I’m happy to kick back with one of my heavier pipes while I’m watching a movie, but if I’ll be at work on the computer, I’ll go for a lighter one as I’ll be clenching more. So, each time I smoke, I pick a pipe that’s best for the occasion and the blend I have in mind.

This means I’ll often end up selecting a pipe that I just smoked the day before or even earlier that day. For some in our hobby, that is heresy. “Pipes need days of rest between smokes or they’ll go sour!” warn the pipe resters. Pipe resters encourage you to build your collection large enough that you can always pull a pipe off the rack that has been left alone for a week. I think this leads to too many new pipe smokers filling their racks quickly as possible with cheap, poorly made pipes that don’t smoke well. My advice is to spend all that money on a handful of quality smokers that you’ll be able to enjoy, rather than a rack-full of duds that’ll always be well rested.

I can’t imagine looking at the calendar and saying to myself, “Ok, its that Savinelli’s turn, that’s the pipe I have to smoke right now.” Blech! But that sort of system seems to bring comfort to a number of pipe smokers, and if that’s the case, God bless them. More power to ‘em. Whatever winds your clock, and all that. Some folks just like the ritual of it, and that’s great.

But for those considering the question of resting pipes for the first time with an open mind, I can suggest that any regimen of resting pipes is not necessary whatsoever. Yes, that’s right – now take a deep breath – you don’t have to rest your pipes.

I’ve read books on pipe smoking, talked with tobacconists, and discussed the matter with countless other pipe smokers on the internet, and they all disagree with me. But I have proof. I’ve experimented. I’ve tested their hypothesis. I smoked the same pipe, multiple times a day, for months on end, with no rest, and nothing more for cleaning than a pipe cleaner or two each smoke. The pipe didn’t rot, go sour, turn foul, begin to stink, make tobacco taste funny, or suffer any other malady. In fact, that pipe is my best smoker.

They have suspicion and mythology. I have evidence. By the way, so did all those old-timers you saw that smoked the same pipe until it broke and they had to go to the drug store and buy another. They didn’t have the internet to tell them their pipe stunk I guess.

“But I like a clean, cool, dry smoke.” my pipe resting friends protest. So do I! You don’t have to rest your pipes a week to get it. One guy, after hearing my disagreement with the cult of pipe resting, even tried telling me I’m smoking the wrong tobacco! He reasoned that being I must like a pipe that is horrible, foul, and reeking of stale, putrid tobacco juice, I should smoke fuller, stronger blends. That gave me a good chuckle. I enjoy a wide variety of blends, thanks.

That just shows how fervently its adherents cling to this belief, which probably had its beginning as a clever marketing gimmick aimed at selling more pipes. The guy who came up with that idea could probably sell cow manure to a dairy farmer. Ever hear the one about the guy who went about blowing a whistle all the time?

“Why are you blowing that whistle all the time?”

“To keep the elephants away.”

“But we don’t have elephants around here.”

“See! It works great!”

With all due respect, that’s what the pipe resting zealots sound like – the guy who blew the whistle to keep the elephants away. I’ve stopped blowing the whistle, and I haven’t been trampled by elephants yet.

A month ago I blogged about my initial explorations of cigar blends. I’ve had time to smoke them more and I’m happy to report my two latest purchases I mentioned earlier both appeal to me.

Robusto has been getting a lot of my attention lately so I thought I’d focus on it here. To be honest, it was a slow start. My initial bowls seemed kind of muddled, flat, and dirty tasting. I don’t usually persevere with blends that don’t strike me at first because there are so many that do. McClelland’s Dominican Glory Maduro had a more instant appeal and I gravitated towards that blend for a while. Pease notes somewhere that you need to develop a vocabulary to appreciate this blend and that proved true. If you decide to try it yourself, stick with it a while. I’m glad I did.

The blend is from his Original Mixtures Collection - introduced a full five years ago. It consists of Virginias, Maduro cigar leaf, Latakia, and Orientals.

The first thing I love about this stuff is how easy it is on the palate. I can smoke this bowl after bowl with little fatigue and no tongue bite. It may be just a little too rich for me to consider it an all day blend, but if I were stuck with it on the proverbial desert island, I’d be a happy camper.

There is a tangy sweetness that is counterbalanced by a gentle edginess in the cigar leaf. As advertised on the tin description, “the Latakia adds roundness and smoothes the edges.” I think it also enhances the sweetness of the Virginias too. As for the Orientals, I can’t really pick out where they start and the cigar leaf starts, but I can taste them. It all works together in a very balanced way - I can see this becoming one of my favorites among Greg Pease’s blends.

If you have been hesitant to try a pipe tobacco blended with cigar leaf thinking it would be too strong and overpowering - or just too much like a cigar, put that aside and give this blend a try. The cigar leaf works as a condiment, and it works very well.

Don’t miss Greg’s recent comments on Robusto - he’s a lot better with words to describe what makes this blend great.

Deer tongue that is. It’s one of the condimental ingredients in Cornell & Diehl’s #410 “New Market.” Bing Crosby is reportedly known to have enjoyed a mixture of cubed burley with deer tongue. Today that is probably the most widely known example of the herb’s use in a pipe tobacco blend as it has been recreated by C&D and some other blenders.

Back to #410….

Good stuff. Its growing on me fast. The blend is lemon Virginia in a ribbon cut with unflavored black cavendish. The deer tongue adds a taste very similar to vanilla in a very natural subdued way. Don’t think of the kind of vanilla flavor like you’ll find in a Lane bulk, or even C&D’s excellent aromatic black cavendish blend #734 Green River Vanilla. This blend is all natural as far as I can tell and the vanilla is sort of herbal rather than saucy.

As usual, the “reviews” on tobaccoreviews.com do not do this blend justice. Pay no attention to them. Try this one yourself. It is smooth, naturally sweet, interesting, and this blend burns so very nicely without a hint of tongue bite.