Self-composed

Update: I was reading my blog (I’m one of the few who do) and realized that this post would probably make more sense if I relayed the context. When I made the purchase from E.A. Carey, I was sent and email asking me to review my purchase. This is the full text of what I attempted to submit. I copied it here because a) my blog needs material, and b) the site kept erroring out every time I tried to submit the review there, and I wanted to put it somewhere so that it wouldn’t be lost forever - so I copied and pasted it here. I also realized it is pretty negative, but it is true, so I’m going to leave it for now. BTW, as far as I know, it never did appear on the review site.

I bought two pipes, a tin of tobacco, and received a free portion of bulk aromatic. I like things to be upfront when I do business, and this is where Carey Smokeshop is lacking most.

Their scheme where they want you to pay them $25 so you can get your items for the “sale price” - the same price that shows up in your shopping cart when you select buy - they want you to pay $25 for getting items at this price. For one year.

Mind you, their sale price - the one you have to pay them $25 to get - is not really even competitive. I can purchase the same product at a lower regular price than I can get it for the gimmicky membership price - and that is forgetting that when you pay $25 to save $25 you haven’t even saved anything at all.

For example, consider a tin of MacBaren Scottish Mixture - the membership price is $10.51 while the regular price is $11.95.

Suppose you’re going to buy 16 tins of Scottish Mixture, and you pay their membership - you may have just as well saved your $25 up front and paid the regular fee because you haven’t paid a dime’s worth of difference, and if you were dumb enough to pay for the membership AND bought less than 16 tins, you got suckered for more money than you would have paid at “full price.”

Suppose you know you’re going to need more than 16 tins of Scottish Mixture in a year, yes you’ll start saving money beginning with your 17th tin, but if you want to save even more money, buy them pretty much anywhere else online. I checked the price of this tobacco at three other online merchants and it ranged between $7.40 and $8.70 with no phoney membership schemes.

On the other hand, if you plan to buy a lot of Carey pipes, you don’t have to buy sixteen to start “saving money.” More like half a dozen.

I bought two of these pipes - a Duncan Hill Aerosphere and a Magic Inch. I’ll likely never buy new from them again, because I don’t think they are quite worth the membership price, much less the regular price. Not that I feel I got ripped off, just that I think there are better deals on pipes out there. Both the pipes I received were poorly drilled - the draft hole met the tobacco chamber about 1/8 inch higher than it would on a properly engineered pipe. This impacts the burn making it uneven, and impossible to smoke to the heel.

Were these drilled correctly, I think they’d make pretty darn good smokes for the money actually. Probably some of the older estate versions floating around on the online auctions are drilled better - I have one such “magic inch” Carey that I picked up in a lot for a couple dollars that is drilled correctly. By the way, on both of the new pipes I bought, the stamp wasn’t even applied evenly on either pipe and some of the nomenclature is missing on both new pipes. And again, not an issue on the estate pipe.

Maybe Carey should put less effort into devising clever schemes to sucker people out of money and more effort into the workmanship of their pipe.

Also, one last tip on their free tobacco. Whatever you do, don’t pick a second choice if it is cheaper than your first choice. I carefully selected two blends - a English and, like a good boy following directions, chose one of the repackaged Lane bulks as a second choice. Both were in stock, and of course, they sent me the cheaper of the two anyway. I guess calling this tacky is looking a gift horse in the mouth?

Positive notes - they shipped the order fairly quickly and packed it well. There is a real person there who will answer your emails, in fact she was even nice enough to send me an email letting me know I wasn’t getting the order for the price that shows up in the shopping cart because I didn’t allow myself to get suckered into the membership scheme.

For the folks at Carey, here is how you can improve:

1. Get rid of the membership scheme on your pipes and pipe tobacco. Its insulting. Treat all your customers the same, offer one price to everyone. If you have to charge higher prices to make ends meet, so be it, but don’t try to camouflage it with that sleazy membership scheme.

2. See if you can lower your prices - just a little.

3. Find a way to restore some workmanship in your pipes. They feel like they were made in China with their poor drilling and uneven stamping. Sorry China. They would be nice pipes for the money were it not for the shoddy workmanship.

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with this site for some time. I can say without hesitation that its all but worthless for simply looking up a blend and getting a solid consensus of opinion. Too many bandwagoners, fanboys, axe-grinders, and frankly, people with no clue. My favorite example is the guy who reviews Old Joe Krantz and compares it to a balkan and questions whether it has Perique.

This blend remind’s of a dryer version of some balkan blends, that are out there.(But,they say there’s no latakia?) … I really didn’t notice the perique,very much,if at all???

Those who know and love the blend as I do know it’s a burley based blend with no Latakia or Oriental leaf at all, and a monumental amount of Perique! Yet this gentleman’s obviously mis-informed review and grade is counted against the overall score on the site.

But I’m attracted to to tobaccoreviews.com like a moth to the flame anyway. I just can’t help it. I’m in this hobby for the tobacco, and I love reading about blends, even when there is a lot of garbage among that reading.

A great way to sort out that garbage is find other reviewers you trust. This takes some work, but it is very do-able. Go to a blend you know very well, be it one you don’t like that much or one at the top of your list. Go through the reviews until you find one that matches your impressions of the blend. Now work your way through the site’s clunky navigation system to find the list of reviews for that reviewer. Find other blends he’s reviewed that you like and check those reviews to see if they match as well. If a lot of them do, you have a winner! Reading this person’s reviews of blends you haven’t tried will probably prove much more useful than sorting through the rubbish wondering who to trust.

Too bad the site doesn’t have a better navigation system and maybe some mechanisms like “favorite reviewer” or such. I’ve heard of people knowledgeable about web databases who have offered to help out with such things and they’re turned down or ignored. Sad.

I’m not a big fan of cigars. I’m a fan of cigars - just not a big fan. Ok, maybe I’m kind of big…

Anyway….

In my years of questing for the holy grail, I’ve did little searching among cigar blends. I think I can say I’m limited to “Viginia Spice” from Russ Oullette’s Hearth and Home series. And that was a good blend, but I didn’t continue down the path of cigar blends because I usually stay away from heavier blends (for the same reason I don’t smoke a lot of cigars) in preference for lighter bodied concoctions.

I don’t know if it was reading one of Greg Pease’s articles where he’s bragging* about Robusto, or looking through the reviews of another reviewer on tobaccoreviews.com with similar tastes to mine** who gave McClelland’s Dominican Glory Maduro as a four-star blend. Something along the way enticed me to order a tin of each. Glad I did.

No review yet, I’m barely into each tin, but I will say don’t make the mistake I did in thinking you’ll be smoking a cigar through a pipe. The cigar leaf is used as a condimental addition just as Latakia, Orientals, or Perique would be applied. You know there is something different there, but it works with the base Virginias. Pease works some other condimental leaf into his blend with his expert hand, so both of these blends have a different presentation.

All this to say both of these are worth a try and will likely appeal to both the confirmed VA smoker looking for a change of pace as well as the fans of English blends.

* Greg Pease is entitled to brag.
** This is how to get the best use of that site in my opinion.

This is my lates LJ Heart - a nice little poker. Its one of the shorter pipes in my collection. Following is the smallest pipe I have, and I purchased it along with the poker from LJ.

Both of them have a nice open draw and are well engineered.

Got a sample of this one with the pound of Guildford Courthouse I ordered. Not bad for a English type blend with Latakia at the fore. Its pretty round with a little sweetness, and that touch of vanilla is there throughout the bowl. Not sure if I’ll buy it, but nice to have around while the sample lasts.

For most of the time I’ve smoked a pipe, I’ve loved bouncing from one blend to another, always trying something new. I’ve racked up a few favorites, but I always have had this nagging feeling that I’m missing something by not giving any one blend its due.

More precisely, I’ve been wondering to myself if I can enjoy a blend more by smoking a tin of it in a week or two, rather than over the course of a month or two.

I finally got around to giving Old Joe Krantz a try a while back, and later Bailey’s Front Porch. Both from Cornell And Diehl. At some point within the last week I decided to see how long I could exist on a diet of just these two blends. In the last few days, I’ve strayed by a bowl or two of something else here and there, but I’ve largely limited myself to these two excellent blends.

They are both “all day smokes” which to me means they aren’t complicated, or “complex” as some like to describe their favorites, nor do they bite, and most importantly - they taste good enough you’d want to smoke them all day! It doesn’t mean they are low in nicotine content, and they are definitely not lacking in flavor. I definately picked two great candidates. One has Latakia, the other does not.

I hope I stick this out for a while as I’m already noticing things. OJK is getting about 2/3 of my attention and I’m smoking it in various pipes. Tasting a tobacco in one pipe now, and another pipe a few days or a week later isn’t enough to discern the difference the pipe makes, but dumping a bowl from one pipe, and lighting the same blend in another pipe soon after does. This is something I’m seeing more clearly.

More observations will follow if there is ever a part two.

For a change, I’m going to do a “live review.” Usually, I try to get to know a blend a while before putting my thoughts together - this one I’m going to write as I smoke it for the first time.

The flame seemed to jump into this tobacco and nearly light itself. The various tobaccos are cut in such a way packing was a matter of gravity filling and a light tap. Initial tastes were rich, smooth, round, seemingly sweet, and almost creamy. This appears to have about as much chance of biting as a Hershey bar. The gentlest pulls produce generous volumes of smoke accompanied by a wonderful balanced flavor.

I talked to Craig Tarlor when I ordered the sampler this came from. I asked for American style English blends - a blend that would be easy to smoke all day, rich and sweet - this tobacco fits the bill perfectly.

About halfway through the bowl, all the components are holding their own and continue to provide balance. In other similar blends from other brands I’ve noticed that I enjoy the special way Burlies, Latakia, Virginia, and Perique all work together. The Burley brings in a special dynamic not found in blends containing only the other three components.

Towards the bottom of the bowl, the flavor grows more robust, yet still refuses to bite or tire the pallet and ends with a tiny pinch of dottle at a dry heel. The Vitamin N and rich taste has left me satisfied, yet prepared to light up another without reservation.

Blue note has stiff competition with other aromatics in my rotation that smoke better, taste better, and are more economical.

I’m not a big fan of fruity type flavors in my tobacco - even in an aromatic, and this one is fruity, but I’m not basing my overall review on that bias.

The blend is extremely sweet which only aggravates the intensely shrill high notes from the sour fruit flavor and tangy Virginias.  There are no real bass notes to balance it out.  It will bite easily which is a real downer for any aromatic - when I reach for a aromatic I’m looking for a comfort smoke that requires no concentration.  

Blue Note just doesn’t deliver.  I can understand why some like it, but it isn’t my idea of a good aromatic or blend in general.

People told me this is a burley blend.  I’d call it a Perique blend!  Perique is center stage here, and holds your attention the entire bowl.  The other components stay out of the way and allow the star to show her stuff.

Perique’s fig-like fermented character shines with OJK.  You get the peppery character too, but raisiney, stewed prune flavor isn’t lost among the other flavors like it is with some other blends.

The overall taste is no-nonsense and one dimensional.  I’m not saying that like its a bad thing.  Very sturdy - it borders on harsh but doesn’t cross that line.  Its robust, its in your face, and doesn’t pretend to be gentle, but it doesn’t abuse you either.  All that Perique cools the blend down - tongue bite should never be a problem.  OJK is a great source of Vitamin N and one bowl might even exceed your daily allowance.

The blend comes in a cut that is very easy to pack and smoke.  It rates high on my smoke-ability scale.  Puff on it all you want.  It might knock you on your ass, but it won’t leave any bruises.

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I’m not sure if that’s even a word, but I’ve found myself using the term a lot lately on the pipe discussion boards.  What does it mean?  Pretty much, it describes the quality of a blend that allows you to puff away at it with abandon with no ill effects.  This isn’t a mandatory thing for blends I enjoy.  A lot of the tobaccos I enjoy do not rank high on the smoke-ability scale.  Nearly all the VAs and the majority of English blends I smoke require a little care and caution against too rapid a smoking cadence.  So its not always a fault.

On the other hand, when you combine smoke-ability with great taste you have something really special. 

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