For one, I am not a licensed tobacco manufacturer. To do so would require a one million dollar bond on raw tobacco storage and one million dollar bond on the blending room and keep meticulous records of poundage going in and out of each room. Uncle Sam wants his tax
Decided to pull all the plugs I still have and flake them out. Plugs that I stoved in the oven were still moist and easy to slice. Plugs that stoved in a hot truck for 5 days was like trying to flake a 2 x 4. Ended up with a
Happy little accidents! I tried to make 2 more Angel of Izmir plugs and when I pulled them they seemed small. Thinking back I actually forgot to add Izmir to the blend. Head slapfrom Head slap The end result is a pretty smooth smoke without the citrus of Izmir. Blend
At the CORPS pipe show we open a jar of Red Queen plug flake that has been sealed for 6-8 months. Boom ketchup! What happened here? My theory for a couple of months has been tobacco vinegar is what makes this famous smell. This jar of Red Queen plug is
Attended the show and my hats off to a great event by Conclave of Richmond Pipe Smokers club. They did a great event at the Keystone Museum I got there Saturday morning and the folks were swarming every table in which I hope was a good sign for the vendors.
Blend for 175g plug * 24.5% Latakia (43g) * 20% Basma (35g) * 20% Izmir (35.g) * 35.5% Red Virginia (cased with Tonka) (62g) Stoved while under pressure in the truck cab (about 130F) for a few days. Update: 8/8/24 Sliced off a flake and smoking in the 1974
Monkel's Best is basically a bright Virginia with two different casings. I strip 2 lbs of bright and half I case with blackberry casing and the other half with tonka bean casing. I have found it to age well after stoving under pressure for 4 hours at 200F
The Virginia experiment continues and several months later the Bright Virginia plug that is cased half with Tonka Bean and half Blackberry just keeps getting better and better. I wonder what Tonka would do for red Virginia leaf. Well here we are. De-stemmed a pound of red Virginia and cased
After doing the Virginia tonka experiment I thought, "Man, I bet this will match perfect with Grateful Plug!" Well say no more! It is done! Tonka/molasses version of 200g Grateful Plug stoved for 7 hours at 200 F This is a blend of 100g Bright Virginia cased
Had some left over bright Virginia cased with plum so I blended 65g Virginia with 35g black Cavendish that Whole Leaf Tobacco had sent with my order. The Cavendish was granular so when I slice this up it will be more like a broken flake. Had it pressed for 7
So found out I can get tonka beans on Amazon and thought let's give this a go! It is some quite fragrant stuff! To me it smells like white cake with cream cheese frosting! So made up the sauce: * 150g Water * 150g Sugar * 1 Tonka Bean * 1 cap
It certainly was a fun year of pressing tobacco. Still trying to figure out the elusive straight Virginia recipe. I have gone through a couple of my old straight Virginia plugs to see how they develop. The first one I did was a Bright/Yellow Virginia plug and it is