AceFour's Notebook

Red Queen Pressing (a pictorial)

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I always need Red Queen. It is my desert island blend. So here we are going to make 900g! That would be four 200g plugs to stove and one 100g plug not stove.

Started stripping Red Virginia. Seems like some yellow Virginia slipped in on the 1lb from Whole Leaf Tobacco shipment.

Stripping the stem from Red Virginia

Next I am using Ripe Virginia Flue Cure. Normally I use Bright Virginia but variety is the spice of life.

Resealing open circular tins

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Sometimes I don’t want to jar up every tin I open. This works with circular tins and sometime square tins but probably not for the new tins used by SG and GH.

How to reseal an opened tin? Get a vacuum jar that is big enough to hold the tin. This jar I can do five tins at a time and found it on eBay. Simply put the tins in the jar

First pressing of 2026, a pictorial

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Smiticus on PSD started making Ton 618 and it looked so good I pulled out my jar and then I noted I had only one jar left! Oh noooooss! Pulled 1lb of Red Virginia and it was some pretty leaves in this batch.

Made quick work stripping the vein

This time instead of making two piles and casing one with blackberry and the other with tonka, I just did half and half in the atomizer and misted the whole lot.

Final pressings of 2025

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t really make blends when fall kicks in because mold spores a abundant when the leaves start falling in North Carolina. So I did a mad pressing of some blends.

First up was two 100g plugs of Red Queen . Actually I put them back in the press after this picture but fun picture anyway.

Red Queen

Next up is three plugs of Apertif Clone

Apertif Clone

Ton 618 - Stoved Red Virginia

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This all red Virginia de-stemmed and cased with tonka/blackberry and stoved for 10 hours.

Red Virginia prior to destemming

Tonka casing

200g Molasses
100g Water
Handful of cacao nibs
1 whole tonka bean
1 cap full of white vinegar

Blackberry casing

100g water by weight
100g suger by weight
1 tablespoon of Brewer’s Best Blackberry
1 cap full of white vinegar

Both casings are brought to a boil and kept there 5-10 minutes and then let cool. I put half tonka and half blackberry in a 1 ounce atomizer and cased the 1 lb of red Virginia after it was de-stemmed.

Dr. Grabow Tour - Sparta, NC

Sun, 22 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Meet up with Pipe Smoker’s Den and Dr. Grabow Collectors forum members to tour the factory in Sparta, NC. Sparta is a quiet little town and next to the Allegheny Inn was a Laconia Ale Works . Great beers and on Thursday was open from 4pm to 9pm.

We met Rick Wooten, VP and General Manager of International Pipes & Accessories LLC at the Dr. Grabow factory. At the height of manufacturing they were producing over a million pipes a year. Now that a lot of drug stores stopped carrying smoking products their biggest customer is the Army PX.

Ranger - Va/Bur/Dfk

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Things are warming up around here an I have a hankering for a new burley plug. I used burley cased from this recipe . The Virignia was cased with plum casing.

Recipe

87g Burley (53%)
58g Virginia (35%)
20g Dark Fired Kentucky (12%)

Ranger

So I did somethings differently. The image above is only 1 day after pressing the plugs. Earlier this week I pulled some Red Queen Plug that was wrapped with foil and put in mylar and had some books and case of mason jars sitting on it for six months. You can see how dark the plugs became.

Making a new Burley Casing

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Getting ready to make a new burley plug and tweaked the burley casing recipe.

Ingredients (by weight)

200g Molasses
100g Water
Handful of cacao nibs
1 whole tonka bean
1 cap full of white vinegar

Bring to a boil while stirring and then let it boil for 5-10 minutes. Take off the heat and let cool before transferring to a container. I use a strainer to filter out the nibs and tonka bean.

How thin can you go?

Thu, 29 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

So I wanted to see if I took the time to calibrate the cutter, how thin you could you go cutting up a plug. Started with an all Virginia plug that I believe is all red and brights.

The cutter is a cheap Amazon meat slicer that does better than an antique cutter. The reason is there is a measuring guard that you push the plug up against. Slowly make the cut and perfect. The trick was setting the space between the guard on the back of the blade. There are two screws that determine the thickness of the cut. I used the guard itself as the size of the thickness. I took the guard off and put it between the screw and the blade and bring the nut snug. Do that with both screws and then add the guard and knob screws.

Follow-up on Red Ribbon experiment

Mon, 19 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Update from https://blog.acefour.org/red-ribbon-experiment/ article. Smoking a bowl in the Talbert now and it is an absolute joy.

You can see the top of the whole leaf perique that is fished through the jar like a Zippo wick in cotton. The perique leaf is quite dry now as it seems the rest of the ribbon has sucked the moisture out of the leaf.

The jar aroma is getting that vinegar twang to it and I will probably remove the perique leaf at this point.

Site difficulties

Sun, 27 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I was trying to look up the article on dating tins when I noticed after going to the next page of articles you could not go further. Slight technical glitch has been fixed and you can now page back to all the older posts.

Sorry if you ran into this issue.

Press the rest

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Had left over cased Virginia so I dropped in my 6" x 3" x 3" stainless steel tube and pressed it 2 days ago and transferred it from the frame press to a c-clamp. Today I wrapped the whole mess in aluminum foil and dropped it in the oven at 200F for 4 hours. After 4 hours I turned it off and retrieved it 2 hours later. Let cool outside before extracting. Smells like rye bread. Will slice up after a few days to settle down.

Let's make some Red Queen

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Red Queen is a Va/Per and the whole leaf recipe can be found at Red Queen V

This is basically a two day process. First step is strip the stems from the Bright Virginia and Red Virginia.

The Red Virginia had some nice leaves

Red all done

Next the Bright Virginia. When I de-stem I pull from the top of the leaf, one half of the leaf. I pulls apart easily from the top.

Open community - let's see what happens

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I created a discourse server (online community) that folks can join and chat about tobacco. I am not many tobacco forums and this allows folks from other forums to be able to chat about blending whole leaf, commercial leaf and enjoyment of the leaf and good life.

Rules are simple, no politics nor slighting groups of people. This place is meant to be about enjoying life. If you want to bitch about people, politics, religion you can go enjoy Twitter/X and have the internet troll fight there.

Recipe Index

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Angel of Izmir (Virginia / Oriental / Latakia)
Basma Bastard (Virginia / Oriental / Latakia)
Burley Plug (Dark Fired Kentucky / Burley / Virginia)
God of War (Virginia)
Grateful Plug (Virginia / Burley)
Memphis Plug (Dark Fired Kentucky / Virginia)
Monkel’s Best (Virginia)
Orlik DSK clone (Dark Fired Kentucky / Virginia)
Ranger (Burley / Virginia / Dark Fired Kentucky)
Red Queen (Virginia / Perique)
Ton 618 (Stoved Red Virginia)

Burley plug

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Being irritated that the Mac Baren HH line is going away I decided to try and make a mellow burley flake substitute. Probably won’t even be close but all that matters is it is enjoyable smoke.

So HH Burley Flake is burley, Kentucky and Virginia with burley being the main feature. I bought some burley and dark fired Kentucky from LeafOnly . Great quality leaves but I will warn you they do not vac seal the tobacco. I think I will go with the molasses/cacao hull casing for the burley and the tonka casing for the Virginia. The dark fired Kentucky does not need casing.

Let's have some fun

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Had some Virginia left over from the Burley Plug and decided to try a 120g Dark Fired to 60g Bright Virginia. The kick? Well I layered it like the days of Orlik Dark Strong Kentucky.

I packed the plug in the short tube with a layer of Dark Fired Kentucky / Virginia / Dark Fired Kentucky

I did stove for 2 hours at 200F and let cool

This plug is legit even with no age, butter with smokey goodness!

Mac Baren / Sutliff / STG

Sat, 18 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Let’s face it, the pipe smokers are a rare breed. Go to any brick and mortar and either they cursory offer some pipe tobacco and basket pipes or nothing at all. There are exceptions to that rule such as The Country Squire , J.M Boswell’s , Watch City Cigars , Iwan Reis , L.J. Peretti , Ulhle’s and even in my neck of the woods to a lesser extent, Pipe’s By George .

The cigar world had a big boom in 1997 and during that is when I converted to be a pipe smoker. The cigars quality dropped and rolled and shipped as fast as possible. You buy a box and smelled like a litter box from all the ammonia being emitted. Cigars declined, Cigar Aficionado had great writers and articles that went the way of the do-do.

Dix & Whiskey Dix Tobacco

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Dix tobacco blend started out as a joke for me to derail tobacco forum threads. I will not expand on the derailment but it was always successful.

Of course everyone said I need to make the actual blend. So I literally tossed some things together and everyone loved it, especially when Carter Hall briefly disappeared off the market.

Original Dix formula was:

42% Sutliff Maryland
21% Sutliff J4 Burley
19% Dunhill 3 year Virginia and later replaced with McConnel 5 year Virginia when Dunhill went bye-bye
19% Sutliff 515 RC-1 Red Virginia

Dix was a really good old codger blend. Of course continued derailment of the forum threads that we came up with Whiskey Dix, the aromatic version of Dix.

Holiday Blend

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This one I never sold at the local shop. I did make it and gave out to a few friends. Once again, with Sutliff/MacBaren being knocked out at the end of January I am releasing the recipe. I can be blended up with equal parts of:

Sutliff Z79 Creamy Butterscotch
Sutliff SP24 Nougat
Sutliff B20 Cavendish
Sutliff TS9 Maryland

Wrapping Old Boy in Leather

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

If you are going to buy and IM Corona Old Boy, don’t buy a painted one. I got a nice blue Old Boy and then one day tossed it in my pocket with the keys. The paint chips and it started to look ragged.

My buddy Jamie at Stem & Briar recommended me to Sick Saddles . I finally jumped on this recommendation and wow, does Sick Saddles do nice work! He gave a wide selection of choices for the leather. Highly recommend

Red Queen V

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Scandinavian Tobacco Group purchased Sutliff Tobacco and they will be moving the operations overseas. When STG did this with Lane’s Tobacco they cut the tobacco line. Red Queen V was the first blend (well fifth iteration) I made with commercial components. Given it will be unknown if the components will be available after operation cease here in the USA, I am publishing the recipe. This is not to be confused with Red Queen Plug which is made from raw leaf tobacco that can be obtained from WholeLeafTobacco.com .

Why do I not sell these blends?

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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 revenue!

But let’s say I can get someone to write the bond 15K a year. I take a lb of tobacco for $19/lb and make 7 two ounce flakes packages factoring in waste and stems and sell at $20/each. That is $140 - $19 - $1 (packaging?) or $120 profit. I would have to sell 125 lbs of raw leaf to product to break even or put it another way, 875 two ounce packages. This does not include building rental, or paying for a real press and slicer that is industrial. Believe me I am not going to be doing 125 lbs on a frame press from Northern Tool. After that then I can pay me? Thanks, I already have a day job. Now if some big blender wants to use my recipes, have at it. Just give credit where credit is due.

2024 Halloween Plug Massacre

Fri, 25 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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 case of 16oz wide mouth Mason jars full of flakes. All the images below are straight Virginia’s except the last 2 images. Those are either Angel of Izmir or Basma Bastard.

Basma Bastard

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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 slap from Head slap

The end result is a pretty smooth smoke without the citrus of Izmir.

Blend for 140g plug

24.5% Latakia (43g)
20% Basma (35g)
35.5% Red Virginia (cased with Tonka) (62g)

Red Ribbon Experiment

Sun, 22 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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 leading more in that direction.

What I think happened is the wet whole leaf perique kick started a secondary fermentation of the red Virginia. I’m no chemist so I may be talking out of my ass. But let’s try an experiment.

2024 CORPS Pipe Show

Mon, 16 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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. I was able to pickup 2 Walt Hettinger pipes and some old McClelland and P.S. Navy Flake as well as the limited edition CORPS tin.

Angel of Izmir (Balken)

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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 hallmark Pete. It the mark. The orientals are very forward. The citrus of the Izmir works well with the soft, floral Basma. Latakia is in the background.

Monkel's Best (Virginia)

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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

I have done a version with half lemon Virginia and half bright Virginia. It turned out very good as well. I like doing 2 lbs and after stripping I usually end up with four 175g plugs and I can do that all at once in the steel 2’ tube in the A-frame press.

God of War - Red Virginia

Sat, 20 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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 the whole thing with 2 ounces of Tonka bean casing. I let it rest for 24 hours and then pressing. After the de-stemming I ended up with two plugs about 175g each. Pressed for several days and finally stoved for 200F for 4 hours while still in the press.

Grateful Plug - Tonka variant

Wed, 06 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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

Tonka/Molasses Grateful Plug

This is a blend of 100g Bright Virginia cased with Tonka bean casing and 100g burley cased with molassas casing. I will let the plug rest for a few days but I am smoking the burnt ends I trimmed off the plug and I have to say, this one is the winner. I will likely end up making all my Grateful Plugs this way!

100g Virginia/Cavendish

Sat, 17 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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 days and was leaking goo pretty good.

Once pulled it smelled amazing. Slice off a broken flake and packed in the Radice twin-bore oil cured pipe once owned by Sante Giuliani aka Fishing Banjo. The smoke is just a pure pleasure to smoke. Rye bread with sweet preserves.

Virginia Experiment (Tonka/Blackberry)

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

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 full of distilled white vinegar

Put in a sauce pan and put on medium heat. Let it boil until sugar dissolves. Let stand and cool.

2023 Year End Thoughts

Sat, 23 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

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 not bad. Not grassy and more of rye bread. I will try a few more odd ball ideas in 2024

Logo’s were fun and made a few t-shirts of Grateful Plug logo and gave those away in various tobacco bombs. Also made a Zippo Grateful Plug logo lighter. That was a bit of annoying interaction and will just leave it at that.

Bright/Red Virginia Plug

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I had some left over plum cased Red Virginia and blackberry cased Bright Virginia. Made a 200g plug of about 60% Bright to 40% Red. Total YOLO plug. Then I really screwed up and forgot it was stoving in the oven. It had been in the oven 7 hours at 200F while under pressure in the steel mold with a c-clamp. I went off to play a local poker game and got a text from my wife asking if she should turn off the over. Ooops! So she did and it cooled down overnight before pulling out of the form.

The best, cheapest plug cutter

Tue, 21 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Now I have an antique plug cutter made of cast iron and a new blade made by Bingham Knifeworks. It cuts like butter.

It is fairly expensive and it takes time to cut the plugs and you tend to have inconsistent thicknesses of the flakes as a result.

Enter the cheapest meat slicer on Amazon !

What is nice is you get two blades. You can adjust the thickness of the cut. What you need to do is extend the holding tray right up the the blade. I used two box tops from cigar boxes.

Wet Plugs

Sat, 28 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, for unknown reasons, I had a batch of Red Queen plugs that were very wet. Not sure the exact reason for it but humidity while pressing might have hand in it. The plugs were full of juice running and the flakes, when sliced, were very flexible.

Since I don’t soak tobacco like the commercial guys with PG for mold control the only real solution is either stove it for a couple of hours at 200F or slice and air dry before bagging. I like to stove under pressure so in this case I just sliced up and let it dry for a few hours before moving to jars/Mylar.

Tobacco Pressing Resources

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Blending/Processing Whole Leaf

Press:

Noodle Press (Cheap and simple, good for 50g pucks)
PVC and Hockey Pucks (Cheap and little effort, good for 100g pucks)
Shop Press (Saves time pressing 1 minute vs 10 days with a C-Clamp)
2’ Stainless Steel Tube T43311 (Expensive but you can do 4 - 5 200g whole leaf plugs at a time)
3/4" Richlite high temperature cutting board (custom order and cut to size for stainless steel tube)

Whole Leaf Vendors and Casing supplies

Making a whole leaf Virginia tobacco plug

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Experimenting with Making a whole leaf Virginia tobacco plug. Tobacco was purchased Bright Virginia Flue Cured and Lemon Virginia Flue Cured from WholeLeafTobacco.com along with their commercial casing . Whole Leaf Tobacco commercial casing for flue-cured tobacco is just an inverted sugar water flavored with lemon peel. Next, was deciding on the blend.

The blend recipe was 2 parts Bright Virginia and 1 part Lemon Virginia tobacco. I got that rough ratio from an interview on YouTube with Mike McNeil of McClelland’s. That was the Aston blend they use to do long ago. An no, this is not even going to be close to that blend. If you know what or how McNeil’s did their magic with their Virginia’s The blend recipe was 2 parts Bright Virginia and 1 part Lemon Virginia tobacco. I got that rough ratio from an interview on YouTube with Mike McNeil of McClelland’s. That was the Aston blend they use to do long ago. An no, this is not even going to be close to that blend. If you know what or how McNeil’s did their magic with their Virginia

Virginia/Dark Fired Kentucky - Memphis Plug

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Whole leaf Virginia/dark fired Kentucky plug is the next experiment to perform. This is made with equal parts bright Virginia flue cured, red Virginia flue cured and dark fired Kentucky. All of these leaves were purchased from Whole Leaf Tobacco. First step is prepping the leaves.

Prepping the leaves, by unfolding, de-stemming and hand ripping the leaves and placing in a plastic bags. Use one bag for bright Virginia and one back for the dark fired Kentucky. De-stemming is easy my grabbing the tip of the stem at the top of the leaf and pulling down. After you may what to hand rip big leaves into smaller pieces and put in a shopping bag. Next we need to case the bright Virginia.

Ways to pressing pipe tobacco

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

There are several ways to pressing pipe tobacco and as elaborate as your budget will allow. Why press? It melds the flavors better of the tobacco no matter if you are doing raw leaf or using an existing blend. Many folks like make tobacco cakes and plugs.

Blend pressed without prior drying

Moisture content will affect how the plug compacts. One experiment was pressed right our of the bag and another press where the tobacco was microwaved for 20 seconds and tossed it like a salad to get the excess moisture out. The straight out of the bag pressed for 3 weeks quickly expanded like a crumble cake after 3 weeks. Not a lot of color change. The microwaved tobacco came out as a black plug as dense as Salty Dogs. The dense plug was cut into flakes and was a sweet mellow smoke that went for an hour and 45 minutes with no relighting.

Whole leaf Virginia plug with blackberry casing

Tue, 26 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Making whole leaf Virginia plug with blackberry casing is the same procedure as whole leaf Virginia plug blend. The difference is we are making our own casing.

The casing is made by using 1 to 1 ratio by weight of water to sugar, add a cap-full of white vinegar. Next, crush up a handful of blackberries and filtered the juice through a coffee filter. Bring the whole mixture to a boil and then let it cool down.

Blog on amateur pipe tobacco blending

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I am an amateur tobacco blender. I make personal blends and blends for Afterburner Cigar Lounge in Lillington, NC. I don’t really make any money on it but it does give the local shop something unique to sell and a way for others to obtain some of my blends. I do it for fun, not for money.

The goal of this site is to inspire others and credit those that have helped me in this hobby. One of my first blends was various iterations until Red Queen V was created. From there I started playing with pressing tobacco . Lately I have been experimenting working with whole leaf tobacco .

Pipe Tobacco Blending Resources

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Casing/Recipes

Press

Noodle Press
PVC and Hockey Pucks
Shop Press
2′ Stainless Steel Tube T43311
3/4″ Richlite high temperature cutting board

Whole Leaf Vendors and Casing Supplies

Whole Leaf Tobacco
Leaf Only
Flavor Extracts and Cacao Nibs (use “like a spoonful per 16oz of casing”)

Cutting

How thin can you go? (Inexpensive method for producing uniform thin flakes)
Bingham Knifeworks (custom blade design for vintage plug cutters)