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. ...

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. ...

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.

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.

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. ...

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. ...

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)

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. ...

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!

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. ...