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) Apertif Clone (Virginia / Oriental / Latakia / Cavendish) 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. ...

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. ...

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

A reference guide for decoding production date codes on various pipe tobacco tins and cans. Pulled from Badger & Blade and Dutch Pipes Smoker Peterson YYDDMMXXXX Orlik YYXXMMXXDD Orlik/STG vs MacBaren On the backside of similar Capstan tins, the Orlik/STG tin has 10 digits and then 4, while the MacBaren one has 8 and then 5. MacBaren tin code: 09 = Packing machine used 13 = Year of packing 028 = Calendar day of production 1 = Shift (1 indicates day shift) The 5 digit number is the internal batch number Orlik/STG tin code: ...

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 ...