Recipe

Well, hurricane Ian knocked out the power last night so nothing to do but make a Latakia blend whole leaf plug. Worked on destemming the red Virginia and cased it with the plum casing I used for the Virginia/burley Thumbed through Goff’s book since it was full of English/Balken blends and settled on this recipe called Cajun Muse: Latakia 37.5% (6 of 16 parts) Oriental 12.5% (2 of 16 parts) Virginia Bright 12.5% (2 of 16 parts) Virginia Red 25% (4 of 16 parts) Perique 12.5% (2 of 16 parts) Dropped it in the frame press two weeks ago and then moved it to a C-Clamp the next morning. I have to say I am impressed on how this plug looks. With the summer plugs I would keep them clamped and stored in the hot truck as a poor man’s stoving. The plug was slightly sticky, likely from the perique and sliced up nice but almost like a broken flake. ...

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 ...

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. ...

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. ...