Virginia on AceFour's Notebook

Çerkez Çeşmesi Blend

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Çerkez Çeşmesi (Circassian Fountain) is a historical fountain located in the İlkadım district of Samsun, Turkey. It is situated within the Karasamsun neighborhood, an area known for its rich history dating back to the city’s older settlements.

This is my first blend using Samsun tobacco and seemed like a good name of a historical location. It seems like a peaceful place to sit and enjoy one’s pipe.

The blend is made from whole leaf tobacco. Only thing was cased was the Red Virginia and this was ribbon from the red ribbon experiment. I used a manual tobacco shredder for the perique and samsun.

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.

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.

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.

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 slapfrom 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.