What Did You Smoke Today? (Pipe Edition)

[JimInks]

Standard Tobacco Company’s Prototype War Horse bar in a 2002 IMP smooth full bend egg shaped meer.

[JimInks]

Half way through this bowl of Edward G. Robinson's Pipe Blend in a 1980s black sandblasted slight bend Savory’s Argyll 281 Cherrywood.

[JimInks]

About a third of the way through this bowl of MacBaren Modern Virginia Loose Cut in a post WW2 Pre-Republic Peterson Dublin straight smooth X155 Bulldog with a sterling silver band.

[JimInks]

Smoker’s Pride Mellow in an undated fancy designed tall, thin bowl medium bend Waren Zeichen Viennese Coffeehouse Bombay clay with a white acrylic stem.

[Tobias Lutz]

Boswell's Pom Holiday in a Barling 5899 TVF

[AndyCAYP]

Congratulations!!!

Thank you, Bruce!

I'm taking the new Stanwell Hans Christian Anderson out for a test drive (using the short stem). It's treating this Newminster 400 beautifully, and the more I smoke this tobacco the more I wonder how it can be sold for under $3 an ounce when others are charging $6-10 an ounce. Incredible stuff.

[JimInks]

HU JU 52 in a 1975 medium bend sandblasted looking, smooth on the sides yellow Pioneer meer.

[JimInks]

A third of the way through this bowl of HU test blend #2 in a 2014 smooth medium bend Basil Meadows egg with an aluminum band and a "root beer swirl" acrylic stem. This will finish this test sample from HU.

[JimInks]

Listing this a few minutes early: HU test blend #1 in a 2002 IMP smooth full bend egg shaped meer.

[AndyCAYP]

Mixture No. 79. Plop that topping on a higher quality tobbacco and I'd be happy to put it in my daily rotation.

There. I said it. I find the topping delightful. "I like Mixture No. 79." That statement belongs to history now. Carve it on my headstone.

That said, I don't think I'll buy any more of this. It's a paradox but to me this and many other aromatic/mass-market blends are dominated by what I find to be a flavorless, dull, boring, and airy taste that I can only contribute to burley. Maybe it's just my body chemistry, but out of the ones I've tried Carter Hall has been the only OTC to be, for lack of a better word, substantial.

It's not all burley that does this to me, though. I like University Flake, Jackknife Plug, Orlik's DSK, any of the GH&Co's that use burley, Solani's ABF, Barbary Coast...