Cornell and Diehl's The Old Ones collection pays tribute to an icon of American letters and the father of Cosmicism — Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Though not the first series in C&D's vast portfolio to pay tribute to the work of an esteemed American writer, The Old Ones is distinct in both its artwork and naming conventions, which draw directly from Lovecraft's stories of terror and dread.

Though predominantly associated with the horror genre, Lovecraft incorporated elements of science fiction, fantasy, and the occult into his work, crafting a mythos and worldview that would become the unifying thematic element of his bibliography — Cosmicism. Cosmicism, in short, emphasized the cosmos' indifference to the plight and struggles of humanity, decentralizing the importance of mankind and instead highlighting our shared inability to contend with the mysteries of a vast and apathetic universe.

It seems, at first, a strange and frankly bleak source of inspiration for a series of tobacco blends, but Cornell & Diehl Head Blender Jeremy Reeves saw an opportunity to experiment with unique flavor profiles and to explore his affinity for Lovecraft's work.

"The Old Ones series," says Jeremy, "was born of a mutual interest held by both myself and C&D Director Matt Johnson in the writings and the aesthetic of H.P. Lovecraft. I've always been attracted to horror as a genre and thought Lovecraft had an interesting sort of aesthetic, an interesting sort of take on the idea of things being scary and what makes them scary. He seemed to be motivated by encouraging the evil in his stories to lurk in the shadows and not be fully revealed. He seemed to be really interested in the unknown, and that appealed to me even as a kid."

Jeremy Reeves saw an opportunity to experiment with unique flavor profiles and to explore his affinity for Lovecraft's work

Matt and Jeremy were both interested in how the author's work has continued to permeate popular culture long after his death. "People may not know the name H.P. Lovecraft, but if you've ever heard the word, Necronomicon, that was an idea from Lovecraft," Jeremy explains. "He first wrote about it in the early 1920s and now we hear it in movies and in TV shows." The question inevitably emerges, however, about how to capture Lovecraft in a tobacco blend. "I think we approached the project as an interesting take on fanfiction. It's a different way of creating a product inspired by some element of what Lovecraft had done." To that end, Jeremy decided to use "some less common components" and "interesting combinations of components' with each of the mixtures, translating the feeling, idea, or mood of certain Lovecraft stories, and the author's larger mythos, into smoking experiences.

Visions of Celephaïs

Visions of Celephaïs, for example, takes its name from the fictional city Celephaïs, which exists in the Dreamlands, a fantastical world home to several of Lovecraft's stories. But Jeremy wasn't thinking so much about the city as a particular wine fermented in the Dreamlands. "I used Kasturi, which is sort of a unique component, and it just has a strange flavor profile. It's really interesting and compelling on its own, but I like using it in blends where there's a call for a unique spice characteristic, and I thought, 'What is this wine? What is this ancient dream wine going to be like?' And so I kind of came up with something that was sweet, but that was also really savory and smoky and had a character that was musty and a little aged."

The Indonesian Kasturi leaf is combined with red and bright Virginias and Dark-Fired Kentucky for a complex blend that's elevated by a grape-wine topping.

Innsmouth

Innsmouth is a direct reference to the fictional seaside shanty town in The Shadow Over Innsmouth. "The people there seemed to be under some sort of curse," says Jeremy. "And the cover of the book is this sort of bright yellow, but the brightness of the image is in direct dissonance with the underlying darkness of this story.

"And overall, your first impression of the book is that it's this bright yellow kind of color, and then it's only as you get into the story that the darkness seeps into the edges of the tale and you really begin to suspect that something is amiss."

To capture that encroaching darkness, Jeremy fashioned "a blend of bright Virginia and Oriental with foreboding dark notes creeping in from Perique and a little bit of Black Cavendish to make those a little smoother and less stark, because, really, the story of Innsworth is quite a slow burn."

Miskatonic Mixture

Conversely, Miskatonic is a darker and heavier Virginia-Oriental-Perique blend. "And Miskatonic," says Jeremy, "is a reference to Miskatonic University, which is the university that occasionally pops up in some of Lovecraft's writings." It's his fictional version of something like Harvard.

"If Innsmouth is the Virginia/Oriental/Perique blend that veers a little lighter, with the Perique more in the background, Miskatonic Mixture veers toward the darker Virginias. The existing bright Virginas are less of a focal point in the blend. There's a little more Perique, and the Orientals in Miskatonic are a little darker and a little heavier in their flavor profiles."

Awakened Elder

Unlike the other blends in the Old Ones series, Awakened Elder draws on the wider old-Gods' mythos that Lovecraft established across many of his works. "This is just a concept in the Lovecraft world. Many of his stories revolve around the idea that the entire world exists only in the dreams of the old Gods and that awakening one of them would literally destroy and upend our reality.

"And the name of the series, The Old Ones, is also a reference to this pantheon of old Gods and the intricate mythology that Lovecraft built around them. Awakened Elder is a traditional English blend, but with, again, the use of Kasturi to add a non-traditional, very spicy note to what otherwise is as a pretty straightforward light English blend.

"I just really like the way that Kasturi, kind of like Perique, can do weird and unique things flavor-wise, depending on the quantities that are used and depending on the tobaccos paired with it. Kasturi possesses this weird and unique flavor profile that just adds something a little different."

Dreams of Kadath

Dreams of Kadath attempts to capture the surreal, metaphysical themes of Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, a story that revolves around another man lost within the Dreamlands. "Dreams of Kodath is a plug," says Jeremy, "because when you make a plug, you're removing oxygen from the majority of the blend's surface area, like when you sleep and dream — those dreams are all your own and nobody else experiences them."

With its oxygen removed, plug tobacco is able to ferment without being affected by external factors, allowing the specific components of the blend to mature and commingle in isolation. "Our dreams take random directions and play off themselves with no real other outside influence. We may have dreams where a person completely changes from real life and doesn't look at all the same in a dream, and yet we recognize them, even when their appearance entirely changes two or three times through the course of the dream. The dream self doesn't question it."

"The Old Ones is a reference to the pantheon of old Gods and the intricate mythology that Lovecraft built around them"

As a blend, Dreams of Kadath is composed of Virginia, Dark-Fired Kentucky, Katerini, Perique, Burley, and Black Cavendish. Once the components are layered together, they're subtley recharacterized by the light addition of molasses, plum, and a touch of vanilla, and then pressed together. "So you've got lots of complex flavors, lots of different ideas of ways that flavors can come together. I wanted to create a very complex and very nuanced and thought-provoking blend, something unlike anything I'd ever smoked before."

The Mad Fiddler Flake

The Mad Fiddler Flake is a mixture of Virginia, Kasturi, Perique, and Black Cavendish. The story that inspired the blend, "The Music of Eric Zann," is Jeremy's personal favorite Lovecraft story, and revolves around a man who finds himself sharing an apartment building with the eponymous Eric Zahn, a violin player who plays erratic, unsettling music at night to keep something at bay. "Suffice it to say, I love this story because it is the very epitome of Lovecraft'a fascination with the terror of the unknown," says Jeremy. "And this story really revels in that." To mirror the terrifying, unexplained mystery at the heart of the story, Jeremy used "a difficult-to-wrap-your-head-around flavoring addition,", one that he won't disclose, because "it's just too much fun listening to people guess what it is."

From Beyond

From Beyond, the blend, has the distinctive honor of being the only mixture of any series incorporated into the Small Batch lineup. The blend takes its name and inspiration directly from Lovecraft's "From Beyond," which tells the story of a scientist who invents a machine that allows humans to perceive a reality that overlaps our own. But just as the people in the story become aware of entities in higher planes of existence, those same entities become aware of the people, and are able to cross into our world. The story, as a whole, plays with the human understanding of time and space and of things that exist beyond human perception — a thematic concept that fascinated Jeremy. He explains:

The Old One series proved to be an entertaining challenge for Jeremy, and an interesting vehicle by which to craft truly singular blends. "There are a lot of Virginia/Perique's out there, and they may be a little bit more this way or a little bit more that way, but it is an agreed-upon genre of tobacco mixtures. This was a different project. This used components to develop blends that are wholly unlike anything I've ever smoked before."

However, instead of strange for strange's sake, these blends also had to be compelling in their own right, and appeal to those with no knowledge of Lovecraft. "Lovecraft really was a starting point, a jumping-off point, and incorporating something that I have enjoyed in my personal life for a long time, and finding a way to use that as inspiration," Jeremy says.

"From Beyond was my own version of messing with time and space in a blend"

But what of the series' future? Lovecraft was prolific, and he left behind a wealth of stories from which to draw inspiration. "I think a lot of pipe smokers share Matt's and my interest in the writings of Lovecraft, or at least in the aesthetic," says Jeremy. "There's probably room in the series for another one or two. Who knows: perhaps when the Old Ones next stir in their slumber, they'll inspire new Lovecraftian blends for us to appreciate and fear."