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As usual, Eric came over Saturday night to continue our traditional enjoyment of smoke, conversation, music, and whatever brandy was recently on blow-out at the local ABC store. It's not like we're stuck in a rut; in my living room we smoke, chat, drink 'Low Country Lobotomy' and listen to music. To change things up, we sit out on my porch and smoke, chat, drink cheap brandy, and enjoy some tunes. Come to think of it, I suppose we are in a bit of a rut, but it's an amiable one that I wouldn't change for the world. On these evenings Eric usually brings cigars, and always brings a tin of HH Old Dark Fired. Most recently, he brought hand-blended cigarettes of his own mixture in addition to the above.
To digress a bit, like a few of us here in the office, Eric has grown keen on Peace cigarettes. However, he’s skipped the royal pain of privately importing them from Japan in favor of recreating them himself. This is an experimental and semi-scientific process that, in both of our opinions, has yielded mixed results thus far. In order to get rolling (pun intended) he had to buy raw deer tongue leaf, an ingredient that he wasn't tremendously familiar with (and few of us are, for that matter), and the stuff he got isn’t even processed.
I’ve got a few Peace cigarettes lying around, so on Saturday night, soon after Eric arrived, we dissected a couple of them on a small porcelain plate and examined the tobacco as studiously as CDC researchers scrutinizing the remains of a potential 'patient zero'. We then stuffed the dried, bright Virginia and burley tobaccos (and what we suspect was deer tongue) into a hundred-year-old clay pipe and smoked it. Not surprisingly, it was a delicious smoking experience. Despite being dry and burning on the quick/hot side, liberated of its off-tasting paper container and flavor restricting filter, its subtly sweet vanilla-like tone was still up-front and center, just as we’d hoped.
Over the last five days, Eric has continued his diligent research and his labors have paid off impressively. This, in turn, has inspired me to take baby-steps towards the creation of a personal blend. An activity consisting of equal parts science, art, and educated guesses, I'm astounded by how large of a change can occur with the most subtle manipulation of component tobaccos. While I highly doubt that Greg Pease will be shaking in his boots anytime soon (ok, ever), playing with blends is a tremendous blast, and an activity that I would highly recommend to any pipe enthusiast who is looking for another fun adjunct to our unique hobby.
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