What Did You Smoke Today? (Pipe Edition)

I know where those whirl pak bags come from... :D

My second bowl of Dunhill Ye Olde Signe, this one in a John Bessai squashed tomato, one of my favorite briars. I bought 2 tins of this but may pick up a few more as a Christmas gift to myself. I have, after all, been a good boy this year. This brings to mind an old Tonight Show episode when Ed MacMahon asked Johnny Carson what he'd say at the pearly gates when St. Peter asked him what in his life qualified him to be admitted into heaven. After a long pause he said "Well, I never kicked a dwarf." .... That's about how good I've been.

Puffing the first fill of a just-opened tin of two year old DF. Man, it's going down so good.

A music critic was asked which of Brahms symphonies was his favorite. "The one I heard last," he replied. Seems to be the same with my pipe tobaccos – right now, DF is my favorite.

Gentlemen! I hope everyone is well, and season's greetings!

After a bit of prodding by @Haebar and @WNYTONY I figured it was worth popping in to play catchup. I have been busy; busier than I ever could have imagined. Smoking has taken a backseat to raising my now 7-month-old daughter, and dealing with a back injury hasn't helped, but I did manage to spend some time a few weeks ago in the smoking lounge/library of the club I belong to... I took my Parker Super Bruyere and a Polish-made beauty I picked up on eBay a year or so back and enjoyed some 1998 Capstan and 2003 Hamborger Veermaster.

I'm hosting a dinner party on New Year's Eve. My wife and daughter will be passed out by 9:30PM so I told my buddies that we'll head over to the club to end the evening with a smoke. Since we'll be full of roast lamb and egg nog (which has already been resting in the beer fridge for four weeks) I figure I'll need something like Royal Yacht to serve as dessert. I'll probably pull out the Stanwell HCA for the trip.

So, after leaving the tobacco business and after putting a cease-and-desist on new acquisitions due to a cellar already overflowing with more tobacco than I know what to do with, I haven't really paid attention to new blends. The bug, of course, is biting me and I probably won't be able to make it much beyond Spring before placing an order (hopefully by then I'll have more time to empty out a few more tins). I was hoping to get opinions on the following:

Dunhill Dark Flake
War Horse Bar
War Horse Green
GL Pease Regents Flake
Drucquer & Sons Blairgowrie

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Originally Posted by Emperor Zurg

I'll try that. I had it dry but not that dry.
Rubbed, broken or flake?

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It's so dry it kinda turns into a mix of dust and broken lol

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Originally Posted by Branzig

It's so dry it kinda turns into a mix of dust and broken lol

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Well as a connoisseur of anhydrous flake, I've found a way to smoke them dry as a cork but still as flake. I hate it when they crumble to powder.

1) Select a flake of appropriate size to fill your pipe
2) Use a single edge razor blade to cut segments off the length of the flake, to approximate the depth of your preferred fill
3) Use the razor blade to cut the segments with the grain into 'sticks' of your preferred size
4) Put the sticks on a small paper - like a page of a note pad, then set the project out in a warm place to dry out like a cork
5) Once dry, carefully gather the dry sticks up and slide them into your pipe. They're a bit fragile at this point; the note pad paper helps with handling them.

There will always be a few small pieces left over from sticks that broke. I use those on the top to get the fire going.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Emperor Zurg

Well as a connoisseur of anhydrous flake, I've found a way to smoke them dry as a cork but still as flake. I hate it when they crumble to powder.

1) Select a flake of appropriate size to fill your pipe
2) Use a single edge razor blade to cut segments off the length of the flake, to approximate the depth of your preferred fill
3) Use the razor blade to cut the segments with the grain into 'sticks' of your preferred size
4) Put the sticks on a small paper - like a page of a note pad, then set the project out in a warm place to dry out like a cork
5) Once dry, carefully gather the dry sticks up and slide them into your pipe. They're a bit fragile at this point; the note pad paper helps with handling them.

There will always be a few small pieces left over from sticks that broke. I use those on the top to get the fire going.

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That's a lot of work lol.

I'll stick with broken gun-powder.

Some D bag on ebay is selling off his Custombilt collection....all at great prices right now....ugggghhhh...must resist the urge to bid!

I can't even smoke right now, with wind chill it's -5 this morning....

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Originally Posted by Pugsley

Having my first bowl of Dunhill's reissue of Ye Olde Signe, a ribbon cut pure Virginia. The tin note is very subdued with hints of tea and dried hay. Minimal drying was required and could easily be smoked straight from the tin. Lighting was done with a single match and being wary of bite I started smoking slowly, but as the sweetness of the tobacco began to come through I found myself smoking faster, but absolutely no bite. Dunhill calls this an aged Virginia, and it behaves like one. Sweet, smooth, and thoroughly enjoyable from first light to the bottom of the bowl. If you're a fan of aged straight Virginia, as I am, but wish you could find the Holy Grail of tobaccos that you could enjoy straight from the tin without waiting 3 years or more, this may be the one. Highly recommended.

Edit: I was enjoying this so much I neglected to mention the pipe used. It was a MM Country Gentleman with a stubby Forever stem.

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How does it compare to aged Dunhill Flake?

Started the swmoking day with CB original in a Wiley rodesian
moving on to oriental in a cob

Nice seeing you around @AndyCAYP

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pipe Smoker

How does it compare to aged Dunhill Flake?

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I don't smoke a lot of flake, mainly because I'm too impatient to wait for it to dry properly, and it's been quite some time since I've had Dunhill Flake. It's been my experience that the flavors in most flakes are more concentrated. This ribbon cut burned much faster than flake and was done far sooner than I wished it to be, (which is why I followed it up with a second bowl.) So, the answer is that I don't have an answer, but I sure enjoyed this tobacco.