Tobacco Press and Blood Meridian

[NeverBend]

I'm a huge admirer of Cormac McCarthy, thus the homage to one of his masterpieces and my pretentious nature in naming this humble tobacco. It may end up being only a working name but the leather and earth top notes remind me of the Western frontier in the book.

One of the great challenges in tobacco blending is to get a mixture to finish, that is to remain pleasurable right to the end of the bowl. Tobacco blending is like being a hitter in baseball, you have hot and cold streaks and lately I've had a hot streak where my blends are coming together and finishing well. I've been there before and I know that all of a sudden everything you make tastes like, well, you know but I'll ride this for as long as I can.

The mixture is almost all Virginia, dark and light, with a special ingredient to flesh it out and add complexity. I want to test the mixture after it's been pressed (not a flake) and fortunately I can do that thanks to Bill, @EmperorZurg, who designed and made me a this beautiful, small tobacco press.

So this little photo essay, assuming that the pictures post, shows the press and how the tobacco is handled.

The Emperor Zurg tobacco press is three pieces; Cylinder, weight and pressure plate. The pressed tobacco in the plastic wrap is some Thomas Hariot that I've finished pressing (5-6 days).




Bill was most kind in making the press and he even engraved Elephant & Castle on the bottom of the cylinder. That's class!




Blood Meridian in the sample mixing bowl with plastic wrap to hold the tobacco to be pressed.




About one ounce of Blood Meridian wrapped and ready for the insertion of the pressure plate.




Pressure plate in place . Note the superb work on the weight including the cork bottom that is so important. The weight is really heavy! (sorry for the fuzzy picture).





The assembled press with the Blood Meridian inside. I'll give this about three days but there's significant pressure with only a day in the press.
Great piece of equipment Bill, many thanks,

[Alligator Gar]

No pics. How can I help?

PS One of my boy's gamer tag was JudgeHolden. Proof that I raised him right, in my mind.

[NeverBend]

No pics. How can I help?

PS One of my boy's gamer tag was JudgeHolden. Proof that I raised him right, in my mind.

The amazing Judge! Yes you did well.

Damn, I have so many problems posting pics. I can see them and it seems to post.

[JustTroItIn]

If Cormac McCarthy novels becomes a theme for your blends, I think the Child of God mixture would scare the hell out of me.

Looking forward to seeing the pics, Pete.

[c.ortiz108]

[Alligator Gar]

The amazing Judge! Yes you did well.

Damn, I have so many problems posting pics. I can see them and it seems to post.

Here is how I do it. I take a picture with my phone. I upload that picture to my Imgur account. I go to the image in Imgur and copy the Direct Link. I start a post in CB. I click on the tree icon. I click insert image from URL. I paste the link there. Very important: I uncheck "retrieve remote file and reference locally" That should do it. If you're still having problems I can talk you through it tomorrow night.

[Lostmason]

[cpmcdill]

Blood Meridian was an amazing novel, and blew my mind when I read it, as it was the first by CM I'd read. I like the idea of tobacco blends inspired by is work. Also fond of Suttree, although I don't think the world's ready for a watermelon aro

[NeverBend]

Blood Meridian was an amazing novel, and blew my mind when I read it, as it was the first by CM I'd read. I like the idea of tobacco blends inspired by is work. Also fond of Suttree, although I don't think the world's ready for a watermelon aro

OK, may have found a way to post the pictures with the assistance of a good samaritan.

Chromebooks don't access storage or web hosts in anything near a normal fashion and thus even if I got pics to Photobucket (or other service) the Chromebook might not recognize it (hasn't in the past).

I knew youz guys wuz edicated! I no longer have a favorite Cormac book because I find something thrillingly worthwhile in every piece of his that I've read but I was thinking about naming a blend, Lester Ballard's Man Cave. How's that for creepy?

I've not read Suttree but I've started it five or six times. I can usually read books at a quick rate but not McCarthy. Suttree is a definite read this Winter and I'm allowing 8-10 weeks. I'll decide about the watermelon aro after reading it.

[Emperor Zurg]

Damn, I have so many problems posting pics. I can see them and it seems to post.

Looks like you're trying to link pics from a gmail account. They won't display because you have to be signed in to the account for them to show up. That's prolly why you can see them but nobody else can. You'll need to upload them to a pic host of some kind... imgur, photobucket, tinypic, flikr... take your pic, there are dozens of them. Nice thing about tinypic is you don't need an account... of course you don't have an album then either so you can't go back and delete your pics if you want...

Anyway, looking forward to seeing what you actually DO with that press. Never seen it in action