JUST AN OLD-FASHIONED DEGENERATE

Lately I've been indulging in a mixture which Keith at Cornell & Diehl recommended back in early January. It is probably one of the most disturbing things to which I have ever been exposed.

Regular readers know that tobacco blends, by their particularity and unique nose impressions, are memory sparkers of no mean magnitude for this blog.
What something smells and tastes like often reminds me of times, places, and people from my past.
Which is very useful, and great fun too.

Plantation Evening (No. 416) does none of those things.
Leastways, none of them well.

But it is exceedingly addictive.

No, not the way that the usual sour-old anti-tobacco agitator or rabid Berkeley do-gooder imagines. There is nicotine in the blend, naturally, but what I mean is that after each pipe-full I have an urge to promptly light another, because it tastes so good.


PLANTATION EVENING
By Cornell & Diehl, Inc.
Morganton, NC
800-433-0080

"A smooth, reasonably light blend of aged Virginias, Latakia, Perique and a little Turkish. An outstanding, middle of the road English blend with a delightful flavor. "


Mild, mellow, musky, and with a smoothly intense velvety smokiness from the Latakia. Like many Cornell & Diehl blends it is at it's seductive best if you wait a while to open the tin -- they ship soon after compounding, before the tobaccos have had a honeymoon -- and it does need a bit of air after the components have married, but the reward is worth the wait.

The sun shining in through the backroom window, the sounds of construction on a luxury condo complex a few streets over, wild parrots squawking overhead............
And this intoxicating smoky fragrance wafting around.
Jayzus, this is sinful good.

The pipes I've been stuffing it into are a Comoy Grandslam Liverpool (shape no. 30) that may be several years older than I am, a Parker Russet straight billiard which is also ancient, a Sasieni Royal Stuart squat bulldog (shape no. 95) from a by-gone era, a Peterson Canadian shape stamped 'Dublin & London' and 'Made in the republic of Ireland' -- so definitely quite old -- and a Sasieni bent bulldog with four ivory dots.
It's like having historical relics in my mouth.
Positively worshipful.


Possibly even worth killing for. Definitely worth bashing an anti-tobacco agitator or rabid Berkeleyite over. But then the world has so little use for such people anyway.


Thank you, Keith.
Great recommendation.


If we ever meet, breakfast is on me.

TOBACCO INDEX

Post Scriptum: Yes, I really am up this early on a Sunday morning. Can't figure out why. Found out on the BBC news site that an important military facility in Damascus had been blown up by Israel. It looks like the Alawite dictatorship is banking some of its materiel in Lebanon with the psychopaths of Hezbollah. This indicates that regime change is getting closer.
On a different note, according to Dutch newspapers the Amsterdam soccer team Ajax has become the national champion third time in a row (5-0). Excellent news! Congratulations.

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