POSSIBLY THE FINAL WORD ON SMELLS, BUT PROBABLY NOT.

The great state of Maine has banned flavoured (aromatic) tobaccos, in which noble action it joins Marin, San Francisco, and several other places. Because flavoured tobaccos only appeal to children, many of whom are led astray by Lord Of The Rings and other deviant literature, and wish to emulate Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf.

As well as crusty old men who reek of stale clothing odours, vanilla, and fruitloops.
I always advise folks to stay away from those types.
Some people don't listen.


There is a swarm of children waiting outside tobacco shops to buy the following products.
You must beat them away with a stick if you wish to go inside.
They bite, and spread rabies.


CLAN
Virtually unsmokeable, and once very popular among bright young teenagers.

ENNERDALE FLAKE
A thoroughly nasty product that smells like cheap perfume, applied with a bucket. Yeah no, this is extremely horrid. And very popular in its niche. I finished a whole tin of it (fifty grammes, two dozen bowls).

ERINMORE FLAKE
The granddaddy of perfumed tobacco. Smells like Christmas cake and pineapples. It made me puke many years ago. I actually have a year's supply stashed for a degenerate day.
I'm still sane and balanced at present.

CAPTAIN BLACK
The most popular pipe tobacco in America, the archetype of flavoured cavendish.
What miserable winters indoors with your relatives smell like.

CAPTAIN BLACK GRAPE
Clean-smoking, nearly bite-free. And no discernable tobacco taste whatsoever.
The room note is very candylike.
An oddity.

FLYING DUTCHMAN
Horrid. Fruit salad and toffee. Hot, twiggy, nasty, wet.

FOUNDERS RESERVE
Allegedly "inspired" by single malts, but oddly reminiscent of rotting apples. Rather decent.

DA VINCI
Flavoured with cheap dessert wine. Once the tin has been opened it slowly starts smelling like fruity Limburger. After three months it is exceedingly repulsive. Very odd, almost unsmokeable. Recently a friend expressed interest in aromatic pipe tobaccos, so I recommended it.

MIXTURE 79
A classic, deservedly, but painful to smoke. It smells like aftershave, and is so chemically overdosed that it can never dry out. It was an incredibly unpleasant experience.
Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby liked it.

MOLTO DOLCE
Defies belief. Very popular among people who are miles away from a decent tobacconist, very sweet. Honey, caramel, vanillin, chocolate, and underneath it all, perhaps as a fixative, coconut. Perhaps also almond. It can cause severe tongue bite.
It does not dry. Ever.

MOUNTAIN PASS
Why anyone would conceive of adding creamy vanilla custard to tobacco is beyond me.
It smokes relativly clean, and non-smokers often love it.

SHANNON
A mostly blonde ribbon tobacco drenched in melon. The Irish should sue for defamation, but they smoke weird crap anyway, and aren't paying attention. It's smooth, though repulsive.

SEVEN SEAS REGULAR
Smoked nearly one third of the bowl, then tipped the remainder out into the rubbish and went to have lunch. Cocoa and rotten fruit, with vanilla and syrup.

TROOST SLICES
Flavoured with caramel and perhaps a hint of chocolate, on a base of steamed aircured leaf. Not bad, but monodimensional and dull. What an old school mate of my mother smoked when he was in Holland.

It's complex. Largely I disapprove of aromatic pipe tobaccos, but for some people it's exactly the aroma they remember from their childhood and aged relatives. My father and other men did not truck with them, and because they can stink-up a pipe I tend to avoid them.

According to the civic minded busybodies of Maine, Marin County, and San Francisco, they are irresistible to children. A bizarre concept.

I am seldom around children. I think they disapprove of me. And as for civic minded busybodies, those are not part of my circle. So the only ones likely to be adversely influenced by my horrid example are people in the medical profession, who might soon consider smoking a pipe to be stress-relieving, a fascinating past-time, and on the whole not nearly as objectionable as they had always assumed.

Oh, and hippies looking for something clean and pure.
Such as Latakia, Turkish, and Virginias.
Or lovely flakes.


Goes well with a spot of tea.
And a good book.

TOBACCO INDEX


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