A SEASONALLY APPROPRIATE THING

A few of my kinfolk are of distant Ulster stock, but most of the family tree is soldly Dutch and Anglo-Dutch Calvinist. So as a matter of heritage as well as my own arrogantly disapproving personal inclinations, I normally sneer at very many things. Ketchup. Hazelnut coffee drinks. Christian fundamentalists. Immoral behaviour in public. The Deep South, and grits.
Saint Patrick's Day. Flavoured pipe tobacco. Eastern Europe.

Saint Patrick's Day is coming up (end of this week).
And froo-froo tobacco is the devil's spaghnum.
Bubblegum flavours. Very European.

Celebratory offerings in the pipe world (Saint Paddy pipes, pipe tools, and aromatic mixtures) are anathema in my view, deserving of hell fire, the pit, and a mediocre flute band playing "the sash my father wore" ad nauseum outside an Irish bar in the Richmond District.
These are all cursed things.


Having recently smoked an aromatic mixture , several times, and spoken well of it (meaning that I didn't sneer and describe it as repulsive shite), some members of the Golden Gate Pipe Club were horrified yesterday and wondering what is this world coming to?!?
It has an Irish Cream Liqueur topping.

Hill of Slane. A few short pulses in the microwave or one or two hours on a saucer and it's dry enough to smoke. Be careful when microwaving, you don't want it to start smoldering.

Three or four bursts of eight seconds, or six or seven at four seconds.
Aromatics always have humectants and stabilizers.
It all depends on your machine.

Fine Virginias with a little Burley, yielding a pleasant smoke with sufficient character to keep you interested all the way down. The added flavouring does not offend, and other people will remark that it smells nice. I've bought two tins, and shall have to purchases a third so that it can be enjoyed at home without opening them, while the fit lasts.
There's an open tin at work I've been sampling.

I own only one Peterson Saint Patrick's Day pipe. It was made before they were fully vested in whoring themselves out to the Irish American contingent, who will buy anything with a bloody shamrock, or Keltic designs, especially if it's green or hobbit-like.
Ohh-aargh, theeere's a leprechaun, the precious!
A nice pipe. Well-made.


There are several Petersons in my pipe collection. They are damned good pipes. Despite the sneers of a snobbish git whom I haven't seen in years that their shapes were pedestrian and working class. I wonder what's become of that fool since then.

They are not suitable for Saint Patrick's Day.
Nothing is. Go naked. Get drunk.

TOBACCO INDEX


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