DRUCQUER'S RECOLLECTION

The other day, probably yesterday, a reader and fellow pipesmoker left a comment in my letterbox which probably would not interest anyone other than a pipesmoker. Sadly, they did not leave their name or any contact data, so I cannot respond to them directly. Mention was made of Drucquer's, a famous tobacco store which has been out of business for three decades.

CITE:
"Off topic blast from the past: I am just about finished with what may well be my last 8oz of 805 and reached into my cabinet for something else rare, special, and old and found a 4oz tin of Drucquer and Sons stamped “1265". Any idea what that might be? I think I bought it on Solano Avenue after Drucquer’s moved there from University where (pretty sure) you and I worked. Don’t know how to reach you directly but thought I would ask and also mention that I have enjoyed your BLOG on and off over the years."
END CITE

The easiest way to reach me directly is that letterbox. If you include your e-mail adress, it will never be published. I'll read and and note down the contact information, then trash the comment for your privacy. And I will respond to you.

Your writing had me going through a box underneath two other boxes, because I had several tins of Drucquer's tobacco in there, unopened for over four decades.

Including these three beauties:

TWO ITERATIONS OF BLEND 805, ONE OF ARCADIA

There is nothing in his note which tells me who it is. So I'm baffled. Did we work together? If so, let me very belatedly apologize for being a complete asshole in those years, as I was, as well as undiplomatic and uncouth. I am ashamed of being a rather unpleasant person back then. I do not like what I was. But I think I have improved. Although also gotten worse.

Again, leave your contact info, and please introduce yourself. I do not still know many people from that era, and any attempt to trace George Walter, for instance, whom you probably also remember, has come a cropper. It looks like he passed away over a decade ago. Don is still somewhere in the East Bay, Pauline may have moved to Seattle, Cara has dropped out of sight entirely, and Robert is somewhere in the foothills, having been a winemaker of some note for many years. And I heard he had a bout of cancer a while back.
I've lost pretty much all contact with them.


For other readers: Blend 805 was a full-strength English, fifty percent Latakia, twenty five percent Turkish (Djubec), and the rest three different blending Virginias which are almost certainly no longer available, though approximations can be found with some searching.
I suspect that one of those Virginias was aged or steam-treated.
All the hippest with-it people smoked 805.

Back when we stil had onions tied to our belt.
As was the style at the time.


Please drop me a line.



AFTER THOUGHTS:

Block Brothers, which provided a number of blending tobaccos, was sold to US Tobacco in 1980 or so, and their quality went down the tubes, so other suppliers necessarily had to be found. The choice of leaf, and kickstarting enzymatic, bacterial, and yeast conversion of starches to sugars is key, and takes more time, than simply doctoring the tobacco with chemicals and cooking. No. 1265 was one of the last blends Drucquer's developed.
I'm guessing that it may have been an English-Balkan.
Cook's No. 5 was in the vein 0f 805.


By that time many very interesting aromatics had come onto the market that smelled for all the world like a pharmacy and a candy shop had mated and produced a Rosemary's baby.
These all became undeservedly very popular.
Sick bastards.



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