Warning: May contain traces of soy, wheat, lecithin and tree nuts. That you are here strongly suggests that you are either omnivorous, or a glutton.
And that you might like cheese-doodles.
Please form a caseophilic line to the right. Thank you.
Okay, I did it. I tried a second bowl of Dark Red in my pipe. And, like the first time, it tasted wonderful for about the top third. Oh my, I am in flavour country now. This stuff is growing on me. Like having dried dates rupture their oozy juices all over my psyche. Mmmm, orgasm. After that first part, however, it took more effort to get a pleasant effect, the realization that it was completely monodimensional and didn't even taste remotely like tobacco hit me, and I started questioning my behaviour.
Why must I suffer so?
What the hell IS that room note?
Was I only doing this to piss off my coworker?
Why did I feel the need to apologize to a regular who dropped by?
How many microwave pulses of eight or nine seconds each time would it take before this tobacco had actually dried to smokeable level? I mean, was it so full of goop and propylene glycol that, like Molto Dolce, it would not die, unless you recited ancient Egyptian spells over it?
Was it afraid of cats?
Yep, the last third tasted like toxic waste again.
Dark Red is bound to win lots of fans.
Many people will like it.
And, precisely like the last time, it threw off my entire day's smoking schedule. By now I should know not to do such things. I would much rather smoke four or five bowls of good tobacco than spoil the entire rest of the day with nuclear waste dump mouth. Some people smoke nothing but aromatics, often re-using the same pipe over and over again till the damned thing is drenched and dripping rancid juices, and those same perverts so rarely use pipe cleaners that you are surprised that their mouths aren't filled with canker sores and festering gum death. Plus drooling pus.
Many of those people love black cavendishes.
There's nothing better ever made.
Taste-bud barbarians.
Perverts.
There are at least four people I will recommend this tobacco to.
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In order that that I could be completely fair, and not accused of slamming it because it's an aromatic, I actually stuffed some of Lane Ltd's new black Cavendish "Dark Red" into my pipe and smoked it.
First half of the bowl was really enjoyable, and not just because I felt sleazy blowing it out and my coworker kept exclaiming "dang, you trollop, what the heck, shee that craps nasty smells like pimp in here you're a monster".
And similar blandishments.
It was sort of like inhaling an entire box of the dried California dates that relatives used to send over when we lived in Holland. Later they started mailing us gift boxes of fruit preserves for Christmas instead, and I still fondly remember the neon green one. What fruit was that?
My mom would have preferred me not to eat it.
The unnatural hue freaked her out.
It wasn't bad at all.
Kind of fruity.
The second half of the bowl was not so enjoyable, verging on bitter and putrid, but not in a very good way.
That was five days ago, and the bowl of that briar still has a whiff of massage parlour.
Gonna repeat the experiment this coming Sunday, same pipe.
There may be a follow-up post.
Or not.
In any case, because the whole thing reminded me of perspiring wrestlers, here's a video of every gringo's favourite luchador:
DOOMP, DOOMP, DOOMP, DOOMP, DOOMP. DURLAKTO, DURLAKTO, DURLAKTO. THE SYSTEM ... IS DOWN!
Aromatic pipe tobaccos still confuse me. There's something about the honest old-fashioned reek of unflavoured leaves that is immensely evocative, why would you bugger it up with a teenage hooker smell?
If you don't like the taste of tobacco, maybe you shouldn't smoke?
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Some pipe tobaccos make people romantically ooze out the words "that reminds me of my father ..... ooh!" Of course, if they are less than thirty years of age, they may instead lithp the thententhe "yowza, old fossil, that reminds me of my great great great grandfather!"
Then there are the tobaccos that will make some individuals scream: "cheezus aitch, that stinks like a sewer you rancid old perv, I am going to die!"
If you are in Berkeley across the bay, that could be any pipe tobacco, really, because Berkeley finds tobacco to be incredibly offensive and imperialist, as well as an extremely old dead white man thing.
Oppressive fascist, this is a safe zone!
The heck with Berkeley.
Anywhere else it might just be the reek of Lane's Dark Red, a spanking new product from the same outfit that brought you the propylene glycol cocktail and all of its variants.
Cite: Lane Dark Red
From the company that makes the largest-selling bulk aromatic blends in the US comes an all-new black Cavendish that we're sure is going to become one of their most popular pipe tobaccos - Lane Dark Red. Using the same Green River black Cavendish base as their ever-popular BCA, Lane's Dark Red is one of the most flavorful and fragrant tobaccos they've ever made. The soft, rich leaf is imbued with a deep, robust combination of cherry and confectionery flavors that will more than satisfy the pipester with a sweet tooth, and will delight anyone in the area. If you're looking for an all-day blend with an amazing room note, look no further than Dark Red.
My esteemed colleague puffed this all day on Thursday, consequently by the time I attended the pipe club meeting, I was in a foul mood and desperately needed some cheese.
My esteemed colleague will smoke damned well anything.
I suspect him of degeneracy.
He also smokes other fruity-cake tobaccos (I have spoken to him about that), and listens to Italian operas.
The "amazing room note", mentioned above, is not entirely gagsome, but nevertheless incredibly offensive, and quite utterly baffling, as rather than having a wholesome aroma of tobacco, or a reek of rotten stone fruit, it reminds one of nothing so much as hippie incense and unwashed bodies.
I'm sure it will be a phenomenal success.
Kudos, Lane Limited, kudos.
Hello Kitty sh*t.
DARK STRONG FLAKE
After the meeting three of us ended up at a local dive where the refined cigar smokers hold sway, and, as per longstanding intelligence, we refrained from enjoying anything as loathsome as the Dark Red. Aromatics are verboten there, along with perversions, because cigar smokers are sensitive souls who will not abide such outrages.
Acid Cigars are not allowed either, by the way.
Three pipe smokers, in a downtown bar...
Ten Russians mixed with a blonde flake in one pipe.
Eighty percent Virginia plus four percent Perique in another.
Then William pulled out a brier, and loaded up a bowl of Peter Heinrich's Dark Strong Flake. Which is described so: "Aged cakes of red Virginia and fire-cured dark Kentucky tobaccos give this full-bodied, flavorful flake an unusually rich and naturally spicy taste. Not for neophytes, this one satisfies with old-fashioned deep taste. Good outdoors." [Reviews and lots of praise-poofle about Peter Heinrich's Dark Strong Flake here: sex tobacco non-pareil.]
It's a cult favourite, and has numerous aficionados.
I've enjoyed it, but I wouldn't particularly search for it. It's not quite my style, as I am a more restrained and balanced individual than most other pipe smokers, many of whom are tattooed freaks and Gandalf wannabees.
I am rather an old-fashioned British-type smoker, tea and sherry and all that, and prefer tobaccos that evoke a different time and place.
But William likes DSF, and puffed happily.
All hell promptly burst loose.
Because, you see, fire-cured Kentucky which has been steampressed with red Virginia smells remarkably like chocolate with a smidgeon of plums.
Not sure about the chemistry, but it sure does rile up cigar smokers.
One particular cigar smoker.
Who is one of the owners.
No aromatics allowed!
It is certifiably not an aromatic, even though being a Danish product it does have anethone as well as a dark sugary essence in the top dressing, but no matter! You will not smoke THAT in my pristine temple! Ick poo!
William looked crestfallen, but I gently persuaded him to have a bowl of my Virginia and Perique mixture instead. One of these days I may have to start manufacturing it for commercial distribution, as it is an enjoyable all day & all tobacco smoke, inoffensive to purists though unacceptable in Berkeley despite its very collegiate composition, with just enough tanginess to satisfy.
It soothes the savage beast. [The other person by this time had switched to a flake from a colourful tin. Perhaps Solani, but I do not know. It did not offend the proprietor, praise the fates and boruch haShem. It is quite likely that any (all) of the following products will make cigar purists have conniptions: HH Old Dark Fired, an extremely lovely steampressed fire-cured Kentucky, deeply rich and perfumy; HH Dark Strong Kentucky, which smells butch and masculine, and puts me on the floor; Gawith Hoggarth Rum Flake OR Gawith Hogarth Ennerdale Flake, both of which are Lakeland style products with a certain quotient of degeneracy (the latter smells like urinal cake); Samuel Gawith 1792 Flake, that being a tonquin-oil dressed dark steamed product, very old fashioned and lady-like; MacBarens Vanilla Cream, which I shan't even try; and probably also the Peterson's Irish Flake, which has a divine reek and also tends to put me on the floor like the Dark Strong Kentucky. You will note that all of these have either a pronounced dollop of firecured Kentucky (ooh, that strange suggestion of chocolate!), or an added flavouring that will offend vampires.]
This blogger has profound sympathy for the bar proprietor's life-journey.
Sometime very soon, just to push the envelope, I shall march into the Oxxy smoking a full bowl of Dark Red.
Now, about young master Thingbottom von Shproink, he's still a dingus.
Totally. Tweeds and everything.
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