DOCTORS AND PILOTS

A few years ago I was enjoying a cocktail at the Occidental. It was a lovely summer evening, the door and the window were open, and I sat at the table near the window with my beverage and pipe. Then soon noticed that the briar had been ghosted by PS Very Cherry, with which I had experimented a few days earlier, to see what perverts like, and the partner on shift that evening came bustling out from behind the bar determined to find out which sexual degenerate was smoking the flavoured cigar in a place devoted to austere appreciation of fine tobacco products. Dammit, it had to stop!
When he passed by again, I had put my pipe down.
Told him that it was the vapesters outside.
Young profligates.


The Occidental is a cigar bar in the downtown; the austere appreciation of cigars must include thoughts of the warm plump thighs of Cuban women; Stokkebye Very Cherry is a relatively clean-burning aromatic pipe tobacco which will influence the next few bowls smoked in that pipe but be gone fairly soon if not hot-boxxed; the pipe is clean now, and normally I smoke only Virginia and Perique blends as indeed I did that evening.
Fortunately I had another pipe with me.

This was during the period that on alternate Sundays I would light up an aromatic just to see the expression on my coworker Hector's face when he realized what I was doing. As a severe puritan, he's right up there with the partner at the Oxxy. Who knows that I too disapprove of aromatics and normally never touch 'em.

No longer smells like urinal cake

There were also a few times when I smoked the Whore of Babylon.

[Whores are mentioned a huge number of times in the Bible, but the Whore of Babylon is specifically from the New Testament, book of Revelation, chapter 17, verses 1 through 6: "And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written: mystery, Babylon the Great, mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus".]

Which is also known as "Molto Dolce".
It's a very popular tobacco.
Sutliff spaghnum.

It's still made, but no longer available locally, because of several municipal ordinances forbidding flavoured tobacco products in order to protect the children, who would otherwise be mobbing tobacconists for this fine product which reeks appetizingly of vanilla, caramel, honey, a hint of chocolate, and an underlying fixative aroma vaguely reminiscent of coconut essence.
Plus embalming fluid and petrochemical by-products.
Which appeal to young people.
As is well-known.

I haven't stuffed it into a pipe in several years. The last time, it left my mouth feeling like a smoldering ruin, like something had crawled in there and died a violent death, festering, like a plague-zone with zombies.
Couldn't smoke at all for the rest of the day.
My doctor would've approved.
Delightful.

Molto Dolce is NOT a pipe tobacco which my father would've tolerated ("good tobacco does not smell like a French cathouse"), and both of my grandfathers would have likely sneered at it. One grandfather was a World War One pilot who passed away several years before I was born, when such heavy aromatics had still not been invented, and the other one was an army surgeon and doctors either smoked Camel nonfilters ("more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette") or Lucky Strikes (20,679 physicians recommend 'Luckies').

Molto Dolce smells for all the world like Hugh Hefner.

It's perfect for pissing off Hector. Made his fine Nicaraguan stogie taste like burning garbage, apparently. He withdrew to the far end of the room glowering and muttering. Priceless.


Many of the aromatics I have sampled were enjoyed (if that's the right word) on days that I worked with him. All of the various Sutliff aros, several Peterson mixtures, and a few other very odd things.

The lovely Peterson pipe pictured above does not whiff of perversion even in the slightest. Smoked it over the weekend. When people remark that they love the smell of a pipe, it reminds them of their father, what they're actually saying is "why don't you come over to the dark side, big boy".
And suggesting that their relatives were inbred.

My father (a WWII bomber pilot) for many years smoked a mixture made by John's Pipe Shop in Los Angeles, and gradually gave up the pipe after we moved to the Netherlands. Except if I had a tin of Balkan Sobranie lying around after tea time or dinner. Especially on weekends.
He'd snag a bowl and recapture memories.

My doctor doesn't smoke.
He's a patch man.

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SMELLS NASTY, TASTES WORSE

As a reminder to the pervert classes, here is a complete description of an aromatic pipe tobacco that is incredibly popular. Especially among bearded hipsters, nonconformists, and people with highly individualistic tattoos.

Strictly personal opinions.
Not an advertisement.


MOLTO DOLCE
By Sutliff Tobacco Company

Black Cavendish, Burley, Virginia
Flavouring: Caramel, Vanillin, Honey
Etcetera.

Conceivably lignin-containing waste and petrochemicals.

There is also something disturbingly like coconut macaroon in there, perhaps as a perfume fixative -- it survives longer than anything else if the tin is opened -- as well as enough humectant to pickle a pharaoh.


This blend is moist and oily, sticky to the touch, stains paper. The various tobacco components are drowned out by the added substances, and it never truly dries. Hippy candles, cheap Indian incense bought on Telegraph Avenue, a cloying candy odeur. Intelligent people do well to avoid it.

Juveniles may like this.



When I was fifteen or sixteen, I shifted from aromatics to Latakia blends, years later eventually migrating toward Virginia and Perique mixtures and pressed flake. The pipe tobacco my father smoked in his briars was an old-fashioned American style product, Virginia and Burley with a rather spartan inclusion of condimental leaves. Many Dutchmen I knew as a teenager smoked blends based on un-sauced Maryland, later on in Berkeley I encountered quite a few smokers who liked the Orientals.

Most of them would gag if given this.

Sound sensible folks.



The people I know who smoke Molto Dolce are all skeevy, and have other dubious habits. This is just a personal observation, of course, but I live in San Francisco, and I have met an incredible number of sick bastards.
So I know what I am talking about.

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YOUTHFUL SUNDAY PERVERSION

For the second time in six plus years I tried a bowl of Sutliff's 'Molto Dolce'. Lordknowshowlong I showcased this as the worst stinky smoke-sphagnum in existence, it behooved me to try it again.

Over the last year or so I have developed the habit of smoking at least one bowl of an aromatic on the Sundays that I work with Hector. He looks at me like I've lost my mind, puffs harder on his Nicaraguan cigar, and mutters something in Spanish, before eventually calling me a frightful pervert or suggesting that I probably also like ripping the wings off kittens.

That was seven weeks ago. I remember it with angst and loathing.
Molto Dolce ruined my mouth for the rest of the day.
Worse than chewing barbed wire.

[The open tin is so old it should be dessicated by now, but there's enough propylene glycol in there to embalm it. As well as, most likely, glycerin. It can never dry, but will live forever. It is an evil rotten sodden drecky mess of a tobacco that stinks of caramel and toffee with a hint of coconut that becomes more pronouced with age.]


I cannot believe how popular that stuff is. There are happy selfies all over the internet of people with their pipes "enjoying" a big bowlful of Molto Dolce. Their cheerful glowing faces fill me with resentment, I am made to despise their piercings, tattoos, and eccentric haircuts. Keenly do I wish for the day that their elderly mother throws them out of their dank basement apartments and tells them to get a job. And take that wrecked old Studebaker with you!

Molto Dolce, by Sutliff, is the kind of pipe tobacco that fills adults with distrust of the young.

It is the purest representative of everything tobacco should not be.


Hector and I work together every other Sunday.


It's coming up. Oh boy.


There's an open tin of Peterson's Founder's Choice for sampling. Mangoes, rum, and vanilla spritzed on sugary black Cavendish and very good quality Burleys. Yes, it does ghost the pipe in which one smokes it -- by accident one of those pipes was with me when I visited the Occidental, and I had to deflect Curtis by blaming the faint whisper of bordello perfume on the young people vaping outside -- but it doesn't bite the tongue ferociously and is actually quite smokable. And it really convinces Hector that I am quite the degenerate and wearing fluffy underwear beneath my khaki trousers.

The taste is fairly pleasant, and reminiscent of a girlie drink served in a coconut with a little umbrella on top.



On the Sundays when I don't work with Hector, the open tin of Esoterica's Tilbury beckons. Mostly well-aged Virginias, with very subtle additions of Burley and Perique.

Two bowls yesterday, followed by St. James Flake (Samuel Gawith).
Enough tea (Pu Erh) to sink a battle ship.
It was a very good day.

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THE SWEETNESS THAT HAUNTS YOUR DREAMS

A long talk about barbers, during which my interlocutor stated that a hot shave, done well at an old-fashioned mens' hair establishment, was sheer heaven. Which I would not know, because I have never shelled out money for someone to come at my neck with a blade, what with being just a wee bit paranoid. And in any case, that seems like spa-pampering of the nails and foot rub variety; real manly men scrope their own damned neck.

This in connection with two things, the first being that the hot water in my building is out till Tuesday morning, and shaving and showering with icy water wakes one up better than any amount of coffee -- it is kind of like starting bolt upright and screaming from a coma -- and the second being the pipe tobacco I was smoking, which reminded him of the lotions and unguents at a traditional barber shop.

The tobacco was not dry. It can never be dry. Ever. It is so humectant and fragrant-oil rich that it is damned well embalmed. The mummy of tobaccos, sadly undead, to be dug up a thousand years from now by lizard-aliens in a perfectly "fresh" state, whereupon they will exclaim: "I don't know what they did with this, it ain't edible, but they were a bunch of right rotten bastards and the galaxy is better off without them".


MOLTO DOLCE
Black Cavendish, Burley, Virginia. An aromatic.
Caramel, honey, and vanilla.

This stuff is made by Sutliff. And they should be ashamed of themselves for doing so. The last time I tried it was shortly after it first came out, when an elderly acquaintance opined that it was the best thing since sliced bread.
I puffed it for a few moments, then threw out the soggy mess in my pipe, and did not smoke again for the rest of the day.
It is pipe tobacco.

It is pipe tobacco in the same way that Mixture 79 is pipe tobacco, and made by the same disreputable company, which had its start right here in San Francisco. Shortly after the Gold Rush a bright young lad opened a tobacco and cigar business downtown, a generation or two later his heirs invented Mixture 79, and in 1933 started producing it on a commercial scale. In the very early fifties the San Francisco store was taken over by a long-time employee, Ed Grant, and renamed, the manufacturing side split-off and moved across the country.
Through acquisitions and mergers involving Consolidated Cigar, Heines, Altadis, Imperial, and a host of other names and marques, Sutliff finally became part of Scandinavian Tobacco.
The location on Market Street ("Grant's Pipe Shop") was sold to Ted and Joe in 2005 who ran it into the ground in 2012.

As I said, it is pipe tobacco.

Having used the open sample tin so many times to illustrate precisely what pipe tobacco should not ever be, and having had so much fun yesterday tormenting Hector by smoking an aromatic near him (ever see somebody go green?), I decided I needed to give this product a better chance, a fair shot, see if I had misjudged it, and whether it was in fact tolerable.

The sample tin has been open for three years. Someone must be smoking it, there's less than half left. Also, it should be bone dry.

It is still moist and greasy.

Spongy, oily, somewhat slimy to the touch. Packs okay. Lights okay. Tastes fairly vile at first draw. It is far too sweet. After a few minutes my temples are throbbing. Part way through the bowl I am staring fixedly at a tin of Dunhill's Aperitif Mixture, and trying to focus. Why did I do this? Is there any point to this sickening mess? It has absolutely no trace of tobacco flavour, and though they claim that it is dressed with vanilla, honey, and caramel, what I taste is a slight hint of mint and lavender, a strong dash of coconut, something akin to chocolate, and scads of propylene glycol.
If this were an aftershave lotion, strangers would lynch me.
Did they add menthol?

It does not get any better further in.

It smokes hot, wet, and nasty. It is impossible to finish the bowl all the way down. That pipe will have to rest for a week, and I may need to clean it with alcohol. Molto Dolce left my tongue feeling brutalized. I swished tea around my mouth several times, then rinsed with vodka and spat.
Swished tea again. Repeatedly.

Molto Dolce is the kind of tobacco you gift someone you hate.
It is worse, far worse, than Milango by Dan.
Which is also effing nasty.



I have a one pound container of Mixture 79 somewhere that was opened by its previous owner in the late nineties. It still has not dried out, and still feels as springy as the day it was extruded. More proof for the lizard aliens that we seriously deserve to be nuked. I tried smoking it once. My bad.
It likewise was a ghastly experience, not to be repeated.
Scientific curiosity be damned, don't experiment.
Frank Sinatra liked Mixture 79.
The swine.



Once Hector smelled the aroma coming from my direction he told me I would go to hell, I was a rotten degenerate, he really couldn't understand why I did it unless I secretly loved this nasty crap, which he insisted that obviously I must, and perhaps it was best for everybody if I died alone, a rancid old bachelor and as loopy as Michael or John Lee.
No wonder those two keep coming back.
I attract them, like roadkill.

The buzzards are swooping low over the nearby tidal flats, where some animal died recently and is getting really ripe. If you smell death near the gas station at the freeway entrance, that's what it is.
This is the stench of your nightmares.
Wake up screaming.

Then he walked away and lit up a Padron.
For the next two hours he avoided me.


Molto Dolce is the perfect pipe tobacco for young men who come out of the basement once in a while.

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NASTY SMELLY WEIRDOES

There are no tattooed or pierced men in the local pipe club. Yes, a few of the members have a degenerate fondness for some mighty peculiar blends, but not a single one smokes Molto Dolce. This nicely substantiates my theory that there are two types of pipe-smokers: those who are calm and thoughtful types, versus elves and hobbits, OR, depending on your point of view, batshit Gandalf with spikes as opposed to Bertrand Russell.

The pierced and tattooed individuals, clearly, do not play well with others.
Their pipe is a style-statement, and proof that they are rebellious and artistic. Oh, such lone wolves, and bohemians.
Basement dwellers.

Hence, of course, their fondness for aromatics.
Nothing says "unique" like a fruit-loop stench.

But, as I said, none such in the club. No tattoos. No tribal body art.
No Viking-themed personal aesthetic preferences.
Not a goth in the bunch.


I also seriously doubt that any one of our little coterie could ever be caught dead yowling at televised wrestling, or snarfing pizza and beer with other men while the game is on.


There are a few who have some doubtful tastes, even borderline odd, but there are no punks, perverts, religious nuts, dungeon masters, wiccans and satanists, or raging over-the-top artistic types. We are a refreshingly normal bunch, more-than-average thoughtful and rational, with well-considered opinions and clearly expressed ideas.

Well, excepting myself, of course. You've seen evidence to the contrary in my case on this blog. But I am calmer when around live humans.

Yet I too avoid aromatics. Most of the time. Occasionally I indulge in very private perfumed perversion -- Erinmore Flake, 1792 Flake, or Peterson's University Flake -- but I do not normally do so, and I always feel slightly unclean afterwards.

Most flakes are very well behaved tobaccos.
As are old-fashioned Balkan mixtures.
Restrained, thoughtful, subtle.



And that, my dears, is how you should always choose your pipesmoker.
Is he an intelligent and rational man? Or is he a raving "individualist" who is embarrassing to be around? Does he make you feel interesting and appreciated, or unclean by association?

Is it all about him?

Does his tobacco smell like a candy factory?

Is his pipe rancid?




AFTER WORD

There are, of course, exceptions. A large Lesbian I met a while ago has good feelings about an aromatic that smells like fresh juicy green apples.
Perhaps her father was a pervert who smoked that, I don't know and I'm not asking questions. The point is that many people including several (!) pipe-smokers have absurdly fond smell-memories -- for instance Scottish Blend, by Royal Theodorus Niemeyer B.V., which was my first pipe tobacco, or Niemeyer's Irish Blend, which I also tried -- and conversely some really severe Protestant bastards like rich mixtures redolent of the Levant.
A slobbery old git I once knew smoked Virginia and Perique.

Troost and Amphora have their place.

And a very reliable, irritatingly rational at times, person whom I see often, loads his pipe with a succession of thoroughly nasty aros, and it isn't just to irritate people of good taste. He actually likes that stuff.
He's also fond of Operas and Latin music.
There may be a connection.




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THE TOBACCO FOR A FIT OF EXISTENTIAL ANGST

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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IL EST TRÈS DOUCE

When the female spider has sex, she customarily seizes the male spider by his tiny little head and sucks out all his juices, leaving little more than a dessicated husk. Which sounds a lot like romance in the modern United States. Or at least San Francisco.

Yesterday I mentioned to a fellow pipe collector that I had a number of unsmoked briars, including a vintage Comoy's Blue Riband, Dublin shape, which, if I ever met the ideal woman, would probably be gifted as a love token.


"How", he asked, "will you know if she's the perfect match?"


Well that's easy; within weeks you're finishing each others thoughts while stealing each other's opened tins of pipe tobacco.

He agree that that indeed sounded lovely.

And he looked a bit wistful.


From this you should know that the ideal woman does NOT smoke aromatics. Why, the very thought of sticking 'Molto Dolce' (by Sutliff) into a briar would appall her. What an awful waste of a well-crafted smoking tool! Horrendous!


[Molto Dolce: a blend of Virginia, Burley, and Black Cavendish, drenched in humectants -- it does not dry out, but like the Mummy remains "juicy" long past the point when real tobacco turns to dust -- whored-up with vanilla, caramel, and something alleged to be honey. It is very popular in parts of the country where they drink Jägermeister or Jim Beam Red Stag, and don't actually have real tobacco stores. The tin we opened last year still feels moist and oily;
this truly is your perfect nuclear fall-out shelter smoke.
It will outlive the cockroaches, and drive the other occupants one by one to the surface, to scout out whether the radiation has half-lifed enough that humans can survive. Very good if their company palls.]


The ideal woman has intelligent tastes. No frou-frou frangrances, no fruity liquor, and no "look at me!" exhibitionistic tendencies.

An active mind is important.

Hard to find.




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MUCH TOO SWEET!

On one of the pipe-smoking internet sites a war is ongoing between people who insist they were defrauded, and someone whom I believe to be a Dutch-speaker who may have (and probably did) defraud them.
As you can guess, I am not unbiased in this affair.

I am extremely partisan.

Primarily because in his many photos, the Dutchman looks like an arrogant dick and poseur, at whom I would instinctively sneer and whose company I would not seek, whereas the photos I've seen of a pipe-maker and collector whom he did not pay and sicced the hounds on make her seem like a bright and in fact adorable young woman.

Oh yes, that first picture got me going full-bore internet snoop.
Lovely face, kissy cheeks, sensuous lips.
Expressive eyes.


There are, however, at least three reasons why I will never send her a marriage proposal.

1) She's already taken.
2) Lives on the other side of the country.
3) Smokes aros.

The true gentleman never poaches; it is not likely that we'd ever meet; and aromatics somewhat appall me. Still, in this rather bitter war between various pipe-smokers and a fellow Dutchman, I favour her side.
Female pipe collectors and pipe makers must be treasured.
They are infinitely precious.


The tobacco she admits to smoking at the time one of the pictures was taken is Molto Dolce, by Sutliff. Which is described reliably as an oily blend with a "rich creamy texture of vanilla, caramel and honey".
Contains Black Cavendish, Burley, and Virginia.
In a ribbon cut.

Okay. That sounds incredibly nasty.

I myself have on recent occasions smoked aromatics, as a matter of professional curiosity. A few were actually quite satisfying, albeit far too moist and requiring six or seven eight or nine second pulses in a microwave to make them usable.

A few others were somewhat confounding.

And several were so unbelievably horrid that they induced despair and angst, good lord how could anyone think this was worth offering to the public why do they hate us?

Even though Sutliff has roots in the Bay Area, I do not consider them as deserving positive mention or loyalty. I shall say no more about them, because the truth hurts and I do not want to get sued.


In all honesty: bugger the aros.


Tobacco should never smell like Hello Kitty's underwear.


Aromatics are a very large part of the business, more's the pity, and a merchant of smokeables would be foolish to disregard such products, or their legion of misguided (and possibly insane) aficionados.
But there is no real reason to encourage them either.
Many need electro-shock or medication.
Some of them, a dominatrix.
Water boarding.

Just because all the finest priests bang altar boys is no reason for you to emulate those sainted men. Creatively frustrated housewives still drink International Coffee, do you? Curious infants often stick found objects in their mouths, is that a good idea?

Congressmen bend pages.

I'll admit to sometimes enjoying certain aromatics, but I am a trained professional and a deviant. You should not try it yourself.


Here's a short list of flavours that can be found:

Cherry, English Toffee, Vanilla & Honey, Nuts & Vanilla, Pistachio Melba, Coconut Almond, Apple, Chocolate, Apricot, Butter Pecan, Buttered Rum, Bananas & Cream, Dulce de Leche, Butterscotch, Vanilla Latte, Orange, Tiramisu, Praline, Mango-raspberry, Pumpkin Spice, Jamaican Rum, Midori Melon, Hazelnut, Fruit Tart, Toffee, Honeysuckle.


If your tobacconist suggests any of these, kindly disregard the dear man. Either he's addled, or out of touch with reality.

And maybe he's married.

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