On Halloween, people dress up as their favourite literary figures or celebrities, so that for one day they can bask in the idea that they might be similar. Albert Einstein, Steve Fallon, Gerald Ford, Clark Gable, Sir Bertrand Russell, Georges Simenon, J.R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, or Prince Bernhard von Lippe Biesterfeld, for instance. As pipesmokers.
The facial prop speaks to people. One of my friends years ago sported a stogie and went out as Groucho Marx, to whom he bears great resemblance even though he hates ducks.
So the bright young man or woman goes out to purchases a pipe. And selects one that feels comfortable in the hand as well as the eyes, because ideally two or three years later he or she will hold it at arms length and say to him or herself "I'm glad I bought this", rather than "what the hell was I thinking?"
The next step is a tamper, with pipe cleaners and some matches.
As well as some tobacco.
Generally speaking there are four categories of pipe tobacco. The largest, between eighty to ninety percent of the market, is aromatic. This is the kind of shite that all hobbit wannabees smoke, as well as Gandalf, plus several notorious old pederasts. Very popular. Chemicals and artifical flavourings that smoke hot and leave your pipe wet. What everybody's grand father allegedly smoked (but only during family get togethers, because the old fellow wanted to sit indoors at Thanksgiving and Christmas rather than out by the compost heap in the freezing cold).
Next are English mixtures, what the dashing young man at Harvard or Yale who turored bright young things in algebra or Latin prefered. Tutoring paid for his tweeds and tea time pastries, plus some sherry now and then, and expanded his dating pool enormously. These reek of terpeneols because one of the main blending tobaccos (Latakia) is a smoke-cured leaf from the Levant. Clark Gable and William Faulkner liked those.
Tolkien smoked flakes, which are blends of Virginia with a smidge of "other", steampressed to unify the flavours and mellow them. They smell noticeably of carotenoids -- flavour, aroma, and colour compounds that occur naturally, especially in grasses and stone fruits such as peaches, apricots, and plums, as well as Virginia tobaccos -- and are gently satisfying if smoked on the cusp of going out. Do NOT smoke too fast. Calm down.
Third category: old grandad wearing his bib overalls out on the tractor doing the back forty. Everybody hopes he'll croak soon because he's a mean old cuss. He's puffing a Burley dominant blend, like many people did back before the war, because Burley was cheap.
Many old coots such as myself intellectually love products like Bailey's Front Porch or The Haunted Bookshop, but if you poke us we'll admit that we're having a hard time finishing the tin we opened eight years ago because it kicks us in the jaw. Every time. Wonderful stuff.
Gerald Ford and Mark Twain smoked similar blends.
So did Einstein.
Steve Fallon. Georges Simenon, and Prince Bernard von Lippe Biesterfeld, are aficionados of Royal Yacht, which is an anomaly. Technically a Virginia blend, with a very minor amount of darker leaf, but spritzed with benzyl butyrate (plum flavour chemical), and perhaps a trace amount of tonquin to alleviate the sense of strength. The benzyl butyrate would disguise that. My experience with it is that it's smooth and flavoursome, though slightly mono dimensional. And it wallops me. Two bowls and I'm done.
On a final note, Virginia blends and flakes are stealth tobaccos that you can smoke late at night without most other members of the household noticing after they're asleep.
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