PEASE, ZEITGEIST, AND A BRITISH FUNK

Little White Nipple Dude was in a few days ago, and deeply desired my thoughts on African Meerschaum versus Anatolian. Meerschaum, which is a fairly neutral material for pipes, is a porous mineral silicate of magnesia, of which the finest deposits are mined under the city of Eskişehir. It is also found elsewhere in the world, but not nearly so pure and white, and often there are inclusions. Those ancient see creatures did not die a clean death, and not alone.

I myself am not a fan. It's good as the bowl insert in a calabash, but that's about it.

Little White Nipple Dude has queer obsessions.

He stayed for over an hour.


Naturally my mind wandered while he waffled.
And I fixed myself a strong double bagger to stay awake.
I was enjoying a bowl of Greg Pease's latest release during that time, and suddenly remembered that I had not mentioned several of his more recent tobaccos here yet.
Which is an oversight.

BANKSIDE
Zetgeist collection. Virginias, with smidge of Latakia, Perique, and Kentucky. Flake.
This is good tobacco, but it did not excite me. Which is entirely due to my mental state at the time. Most of the time. Virginia dominant, with a span of of condimentals. Including Latakia. Smokers of McClelland would definitely like this. When it first came out, it was winter in California, and effing miserable outside.

HORIZON
Zeitgeist collection. Balkan flake.
Precisely the kind of thing Neil would like when he's outside in the yard with the cat. Medium to full Latakia, rich, complex, refined and old-fashioned. I smoked several bowls over the weekend. Hits spots. It's a definite winner. Remember that depressing village outside Exeter where everything seemed wet, during that summer years ago? It would have been bright and sunny (but not hot) if you had tins of this with you. You might have stayed there two or three extra months. The locals would have seemed more washed, the beer more drinkable.

GÉOMÉTRIE
Zeitgeist collection. Plug. Pale and dense.
Well hot damn'! When you're smoking this, work doesn't seem such a pain, and you don't even hear the bitchy old men in the backroom ripping the liberal member another one. Foral and vegetal. That's probably how the Turkish leaf augments the Virginias. Medium strength, it has depth, and for a VaPer aficionado this could well be an all day smoke despite the absence of Perique.

LEVANT MIXTURE (DRUCQUER & SONS)
Balkan, thinnish ribbon cut.
When Greg had been tasked with reformulating the Drucquer blends there had been so much blend shift due to the incompetence of the then owner of the company that, for all intents and purposes, he had a clean sheet to start from, with just the descriptions in the catalogue to go on, and precious little else. So his versions then were not copies or restored originals, but more along the lines of homage blends. What he thought they would have been like regarding Latakia and Turkish, based much on how they had been decribed and where they were placed in the range. I didn't go to Drucquers during those years -- being otherwise engaged and in an unsettled period since leaving their employ -- so I don't have a clear idea how succesful he was at recalibrating the blends. But from all accounts they were good. His current editions of some of those blends are excellent. Both the Levant Mizture and Jeremy Reeves' Palmetto are more or less must-haves that reawaken memories you didn't know you still had. Levant is dark and creamy, the perfect tobacco for a middle-aged bookworm at Cambridge who still recalls crash-landing the plane in Devon during the blitz.
Well-balanced, Latakia leading. Berkeley is reborn.

SPARKPLUG
Dark British Balkan Plug.
Heavy and Latakia dominant. What you should smoke when you are in a foul mood and want to keep the visiting relatives out of the library. Or it's raining, and still hours to go ere tea time. Might as well hit the sherry you hid behind the volumes of Swann's Collected Depravities. If you smoke this too often, they'll start leaving a tray of food outside the library door instead of calling you for dinner. Cook does a lovely roast, you want a second helping with some more of those fabulous buttered parsnips, but good luck. It's all gone by that time.

THE VIRGINIA CREAM
Heirloom collection. Flue-cured mixture with a touch of vanilla.
It is traditional for smokers of one type of blend to sneer at other tobaccos, and to start off their reviews with the phrase "as a smoker of blah blah I did not think that I would like this", followed by quible-waffles. Variegated, but on the paler side. Has small dark chunks, which may be the firecured leaf. The vanilla is not a powerhouse. It leaves your bottom clean.
Tangy, springlike, and enjoyable.




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