Finding the Holy Grail
I mentioned a few days ago that I had run out of baccy.
I ended up buying a fifty gram block of plug, of a variety I hadn’t tried before – Yachtsman Navy Plug.
It wasn’t bad as tobaccos go. It did the job, but because it was a plug tobacco it required a lot of effort. I needed a sharp knife which wasn’t easy as Herself has hidden them all, a cutting board and a fair wallop of patience. I stuck with it though and by yesterday I was running short.
I’m not quite sure how fifty grams lasted that long but it did.
Anyhows the time came yesterday when I thought I would mosey down to the village to replenish my stock of my usual baccy.
I called into my usual shop. No, they hadn’t got any. No sweat. They ain’t the only shop in this here village.
I called into the main shop. Ah yes! They had ordered some in so the girl went to get some from the stock room. She came back empty handed. She came up with the theory that they weren’t producing the 25g packs any more and were starting to produce 30g ones, but that they hadn’t actually delivered any. As theories go, it sounded reasonable even if the logic of moving from 25g to 30g is non-existent at best. But then that’s Tobacco Control for you – logic is something they apparently haven’t come across.
I was beginning to suffer from a bout of stubbornness at this stage. This had become a quest.on the level of the search for the Holy Grail. I was going to find some baccy if it killed me.
I drove over to a garage some way outside the village which has a bit of a shop attached. No baccy.
I carried on to another garage where I had replenished in the past. No baccy. She did offer me a few alternatives but they were all rollie baccy which is too dry for the pipe.
Fuck this! I was becoming more and more determined, so I set sail in the direction of Skobieville. As I was driving I realised I was to pass near a small shopping centre which is full of carpet shops, pizza places and weird stuff like that. I wondered if they had some kind of tobacconist. I drove over and there was a tiny little supermarket I had never noticed before.
I said it was tiny but when I went in I discovered it was in fact the Tardis. The fucking pace was huge, behind a tiny shop front.
I asked the Cheery Chappie behind the counter if they sold pipe baccy. He didn’t sound too sure but he opened a drawer. There, resplendent in the middle of all the ciggy baccies was Condor. He put a pack on the counter. I told him I wanted more than one pack. “How many have you got?” I asked. “Loads” says Cheery Chappie. “Give me loads so” says I.
I bought his entire stock of around nine or ten packs.
He then started questioning me about the pipe. He was a cigarette smoker and had never spoken to a pipe smoker before. We had a grand old chat as I explained the joys of the pipe compared to cigarettes.
Maybe I have made a convert?
Haha nice story. So how much pipe tobacco you reckon you go through a month? I guess my consumption is about 150 grams.
I never really counted. Around 75 – 100 grams a week? I like my baccy….
I used to do some calculations when I switched from cigarettes and trying various pipe tobacco brands – there’s quite a difference in price say between a 50g Dunhill tin at 12eur or 13.5eur and a 170g Colts box at 13.5eur. In the end it turned out that even smoking only the priciest pipe tobaccos it’s cheaper than cigarettes. But even if the reverse were true, I couldn’t go back to factory made cigs.
There is a big difference all right. I reckon that if I switched to cigarettes [Hah! Fat chance!] I’d probably have to spend twice as much, if not more.
https://s22.postimg.org/6907ooj6p/20160728_144944.jpg
Being sent that packet of 300 or 400g of the, literally,finest tobacco & a pipe as a gift, that’s what converted me to pipe smoking not some old bloke yakking about it-although I’m not a ‘convert’, I have remained true to the faith and smoke my 60 cigs a day, the pipe is just an additional extra along with cigars.
PS. that’s real tobacco you can see there , not that girly flowery weak arse ‘aromatic’ stuff.
And on the subject of ‘real’ tobaccos, I have this very evening just tested smoked (in a rollup- then I’ll do a pipe, it’s labelled as being for both) this:
https://s4.postimg.org/6gs51yl9p/vervique.jpg
Which as far as i can discover is infact the same semois leaf but grown in Flanders not the sainted Ardennes. Certainly the freshly opened packet had a whiff of semois vanilla-ryness and ammonia (that’s ‘piss’ to you -probably due to the somewhat rustic curing methods).
On my last baccy run to Belgium last week I picked up as many varieties of the local tobaccos as I could find to test. Next time I go I may even get lucky and find some genuine ‘gris’.
Did I mention I’m a tobacco geek?
Me too, at anytime I have about 4 different tins open. Never got this ‘brand’ thing when one only smokes one type of tobacco.
With the death of my beloved German tobaccos I have made it my life’s mission to try as many of the traditional Europe brands as are left before they go the way of the geudertheimer. I so wish I had paid more attention to tobacco brands back when I was a young man in Germany…names to conjure with. At some point I will have to have a chat with Grandad about the Irish situation, surely a country which still has hand makers of clay pipes must have a couple of ‘real’ tobacco makers somewhere?!
There used to be a thriving tobacco industry here, with both Player’s and Gallagher’s owning factories. All are now gone of course. I don’t know of any indigenous industry here now apart from White Van Man who is thriving.
I recall watching a film on youtube from the 1960s which was about Gallagher’s (I think) new factory. I was struck by the pride of all concerned, the work force, management, and film makers.
One of those exceptionally rare things I remember from school lessons was being taught in geography class was that Ireland’s main exports were stout, biscuits and tobacco. A deemed evil nowadays of course.
I dunno… Our dog’s tongue can be pretty aromatic. Something akin to a fishing harbour at low tide, with a delicate hint of sewage farm. I would not want to smoke that.
That’s the best description of the smell of a dog’s tongue I’ve ever read!
“Maybe I have made a convert?”
Except that he now doesn’t have any pipe baccy to try pipe smoking with, does he? Cos you’ve gone and bought it all! 😀
Crap, you beat me to it. Exactly what I was going to say but now I can’t. Guess I won’t bother to make a comment here after all. 😉
Maybe it’s an incentive to nag the boss into getting more stock, so he can try it?
“but they were all rollie baccy which is too dry for the pipe”
meant to pick you up about that yesterday already. Don’t know when you last opened a packet of rolling tobacco but for the last 20 years at least every commercial rolling tobacco has come out of the packet almost as a liquid. The days of opening a pack that had been on the shelf too long to find it had turned to dusty strands is long long gone. Hell you could almost drink bloody Golden Virginia it’s that fucking wet (ask anyone who tubes their smokes or uses a rolling machine- rolling tobaccos need a hour or two spread on newspaper before they become workable).
I’ve said before the tobacco (made for both cigs & pipe) I use is as thin as, if not thinner than, any rolling tobacco and because some of them are ‘pure’ tobaccos they come out of the fresh pack very dry- yet they all smoke fine in a pipe. So I really don’t see how you can claim rolling tobaccos are too dry to pipe smoke.
Or was the ‘dry’ in reference to the taste of them in a pipe?
I admit it’s many the year since I actually inspected rollie baccy. Way back when God was a child I experimented with the stuff before discovering the pipe. The daughter rolls the occasional one, so next time her back is turned I might rob some.
I would advise agin it…not the theft from your own kin (that’s perfectly fine morally- they should support their dear ol’ dad however they can, the little buggers)but because the chances are your daughter smokes something Virginary soaked in embalming fluid and anti-freeze. Which in your pipe will taste like sweetened silage. Stop being a tight arse and next time you go to the shop get a pack of Old Holborn, you will find I’m sure that it will make an acceptable sub if ever the Condor famine should strike again and if not you can always flog the rest of the pouch to some old boy down the pub.
I’ve hand-rolled Condor Flake; just took half a flake and teased it apart in my palm. With Plug, I found the easiest way was to peel off the outer leaf and do the same thing. Mind you, I only buy Flake or Plug when there’s no other game in town!
Welcome Glyn! Wow – another Condor smoker? I thought I was the only one left.
I remember buying flake many years ago which was fine except that when I rubbed it, half seemed to go on the floor. The plug I got last week was like a large lump of molasses [or pot?] which took a fair strong wrist and a very sharp knife to reduce to flakes. There was no outer leaf [that I noticed] – just one solid block. Once I got the hang of it, it was fine except for the very last couple of sices when there was nothing to grip!
I put Condor in my pipe once. Then spent several months and litres of steaming nitric acid getting the vile tasting ‘ghost’ out of it again. Ok so I’m joking about the nitric acid, but it was left filled with a salt drenched in 99%alcohol mix for weeks, several times, then scrubbed and knifed then left to air for 6 months…and the first time I tried it again half a year later I could still taste the fucking awful “Granny’s knickers” flowery lavender, tonka bean taste.
And anyways, Condor is far too weak for real men to smoke.