Dobie's Four Square London Mixture

Every time I come across a tobacco with which I am unfamiliar, I wonder how many more are out there waiting to be discovered. So many blends have been made over the years. It seems impossible to know them all.

Adam Davidson introduced me to Dobie’s Four Square at the last West Coast Pipe Show. When I smoked this particular blend–London Mixture–I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. It falls into that old-fashioned, Virginias-based English sort of blend that has a distinctively natural flavor that is not overcome by additive toppings nor by a heavy dose of Latakia.

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Meh...

Sobranie. After having smoked the Original White Mixture, 759, and Virginia No. 10, this name arouses respect that approaches veneration in my mind.

So, you can imagine my anticipation when I saw my friend Jon Guss pull the above-depicted tin from his bag. I’d read about this blend in my research on the brand. I knew that its origins were that it was a blend originally reserved for the Directors of Sobranie. I figured that I was in for a treat.

When Jon cracked the tin, a sweet pungence filled the air. As I put my nose close to the greasy, sugary paper insert, I remarked, “This smells like Christmas in a tin.” Adam Davidson sniffed the tobacco, shaking his head yes. “This is like a really good fruitcake,” he observed. Those of us around the table gazed at the tin like a gaggle of chain-gang refugees watching a prime rib being carved. Was there drool? I’m not sure; I couldn’t look away from the tin as Jon peeled the insert away from the nearly black tobacco ribbons. The insert was bearded with ribbons; the tobacco plateau looked dewy because there were so many crystals littered atop it.

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Advantage your favorite tobaccos

I am a nicotine lightweight. Maybe even a bantamweight. Tobaccos with a nic punch can send me ‘round the bend, and that is no pleasant experience. However, it is no uncommon thing that I discover a nicotine-rich tobacco the flavor of which I enjoy.

Stonehaven is such a tobacco. Ever since I was introduced to this blend by Richard Friedman aboard the Alaskan Song, I have loved smoking it on occasion, albeit with no little attention paid to an oncoming visit by “the swirlies.”

To my palate, Stonehaven’s flavors are advantaged by a larger circumference bowl not unlike blends rich with Orientals or Latakia. This posed a real dilemma for me. Pots and princes are my shapes of choice for English and Balkan blends. Their flavor blossoms in their bowl geometries. My experience, however, has been that optimal flavor delivery seems almost always to be accompanied by optimal nicotine delivery. A large distillation zone provides for distillation of nicotine right along with the volatile oils, resins, and sugars entering the smokestream. Obviously, I don’t want to sacrifice flavor if I don’t have to do so. What to do?

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Smoking Vintage Capstan

Early yesterday morning I decided to invade my stash of vintage tobaccos to take one of them with me to share with my Saturday morning pipe-smoking crew. Pawing through the drawer, I came upon this old tin of British-production Capstan Yellow,  their mild Navy Flake.

I’ve had this old tin for many years. It’s easy to discern from the photos that the tin has has taken a few dings and knocks on its journey from the factory floor to the present. Given all the abuse heaped on it, I felt I was betting against long odds that the tobacco inside would still be good. The seals on these old square tins are easily compromised. I’ve opened pristine-looking vintage tins only to discover dust or mold inside. This tin was anything but pristine.

After breakfast, I settled down on the old blue sofa in Old Virginia Tobacco Company’s back room. I put the tin to my ear and shook it, listening for that dry, tobacco death rattle that compromised tins issue upon being shaken. All I heard was a dull series of thunks as the papered brick of flakes slid slightly from one tin side to the other. I asked my friend, Jim, if he had a quarter I could use to twist the tin lid away.

“I can do better than that,” he replied, handing me a Sacajawea dollar coin. I took the coin and began trying to pry the lid off, but to no avail. Watching me get nowhere with the tin lid, Jim took a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and flipped out the screw-driver-bottle-top opener. I pried the top open and looked down at the crisply folded paper surrounding the flakes.

Scents of port wine, figs, molasses, and vinegar wafted up. I pulled the paper back and there, swaddled in white and gold paper, lay a brick of oily chocolate and gold navy flakes in perfect condition. I pulled the brick and paper from the tin, removed the tobacco, and inspected the striated tobacco flakes. The top two flakes had slid down the side of the brick before packaging, resembling a coverlet that had slid off a bed.

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Advice to New Pipe Smokers on Choosing Tobacco

Hand colored Lithograph of Tobacco Grower, © 2013 Neill Archer Roan, all rights reservedIt is axiomatic in the pipe world that new pipe smokers begin by smoking aromatics, then graduate to English blends, and finally move into the realm of straight Virginias and Virginia-Periques (VaPers). Of course not everyone begins with  aromatics, but many pipe smokers do. For some reason, light aromatics seem to taste better to new pipe smokers then do other blends.

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