2012 Richmond CORPS Expo

Neil Flancbaum (Smokin’ Holsters artisan) and I drove down to Richmond early Saturday morning to spend the day at the CORPS Pipe Smokers Celebration and Exposition. We arrived shortly before 8AM, having left my house at 6AM. Neil drove down Friday from his home on Long Island to spend the night before driving down together.

Richmond Convention Center Photo: Flickr Member TaberandrewThis was the first CORPS Expo to take place in the Richmond Convention Center in downtown Richmond. The venue is spacious and new. You could land the Millennium Falcon through the loading dock doors. I’m not sure quite how high the ceilings are, but I would guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 feet, so even though there was smoking, the room air was remarkably smoke-free. Aside from the size, the most notable aspect of the venue is that one could smoke while attending the show which was very nice, indeed.

I spoke at some length to one of the show’s prime organizers. CORPS club members felt strongly that attendees must be able to smoke on the floor at the venue. This narrowed choices dramatically since the political movement in Virginia, like most places in the country, has been to severely limit anyone’s ability to smoke in any venue. As things turned out, the ability to smoke was negotiated with venue management – a hard-fought win that took much time and effort.

I didn’t attend last year due to a scheduling conflict, so it has been a couple of years since I’ve been at the Richmond Expo. My most recent memory of the show was when it occurred at the Holiday Inn out in Midlothian. I loved that venue, mostly for the accumulated good memories that I made there. To look around at breakfast, and see many of North America’s leading artisans - not to mention more than a few from abroad, was a wonderful thing. I enjoyed their presence and company a lot.

Compared to previous years, this year’s CORPS attendance fell off. A significant number of artisans, collectors, and resellers who attend almost every pipe show I’ve gone to were conspicuously absent. For me, and for a few others to whom I’ve spoken, it was painful. Given the extraordinary history and track record of the CORPS Show, I would have thought that attendance would be higher and more support forthcoming, but changes to the format appear to have kept people away.

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Sampling Sextant

Saturdays are my favorite day of the week, mainly because I rendezvous with friends for breakfast followed by pipe-smoking, conversation, and watching a great old Western movie, Redskins game, or Nationals game on the large flatscreen television in my local smoke shop’s smoking lounge.

The Nats played the Brewers last Saturday. It was a baseball lover’s event. Gio Gonzalez racked up his 20th win in one season with a closing score of 10-2 with the Nats on top. Two three-score home runs added significantly to the excitement quotient. As much as I would love to have been at the Nats stadium for the game, I couldn’t have smoked my pipe there, and Saturdays is all about smoking my pipes, trying new tobaccos, and relaxing.

There’s been a lot of buzz about Greg Pease’s new English blend, Sextant, since its release. Everybody - and I mean EVERYBODY - gives the blend high marks. Until Saturday, I hadn’t smoked the blend.

My friend, Sam – a retired mathematician and former Navy pilot – brought a tin of Sextant with him for us to give the tobacco a try. Sam made no bones about his high regard for the blend, and since Sam and I tend to like the same tobaccos, I looked forward to giving Sextant a try.

When I read the blend’s description, my stomach seized a bit when I saw that Sextant’s ingredients include Kentucky dark-fired burley. Burley of any kind is problematic for me. Its high nicotine content wreaks havoc upon me, even though I like what Kentucky dark-fired adds in flavor terms to a blend.

During the Balkan Sobranie Throwdown I had a very interesting chat with Throwdown winner Russ Ouellette. Russ mentioned that he was nearly certain that one of the key flavor ingredients in 759 was Kentucky Dark Fired burley. Well, I love 759, and as I inspected the Sextant tin’s contents, I remembered that conversation. I brought Russ’ observation up to Sam as I loaded my pipe, wondering just how much dark-fired leaf comprised Greg’s winning new blend.

As I set match to leaf and took my first few puffs of Sextant, the taste of Kentucky dark-fired leaf was overwhelmingly in evidence. This tobacco produces a signature rich, dark, and smokey flavor that is unmistakeable in a blend. There is significantly more of this ingredient in Sextant than there is in 759. The blend conveys not only strength of flavor, but also robustness and deep flavors. If Sextant were a chocolate, it would be the darkest, smokiest chocolate one could imagine.

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2012 Throwdown aims to reincarnate John Cotton's Nos. 1&2 Medium

The Seattle and New York Pipe Clubs–organizers of the 2011 Balkan Sobranie Throwdown–announce a new edition of the event for the Chicago Pipe Show this coming May.  This year’s competition is the John Cotton Throwdown, featuring John Cotton Nos. 1&2 Medium. 

The John Cotton Throwdown is sponsored by Sutliff Tobacco Company,
an Altadis company.

Do pipe smokers love vintage tobacco blends? If heated pursuits of old favorites on eBay are a reliable indicator, you betcha.

Prices have reached nearly unimaginable levels. Nine days ago, on March 4th, a sealed, full, 2 ounce tin of Balkan Sobranie 759 sold for a whopping $1,325! Although this is a recent high, it is not at all uncommon for 759 to sell for $300 to $700 for a sealed flat tin.

Throwdown Organizer and Emcee Matt GussHow the Throwdown came to be

Great tobacco vintages are highly sought after. It is precisely for this reason that the concept of a tobacco-blender Throwdown was conceived by brothers Matt and Jon Guss. Would it be possible for today’s master tobacco blenders to recreate legendary vintages? If so, imagine how happy today’s pipe smokers would feel to be able to enjoy ready access to them.

Russ Ouellette’s Black House - 2011 Throwdown WinnerIf Russ Ouellette’s Black House or McClelland’s Blue Mountain are among your favorite English pipe tobacco blends, thank the producers of last year’s BALKAN SOBRANIE THROWDOWN. These two spectacular blends emerged from a blending competition that was the runaway hit of last year’s Chicagoland International Pipes and Tobacciana Exposition, aka the Chicago pipe show.

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Balkan Sobranie Throwdown

If you’ve ever heard on older pipe smoker wax lyrically about favored old tobaccos, you have almost certainly heard about Three Nuns, John Cotton, Sullivan Powell, Bengal Slices, and what many consider the greatest of them all: Balkan Sobranie. Even given the plethora of great blends available today, for some the absence of these storied old blends is like the memory of a great friend no longer present. You can see that absence in misty eyes and dusky smiles when they recall some of their favorite smokes. They are missed. Nothing else will quite do.

For them, smoking these great old blends doesn’t stop with flavor or aroma. Their taste and smell conjure long-gone moments. Nothing will prompt memory so vividly or quickly as a particular smell or taste. This is why we see tins of these legendary old blends selling for extraordinary amounts. While a younger pipe smoker may want to discover for himself what the experience entails, the older pipe smoker may want to penetrate a memory gone foggy.

While it is almost certain that blenders have attempted to duplicate these tobaccos, how successful have these efforts been? Has it been done? Can it be done? In his letter of invitation to me to be a judge, Matt Guss wrote, “This Throwdown is purely for fun — we don’t expect to faithfully actually recreate Sobranie for many practical reasons.  This is just the kind of creative event that breathes fresh air into the pipe world.  And we believe it will be really well received.”

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