Tobacco Roads

An Amish farm in Lancaster County above Mount Joy.

Wednesday evening, after dinner, my friend Scott Stultz and I drove out through the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania countryside so that I could photograph the tobacco fields at dusk.

Winding lanes, one-lane covered bridges, and stone houses dotted the route we took north from Marietta. In some forested creek bottoms, the old oak canopies were so thick overhead to make it seem like night was scouting the terrain.

The route we traversed took us out beyond Mount Joy. I wondered– as we took one hairpin curve after another, winding over and around drumlin hills and ridges–if we would reach our destination before the twilight vanished.

“This is one my biking routes,” Scott said. “Isn’t it gorgeous?”

Since I left the wild reaches of Wyoming’s Rocky Mountains decades ago, I have been unaccustomed to seeing landscapes so picturesque as to conjure empty lumps in my chest, but heartbreakingly beautiful scenes unwound before me with every turn.

When the August sun’s haunches squat to the horizon line, the late evening light crawls and drips. Serrated cornstalk leaves were so tall and thick as to make greenish-gold canyons through which we drove. I’ve never seen forbidding corn before. Moses may have parted the Red Sea, but he would never have been able to part that corn.

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Fred Hanna's "The Perfect Smoke"

Fred Hanna’s recently released book, The Perfect Smoke, was written by a pipes and tobacco gastronome. I use the word “gastromome” quite intentionally as its implications are that a gastronome’s perspective arises from an extensive study of the history and rituals of haute cuisine or, in Dr. Hanna’s case, haute tobacco.

Hanna’s significant experience participating in and conducting fine and rare wine tastings have influenced his approach to pipes and tobacco tasting.  He approaches the pipe like a gourmet approaches the dinner plate: with appetite, affection, patience, and a certain skepticism.

He knows that not every meal will be a peak experience, but he also recognizes that great meals are more likely when savvy choices are made with respect to chefs, tables, ingredients, seasons of the year, and condition of the palate.

Because creating the conditions for the peak pipes-and-tobacco experience requires an open mind and no little reverence for the possibilities, Hanna reminds us that, if we want the perfect smoke, we must mentally and physically prepare for the journey. The impatient, the unrealistic, the lazy or the ill-prepared need not apply.

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S. Gawith Tobacco Prices Rocket Up

How much is too much?

Yesterday, I read that the price of Samuel Gawith bulk tobaccos has increased by a hike of nearly 50%, selling at $77.50 a pound. Although I’m distressed, I’m not surprised.

Runs on S. Gawith tobacco are so predictable as to have caused me to have thrown my hands up in surrender. I don’t even try to buy it any more. By the time I find out it’s in stock, it’s out of stock. Perceptions of scarcity and increasing hoarding behavior on the part of some buyers have created a situation where we can expect that the situation will only get worse with “in-fashion” tobaccos.

Agincourt

Updated on Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 6:30PM by Neill Archer Roan

The weatherman says, “Expect snow today.” The chances of snow this afternoon are 100%. Not much ambiguity there. One hundred percent says, “Snow’s happening. Get used to it.”

Snow? The calendar says it’s October 29th. While I expect October snows in Wyoming, snow is usually fashionably late for the party here in Northern Virginia.

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Harvests

Hands of burley tobaccos hang tightly packed in a tobacco barn during air curing.I’ve been here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania on business the last couple of days, reveling in Autumn’s onset and the days of harvest.

Yesterday, mid-afternoon, driving back from a business confernece, Scott Stultz and I came upon a Mennonite tobacco farm along one of the backroads. We stopped, hopeful, that the tobacco farmer might consent to let me explore his barns to take pictures of the harvest.

Scott found and brought back two young men–the owner’s sons–and they consented to let me take pictures of their harvest. They were lean and wiry boys, good-looking in that way that comes from hard work, sunshine, a good heart.

They accompanied Scott and me through the barns, talking about this year’s crop, about how too much rain has made it tough this year.

They couldn’t do enough to help me. There was a muscular breeze so the tightly packed, butt-tied hanging hands of curing tobacco were flapping and slapping from their woody mid-rib veins, making it hard for me to capture detail. The older of the two Mennonite boys, Kenneth, suggested we walk uphill to bigger barn where they could close the doors to keep the wind down.

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