JimK
Junior Member
"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light".
Posts: 181 
First Name: Jim
Favorite Pipe: Canadian
Favorite Tobacco: almost any Virginia/Perique blend
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Post by JimK on Sept 19, 2022 10:54:28 GMT -5
Perique is an interesting pipe tobacco. As a condiment it adds a certain, dare I say aromatic, quality to a blend without the cloying sweetness of some excessive flavoring agents. It can also add some spiciness to English or Balkan blends. So perique's versatility makes for interesting possibilities.
The question I have is: Are there combinations one might be advised not to attempt? Say adding perique to, or combining a Va/Per blend with a Cavendish or Danish style blend? Somewhere I read that there might be such instances.
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Post by turbocat on Sept 19, 2022 12:16:24 GMT -5
I’d also be curious to hear from people who have experience with combinations that worked well.
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Post by Darin on Sept 19, 2022 12:30:19 GMT -5
Just remember that Perique is a more "alkaline" leaf and pairs best with more acidic counterparts such as Virginias. A straight Burley doesn't get much advantage from the addition of Perique but a VaBur would. Start with lower percentages and build up from there. Have fun!
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Post by trailboss on Sept 19, 2022 13:15:44 GMT -5
Orlik Golden Slices benefits with the addition of Perique, I think I read somewhere that they describe their mixture of having a “breath of Perique”.
I suspect it is a baby’s breath!
I mixed to about a 20% ratio and jarred it for about six months, to me it was an improvement.
Peter Stokkebye Luxury Bullseye flake is a Vaper with a small amount of cavendish, and is a blend that I could easily live with if everything else disappeared from my cellar.
The first 7 minutes, Jeremy talks about the history and processes involved in making Perique, at about 7 minutes he talks about blending with it.
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Zach
Pro Member
If you can't send money, send tobacco.
Posts: 4,367
First Name: Zach
Favorite Pipe: Too many currently, bound to change
Favorite Tobacco: Haunted Bookshop, Big 'N' Burley, Pegasus, Habana Daydream, OJK, Rum Twist, FVF, Escudo, Orlik Golden Sliced, Kendal Flake, Ennerdale
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Post by Zach on Sept 19, 2022 14:39:17 GMT -5
Other than what Darin said, I say go for experimentation and you'll just have a blast with it. Add perique to anything and everything at small percentages and just see what you think. Lat blends, aromatics, Virginias, anything goes. Like trailboss said, Orlik Golden Sliced is really great with a little bit additional perique and this is a really common thing that the Danes do with their Orlik slices. What I do lately (the past couple years) is take bunk Sutliff burley aromatic blends and mix in good Cornell & Diehl burley and other leaf like perique and make all the tobaccos I don't care or on their own, smokeable. Sometimes you blend up a real winner!
Oh lastly, yes you'll certainly mix up some flat stinkers. I once was getting bored of an opened tin of Dunhill Royal Yacht, and also of Peter Stokkebye's Natural Dutch Cavendish. Blended them together at close to equal parts but I think slightly less of the Dutch Cavendish, and that mixture was a real flat stinker. They somewhat canceled eachother out to make a flat and muddied smoke. Even after 6 months in the jar it couldn't be saved. It happens. I still smoked it all!
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Post by Silver on Sept 19, 2022 14:57:53 GMT -5
I've only blended other blends together. The 70% Three Friars/30% Bayou Morning mix turned out pretty tasty. I mixed another batch with 50% 3F/30% LC VaBur/20% Bayou Morning. I'll see how that is in a few weeks. I know this isn't real blending, but you gotta start somewhere.
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Zach
Pro Member
If you can't send money, send tobacco.
Posts: 4,367
First Name: Zach
Favorite Pipe: Too many currently, bound to change
Favorite Tobacco: Haunted Bookshop, Big 'N' Burley, Pegasus, Habana Daydream, OJK, Rum Twist, FVF, Escudo, Orlik Golden Sliced, Kendal Flake, Ennerdale
Location:
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Post by Zach on Sept 19, 2022 15:03:48 GMT -5
I've only blended other blends together. The 70% Three Friars/30% Bayou Morning mix turned out pretty tasty. I mixed another batch with 50% 3F/30% LC VaBur/20% Bayou Morning. I'll see how that is in a few weeks. I know this isn't real blending, but you gotta start somewhere. It is real blending, insomuch as it's what you like and you can tweak blends to give yourself more variety and fun with it. You guys should also try to buy C&D blending tobaccos and/or whole leaf and blend that route as well. With raw whole leaf you'll typically want to mix up sugar casings and flavoring extracts but you really don't have to if you like blend styles like C&D or D&R. |
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Post by cigrmaster on Sept 20, 2022 13:09:48 GMT -5
I have no imagination so I let the pros do their work and I have no interest in messing with a blend that someone has worked their arse off to make.
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Post by trailboss on Sept 20, 2022 14:46:57 GMT -5
I have no imagination so I let the pros do their work and I have no interest in messing with a blend that someone has worked their arse off to make. +1 |
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Zach
Pro Member
If you can't send money, send tobacco.
Posts: 4,367
First Name: Zach
Favorite Pipe: Too many currently, bound to change
Favorite Tobacco: Haunted Bookshop, Big 'N' Burley, Pegasus, Habana Daydream, OJK, Rum Twist, FVF, Escudo, Orlik Golden Sliced, Kendal Flake, Ennerdale
Location:
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Post by Zach on Sept 20, 2022 20:33:14 GMT -5
It's more like cooking than needing an imagination. Virginia too hot and bitey? Throw in a dash of burley. Taste it. Not enough? Throw in a little latakia, try that. Just like working out a recipe you're cooking but tobaccos. Not that you have to start trying, I was like that the first few years smoking where I would not mix tobaccos into a pre-made mixture. It just had to be what it was. But, eventually you end up with tons of tobacco, and you start finding blends that have no nicotine (I can't stand plain arse flat burley like everything Sutliff makes, their burley is the worst. But I can mix in some C&D cube cut burley, or dark burley, bit by bit until it's still got some of their intended aromatic flavor and has my right level of oomph and nicotine)
Again, just examples to spark that will to try it, but you certainly don't have to do so. I do it mainly to use leftovers and to boost blends that don't do it for me so I'm not wasting the tobacco.
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Post by trailboss on Sept 20, 2022 20:58:30 GMT -5
“ It's more like cooking than needing an imagination. Virginia too hot and bitey? Throw in a dash of burley. Taste it. Not enough? Throw in a little latakia, try that. Just like working out a recipe you're cooking but tobaccos. Not that you have to start trying, ”
Take it from me, the happy cooker… while I appreciate what you have to say, when you veer off in a dish, it is really difficult to save it. All the effort and trial when pursuing that route leaves your body dashed on the craggy shoreline after your body pummeled it’s way down there.
I depend on tried and true recipes from people that are like the Greg Pease of cooking. Unlimited resources to hone a recipe, and they pay the freight costs to try everything to produce a stellar recipe. Something as simple as French toast, I am able to produce it to others that wonder why there is no comparison when dining out…. Hats off to Christopher kimball and the crew at America’s Test Kitchen.
Having said that, I can see where we might see movement where the distributors might circumvent the looming deeming rules as P&C has toyed with blending kits. Not so good with plugs and flakes I reckon.
There are exceptions to that rule Zach, and you might very well be one. My forays into tobacco blending have been less than rewarding.
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Post by turbocat on Sept 20, 2022 21:43:13 GMT -5
Interesting discussion. I think there may be two different things being discussed here. One is adding a component or two to enhance an existing blend or mixing two existing blends, both of which I have had great success with. For example I find a dash of C&D Crooner to add a wonderful dimension to some blends, I often add some to Haunted Bookshop. I also have a jar of deer tongue if I just want to add the flavor. I have found a number of blends get a nice boost by adding a touch of C&D blending cigar leaf and there are others I could mention. I think of this more as seasoning rather than cooking.
The other aspect is actually trying to create a new blend, i.e. cooking. I have only tried this a couple of times and they were failures. I’m clear there would be a lot of learning and experience required before one could produce a truly worthwhile blend. I don’t have the desire or interest to do that. Too much good stuff out there that others perfected.
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Post by Darin on Sept 21, 2022 6:18:30 GMT -5
Just be aware that small time blending can lead to a whole-leaf curiosity which will catapult you into an entirely different level. Next thing you know, you've used your good pressure cooker to make Cavendish and the shop press is always full of compressed tobacco. Plugs, flakes, ropes and twists ... oh my! If you really get it bad, cigar leaf will start to arrive with your other orders and next thing you know you're rolling cigars. It's a disease! 😅
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Zach
Pro Member
If you can't send money, send tobacco.
Posts: 4,367
First Name: Zach
Favorite Pipe: Too many currently, bound to change
Favorite Tobacco: Haunted Bookshop, Big 'N' Burley, Pegasus, Habana Daydream, OJK, Rum Twist, FVF, Escudo, Orlik Golden Sliced, Kendal Flake, Ennerdale
Location:
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Post by Zach on Sept 21, 2022 7:39:29 GMT -5
Interesting discussion. I think there may be two different things being discussed here. One is adding a component or two to enhance an existing blend or mixing two existing blends, both of which I have had great success with. For example I find a dash of C&D Crooner to add a wonderful dimension to some blends, I often add some to Haunted Bookshop. I also have a jar of deer tongue if I just want to add the flavor. I have found a number of blends get a nice boost by adding a touch of C&D blending cigar leaf and there are others I could mention. I think of this more as seasoning rather than cooking. The other aspect is actually trying to create a new blend, i.e. cooking. I have only tried this a couple of times and they were failures. I’m clear there would be a lot of learning and experience required before one could produce a truly worthwhile blend. I don’t have the desire or interest to do that. Too much good stuff out there that others perfected. Exactly. Having done both, I mostly season. Also, both my wife and my grandfather are chefs and I'd not agree with the strict recipe bit Charlie added. It's not how chefs cook. They experiment like madmen.
You guys may likely known Dave (dmcmtk) across pipe forums (pipemag, etc) who's a good friend of mine. He's a former professional chef and the way he smokes is by almost primarily always mixing his own Virginia mixtures from other Virginia mixtures.
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Post by adui on Sept 21, 2022 12:57:58 GMT -5
Just be aware that small time blending can lead to a whole-leaf curiosity which will catapult you into an entirely different level. Next thing you know, you've used your good pressure cooker to make Cavendish and the shop press is always full of compressed tobacco. Plugs, flakes, ropes and twists ... oh my! If you really get it bad, cigar leaf will start to arrive with your other orders and next thing you know you're rolling cigars. It's a disease! 😅 I prefer to call it a passion... LOL!! Oh and, I haven't even really begun home blending and I am already looking at whole leaf to experiment... I have it BAAAD!! |
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Post by adui on Sept 21, 2022 12:59:38 GMT -5
Ted, Where do you get the deer tongue, and what does it add to a blend?
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Post by turbocat on Sept 21, 2022 13:28:48 GMT -5
Ted, Where do you get the deer tongue, and what does it add to a blend? Deer tongue has a unique vanilla/sweet floral flavor and scent, but that description doesn’t really do it justice. It was a popular tobacco flavoring in the 18th and 19th century. It is used in a few blends available today, C&D Crooner and Gentleman Caller and 4Noggins Imagine. I buy mine from Penn Herb, it’s always been fresh and wonderful. An ounce goes a long way. www.pennherb.com/deers-tongue |
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Post by adui on Sept 21, 2022 13:59:31 GMT -5
Cool! and thank you. Adding that site to my favorites.
How much do you generally add to a blend?
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Post by trailboss on Sept 21, 2022 14:20:36 GMT -5
Certainly, there are plenty of people that are capable of blending their own, my uncle Earl (who smoked mountains of leaf) bought three different tobacco's and weekly produced a blend that to him was better than anything on the market. I have toyed around spicing up a blend with Perique, and softened some Latakia blends with the addition of Orientals and Virginias, but it is really easy to make a blend and adding this and that, and I can end up with a smokeable blend, but not one I enjoy, and is best sent to the compost heap. Listening to the likes of Mike and Marty McNeil in their four part interview, about the processes, equipment to be a tobacco blender, and the gift and ability to attain every varietal in order to smoke them individually seem like an arduous task that I am not suited for. And I think someone like Jeremy Reeves certainly benefitted from his restaurant experience. Greg Pease has a refined palate in the world of wine, as does Mark Ryan and they used that gift that has benefitted us. A good read on blending: pipedia.org/wiki/Conversation_With_Greg_PeaseGetting back to the chef/ blender analogy, Eight years in the meat business, and 15 in foodservice, I got to know a lot of great chefs with fantastic abilities and learned a lot, and I have made many great meals from scratch without recipes by following some basic principles involved. I can cook, but I will never be a Gordon Ramsey, I can blend, but never to the degree of a McNeil, and it is far easier for me to get a stellar blend off of the shelf. I did eat at Gordon Ramsey's though, not a shelf I can visit often though.  In no way, was I trying to dissuade others from experimenting with doing their own blending, it can be done and you might be greatly successful as Joe Lankford was. Darin has produced great snuff, sticks, and tobacco blends, he has really put the time and effort into getting him to this point., but there aren't a ton of Darins running around. I will bug out on commenting further so that those that want to blend, can share their thoughts on the subject, and get useful info. |
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Post by turbocat on Sept 21, 2022 14:23:30 GMT -5
Cool! and thank you. Adding that site to my favorites. How much do you generally add to a blend? It takes very little, I don’t have a hard rule for it but to give an idea a whole pound of tobacco would take one to two tablespoons to reach the level found in C&D blends that use it. Start small and work up. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2022 12:46:49 GMT -5
Perique can vary from barrel to barrel and end up like dark stewed fruit or a spice bomb. So blend accordingly depending on your sourcing. Sutliff is more in the stewed fruit category. I have not tried Peter S. or C&D's but another had said C&D is on the spicy side and PS's is somewhere between Sutliff and C&D
According to Goff's book, 4 parts Virginia Red to 3 parts perique will have a neutral ph.
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Post by Silver on Jan 20, 2023 20:58:21 GMT -5
Playing with a new "blend". 85/15 mix of GLP Fillmore and HH ODF-RR. I mixed up a 50 gram batch and put it into a couple molds and am pressing this for about a week. I also mixed a 25 gram batch and kept it loose for sampling.
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Post by username on Jan 20, 2023 21:50:03 GMT -5
Funny enough I just got some blending tobaccos in the mail today. Going to try smoking them straight for a bit to get a feel for what flavors they have.
I also kinda want to make a Rum soaked Perique ala the Beast that C&D did.
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Post by trailboss on Jan 20, 2023 21:53:45 GMT -5
"Going to try smoking them straight for a bit to get a feel for what flavors they have."
Mary McNeil approves.....she said as much on a podcast, that approach really avails you of being able to become a refined smoker!
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Post by roadsdiverged on Jan 20, 2023 22:03:52 GMT -5
That's what I did with several different straight tobaccos a few years ago. The only oriental I tried was "Turkish" and I found it to be flat and boring. On the other hand, a bowl of straight (stranded) perique was "fun." Peter Stokkebye's straight DFK was good by itself. Just 1 flavor from start to finish.
While making my own blends I start with a little bit of perique and add more as I see fit. I also found out that the flavor profile seems to change depending on how you cut it. As far as what NOT to mix it with, I don't know, I love the stuff.
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Post by urbino on Jan 21, 2023 0:34:54 GMT -5
Funny enough I just got some blending tobaccos in the mail today. Going to try smoking them straight for a bit to get a feel for what flavors they have. I also kinda want to make a Rum soaked Perique ala the Beast that C&D did. I've got a few, too. Couple different red Virginias (Stokkebye and Sutliff, I think?). Black Cavendish. Katerini. I'll get around to playing with them once things settle down. |
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