Tobacco Art: A Smoking Club

(Wikimedia) "A Smoking Club" - An illustration included in Frederick William Fairholt's Tobacco, its history and associations. This image is available from the New York Public Library's Digital Library under the digital ID 1107651.

Knox Lös Snus

(Choose Snus) If you're on a budget and like Skruf brand, this may be the snus for you. Similar in flavor albeit a bit dumbed down due to the lower nicotine content, Knox lös has a course texture and kind of reminds me of my former American "Dip" Copenhagen in this way. Continued

Cuban cigar sales drop 8 pct in ‘09

(Tobacco Facts) Cuban cigar sales tumbled 8 percent to $360 million in 2009 and have fallen by more than a tenth in the past two years as the demand for luxury goods around the world has plunged.
Government-run tobacco company Habanos SA said Monday that sales were most sluggish last year in Spain, the top market for the island’s coveted stogies, but one also ravaged by recession and rising unemployment.
A drop in international travel also hurt sales at airport duty free shops in Cuba and elsewhere, which account for as much as 23 percent of the company’s total business, said Habanos Vice President Manuel Garcia. Continued

Tobacco Art: Rivals Chewing Tobacco

Rivals. Chewing tobacco. Spence Brothers and Co., Cincinnati, O. / Strobridge & Co. lith., Cin., O., c1872. (Library of Congress)

Zimbabwe's tobacco sees major sales increase

HARARE (AFP) – Zimbabwe's annual tobacco selling season began on an upbeat note Tuesday when a bumper crop went under the hammer, attributed by industry officials to good prices and more farmers.
In all, 77 million kilogrammes (77,000 metric tonnes) of tobacco were sold, an increase from 56 million sold last year, officials said.
Njodzi Machirori, chairman of the Tobacco Industry Marketing Board, said higher production was due to firming prices in the industry and an increase in the number of farmers. Continued

Photo: "The Bosun Cut Plug contains mainly flue-cured Virginias from Brazil, Zimbabwe and Malawi ..." (The Black Swan Shoppe)

Don Kiki Limited Reserve Brown Label “Botella” Cigar

(Keepers of the Flame) The starting point for some cigars, the detail you notice first, is the wrapper. For others it’s the construction. For the Don Kiki Brown Label, the first thing you notice is the price. This is a bargain cigar: at 36.99 for a box of 25, or about 1.50 each, this is a decent smoke. Continued

Also check out this short review at The Stogie Guys. I have some of these on order and will post my own impressions in a week or two.

Photo: cubancrafters.com

Contest Celebrates International Pipe Smoking Day

(theweekender) One pipe. Two matches. Three grams of tobacco.
Those are the main ingredients for the pipe-smoking contest slated for this Saturday at El Humidor in Wilkes-Barre as part of a celebration of International Pipe Smoking Day.
Of course, another necessary ingredient are pipe and tobacco enthusiasts, people like Dr. Mike Garr, Wilkes University sociology professor and El Humidor employee. Garr has been competing for a number of years, locally, nationally, and abroad. Continued

What is Balkan Tobacco?

(atthebackofthehill) ... Most Balkans, like the Balkan Sobranie itself, derive the greater part of their flavour from Turkish tobaccos - that being the term in common use for small leaf fragrant tobaccos grown in the Southern Balkans and Asia Minor. Many of the best Turkish tobaccos come from Greece, Macedonia, European Turkey, and Izmir (Smyrna). Some other Turkish leaf comes from the Black Sea coast. Other areas that grow 'Turkish' tobacco are the Crimea, Syria, and, formerly, Egypt. The term Turkish, in the case of tobacco, refers to leaf grown in the former Ottoman sphere of influence rather than modern Turkey. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

Cigar Aficionados Rub Shoulders, Puff at Cuba's Tobacco Fest

(Wall Street Journal) ... anyone who is anyone in the cigar world will this weekend be flying into Havana's Jose Marti International Airport for the 12th annual festival. They will get five days of cigar tastings, tobacco-plantation visits, seminars, factory tours and smoking, lots and lots of smoking.
It is, says Simon Chase, a former director of London-based cigar importer Hunters & Frankau and a festival regular, a chance to rub shoulders with the movers and shakers in the Cuban tobacco industry and experience the tradition of Cuba's cigar lineage first hand. Continued

Tobacco Art: Newsboy Cigars

"Advertisement for Brown Brothers of Detroit, showing young boys, some newspaper carriers, playing cards and smoking, using a Newsboy Cigars crate as a table. One boy's bag reads, Detroit Free Press. c1894" (Library of Congress)

DIY cigarettes? Some smokers grow tobacco

(USA Today) Something unusual is cropping up alongside the tomatoes, eggplant and okra in Scott Byars' vegetable garden — the elephantine leaves of 30 tobacco plants.
Driven largely by ever-rising tobacco prices, he's among a growing number of smokers who have turned to their green thumbs to cultivate tobacco plants to blend their own cigarettes, cigars and chew. Byars normally pays $5 for a five-pack of cigars and $3 for a tin of snuff; the seed cost him $9. Continued

Image: Library of Congress

Tobacco Art: The Maoboro Man

"Chairman Mao Smokes HWA CHING Tobacco Products - Shouldn't You!" (Lamarde)

Concerning Tobacco: An essay by Mark Twain

As concerns tobacco, there are many superstitions. And the chiefest is this--that there is a STANDARD governing the matter, whereas there is nothing of the kind. Each man's own preference is the only standard for him, the only one which he can accept, the only one which can command him. A congress of all the tobacco-lovers in the world could not elect a standard which would be binding upon you or me, or would even much influence us.

The next superstition is that a man has a standard of his own. He hasn't. He thinks he has, but he hasn't. He thinks he can tell what he regards as a good cigar from what he regards as a bad one--but he can't. He goes by the brand, yet imagines he goes by the flavor. One may palm off the worst counterfeit upon him; if it bears his brand he will smoke it contentedly and never suspect.

Pepin, Miranda Collaborate on New Cigar

(Cigar Aficionado) If you've ever asked yourself why you haven't seen a cigar made by Pepin Garcia with Dominican wrapper, the answer is easy: there aren't any. Dominican tobacco was never his medium of choice—until now. Continued

Photo: Lotta Crabtree smoking one of her "trademark cigars."

Tobacco Art: Alaska Cigarettes

(Lamarde)

A Chemistry Forged Over Cigars and Defense

(NYTimes) The Jets’ ministry of defense was a package deal, a threesome of defensive coaches, more Sack Pack than Rat Pack. The franchise hired Rex Ryan as coach, and Ryan insisted on hiring Mike Pettine as defensive coordinator and Dennis Thurman as the defensive backs coach.
Ryan’s inner circle meets regularly, hashing out a philosophy of organized chaos while smoking cigars at The Side Bar in nearby Morristown, N.J. Between puffs, they watch sports, talk sports, argue about sports. Continued

Interview With Master Tobacco Blender Russ Ouellette - Part 1

(Pipesmagazine.com) Russ Ouellette (Blendtobac) is the Retail Sales Manager and Master blender for Habana Premium Cigar Shoppe (HPCS), also known as Pipesandcigars.com, in Albany, New York. Russ has been involved in the tobacco industry for over 30 years. He is regarded as one of the best blenders in the country and has created over 100 different pipe tobacco blends over the years, many of which are still being sold today. Russ is probably best known for the Hearth & Home Series of pipe tobacco blends that he has created for HPCS (pipesandcigars.com). I had the opportunity to talk with Russ at length about pipe tobacco and a few other things. Here is Part 1 of our interview with Russ Ouellette: Continued

Photo by Sjschen, some rights reserved.

Tobacco Art: Our Favorite Cigar

Our "favorite"--Manufactured "only" by J.E. Nicholson & Co.--Dealers in cigars, tobacco & snuff, 1868 (Library of Congress).

Double curing can boost tobacco profits

(Southeast Farm Press) If you need extra capacity to handle your stalk-cut tobacco, the first impulse might be to build a new barn. But over the last 10 years, many dark and burley growers have chosen instead to cure two crops a year in some or all of their curing barns.
“We turned to ‘double’ curing both because there was a lack of structures and also because we were trying to maximize profits,” says Bill Corbin of Springfield Tenn., who grows fire-cured, dark air-cured and burley. Continued

Photo: Flue cure tobacco barn on Irwinville Farms, Georgia, 1936 (Carl Mydans/FSA/LoC).

International Pipe-Smoking Day is February 20th

(ipsd) We envision a worldwide communion of pipe-smokers that is bound together by a shared love for pipe-smoking, mutual respect, and goodwill. We envision a society that respects the informed choice and adult use of smoking tobacco. We envision a world where governments act in good faith and integrity, and have the political will and personal courage to express their values appropriately through legislative means. This means that as a group we are united and strong in our beliefs, have understanding, patience, wisdom, enjoy the philosophical aspect of pipe-smoking, and seek to promote pipe-smoking as part of a lifestyle that can be thoroughly enjoyable to adults through the responsible use of tobacco. Continued

Cigar shop owner sheds light on the other side of tobacco

(Hudson Reporter) At 8 years old, Gilbert Flores sampled his first cigar. When his father caught him at the kitchen table with his pile of freshly rolled cigars, he tried to test the boy. “When I didn’t choke,” said Flores last week, “I think then he knew I would bring him a little trouble in life.” Flores, who grew up in Union City, is one of four sons carrying on the tradition of their father Carlos, a master roller and creator of Flor de Florez cigars. Continued

Image: A "Reader" in cigar factory, Tampa, Fla. He reads books and newspapers at top of his voice all day long. 1909, Lewis Hine/Library of Congress.

Tobacco Art: Welcome Nugget Flake Cut Tobacco

Welcome Nugget Flake Cut Tobacco was manufactured by the T.C. Williams Tobacco Company in Virginia, which was bought out by the British-American Tobacco Company. At the time of the merger, 1903, T.C. Williams was described by the New York Times as the "largest independent concern in the South." Various websites have described Welcome Nugget as a brand of cigars or cigarettes, but judging by this tin at eBay, I'd say it was smoking tobacco of the Virginia Flake variety - probably similar to Samuel Gawith "Golden Glow" today.
The phrase "Welcome Nugget" is from a gold nugget found in Australia in 1858. The Welcome Nugget "was honeycombed gold about 20 inches long, 13 inches broad and 8 inches thick. One end was thick and shaped like a horse’s head. To this thick end was a narrow neck about 4 inches in circumference. Then it widened out again. It was 99.6 pure gold," says this site.

Tobacco farming has a long history in Wisconsin

"The shiftless, lazy, careless farmer need not expect to be successful for he will make a miserable failure if he tried," the speaker said. "It needs brains; it needs untiring energy and above all it needs men who can adapt themselves to circumstances and learn and profit by experience."
These words were part of a lengthy report of the Wisconsin Agricultural Society, "The Ins and Outs of Tobacco Culture," presented by F.W. Coon to the State Agricultural convention held in February 1885 in Madison.
At that time, Wisconsin was a leading tobacco growing state with some 16,000 acres grown by about 4,000 farmers, mainly in Rock and Dane counties. Continued

Photo: Jack Delano/Library of Congress

Cigar Review: Mederos Fifty 1 — Robusto

(The Stogie Guys) Mederos Cigars is a new outfit that debuted at the 2009 IPCPR Trade Show in New Orleans. Named for Cuban-born Carlos Mederos, the cigars are rolled in Estelí, Nicaragua, using tobacco from Mederos’ Estelí farm.
Mederos’ story reads like the history of so many cigar makers of Cuban descent. Continued

Image: Library of Congress

Churchill cigar sells for £4,500 at auction in Norfolk

(BBC) A half-smoked cigar, abandoned when Sir Winston Churchill dashed away to an urgent wartime Cabinet meeting, has sold at auction for £4,500.
The ex-prime minister's cigar, picked up by a member of the 10 Downing Street staff 69 years ago, had been expected to fetch up to £350. Continued

Tobacco Art: Poet Cigars

Poet Cigars, made by the Boston Cigar & Tobacco Company, featured the likeness of poet William Cullen Bryant on the label. The image is undated and comes from the Tobacco Advertising Collection at Duke.

Malawi Plans Increased Surveillance to Curb Tobacco Smuggling

(Bloomberg) Malawi, the world’s largest producer of burley tobacco, will step up surveillance at its borders to curb smuggling of as much as a third of the country’s crop every year, the industry regulator said. ... Malawi, a nation of 15 million people that the United Nations ranks as one of the world’s least developed, relies on tobacco to generate 60 percent of its export earnings. Continued

Image: "Cutting burley tobacco and putting it on sticks to wilt before taking it into curling and drying barn. Russell Spears' farm near Lexington, Kentucky, 1940." (Marion Post Wolcott/FSA)

Tobacco Art: Jenny Lind fine-cut Cavendish

Jenny Lind was a famous 19th century singer. She was called the "Swedish Nightingale," and toured the U.S. in 1850, the approximate date of this tobacco label.
Cavendish is a type of sweet tobacco named for Sir Thomas Cavendish, an early English explorer who discovered that tobacco with sugar on it is sweeter than without. (Well, somebody had to discover it - we can't all be Einsteins!)

Image: Library of Congress

La trahison des adsense

This is a blog about tobacco: cigars, cigarettes, snuff, snus, chewing tobacco, and P---s, but I can't write the word P--e, because then all the advertising will turn into ads for those guys who fix the things that carry water in and out of your house. It's kind of funny, but a little frustrating too. I don't make any money on the ads, but it's fun to pretend that I do. If you ever find me using words like calabash or churchwarden, or briar, when the word P--- would be more appropriate, that's the reason.

Image: The Treachery of Images (La trahison des images, 1928–29) is a painting by the Belgian René Magritte. The picture shows a pipe. Below it, Magritte painted, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" ... for "This is not a pipe." The painting is not a pipe, but rather an image of a pipe, which was Magritte's point ... (Wikipedia)

Tobacco Art: Ariel Cigars

This scene was probably inspired by Shakespeare's play "The Tempest." It was created around 1869 by the Hatch Lithograph Company for Lichtenstein Bros. & Co. (Library of Congress)