Shine a Light on Me: Why Ostensible Pipe Tobacco is Real Pipe Tobacco

(A guest editorial by P. V. Nasby) Awhile back, the do-gooders of America got together with the politicians and raised the taxes on cigarette tobacco so high that working people couldn't afford to roll their own cigarettes anymore. This was done on the theory that the middle class knows better than anyone poorer than them and thus can lord it over the working class. Fortunately, the politicians showed the working man and woman a little mercy by leaving a loophole in the pipe tobacco tax. Tobacco companies took the hint and started marketing shag-cut tobacco as pipe tobacco, which it is, but it can also be rolled into (gasp!) cigarettes. The do-gooders are having hissy fits over the loophole, which is to be expected.
What I didn't expect was how fast the self-proclaimed pipe smoking community was ready to throw the rest of us tobacco users under the bus. By "pipe smoking community," I mean those half-baked pseudointellectuals one can find pontificating all over the internet, with their dainty tins of "sublime" anglophile smoking mixtures which they blather on about between Lord of the Rings marathons. They think they are the only pipe smokers in the world.
But they are not the only pipe smokers in the world, in fact, they are, thankfully, a distinct minority. The rest of us smoke cheap tobacco in cheap pipes, which we also roll into cigarettes. If those so-called "brothers of the briar" knew anything at all about tobacco history they would know that this used to be the norm. Back in the day, the lion's share of the tobacco market was advertised as multi-use tobacco: you could smoke it in a pipe, roll it into a cigarette, or even chew it. That's back when most of us were poor, then World War Two came along and we all got, more-or-less, wealthy. Suddenly everybody with an extra buck was a connoisseur of something or the other. You couldn't just listen to the radio, you had to have a stereo, and you couldn't just have a beer, oh no, it had to be imported, and of course your tobacco had to be as froufrou as possible.
Which was all fine and dandy as long as they kept sharing the wealth, but the wealth, my friend, is going away. We are all getting poorer. First they busted the industrial unions (how dare those steel workers earn a living wage!), but even that wasn't profitable enough, so they shipped all the factories overseas. Then the construction industry collapsed, and now, they're going after the government workers. Soon nobody will make much more than minimum wage. Be warned: that cheap tobacco you look down on today, may be all you can afford tomorrow! (Cigars too, don't even get me started on those posers.)
Did I mention that this is a tobacco review? Well, it is. The other month my girlfriend brought home two bags of tobacco: Midnight Special and Southern Steel. What names! Why, you have all of southern American history right there: one brand, Midnight Special, named after a song by the famous folk-singer and early civil rights advocate Huddie Ledbetter aka "Leadbelly," and the other, Southern Steel, from a sour grapes Confederate anthem called "The Good Old Rebel" written by James Innes Randolph. I happen to be partial to both songs, such are the paradoxes of being an American.
Both of the varieties she bought were menthol flavored. Midnight Special is sold as a cigarette rolling tobacco. It makes for a very good cigarette and a tolerable pipe smoke. It is a smooth and mild cigarette with a nice balance between the tobacco and the mint.
The Southern Steel is marketed as a pipe tobacco and, surprise surprise, has a rougher cut and a higher moisture content, in other words, it really is pipe tobacco - that you can also roll into a cigarette (just like Prince Albert etc.). It is also the only menthol pipe tobacco ("MAXIMINT," they call it) worthy of the name, exhibiting a strong minty flavor all the way down to the end. If you like menthol in your pipe, this is the one to get. It's cheaper than dirt, but it tastes like heaven.

Top Photo: Portrait of P. V. (Petroleum Vesuvius) Nasby by Thomas Nast.