Pipe Mixtures for the Masses: A Look Back at Tobacco Blends

 

(Smoking Jacket) Following a uniquely American phenomenon now almost a quarter century old, that of selling reconditioned used briars, or “estate” briars, a parallel market has been established in the last several years, that of collecting older tobaccos still in their pressure-sealed tins. For whatever reason, there’s now an element of cachet among pipe smokers for “something old,” rather than “something new,” to quote part of a phrase normally associated with wedding ceremonies.
But if we look back far enough back into the history of pipe tobacco production and blending, how old would tobacco have to be before a modern-day pipe smoker would reject it summarily? Maybe those particular pipe smokers who revel in aged tobaccos may consider that the really old is not something they’d like to taste-test in their pipes. Continued