Perique Tobacco: An account from 1876

The Home Journal of New Orleans gives the following account of the origin of the name and the method of producing this tine-flavored and pure tobacco:

It is said that Pierre Chenet, of the parish of St. James, called by the Spaniards by the nickname of Perique, is the inventor of perique tobacco. This is a mistake which should not be allowed to go uncorrected. Pierre Chenet might have improved the process of manufacture, and so have given its present name to it, but the process of making this kind of tobacco was known to all the Southwestern Indians of Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, and is still made in a rude way by many of the tribes.

As made in Louisiana it is a positively pure tobacco without any doctoring. Some of the Indians, as the Caddos, Kiowas, and Pascagoulas, though making it in the same manner it is now made, were in the habit of boiling down the root of the wild plum or Sloe, and sprinkling the leaves from time to time with the decoction; but those Indians who could not get the wild plum did without it and really made the best tobacco. The process used in Louisiana, in the parishes of Jefferson, Lafourche, St. John, St. James, Ascension, Assumption and on Red River, among the Creoles, is that taken from the Houma and Bayou Goula Indians.

The tobacco is raised as any other tobacco, with unusual care to keep off worms. When cut it is dried in the air, suspended in the usual manner, but in the shade, and no fire is ever used. When thus dried, it is stripped of its leaves and stemmed; the leaves are put into twists of one or two pounds, the old Virginia twist; it is then put into a strong box, usually an oak box, in which Virginia chewing tobacco had been; it is packed tight into this box and put under press. The next day, and for several days after, these twists are taken out and unwrapped, and the leaves are rubbed in the hands as a rag would be washed; they are then re-twisted and kept under press. After a few days the tobacco will begin to grow dark, and then the rubbing may be done at longer intervals-first, every other day, then twice a week, then once a week. In about five weeks the tobacco will be ready to work up. At the beginning of the process, the best leaves should be selected as wrappers, and though not twisted should be manipulated in the same way as the rest, every day that the twists are worked, but should always, after working over, be put one over the other and pressed flat. These wrappers should be spread out on a table, enough to cover a roll or carrot, then two or four or five pounds of the unrolled twists should be straightened out and made into the form of a cigar, as big and long as the arm from the elbow to the hand; this should be carefully rolled with the spread leaves and the ends tucked in squarely with the wrapper. A cord or plow line should then be tightly wrapped from one end to the other of this roll, and allowed to remain on it for some hours, when the process should be repeated three or four times-by which time the carrots are complete and may be laid away in a cool place. Though it may be used immediately, it improves by age until ten years old. This is all the secret of perique tobacco- patience and care.

Photo: "Barrels of perique tobacco during process of aging. Perique tobacco is raised in one parish in Louisiana, and this is the only place in the world where this tobacco is raised. Saint James Parish, Louisiana." Photo by Russell Lee, 1938 (FSA/Library of Congress).