-
-
March’s Pipe Guys’ Pick: Commonwealth
Read moreSamuel Gawith’s Commonwealth is a quiet older brother to the more recognizable SG blends. At first it may come off as a one that lacks excitement: 50% Virginia and 50% Latakia. A little bit of this, and a little bit of that. But remember that Virginia tobacco is one of the most popular tobaccos in the world due to it’s natural sweetness and surprising complexity, and remember too that Latakia is the greatest of flavoring agents available to tobacco blenders even today.
-
February’s Pipe Guys’ Pick: Royal Yacht Mixture
Read moreRoyal Yacht Mixture from Dunhill is a unique sort of blend. Virginia is the only leaf involved in the recipe, in various forms of course, making this a very sweet, yet complex pipe tobacco worthy of it’s nearly cult-like following. Some consider it a “love it or hate it” blend, but it tends to be a favorite with Virginia lovers (pardon the pun), and can also be a great option for those looking for a segue from heavily cased tobaccos to the world of non-aromatics.
-
January’s Pipe Guys’ Pick: Drama Reserve
Read moreThe Oriental blend style is not one that currently enjoys a lot of popularity. In fact, few and far between are the Oriental blends on today’s tobacco shelves, which seems to me a shameful thing, since a tastefully blended Oriental pipe tobacco can offer as much pleasure as the most finely crafted of English mixtures.
-
December’s Pipe Guys’ Pick: Christmas Cheer
Read moreAdmittedly, we’re a little bit old-fashioned and nostalgic in some ways, but that’s not why we chose McClelland’s Christmas Cheer as December’s Pipe Guys’ Pick. In fact, we chose it because Christmas or not, Christmas Cheer is one of the best Virginia flakes around. It’s an annual holiday tradition at the house of McClelland, no doubt, but more…
-
Semois Tobacco: The Old World’s Leaf
Read morePipe tobacco, like most other consumable goods, is evolving over time. As we inevitably become more demanding in our tastes, tobacco growers and blenders are faced with the challenge of again improving their already world-class products. This can be a difficult thing to do, yet because the consumer makes the calls, producers continually…
-
Black Friday
Read moreYou may be wondering why the slash marks and red tags are so hard to find here at The Pipe Guys. The answer is quite simple: there are none. When we started The Pipe Guys, we agreed that our relationships and our principles would come first, even when money was on the line. Black Friday, as the name suggests, tends to be a very dark day each year. In the name of cheap TVs and…
-
November’s Pipe Guys Pick: Three Nuns
Read moreThree Nuns is one of the most recognizable pipe tobaccos on the planet. If you’re not a veteran in the pipe community, you might be wondering what the buzz is all about. Not to keep you in suspense, we’ll say right at the outset that Three Nuns has been around for well over 100 years and counting, which makes it one of the oldest remaining pipe tobaccos in the world. Certain…
-
October Pipe Guys’ Pick: Opening Night
Read moreYou can’t imagine how long it takes to select the Pipe Guys’ Pick each month; not because we’re indecisive, but because when you’re walking past shelf after shelf of the world’s finest pipe tobaccos, it at first seems impossible to narrow the choice down to one. However, in the end we managed. I’ll start with the bad. It wouldn’t be an honest review without some well-placed…
-
September’s Pipe Guys’ Tobacco Pick: Irish Oak
Read morePeterson’s Irish Oak has a sly nature. Aged in oaken sherry barrels, one might expect an overly sweet and aromatic blend inside the tin, but not so. Many years ago during a gusty winter in Philadelphia, I purchased a tin at a little tobacco shop on Walnut Street. I turned my collar up against the cold, packed the bowl of my pipe to the brim, and once lit, the warmth of it warded off…
