Giving Marty the Spotlight

20th July, 2010: Posted by glpease in Editorial

Long-time friend, and well-known pipe purveyor, Marty Pulvers, has posted a thoughtful commentary on his site regarding Dunhill’s current attitude towards pipes, smokers’ requisites and tobaccos, the very commodities responsible for their decades-old success. These things, along with their consumers, have been methodically relegated, over recent years, to the dusty, cobweb filled back rooms. And, now, it appears they might rather simply forget that these products, and those who have loved them, ever even existed. A shame, really. Read more…»

The Accidental Blender

6th July, 2010: Posted by glpease in Editorial

Some tobacco manufacturers collect their tailings, the little bits of blended tobacco that are left over after packaging, and sell them as bargain blends. You never know what’s going to be in them, and they’ll never be the same twice, but they’re cheap, and some smokers enjoy the adventure. Me? Not so much.

What would happen, say, if one of my accidental “blends” turned out to be the most fantabulous blend ever produced, and dozens or even tens of dozens of enthusiasts from around the globe - a massed hoard of the world’s pipe smokers bought it, loved it, ran out of it, and then arrived, pitchforks and torches in hand, pounding clenched fists angrily upon my door, demanding more of last month’s Bert’s Blend. (Bert was the name of the chimney sweep played by Dick van Dyke in Marry Poppins, in case you’ve forgotten. It seems a fitting sobriquet for such a blend.) As I’d never be able to reproduce it, my sometimes vivid imagination can easily paint the ensuing doom drenched nightmares of finding myself pilloried in the village square at dawn, being pummeled by bushels of rotting fruit and pouches of Mixture 79. (I wonder if anyone remembers how to actually pillory someone.) Read more…»