A Penny for Your Thoughts

21st August, 2019: Posted by glpease in Tobacco, Enjoyment, Editorial

Penny Farthing and an Everyman cutty

Finally releasing Penny Farthing has been really exciting for me. Doing a shag cut tobacco is one of those “dreams” that I’ve had for a long time, but a lot of things had to come together to make this happen, the most important being working with C&D to get the cut into the Goldilocks zone. Too coarse, it wouldn’t be a shag. Too fine, it would burn too fast, and compromise the flavor development throughout the bowl. It had to be just right. We tried a few different experiments until finally agreeing that a cut width of 0.8mm, about 32cpi (cuts per inch) delivered the optimal smoking and flavor characteristics. I burned through the final prototype greedily, not even sharing it with close friends. I’d been working on this in relative silence for a long time, and wasn’t going to let the cat out of the bag until it was time to make it a real product.

For the label art, I worked closely with Calvin, the talented artist at Laudisi, who beautifully realized the vision in my head. I had ideas, thoughts about color palettes, graphical elements, typefaces, placement. I sent him sketches, and a design brief filled with lots of words, but it was his skill and talent that brought it all to life. It’s a joy working with people of his caliber who are patient enough to hear me out, smart enough to understand the direction I was going, and confident enough to take the reins when I lost my grip on them. I couldn’t be happier with the result.

And, I couldn’t be happier with the tobacco. It’s already been talked about on many forums, and the words of those who have found their own pleasures in the blend are far more interesting than anything I would say about it, but there is a bit to add to the story, some random thoughts regarding my own personal journey, both with this blend, and especially the pipe pictured above.

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