Maybe we started a stampede ?

http://www.marscigars.com/glp-abingdon-1.aspx

Mike Rutt (Mars) is high by a couple bucks, but is a five-star resource who knows pipe tobacco & cigars inside out. If you want a prescription for something that's what you're looking for, in either, Mike's your go-to guy. I try to keep buying from him on that basis alone. He's not a B&M, but he's one of the last of the guys who really knows his stuff. This as opposed to dealing with a 19-year-old college kid who knows little & could care less. Service like that is worth patronising.

IMHO

Mars is so hit-and-miss with stuff I want, I haven't bought from Mike in a while. I have a few tins of US, so I'm not desperate, but I may thumb through the site and see if there's a few things I could put together. He has odds-n-ends that other places don't have. Like spare MM cob stems--I like the OEM ones, but they're a veritable chew toy.

Time to talk trash about US to even out the demand a little.

You know, I've been paying attention to my first Pete 80S (Thurston, to family and friends), a Fermoy finish beauty that I thought I was smoking all wrong, and wasn't getting a lot of satisfaction from...

...well, I was right: I'm not sure what I was doing wrong (or what I'm doing right lately) but this bowl of Union Square just tasted like toasted waffle cone with vanilla ice cream and chocolate. Holy crap.

(...and I'm on a strict no-dairy diet!)

Peterson + Virginia =

Oh, shut up you snotty brats.

I was the happiest guy alive the day I found this 80S Pete, with the straight grain and deep, chocolate Fermoy finish...only to find out I had no idea how to smoke a Pete just the right way. Fireworks, at first, it was not...but...

...I'm getting it now. They like such long smokes, and I'm no slouch for making a bowl last a couple of hours, that I let the thing go out and have these mini, repeat DGT episodes. And it's absolutely divine. Other pipes, those with classic mortise/tenon setups I can go slow and steady, but Petes (especially with VAs) do indeed like to take little breaks in-between, smell the roses, ponder things, and continue. What a great pace when I'm writing, working on the computer or posting on BoB. Not something I can do when attempting to socialize or am distracted, get anxious, etc...I tend to ruin a perfectly good bowl that way. Another reason why I need to practice smoking in other environments rather than just "safe ones." Plus, it keeps my people interaction skills honed.

Yak and I actually talked once about how the dry air might truly have something to do with tobacco flavors. It's a good theory. That, and I really do have an annoyingly sensitive tongue and nose. Part of why I'm such a neat freak. Tobacco has actually toughened up my senses in a way, but hasn't deadened them. It's been great!

Yesterday was so good, I'm having a repeat today--getting the same results, Union Square + Thurston = vanilla-chocolate-dipped waffle cone. *shrug* It is what it is.