Yak":ie4jk1tv said:
759 genre replication : mark the tin of Blackpoint you have put back "Do not open until (5 years after tin date)"
When you taste, you know.
Until then there is, as Mumbles keeps pointing out, Opinion.
:face:
I need to squeak up on this...
First, this is quite rewarding to read for me, as Blackpoint WAS sort of "modeled" after a specific 4oz tin of 759. Rather, it's more correct to say that it was modeled after my impressions of that tobacco after sniffing it, smoking it, and having a brief love affair with it. There was no perique in 759, but after all those years, the fermentation resulted in something quite perique-like in the nose, and in the taste. So, when I set out to create the blend, I added a bit of the reeky stuff to emulate what time had wrought. It's cheating, I know, but I didn't have the luxury of waiting 20 years, and my time machine is on the fritz.
Overall, the flavour profile of the blend was satisfying after a brief incarceration in the tin. Like the old? Of course not. The virginias needed time to ferment further, and the latakia needed to have its edges polished off. A few years can do just that, and it seems to have worked. My guesses, little more than first approximations in the beginning, were fortunate ones. Blackpoint continues to reveal itself as a good shot across the bow of that old black and gold beauty, at least, measured up to the persistence of memory. (Interesting thing, that. As we continue to explore what might be similar to something buried in our consciousness, that memory will, simply due to the nature of neurobiology, drift somewhat, so the convergence is likely less than it appears, at least from my end, since I'm doing this all the time.)
But,, it's also rewarding to read that Abingdon reminds some of 759 when it was more youthful, as this was the intent, there. Whilst Blackpoint was chasing the ghost of something very well aged, Abingdon was trying to capture a leaky memory picture of what it was like when young, though adjusted to suit my own palate.
Ironically, as much as I loved 759 when I smoked it, and I went through a lot of tins when it was standard fare at the local shop, I find Abingdon's overall profile to be a bit softer than my recollection, which I prefer today. I would never be so bold as to suggest it was an "improvement" over the original, but I steered it a bit in the direction I prefer today (more accurately, nearly ten years ago, when I developed it). It's a bit less strident, a little less spicy. Overall, I still dig it, especially with a few years under its old belt virginias...