Favorite blends - how much is "enough"?

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Frost

Frost

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If/when you discover or decide on a blend which in your opinion is worthy of stocking or cellaring, either as a hedge against future shortages, for aging purposes, just because it's a favorite or whathaveyou; how do you determine how much you want to stash away?

Do you have a target quantity in mind? A formula for figuring out how much you need?

Just curious to hear if and/or how otHers decide how much of a particular blend you "need" and when you have or will have "enough" of it.
 
Frost":9q1kgidf said:
If/when you discover or decide on a blend which in your opinion is worthy of stocking or cellaring, either as a hedge against future shortages, for aging purposes, just because it's a favorite or whathaveyou; how do you determine how much you want to stash away?

Do you have a target quantity in mind? A formula for figuring out how much you need?

Just curious to hear if and/or how otHers decide how much of a particular blend you "need" and when you have or will have "enough" of it.
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Hey Frost, How goes it?

I have a couple of pounds of Storm Front. I would say that the amount depends on how much you are smoking. That amount will last me ages. I am leery of cellaring lots of tobacco. I have found that it doesn't always improve them, the aging. I just opened a 10 year old tin of HOTW. I actually prefer the newer stuff to the 10 yr old stuff. I don't think Storm Front can get much better.

Being a History Teacher, I try my best to avoid all formulas and calculations unless absolutely necessary. I just get it when the urge hits. I tend to share what I have with my pipe buddies. There doesn't tend to be lots left for storing after a couple good nights.
 
I have about half a dozen tobaccos that I have two pounds of each cellared. I haven't found the blend I felt like going higher than two pounds yet. I still have a lot of virgin unsmoked tobaccos, so I don't want to get too crazy and find out that I have four or five favorite tobaccos that I haven't even tried yet. I put 12 kilos away this year and am shooting for 13 kilos this year, and after that I will focus more on cellaring bigger quantities of the ultra favorites. There are too many threats to availability to not be cellaring.
 
2 or 3 times what I could possibly enjoy in a lifetime sounds like a safe amount to keep... 8)
 
Harlock999":dbknn1r6 said:
2 or 3 times what I could possibly enjoy in a lifetime sounds like a safe amount to keep... 8)
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I admire your restraint and self control! :D
 
Frost":20h8m6pg said:
Harlock999":20h8m6pg said:
2 or 3 times what I could possibly enjoy in a lifetime sounds like a safe amount to keep... 8)
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I admire your restraint and self control! :D
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Yeah, I'm a progressive sort of fellow, and greed is so 2008!
Cheers Frost! :cheers:
 
I started off with a ten year plan, Stock pile enough for 3 pipes a day, every day for 10 yr. With 45+ pounds spread across 29 blends I 'm set for a long while.

the top 3

FVF 7.25 lb.
Scottish Cake 6.5 lb.
Fillmore 5.0 lb.

the rest of the top players include
Escudo, Union Square, Marlin Flake, LBF SG. Navy. & Wesminster
all with 2+ pounds each
I plan on narrowing the focus of the cellar bringing 29 blends down to
10-12. . None of the Dunhill stuff, EMP SMM nitghtcap & Royal Yacht
will be replaced. they're not bad, I just like Westminster better.
 
My well-to-do brother was especially generous this past holiday. I've been exploring Mac Baren's blends, and fell in love with Mixture Modern, aka Danish Mixture. I found that Smoking Pipes offers a 10% discount on purchases of 25 tins, so I did buy 25 tins, which comes to just shy of 5 1/2 pounds. But in most cases, I do one pound at a time for bulks, and 6-10 tins.
 
I started out buying a bunch of everything and now, after several years, I have it narrowed down to a handful of favorites. First off I have enough tins and jars full of this and that to smoke for several years, not counting the stuff I'm intentionally cellaring. My daily consumption is two small bowls on average. Most of my pipes are group 3 and 4. A pound of tobacco goes a long way.

The stuff I'm intentionally cellaring I hope to build to a supply that will last me 30 years, until I'm about 80. If I attain that level of stock soon, before the stuff become impossible to get or too cost prohibitive to buy, then I'm probably going to be holding out hope that it is still smokeable that far down the road. If I'm still kickin beyond 80 and I've smoked it all up I guess I'll do like the old man PB used to know who'd stuff fallen oak leaves in a mangled old pipe and not give a damn.

What I'm presently cellaring in bulk:


GH & co Brown Pigtail
GH & co Curly Cut Regular
GH & co Coniston Cut Plug unscented
SG FVF
SG Medium Virginia
Uhle's 00
Uhle's Perfection Plug

I'd like to add a few more pounds each of Uhle's 00 and SG Medium Virginia, the others I think I'm good on now. There are a few other blends that I have a pound or two put away here and there, but the above list is my core and what I wouln't want to be without.

 
For me it's a budget thing. I have an amount I'm comfortable spending on pipe tobacco & that's it for the month. But it's enough to have enabled me to build up a decent cellar over the past 5 years.
 
I don't have a set amount to buy or a formula that forecasts need based on consumption and longevity. If I come upon a tobacco that I adore, I buy enough of it to convince myself that I'll have it when I want it—sometimes that's 3 pounds, sometimes more.
 
I started back into pipes several years ago and adopted 2 objectives once I realized I was serious about pipes: first to establish the top candidates for cellaring, and second to stow/hoard at least a pound or equivalent of each. Well, the profusion of available blends shifted my original target of 20 Top blends, to 50 then to 100. I need to re-evaluate things since my Excel seems to show 160 items on the TopWhatever Cellar sheet, and I have another several hundred candidates strewn around the house, each potentially a future candidate. To date, I've only demoted a handful of blends. This is strange since I know my tastes have been changing from only Lats and now I'm really getting into VAs and VA/Pers.

My rate of puffing is 3 bowls a day, and since I prefer smallish bowls I go through 6-7 lbs per year. I'm planning for another 40 years of puffing, even if supply dries up. I am starting to worry about the heavier Latakias not ageing well by the time a few decades roll by, but if I rebalance the cellar with more VAs and VA/Pers, at least I won't be running out of stuff to smoke. So as I toil my way through the several hundred candidate tins yet to be opened, I am hopeful all the planets will line up as I stock up on the new found Cellar items. Sometime this winter I will do the math and adjust accordingly.

hp
les
 
FWIW, based on experience :

Make good and sure you're past the butterfly stage first. Butterflies light on this flower and that one, covering a lot of ground. Where there's nectar, they stay for a minute or two before moving on. The attraction's there, but it isn't a permanent one. Mistaking that lingering attraction for one that's viable in the long term has led to buying, and then giving away, pounds of stuff that, in retrospect, I wish were tobacs I truly love instead.

The LL Rule : Nobody is allowed to call a new acquisition his "favorite pipe" until he's smoked it at least ten times. It's a good rule, sensibly grounded in long experience.

Your "meat and potatoes" tobacs are the ones to stock in bulk. Those are the ones that never wear out -- that you can look forward to with enthusiasm and smoke with enjoyment 27/7/365. It takes a while to identify those.

They are the ones you want to stock pounds and pounds of. Especially when your budget necessitates either smoking your mistakes or cutting down your pipes-per-week figure.

:face:
 
I don't use credit cards so....if there's a spare 19.50 in the account I will always grab a tin of FM. If there's not I won't. If PAD/TAD have already struck recently....but there is spare $...might as well get the toby. Who knows what the government will do in the future so why not stock up now?
 
Think about this Frost. Your taste in tobacco is going to change as you get older. Being 34 it could be numerous times. I don't think that I would go "hog wild" putting away todays favorite blend only to have your taste change a few years from now and have to get rid of it because you don't like it anymore. Err to the side of caution and be conserative in what you cellar for now. IMHO :sunny:
 
I am yet to find "my favorite blend." I have some blends I like, and I definetely have categories that I like (VA Flakes, Lat blends, etc.). If I had to say why I buy certain amounts, that is determined by customs haha. If I order too much from one source, I get dinged with a heavy tax bill. However, If I order 6 tins or 12oz at a time, I have no issues crossing the boarder. That being said, I will usually order 3 separate orders of 6 tins from varying online retailers.

Just like smoking my pipe, there are some many factors that need to be taken into account.
 
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