gateway tobaccos - advanced edition

[Zeno Marx]

*labeling it advanced because many of us likely started with Captain Black/Lane's 1Q, cherry or peach from the drug store, etc. That's not what I'm hoping to discuss or discover.

This just recently happened to me with not liking C&D's Big & Burley 103. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, and expectations are often a problem for me. They get in the way of preparedness and the open mind. Baggage, of an ugly sort, if you will. I just didn't care at all for Big & Burley. I tried a few times. Wasn't working for me in any capacity. Months later, I try D&R Picayune. I didn't care for it either, but it at least left a bit of intrigue. I could tell there was something locked in there that I wanted to flush to the surface. I won't go into that here, because you can read about it HERE. To add to my surprise, it made me want to try Big & Burley again. That time, I found all kinds of goodness and interest in Big & Burley. I seem to have needed Picayune to get at Big & Burley. Picayune was the gateway I found necessary to get into Big & Burley. Now, I'm a big fan of both Big & Burley and Picayune. When I think of one, I can't help but think of the other. When I'm craving one, I'm also craving the other. It sometimes makes for a dilemma at smoking time.

So, anyone else with gateway experiences? I'm interested. Maybe yours can get me into other blends.

 

[Slowroll]

I can't say that I've had gateway experiences as you described, i'm a lataholic, so I'll try anything labeled heavy English or Balkan. But I did find that way that a pinch of perique, up to  15%,  sparks up a lot of lat blends. To me, anything with a lot of Va needs perique along.  Curiously, I don't like straight VaPers --unless I load 'em with latakia.

 

[monbla256]

As far as the term"gateway" as you define it,I'd have to say smoking BS 759 brought me to the world of ginny weed. I started smoking with Granger and was happy as the proverbial pig with it when I walked into a B&M back in '72 and the aroma of Va and Latakia hit me and I tried a bowl of 759 the owner offered and I was hooked !! I enjoyed the va base as much as the Latakia and went back to that B&M and bought a tin of Royal Yacht to try a 'ginny weed focused blend and as they say, the rest is history!! :twisted: :twisted:

 

[Fr_Tom]

This is an interesting idea. I have to say I tried Pegasus and liked it so much, it got me to try Haunted Bookshop and OJK which I liked. Then I tried Epiphany and Big-n-Burley and liked them too. I had tried Morley's Best and thought it was OK. I got in a pound of it after I found the C&D burleys to my liking, and seemed to like it more the second time around.

Perhaps Pegasus was a "gateway" to C&D burleys for me.

 

[huffelpuff]

Well by your standard it would be Ashton's Artisans Blend for me. I tried several lat blends before AB and frankly just didn't get them. Star of the East Flake, Walnut and several others. After smoking a tin of AB I finally understood what it was that appealed to folks about lat blends. I'm still not a lat fiend by any stretch of the imagination but now I'm able to appreciate those blends for what they are ment to be.

Jim

 

[Richard Burley]

I attribute my acceptance of Virginia as a legitimate pipe tobacco to C&D's Yale Mixture. It's the first Virginia based blend that didn't taste like a cigarette to me. Up to that time I smoked burley blends in the form of either OTCs or aromatic house blends. I even spent 10 years smoking nothing but MacBaren's Golden Extra. Perhaps it was the light hint of latakia that got me. To this day I like that type of blend, such as Pease's Laurel Heights. It even got me smoking McClelland straight Virginias, and the rest is depravity history.

 

[ftrplt]

I'd totally abandoned Burley 'baccy back in the 60's. Just didn't care for it at all once I settled on Latweed blends! Didn't do much, if any, in the way of Ginnyweed either. Then while attending a TAPS pipe show in Raleigh around 2000, Steve Monjour smooth-talked me into trying Aged Burley Flake. I was hooked!! I ventured out to other Burleys, thence to Ginny weeds, including VaPers. My quest had me seeking out some old "unobtainables, which I managed to obtain (think Edgeworth Sliced). All started with one tin of ABF!! :cheers: FTRPLT

 

[Blackhorse]

Oh, the stages through which we all progress along the road of growth and enlightenment. It happens to us all I’m sure, though many of us might not realize it’s going on.

Two occasions for me. One was the chance purchase of a tin of SolanibSilver Flake from the Perettinstore in Boston while on vacation. Opened up serious flakes to me. The other is the chance online purchase of some John Patton blends...like Oriental Dusk and Crossroads...opening up a series of VA/Burley/Oriental/cigar leaf blends. So twonfor me...likely others as well.

 

[Zeno Marx]

Oh, the stages through which we all progress along the road of growth and enlightenment. It happens to us all I’m sure, though many of us might not realize it’s going on.

Right. It's commonplace in our hobby. I think I got carried away with enthusiasm and surprised because it hasn't happened in a long, long time, and I can't remember a time I flipped on a dime on a blend and did so, so quickly like this.

 

[Blackhorse]

Flipping on a dime makes life interesting.

 

[Thomas Tkach]

When I first started drinking beer, I was into stouts and couldn't take the hoppy stuff. Then, one spring, a 12 pack of Sam Adam's Noble Pils did it. It had the hoppiness, but in moderation. I didn't like the first bottle--too much hop flavor and aroma. But the next day I was craving it.

Just like when I first tried English blends. I got some Altadis bulks from a B&M (Heavy English) and didn't like it. I thought I'd stick with 1Q and the like. It smelled like armpit or something. A few days later I found myself craving the aroma of armpit. I tried again and liked it more. Then I got my hands on some GLP Westminster!

Interestingly, I couldn't do Big 'n' Burley at first, even though I liked strong KY blends. Some time in the jar and trying OJK helped, I think. Pegasus was also a good one.