I'm Becoming Increasingly Skeptical

[RSteve]

If I were a tobacco manufacturer, would I actually identify accurately the components of the blends I'm selling?
No, I would not.

 

[Brunello]

I've thought about that as well. Most of the instructional videos by Russ Oullette or C&D or others are pretty vague because it's really the secret sauce and the type of processing that makes a blend distinctive. I've even wondered about posting good DIY recipes here with the thought that somebody like Ken Byron will just take the idea and have a successful commercial product. Maybe you were thinking of other matters, like that time a California winery was busted for slipping a half pound of Mary J in the wine vat for that distinctive funky aroma. ???

 

[RSteve]

I've even wondered about posting good DIY recipes here with the thought that somebody like Ken Byron will just take the idea and have a successful commercial product.

If I were business, producing distinctive blends, I doubt that I'd post my recipes. In that I'm just a BoB, I have no qualms about posting the components of a blend, so others may assemble them. I think we live in a copycat world and ultimately someone will put together a "Match" of anything I blend, either with measured intent or accident.

Years ago there actually was a website, tobaccoblending dot com, that no longer exists. There was some internet chatter that many manufacturers were more than slightly pissed off that some of their higher priced tinned blends were being successfully knocked off with the recipes being posted.

 

[Ranger107]

Well if anyone could successfully reproduce BSOSM or even Frog Morton I would grab it in a heart beat.

 

[RSteve]

Well if anyone could successfully reproduce BSOSM or even Frog Morton I would grab it in a heart beat.

I have no doubt that with some science and tasting the key blenders at the significant tobacco companies could reproduce just about any blend. I don't think anyone of them wants to be known as the replicator of another's blend. Obviously, for Sutliff, someone is creating the Match blends, but I doubt that anyone will identify him/her self as a copyist.

 

[mingc]

The FDA's tobacco regulations require the manufacturer to identify to the FDA a pipe blend's ingredients. From the FDA's guidance doc on this requirement (https://www.fda.gov/media/101162/download), the manufacturer must, for example, identify the leaf type (e.g., burley, bright,oriental), variety, cure method (e.g., flue, fire, sun, steam, air) and heat source (e.g., propane, wood) and a description of any recombinant DNA technology used to engineer the tobacco. The manufacture must also ID added chemical and complex compounds like flavoring. I don't know if these ingredient lists are available to the public. I suspect not.

 

[RSteve]

The FDA's tobacco regulations require the manufacturer to identify to the FDA a pipe blend's ingredients. From the FDA's guidance doc on this requirement (https://www.fda.gov/media/101162/download), the manufacturer must, for example, identify the leaf type (e.g., burley, bright,oriental), variety, cure method (e.g., flue, fire, sun, steam, air) and heat source (e.g., propane, wood) and a description of any recombinant DNA technology used to engineer the tobacco. The manufacture must also ID added chemical and complex compounds like flavoring. I don't know if these ingredient lists are available to the public. I suspect not.

I'd be very surprised if anyone at the FDA ever attempts to verify any ingredients, proportions, casings, flavorants, curing methodology, etc. I know the FDA wouldn't take kindly to a manufacturer sending the agency a blend totally based on semi-fictional ingredients: Oriental burley, organic sheep methane gas fired over recumbent derived equine dookie or, maybe one of the inspectors would say, "Sounds and smells good to me."