What are your favorite tobaccos you can't get in the US?

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Natch

Geographer Ultimo
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Lets say, hypothetically, that someone was traveling abroad and had access to a variety of the world's tobaccos; what would you pick up that is still made but you can't get (at least easily) in the US?

As I sit here enjoying my 65 cent, 22 oz. cold beers in China, I was just wondering, hypothetically, of course. :mrgreen:

Natch
 
Funny you should mention that, because yesterday I found my long lost list of "foreign" tobaccos that I would like to pick up some day. The first two I've tried but the others were for sampling purposes.
Capstan Mild/Gold
Three Nuns
Larsen #32
Larsen Shamrock Cut Cake
Mick McQuaid Ready Rubbed
Mick McQuaid Square Cut
Gallaher's Rich Dark Honeydew (not made anymore)

Jim
PS-Please suck down a Tsingtao for me.
 
Don't even know if any of this stuff is made anymore: BS #759, John Cotton #1, #2, and #1&#2, Barney's Punchbowle....and, of course, all the wonder old original Dunhill blends from long, long ago!!! Chinese beer=damn good lager...drank loads of it back in the good ol' days!! FTRPLT
 
DUNHILL DELUXE NAVY ROLLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D
 
Nothing, really. All the best blends made abroad are also available in the US. Three Nuns is not what it used to be, so that's that. That is not to say that there aren't good blends there that are unavailable here. Mick McQuaid Square Cut, ACP Caledonian Original Navy Cut No. 499, and Richmond Navy Cut come to mind. But that's because I don't really like aromatics much. If I did, then there are a lot of things there that I would br crying for. Danmark and Germany have the best aromatics I ever smoked, most of which are not available in the US.

I go to Europe often to see family (or used to before the dollar took such a hit; now they come to the States instead). I always take tobacco with me because there is nothing there I care about enough to pay the exorbitant prices charged there.
 
Very easy call for me: SG RB Plug. Delicious taste and a real lady-wowwer. I still keep some on hand from Synjeco's, but it's a bit more pricey than SG plugs purchased here in the U.S.

Buddy
 
Don't know if they'd turn out to be favorites or not, but Compton's Cuban-style Cigar Mixture and York Mixture sure sound like they would be (from pipes2smoke dotcom).

Anybody here ever tried either of them ?

:face:
 
Schipper's Tabak Speciaal, formerly made in The Netherlands by Van Rossem, now (reportedly) made by Orlik. As far as I know, it hasn't been available in the U.S. for many years. It's an extremely fine shag cut. Used to be available in tins, but the few European web sites that list it show it as being available only in 50 gram pouches.

It's a unique blend of orange Virginia, air-cured Burley, and fire-cured Kentucky. I don't know whether the blend has changed over the years, but the stuff that used to be available in the U.S. (going back to my first experience with it in ~1967) was a completely natural tobacco with no goopage. In fact, the weed would dry out very quickly because of its fine shag cut. The tin aroma is difficult to describe—it has strong elements of cedar and smoky hardwood, probably due in part to the fire-cured Kentucky. But there really is nothing else to compare it to, which is precisely what I mean when I say it's unique.

In the pipe, it delivers huge thunderbolts of pure, fundamental tobacco flavor, with a bit of natural sweetness and an extraordinary nuttiness, spiced by an aromatic quality that comes from the tobacco itself, not from any additives. The shag cut guarantees a near-mainline injection of nicotine to the unwary smokist. I'd wager the weed is strong enough to knock even T.J. on his ass, despite his titanium alloy, supercharged nicotine-tolerant balls of steel. :twisted:

One of these days, I'm going to have to suck it up and lay out the bux to order some from across the pond. That's a pricey proposition with the dollar so weak these daze, and the shipping will probably cost more than the weedage. But at the rate the old classics are disappearing, one can no longer assume any tobacco will always be available. It would be a tragedy if such a weedage were lost. I have never found another blend that even remotely resembles it.

:joker:
 
Vito, I am astonished that you have smoked the Schipper's in the pouch w/ the green highlights. Perhaps, not so astonished as being genuinely pleased that some other smoker knew of the tobacco. Do you recall the Schipper's Grosse Coupe w/ the brown shading and the ubiquitous Dutch sailor with the clay on the pack? There was only one B&M in Philadelphia where I remember the tobacco being available, in both forms, as well as Neptune, a Dutch flake cut. Neptune might have been Niemeyer, though. What a joyful excursion through Nicotinia. Taking the lead from the pouch drawing, I preferred smoking it in a cutty pipe. There was a powerful astringent or citric aroma in the smoke. A short smoke, but very flavorful.

There were two others from the same period that I haven't sen in more than 30 years: Rotterdam Shag, a black birdseye RYO that went very well in a pipe, and Van Nell's Strong Shag, favored by the Dutch writer Jan Cremer.
 
GH Revor Plug, which I could only find in the UK. Its a glossy black plug, strong and rich, but does not have the odious "burnt oil" flavor of the black ropes.
 
morleysson":uxqm9si8 said:
Vito, I am astonished that you have smoked the Schipper's in the pouch w/ the green highlights. Perhaps, not so astonished as being genuinely pleased that some other smoker knew of the tobacco... What a joyful excursion through Nicotinia.
Most Esteemed morleysson:

If I had to lay a wager on which other BoBs were most likely to have known Schipper's Speciaal in its day, there are only two candidates who would immediately spring to mind, and you're one of them. Greg Pease is the other. I'm curious now as to whether he smoked it. I'll have to ask him...

morleysson":uxqm9si8 said:
Do you recall the Schipper's Grosse Coupe w/ the brown shading and the ubiquitous Dutch sailor with the clay on the pack?
Alas, I did not have the pleasure of smoking Schipper's Grosse Coupe in those days of yore, although I have since located an overseas source for it (that's "an" – singular) in my searches for Schipper's Speciaal. In fact, I don't recall ever seeing Grosse Coupe back in the day. I'm quite sure no weed shop I ever visited stocked it, because—being delighted as I was with Speciaal—the different (brown) color of the old Dutch seaman on the Grosse Coupe package would surely have caught my attention had I seen it. I certainly would have latched onto a pouch of it.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that there are so few pipers who are aware of Speciaal's existence. Even when it was readily available, it was never widely available. It certainly was not a drugstore tobacco, even in the days before that term became institutionalized as a derogation...back when one could find any number of fine old Burleyweed straights and blends available just about everywhere.

I first discovered Speciaal in my college days in Ithaca, where I could find a wondrous selection of weedage at The College Smoker, a well-stocked pipe and tobacco shop on College Avenue, just outside Cornell University's main gate. I don't recall ever seeing Grosse Coupe. I'm quite sure no weed shop I ever visited stocked it, because—delighted as I was with Speciaal—I certainly would have latched onto a pouch of Grosse Coupe.

morleysson":uxqm9si8 said:
There was a powerful astringent or citric aroma in the smoke. A short smoke, but very flavorful.
A short smoke indeed; the fine cut made for a rapid burn, and I always used a smaller pipe into the bargain to avoid nico-buzz. A relatively low-capacity Rhodesian's bowlful was my limit.

You are so right about the flavor; it was fairly explosive in its intensity. But it was the character of the flavor that set Speciaal apart from all other tobaccos. You know what I mean, but I'm sure everyone else who reads this will think I'm just ranting in nostalgic reverie, as if to say, "OK, Vito, I get it...so, you liked the stuff. But surely there are other similar tobaccos..."

No. There aren't any. Not one. Or, if there are any, I don't know about them, and would happily stand corrected if someone were to point me to a reasonable facsimile.

How to describe the flavor of Speciaal? That's a real challenge. I'm usually sufficiently articulate to find suitably descriptive verbiage for the aromas and tastes in find in all sorts of tobaccos, but Speciaal leaves me dumbfounded. There unquestionably was a certain zesty character in the smoke, although I never perceived it as astringent. Citrus comes closer to the mark, but more as a description of the effect, rather than the actual flavor. It was similar to the effect of eating a ripe red grapefruit at room temperature.

But there was something else in there—something far more pronounced that dominated the flavor of Speciaal—a very definite smoky-spice taste. It's not the herbaceous smokiness of Cyprian Latakia, or the leathery smokiness of Syrian Latakia, nor is it the rounder, sweeter, more toasted smokiness of fire-cured Virginia. It's the kind of smokiness that I would associate with the smoldering of an aromatic resinwood like cedar.

morleysson":uxqm9si8 said:
There were two others from the same period that I haven't sen in more than 30 years: Rotterdam Shag, a black birdseye RYO that went very well in a pipe, and Van Nell's Strong Shag, favored by the Dutch writer Jan Cremer.
Never had the pleasure of smoking either one of those. I wonder whether they're even in production any more.

:joker:
 
Have only smoked a single bowl, courtesy of Jeff Gracik, but it was great and with all the talk I've heard about the various versions, I'd love to get ahold of several good Semois tabacs. I understand that there is a shop or two in Belgium that will ship to the states, but they do not speak English so that's that :cry:
 
Yak":336mxp07 said:
Don't know if they'd turn out to be favorites or not, but Compton's Cuban-style Cigar Mixture and York Mixture sure sound like they would be (from pipes2smoke dotcom).

Anybody here ever tried either of them ?

:face:
Yakimoto:

Not I. The blends have always seemed quite pricey to me. It appears that Maxim makes up each order as it comes in, so I guess it's understandable that such small-batch hand blending would be costly. Whether the blends are worth the price is another matter upon which I'm not qualified to pass judgment; however, with the current marketing approach, it's likely the Compton's blends will never gain wide popularity.

Let's suppose that they really are worth the price, as adjudged by brethren of discriminating taste. The way to popularize them would be to make samplers of say, 1/2 ounce of each tobacco available. In that way the lower cost of entry would attract smokists who otherwise might be put off by the premium prices. Then, for those who are smitten by any blend, make it available in bulk quantities at more favorable pricing. This business of selling in only 50 gram or 100 gram quantities is not appealing to those who must accommodate certain economic realities.

It's sort of amusing to read some of the blender's comments, in which he says it took 3 to 5 years to get the blends "right". He's working from recipes in the old "blends book", but the original Compton's ceased operations in 1929; hence, there is no controlling standard by which to determine what is "right". It's still a matter of the blender's opinion. Otherwise, why not just faithfully follow the original specifications as noted in the book? Of course, it's the blender's prerogative to adjust the blends, but then is it really fair to say they accurately represent the "original recipes"?

Probably not...but then again, it probably doesn't matter. <img class="emojione" alt="?" title=":shrug:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/emojione/assets/png/1f937.png?v=2.2.7"/>

:joker:
 
Nolo contendere on all counts, Veet.

Still, there's something that appeals to me about a guy who says, "Here it is -- take it or leave it."

Ayn Rand related pretty well to that :D

:face:
 
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