Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Pipe Fricks podcast today from the JTT Just A Tip Pipe shop in wild, wonderful South Park, Pennsylvania.
We'd like to welcome you and today we have a special guest, Mr. Joe Fabian.
Joe, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your work?
Sure.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: I work for Ladisi Dist Group. I sell pipes and pipe tobacco in Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and a little bit in northern New England. And I've been doing it for 11 years.
[00:00:44] Speaker C: And as always, I'm Matt, your co host and we'd like to thank Just the Tip Cigars for hosting us today.
And our next segment is kind of boring because we're all smoking the same tobacco blend.
We're all smoking some 2004 Bohemian scandal that I acquired from John, which was put out by. Yes, it was glp, C and D la.
So the funny story, well, not funny story behind this, but John said, what's this tin of? Or what's that Costello peril you have going to cost me? And I said, one tin of tobacco? And he looked down and he looked at the bohemian scandal and knew immediately what I was talking about.
And so we traded.
So we're all smoking that today. I'm smoking mine out of a door
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Poker hawk and I'm smoking mine out of a Costello Hawkbill shape 84, and it's a Prolinera, which for those that do not know, it's the one finish that Costello did. It's all black.
So it's quite a unique pipe and it fits into my collection.
Although this is a rather small pipe. The Hawkbills that I have, or Donkey Nuts, which was done by Costello, is it's number 21 to my collection.
It's the smallest one because it's a smaller piece where all my other ones are GS, GGs and Oranger and Doe.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: I'm smoking a Peterson System Spigot Sandblast 309, which is actually an oddly large shape for me and more bent than I usually like them. But I've gotten to the point where system drill pipes are the only big bent pipes I smoke.
[00:02:46] Speaker C: Yeah, this bohemian scandal is amazing. So if you can get your hands on some, if you don't know why it's rare, it has Siri Latakia in it, which is not available post 2004. So it's a pretty rare blend. So today we're going to start with interviewing Joe for our podcast and talk to him a little bit about what he does and how we got started. So how did your pipe journey start Go.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Right after high school, I got into cigars with a couple of friends of mine and I dabbled in them. I read some, but I never got that deep. Sometime in that time period, I bought a little Parinelli pipe, very traditional style Parinelli pipe. And I bought a tin of Patriot Flake by Dan Tobacco, which is a beautiful straight Virginia and an absolutely horrible pipe tobacco for a beginner.
Years later, I got interested in pipes again and I was going to my local brick and mortar pipe shop and the guy working the counter was the president of their pipe club and at the time, the president of the United Pipe Clubs of America. And he sort of harangued me into pipe club and got me going.
And that's really, that's really how I started. Was at a brick and mortar pipe club.
[00:04:14] Speaker C: Yeah, that's. That was kind of how I got my start too was. Well, when I first started, a co worker of mine was telling me he started blending his own tobaccos for the local pipe shop.
And I was like, oh, that sounds really cool, I'd love to try a pipe, but I heard they're expensive. And he said, I'll come down, I'll get you a basket pipe for 40 or $50 and give you some free samples. And I said, okay.
And it's been all downhill since from there. I think I bought my second pipe like two weeks later.
It was a chacom something or another. I don't remember. It was a straight Chacon billiard.
I think it was around 100 bucks. So, like the hobby escalated quickly for me.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:56] Speaker C: So anyway, well, I was going to ask you the first tobacco you tried, but you already told us that story. So what is your, what are your roles in your day to day activities? We get to see the fun side of it, but I know there's got to be some not so fun slide of your job.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: It's not really a not so fun. I mean, everybody's got to do expense reports and paperwork, Right? Right.
A rep.
People think of reps as being primarily sales and social jobs, but really in terms of how many hours you spend to things, you drive cars more than anything. And then the second biggest thing you do is administration.
And so usually at home it's calling people, building up orders, planning things, planning trips, doing paperwork.
I'm really focused on trying to find ways for shops to become better pipe shops, to be more successful pipe shops. Because we just said, you know, we both got started smoking pipes in a pipe club in a pipe shop, and so trying to help businesses Be successful. Selling pipes takes a lot of long term planning and so I spent a lot of time reading and researching and coming up with ideas for events and so forth too.
[00:06:12] Speaker C: Now, do you also sell cigars or is that okay? So you carry the whole line. So cigars, pipes, tobacco, accessories.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Yep, yep. We bought Caldwell Cigars two years ago and it's been great. It's a wonderful brand. Agree, but it's small compared to the giant pipe thing. So we're kind of getting better and better and better at cigars and we've been doing the pipe thing for a long time already.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Before we move into the personal questions, could we ask you maybe to give a brief description on how you and Sam work together to bring pipes and tobacco into the shop here?
[00:06:54] Speaker B: Sam, in a lot of ways, is an ideal customer for me because he's all about strategy and I'm all about strategy.
When I got into this job, my thinking was I get to be a professional pipe geek if I'm willing to be a professional salesman, if I can stomach being a salesman.
At some point, I started thinking about sales like I'm playing a strategy game.
And then I got a whole lot better at it. And Sam approaches his business like he's playing a strategy game. So usually when Sam and I are planning something, we're talking about how it's going to affect what we're doing six months out.
And you have to, you have to. With pipes, you have to be able to play that long game and build it.
[00:07:43] Speaker C: So what is your current favorite pipe blend?
What are you smoking on that you really enjoy these days?
[00:07:51] Speaker B: In terms of tobacco or the pipes?
[00:07:54] Speaker C: Both.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Both.
Historically, I've always been a burly guy more than anything else. Pegasus Haunted Bookshop. Old Joe Krantz was breakfast, lunch and dinner for me.
In the last couple of years, I've trended a lot more towards Virginia's, though I still smoke a lot of burleys. But more and more and more red Virginia blends are calling to me.
Virginia Gentleman, which I brought some with me today, was very good. Really into in terms of pipes. I was sort of a skeptic about Eltang Basic.
Not that they weren't good pipes. I knew that the quality and the construction was fantastic, but I was just sort of a skeptic in that I didn't expect to be really impressed by them and I never expected to sell that many of them.
I bought one kind of on a lark at the beginning of the year.
Now I own four and I keep smoking them constantly.
[00:08:53] Speaker C: So the Altang line you're talking about. Are they carved by Tom or.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: I know that they're coming out of his studio. I don't know if it's apprentices or something because they're all. They're all just basic cylinders or cones. And so I don't know if it's apprentice work.
I just know they're all coming out
[00:09:12] Speaker C: of his studio and they had the car. Those are the ones with the carbon fiber stems, is that right?
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Yep, that's right.
[00:09:18] Speaker C: How do they. How does the carbon fiber smoke. Is it. Does it get hot at all or.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: No, I mean, there's no. The carbon fiber stem can't absorb any moisture.
So if you're really puffing away and you're. You're generating a lot of moisture, it's. There's nothing there to help you stop a gurgle. But then I would argue you're smoking too fast anyway. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's nice to have a system. It's nice to have a balsa filter. It's nice to have all these things. But if you can't smoke a straight drilled pipe without a gurgle like that, you need to work on your technique. So it doesn't bother me at all.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:53] Speaker C: I've been looking at them and I was just curious how the carbon fiber held up as opposed to a wooden shank. But it sounds like as long as you know what you're doing, holds up pretty well.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Yeah, the carbon fiber is great. My. Only if I. If I had one complaint. It's not so much a complaint as much as a wish.
I really like wide bowls and all of the ltang bicycle pipes. The bowls are quite narrow.
He has a pot shape which I like quite a bit more. That's nice. But if there was like a bigger, wider pot or something almost Prince like, that still fit his aesthetic.
I would love to try that, you know, something really squat and shallow.
[00:10:32] Speaker C: All the old tank pipes I have have pretty small bowls and it's a.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: There's a. I think there's a Danish.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: To it. A lot of the Danish carvers do it that way. And a lot of American carvers who take their inspiration from the Danish carvers carve them. I call them pinky bowls because you can only get your pinky finger down into them.
[00:10:50] Speaker C: Yeah, those. Those are the kind of pipes John hates traditionally.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:10:54] Speaker C: And John. John likes something you can put your fist into.
He has. He has this Ardor Magnum that probably holds an ounce of tobacco.
So anyway, we're all relighting Our bohemian scandal right now, which is why there's a little break there.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: I can't smoke big pipes like that because I'm afraid of commitment.
[00:11:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I told, I told John we should bring it in here and ask Sam for. We, we wanted a free bowl to try something and hand them that pipe just as a joke, you know.
So what's your advice for new pipe smokers? That is one of the requests we get a lot is what, what would you advise somebody who's just getting into the hobby, like what kind of pipes what to do with tobacco?
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Honestly, what I would do if somebody was really brand, brand new, knew that they wanted to try it. Get a few corn cobs, your pipe tool, your pipe cleaners, and then try all the bulk pipe tobaccos at your local brick and mortar store. Try them all. Try things even that smell a little weird. Sample as much tobacco as you can.
Figure out your technique and figure out if you really like it. Then when you know that pipe smoking is something that you're really interested in, once you've got the basics down, then go and buy a nice pipe. Go and spend 100, $150 on something. Buy something that you're going to be really excited to smoke.
I think a lot of people struggle more as new pipe smokers than they need to because they go for a forty or fifty dollar briar with no brand name and some of them are good and some of them aren't. Where if you went with a $10 or $20 corn cob instead, you'd be guaranteed a better smoke.
And so you know, once you get over 60 or $70, you can find a lot of quality pipes.
But look at really inexpensive pipes the way you might look at a sign that's advertising prime rib for $5.99 at a casino. If it's really 5.99 for prime rib, there's something, there's something suspicious about that prime rib.
[00:13:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: I would also say too that if you're a beginner, avoid petite pipes like the plague. Wide bowls and thick walls make it easier and that goes double if you're a cigar smoker who's just getting into pipes.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: We also suggest that you be careful with the pipes coming in the country from China because you really don't know the quality of the briar and whatever else may be in the pipe that you don't know anything about.
I would stick with a brand name pipe maker and a brand name tobacco.
[00:13:42] Speaker C: I think if you're coming from cigars, my biggest advice is slow the hell down because you're going to be smoking faster than the pipe really wants to be smoked.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: One of the things that I guess Joe helped Sam with was his selection of a span of tobaccos, loose tobacco on jars. It covers the whole gamut from the tobaccos that have flavorings added and so on to your straight Virginias, your Virginia Latakias and so on.
If you find a tobacco shop that has the gamut of different tobaccos, it gives you a lot of tobaccos to try before you settle and find something that you like.
[00:14:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I think finding, finding fellow pipe smokers in your region who are willing to help you and share tobacco. And you know, we are fortunate here to have the Washington Pittsburgh Pipe Club that John helps run. And you know, we have meetings here the fourth Saturday of every month and we get 10 to 12 people in here and John and I and everybody else throws their tobacco on the table and you know, have at it. Try it.
Tell us what you think.
So I think that's the, you know, kind of some good advice for new pipe smokers. You know, we're, we're going to try to focus on that a little bit here more because we've gotten some requests for it. So, so we're going to turn this completely around.
What's your best advice for experienced pipe smokers? Somebody that's been doing it for 10 or 15 years or 20 or 30 or 20 or 30? 60.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: I've got a couple of different thoughts for you.
[00:15:32] Speaker C: Go for it.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: First of all, I find I usually have to caution people against deep cleaning their pipes too frequently.
But I also find that I keep my pipes cleaner on average than a lot of other people. So maybe I deep clean my pipes less frequently because I keep them cleaner after every smoke.
If it's been a couple of years since you've gone through and deep cleaned your collection, I'll give it a try. You know what I mean? Do it five or six pipes at a time.
You don't have to try to do the whole thing, but try doing a heavy deep clean and restore on some of your old beloved pipes and see how big a difference it makes.
I'll also say every once in a while smoke something that you don't think you're gonna like. Smoke something that is as far away from what you normally smoke as possible.
It's really easy, and I do this too to kind of pigeon your pigeonhole yourself deeper and deeper and deeper down to just a narrow and narrow set of tobacco. And if that's what you love to smoke. There's certainly nothing wrong with it.
But probably two years ago, two and a half years ago now, I found myself getting more and more into cigars before I found out we were buying the cigar company, so that's convenient.
I found myself getting more and more into cigars and I remembered that the last period when I was really excited about cigars, I also smoked a lot of Latakia blends. And I find it now I'm enjoying a lot of Kia blends a lot more than I have in the last 10 years. So every once in a great while, revisit something that you. You weren't into a long time ago.
[00:17:13] Speaker C: Yeah. I recently started trying some English blends from other people and now I'm buying English blends because I was very much in the same lane as John with the Virginia perique kind of thing where, you know, I was a Virginia perique kind of guy and that was just who I was. Now I'm dabbling in these English blends. And Dom may deny this, but he's sitting here telling me how good this English blend is that he's smoking right now and he's a Virginia guy.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: Yeah. This bohemian scandal is excellent, in my opinion.
[00:17:50] Speaker C: Yeah. So what, what is coming next that you can tell us about from C and D?
Any small batches coming around the corner right now?
[00:18:01] Speaker B: It's very quiet.
I have heard.
Now understand, I have heard Laudisi is a company that's had to learn to go from having 40 employees to having 250 in seven or eight years. So sometimes lines get crossed. But I have heard that there is actually a new new Virginia based small batch coming this summer.
New as in. We've never released it before, but I don't know anything about it or how soon it's going to be ready. I just know that there's something in development.
[00:18:34] Speaker C: Very cool. That'll. That is something. I will be waiting in line at smoking pipes to order at least my first couple tins. And then if I like it, I'll get Sam to order me a couple more to. To age.
I mean, with small batches, you don't want to play games because they go quick. That ape state barely sold out on smoking pipes in like 45 minutes or something crazy like that. Like I remember.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: I'll tell you a funny story about that.
If you got time for it in your podcast, go for it. Years ago, Jeremy Reeves and I were traveling in New Mexico together visiting shops. He's from New Mexico.
That's Cornell and Diehl's. Head blender.
And it happened to be right at the same time Folklore was releasing for the first time.
We sat in an Airbnb and watched something like 650 units of folklore, 1 pound bricks of tobacco that nobody had ever tried before sell out in about three hours.
[00:19:32] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: The fact that 650 people all decided that they liked Cornell and Diehl so much that they were willing to buy an entire pound of something they had never had a bowl of before was unbelievable.
[00:19:44] Speaker C: I've never heard of Folklore. What kind of blend was it?
[00:19:47] Speaker B: Virginia based.
Noticeably tops.
Very much an ultra rich kind of kitchen sink blend. It was a Virginia based, but there was a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
Some Katerini. I think there was some Kasturi in there. There was some. I mean it was, it was a really, really complex blend.
[00:20:08] Speaker C: Is it still available?
[00:20:10] Speaker B: There are some people out there that still have it. We haven't had a release of it
[00:20:14] Speaker C: in a long time. So no distributors have it.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a, that's a. You'll find a brick and mortar that still has some once in a while. And if you like it, grab it when you see it.
[00:20:25] Speaker C: Gotcha.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: All right, so let me ask a question real quick.
[00:20:30] Speaker C: Go ahead.
[00:20:30] Speaker A: So used to be went to a pipe shop and all the, the manufacturers would put samples on a table, open tins and they will be there for you to sample, try before you buy.
But the FDA kind of changed all that. Nowadays you can't put open tins on for sale, but for sampling purposes.
But now some companies, they'll spend 4, 5 bucks. You buy a coupon, it titles you to different, maybe four bowls of different tobaccos for sampling to see if you like it. So you're actually paying a fee for that sample that you're smoking. That's all because of FDA requirements.
And has that really changed, do you think the people sampling in different blends it shows?
[00:21:41] Speaker B: Yes, yes. The federal rule is. So I, as a rep of a wholesaler, a distributor, I can give the retailer or the staff in a store as many free samples as I want because that's inventory research, that's purchasing decisions. That's fine.
If I give a consumer tobacco and it's not tied to a purchase, that's actually what's bad. So if you walk into a shop and you buy a pack of pipe cleaners federally, that shop can then sample to you because you made a purchase and it's tied to a transaction.
But just giving somebody some free tobacco to try Is federally illegal. Wow. Yeah.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Just a second question. Have you noticed a difference in tobaccos that you have tried that have been aged for a long period of time, like GL Peace.
I forget what year that was.
[00:22:42] Speaker C: 04.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: 04. That was tinned in. 04.
So that's got a lot of age on it. And we know that when you age tobaccos in tins, your Virginias will get better. You, your other tobaccos will get a little bit muted. As far as their impact on the blend, have you noticed that trend?
Would you recommend?
Well, that's the advantage of having a tobacco seller where you can go in and age tobaccos.
But what you're giving up is the.
The tobaccos that have muted have muted. You know, once you put 10 or 20 years on 10 of tobacco, your Virginians will get better, your others will get muted.
And does that sort of fit your experience?
[00:23:38] Speaker B: I would say, with the possible caveat that I think burleys can age beautifully.
Burleys, when they age, tend to develop these really sort of pungent, musty flavor notes. And I know neither of those words are usually words we use to describe good things, but they're delicious on an aged, burly blend.
I also, and this is a minority opinion, this is a taste thing that I know I'm different from most pipe smokers. I love really well aged red Virginias. But for me, usually Once you're past 15 to 20 years, the blend is going downhill rather than up.
I find that because one of the things that happens when you age tobacco for a long time is it gets milder.
And I like some body to my tobacco. I like, not harshness, of course, but I like a strong flavor and a strong feeling to the smoke. And so a lot of Virginia's, when they get old enough to start developing vinegary notes in the flavor profile, that's usually when they're too old for me to really be interested in.
[00:24:49] Speaker C: So you don't like fresh McClellan at all then? No, I know.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: Well, actually, I was always unwilling to admit it back when McClellan was still open, because I never want to be the kind of rep that trash talks competition. I never liked McClellan's Virginias. Never, ever liked McClellan's Virginias. I loved some of their aromatics.
They made a burley blend from a cranny's called Old masters that was absolutely brilliant. And I would pay $50 a tin for it, $100 a tin for it, happily, just to smoke it again.
But I never ever liked McClellan's Virginias,
[00:25:23] Speaker A: well, see, I'm the opposite. I love McClellan Virginias.
[00:25:26] Speaker C: I think John has like five pounds of 5,100 stashed in his up at least.
So my last question for you as part of the interview here is what is your sleeper pick for tobacco? Like, what tobacco do you think is grossly underrated or just under the radar?
Something everybody should go try at some point.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: I'll give you two from my own catalog.
Shanygaffe.
[00:25:57] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Shandy Gaff is a burley blend. So Cornell and Diehl started when Craig Tyler bought Amar Blending, or he bought all the old equipment and everything from Amar Blending, including the recipes they owned.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Wasn't that Atlas?
[00:26:13] Speaker B: Oh, no, no, no.
Bought out Atlas. Atlas came before Amar when they bought out.
Yeah. And Atlas Shandy Gaff was an Atlas recipe. It is mostly white burley. It's about a quarter Turkish and then there's some perique. And so all of the sweetness in the blend is being provided by the Turkish and the perique. There's no Virginia's there. Turkish is pretty sweet, to be fair, but it's just a really wildly different flavor profile from anything else out there.
I would be surprised if Cornell and Diehl sells 50 pounds of it a year.
And most of the shops out there that stock it, stock it. Because I went in with a jar at some point and got a bunch of their pipe club hooked on it. Now they have it in the store. That's really.
Most of the shops that have it in bulk have it because I visited there.
[00:27:03] Speaker C: Very cool.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: I love that place.
[00:27:04] Speaker C: We need to talk salmon to getting it so we can try it.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:27:09] Speaker C: What was the second one from the two friends line?
[00:27:12] Speaker B: Crucis.
[00:27:13] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: It's. It's an Aramaic or a semi aromatic volleycrusis is underneath a light English blend. There's a little touch of Latakia in it, but there's a fairly prominent ginger top note. It's the only thing in all the. Whatever we're up to now, 300 blends that come out of our factory.
It's the only one that has a ginger top note. The interplay of ginger Latakia in Virginia is wonderful. And nobody ever smokes it.
[00:27:45] Speaker C: H. That's very interesting. And that. What was that one called?
[00:27:49] Speaker B: It was called Valley Crucis in a two friends line. Yeah.
[00:27:53] Speaker C: I had heritage from two friends and I was. I liked that it was. That was a mildly cased Virginia, if I remember correctly.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: Yeah, Heritage. There's a little bit of Burley and black Cavendish heritage was Craig Tyler's favorite blend. If he wasn't smoking for work blending or something like that, all he smoked was heritage. The two friends that the Two Friends line is named for are Craig Tyler, CDs founder, and Greg Peace.
[00:28:16] Speaker C: Right, Right. I was going to ask you about that. I mean I knew the history, but I wanted to share it. So I did forget one question to ask you.
I know Metropolis just came out Wednesday, I think it was. And do you have. Is there anything in the GLP GOP's line of tobacco's coming?
[00:28:40] Speaker B: Not that I know of because Greg is a secretive son of a gun.
With Greg's Tobacco. With Greg's Tobaccos, I'm usually not allowed to tell people anything about what's in them other than what's printed on the can.
[00:28:54] Speaker C: Gotcha.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Greg is always working on something. It's just a matter of when the, when the muses set to him just right that we, we get something we could put in a tin and put a label on.
[00:29:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:29:07] Speaker B: But he has been releasing things way more. There was a period there where we had very few GLPS releases and now for the last few years it's been constant GLPS releases with this new.
The Zeitgeist.
[00:29:20] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:29:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's been great.
[00:29:23] Speaker C: Yeah. I will, I will say I, I followed the pipe smokers world of buy 1 seller 2 when I bought my, when I bought my Metropolis. So I didn't know how readily available it was going to be. So I just bought one seller two.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Metropolis is going to be in constant production.
[00:29:42] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: I think the initial production run was something like 3,000 cans and we sold through it all in a day or two of wholesale.
But there's already more in production.
I'll tell you too, that part of what's going on with glp. And again, because it's Greg, I can't say explicitly what.
But part of what he's been doing is playing around with the fact that Cornell and Diehl has way more tobacco
[00:30:07] Speaker C: to play with than we used to.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: It used to be there was one Turkish and that was our Turkish. There was one red Virginia and that was our red Virginia, so on and so forth. And now we blend with several red Virginia, several different Turkish,
[00:30:21] Speaker A: three or four,
[00:30:22] Speaker B: three different kinds of dark fire. You know, we just, we have access to so much more than we used to. And so I wonder if that's part of what's inspired Greg's creativity in the last couple of years is that there's finally something really new and novel to blend with.
[00:30:35] Speaker C: So has CD put out any blends with the Turkish latakia in it yet, or is that still something that's in development?
[00:30:42] Speaker B: All of our latakia has been Turkish for a while.
[00:30:44] Speaker C: Oh, really? Okay. I didn't know if you were still using a mix of Cyprian and Turkish or just.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: We still.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: I know we do still take on some Cyprian. And at our level, it's really, really important to keep both of those sources alive.
That industry has been in Cyprus for a century, you know what I mean? And with latakia nowadays, it's almost exclusively used for pipes, which means it's very small and it's very fragile. You know, I always joke with people that now that Cornell and Diehl's the last American pipe tobacco factory, we're one bad hurricane away from no more American pipe tobacco. Well, in the Mediterranean, you have Cyprus and you have Turkey. Nobody else is making latakia. Nobody else that knows how to make latakia seems to be talking much about it. So we kind of have to keep everything going as strong as we can.
[00:31:43] Speaker C: Well, thank you, Jeff, for taking your time to talk to us. We got one more question.
I'll give you a little round of applause.
You couldn't hear it.
Sorry. I got a little sound.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: Pat.
[00:32:01] Speaker C: Happy.
So we did get some ask the pricks questions this week, and we're going to answer one here today with Joe.
So this is from Dave. You fellas have been smoking for a long time. You see a lot of blends come and go. What were some of your favorites is the first part.
So some favorites that have gone. John, we know. McClellan 5100.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Any of the McClellan.
[00:32:26] Speaker C: Any McClellan Virginia blends crumble cake, probably for you.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: From 5100 to Christmas cheer.
[00:32:35] Speaker C: What about you, Joe? Things that have gone but not gone, but, oh, it's not forgotten.
[00:32:43] Speaker B: De Blonde de Oro by Savinelli.
When we wanted to refresh Savinelli's tobacco lineup, I don't remember what the whole story was at the time, but we commissioned a McBaron to make a few Savinelli tobaccos. One of them was a dark fired Virginia Paris Cor coin cut called the baloney to Oro. And it was amazing.
And now that McBaron is no more, of course, that one's gone, too.
[00:33:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I. I was.
I just lost my train of thought. I have no idea, but I was kind of. I've been kind of fortunate. My favorites have not gone away. I've been lucky. Hell, the win from Rat Races. My all time Favorite, you know, been around forever, still being made Sulani Silver Flake, which is hard to come by, but if, you know. If you know the right people, you can get it.
[00:33:40] Speaker A: If you know Steve Montjor. Yeah.
[00:33:43] Speaker C: Or you see Steve at a pipe
[00:33:44] Speaker B: show, and it's Solani Silver Flake is one of my most favorite blends. And every time I see Steve at a show, I try to buy him out of it.
[00:33:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:54] Speaker C: All right, so the second part of the question is, have you found anything new to replace those blends?
[00:34:06] Speaker B: It's like asking to replace a girlfriend. You just go looking for something new that's more. That's exciting in a different way.
[00:34:14] Speaker C: I'm constantly trying new blends. John. John is kind of setting his ways.
He doesn't experiment much unless I experiment and say, john, this is a really good Virginia. He might try it.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: Well, the Balkan Sobrani is a good example.
[00:34:28] Speaker C: You mean the Bohemian Scandal? Bohemian Scandal, Balkan, whatever that is, is a little easier to get your hands on than this.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: Yeah, that is excellent.
[00:34:41] Speaker C: Yeah, that was a very good blend. It was incredibly smooth.
Very good. I'm probably gonna have a second bowl of it at some point today.
But anyway, that's. That's the end.
We hope you guys come to the pikeprix.com and check out our website.
Ask Questions with the. Ask the Pricks. And we thank everybody for listening. We thank Joe for taking time out of his day.
And we thank John Sam at Just the Tip Cigars for letting us hang out here and do this and lending us a microphone today.
All right, everybody, have a good day, and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.
