Hello from the beautiful St. Croix River

Hello, short time lurker and long time pipe smoker.
I have been smoking a pipe off and on for too many years that I forget. Honestly I had my first pipe behind a warming house at my local ice skating rink when I was all of about 12 years old. I smoked a corn cob pipe with some Cherry Blend tobacco that my friend supplied. From then on my history with the briar has been on and off, but continuous for many, many years. As of late, I am looking at trying different tobaccos that steer away from the usual aromatic style that I have always smoked. I have purchased several tins of English blends, ( Squadron Leader, MM965, MM Baby's Bottoms, Elizabethan Mixture as well as others) I am waiting for a package to be delivered today of some Burley blends which I an anxious to try. If anyone has some good "Cross-Over" blends that have a nice oaty, bread, bakery tastes and smell, PLEASE let me know. I have found that I'm having trouble with the English blends. The Latakia, Perique tobacco is giving me some problems. The taste and room note I find is like incense and " Old Lady perfume". I know that it kinda grows on you however right now it's not my cup of tea.
So, I hope I can find some good advice and answers to other questions I have with this great pastime.

Regards,
Turbine712

Welcome to the group! If you want a mellower crossover there are a few manufacturers out there that do a fine job of it. I would recommend McClelland, (as will others, I believe) first as they do have a signature sweet/oaty line of Virginia blends. Next, I suppose, would be to tend you toward C&D Burleys. Lane makes a rather sweet burley (BLWB). A nice move from aromatics to, well, not so aromatic........

Enjoy the hunt!

Welcome to the Brotherhood, Turbine!

I think you might have started a bit rough in the English department, if you were mostly smoking aromatics. Try some Early Morning Pipe, Durbar or Davidoff Royalty as starters. They contain less Latakia so you should dig it better.

If you're seeking a cross-over, there is McClelland Frog Morton and Sillem's Black.

Welcome to BoB Turbine.

Starting off with the Lat blends you mention are certainly a departure from the aros you started off with. They should be more smoky than anything in the perfume dept, but Lat can be an acquired taste for the uninitiated. Keep them around and come back to them after a while and see what they do for you as your tastes grow and mature.

There's plenty of blends that you might consider in the meantime. Smokingpipes.com has a nifty feature that allows you to choose any 'baccy varietal or combination, and then give recommendations.

On their home page you'll find "Tobacco Locator" on the right of the red banner at the top. Click on it. You'll then find a column on the left where you can enter your preferences for cut, components (include/exclude), strength, and much more. Enter as many choices as you like and click "Find It" and it'll bring up blends that have those characteristics. You don't have to choose anything in that column that you don't know or aren't sure about. Clicking on a pic of the blend will give you a description of the blend from the mfr.

You might then make a list of the ones that interest you and cross reference these against the reviews on the review site-

http://www.tobaccoreviews.com/browse

The reviews there can aid you, but don't make this the gospel as the reviewers there are all folks with their own individual likes and dislikes, and not everyone likes everything. Still, it can give you some general direction. Sounds like an awful lot of work maybe, but it's a place to start.

I'll also echo the sentiments of the other posters here and say that McClelland and C&D are good companies that produce excellent blends. Can't go wrong with any of them.

HTH



Cheers,

RR

Welcome aboard the good ship BoB, Turbine. Have to agree with the reccomendations above about SP and TR, both really useful sites for tobacco research.

Have fun here mate.

Cheers

Tim

Welcome to the forums! I hope you enjoy yourself here. I had lots of advice, but I see Brewdude already gave it!

"T"

Welcome aboard. Can't give any recommendations on cross-overs, but it looks like you have some good suggestions to go on. Good luck.

Welcome to BoB!

Welcome. You seem to have a good amount of advice here. I'd like to recommend Peterson's Sherlock Holmes mixture to you. It's a solid Virginia and burley mixture, which is a staple style of the non aro world but, with a very light fruity essence. Excellent cross over that I still smoke regularly.