Inaugural smoke for the Buescher cobwarden

I finally selected the tobaccos (plural) for the inaugural bowl in the Buescher cobwarden.  I chose to parfait three Virginia blends: H&H AJ's VaPer on the bottom, then a generous middle layer of McClelland 5100 Red Cake, topped off with a few pinches of McClelland Virginia Woods.  This corncob pipe is smoking like a champ!

enjoying my Buescher cob-watden

tamping the Buescher corncob churchwarden

Hearth & Home Obsidian in the estate Wally Frank

I have been slowly and incrementally cleaning the estate Wally Frank more ... in between almost-daily smokes in it, of course.  I pretty much smoked an entire two ounce tin of C&D Red Odessa in it, and now that the Red Odessa has run out, I've tried C&D Odessa (original version) and Hearth & Home's Obsidian.  Since I tried a bowl of the H&H Obsidian, that is what has been loaded in it lately, and today is no exception:

estate Wally Frank pipe, with the stem closer to black

discoloration cleaned off the rim of the estate Wally Frank

The Wally Frank pipe is getting prettier as I get it cleaner, and I do love shining it up with the scrap denim and a bit of olive oil.  Oh yeah, that is my new pipe lighter - a Xikar Resource with built-in pipe tools.  Hubby wants one now too, I believe.

A couple notes about H&H Obsidian ... first of all, if you have not tried it, get some.  This is the polar opposite of my codger-style burley blends.  It's a complex blend of four black tobaccos: stoved Virginia, black cavendish, latakia, and perique cut chunky (rough) ... which makes it a bit of a botch to get lit and keep lit but that may be the point.  I get the most intense bursts of flavor the moment it goes out, so I am really not minding the many MANY relights involved in each bowlful.  While I don't have the experience to describe the tastes without looking things up, it has been educational to try to figure out what my senses are picking up.  I've smoked some straight black cavendish, so I do recognize that wonderful smoothness.  The description of stoved Virginia matches the wonderful bursts of sweetness.  Now I need to distinguish between latakia and perique as I don't seem to get the "peppery" flavor others do.  All four tobaccos work together harmoniously like my favorite Oak Ridge Boys tunes.

smoking the last bowl of Boswell No-Bite Delight in the caramel apple

Now, for the sort-of sad news: the bag of Boswell No-Bite Delight is gone.  Hubby snapped a pic of me smoking the last full bowl in the caramel apple pipe - not so much to commemorate the event but because I didn't have a picture of this pipe yet.

Old Hirschl & Bendheim Irvin S. Cobb corncob pipe

Along with posting here yesterday about the old estate box corncob pipe, I also went to a forum that has cob fans for help identifying the marked-up sticker on my pipe (PipeSmokersForum).  It didn't take long to get the proper spelling of the first name and what the second name is, which then made Googling up info a WHOLE LOT easier!  The manufacturer's name was Hirschl & Bendheim, and they went out of business during the 1980s, although the Irvin S. Cobb line of corncob pipes is apparently still made by Missouri Meerschaum now, and can even be bought to this day at Rite-Aids and CVS stores in some places.

As I loaded up another bowl of Russ O's Angler's Dream, a codger-style tribute burley blend with just enough cinnamon in it to totally WOW me, I decided to snap a few more pics of this old H&B Cobb.

H&B cob with bag of tobacco

the marked-up H&B Irvin S. Cobb sticker

Excellent smoke: Angler's Dream tobacco in the old H&B cob

I am really loving this Angler's Dream burley blend!  I suspect that bag that was sent as an "extra" in a tobacco trade will not last long.  The dash of cinnamon isn't enough to overwhelm the burley, just enough to accent and give it a nice room note.  This smokes just as easy as any codger blend I currently have in briar as well as corncob ... but the cob just brings out an extra little shine to it.  I'm on my fourth bowl of it in about 24 hours, and I even took time out to sleep!

Six Boswell flavored tobaccos

I received these flavored aromatic tobaccos from the little shop in Pennsylvania with a huge reputation online:  J.M Boswell and Son.  They arrived late Thursday afternoon, so I have had them on my desk for almost nine days and here is what is left.

Six Boswell flavored aromatic tobaccos

Starting at top left and going around clockwise:

• Maple Leaf and Christmas Cookie - I've only smoked one bowl of each so far, as those initial bowls didn't grab my attention quite the way the other four did.  I will note that both have terrific bag notes, with the Christmas Cookie truly smelling good enough to eat.  With our first frost advisory tonight (already?!?!?) I may get into them more soon.
• Boswell's Best - a pleasant jumble of flavors, with the website noting only a vanilla topping.  There's more going on in it than just vanilla though I am having trouble distinguishing what I am experiencing at present.  The best I can describe it so far is an accumulation of smells similar to what my kitchen smells like as a holiday bake-fest is just finished.
• Chocolate Cream - as if I would miss ordering this one!  In fact, this was the one that led me to Google to find Boswell's as "everyone" says their chocolate topping is one of the best.  Quite a tasty sweet smoky-treat, with a chocolate flavor obvious enough for me to pick on first bowl.  I like the flavor and hubby likes the room note.
• Piper's Pleasure - this one is described as having chocolate, vanilla, coffee, and caramel flavors to it, and I find it changes which one is noticeable depending on which pipe I am smoking it in.  Another pleasant jumble of flavor, and the room note is good enough that hubby was looking for cooling racks upon entering the house while I was smoking it ... he said it smelled like I had baked a cake and he was trying to see which flavor and if it was frosted yet.
• No-Bite Delight - This one was elusive and shy, as it is supposed to be caramel and vanilla.  I tried it in a few of my other sweet pipes and was missing it, only getting the nondescript sweet flavor.  Yesterday I got a new pipe and decided to use NBD as its inaugural bowl ... and WOW!  A burst of caramel once I had it lit, which then quieted it down and only peeked through intermittently through the rest of the bowl.  Those with a more developed and discerning palette will probably be able to coax its subtleties out easier, but a fresh pipe is what revealed this one to me.

So those are my impressions of these six flavored aromatics from Boswell's, after a week of stuffing them in my pipe and smoking them.  Hubby has been a little too enamored with his Balkan and English and Scottish and Navy blends to give much attention to the Rum River I got him, so I can't report anything on that one yet.

My first tongue bite

I have found the first (but I doubt it will be the last) pipe tobacco to give me the chemical reaction known as tongue bite - Sir Walter Raleigh Aromatic.  It's a shame too, because up until I realized it halfway down the bowl, I had been enjoying the aroma and taste.

This wasn't a steam burn ... I did that on my very first bowlful when I puffed on it like a cigarette and basically boiled my tongue like a basket of crawdads.  I think it was Balkan Sobraine, which tasted pretty good on the first puff.  I ought to find the tin and try that one again, since I have no idea what it tasted like from the second puff onward.

Since I am still an unreformed cigarette smoker, I do light up a stick first thing in the morning to get the morning "kick in the chest" and calm the nicotine receptors enough to enjoy the pipe.  If it's a rough morning I'll smoke two cigs before moving on to the good stuff.  Since I still feel a bit clumsy with a pipe, I also smoke cigarettes when I am driving.

Back to the biter, the roguish Sir Walter ... I still have the 1.5 ounce pouch minus one regular bowlful.  I know I will try it again - probably in a much smaller bowl - just because I am hard-headed like that and need confirmation.  How soon I get back into the ring for another swing depends on how fast the Biotene works, and whether or not I find another one that bites.  I have caught myself eyeing the pouch already this morning ...