1 Star Tobacco Blends

Here we get into the nastier blends. These are either utterly uninteresting, wet, hot, or worse - blends that smell yummy and transform into stinkweed once lit. Anything in this category is at best a tolerable smoke, and may perhaps have some tiny redeeming characteristics if the smoker happens to be a rabid afficionado of the blend ingredients.

Talbert Apocalypse Mix - Yep, this is mine, "expertly" blended by the careful mingling and aging of every bad tobacco I've ever tried. The idea was inspired by my friend Paul Tatum, the official creator of the "Apocalypse Mix". He has a great bag of vacuum-sealed bad tobacco which he's saving until, in his words, "civilization collapses and we're all roaring across the country in supercharged Chryslers searching for gasoline and tobacco". I started keeping one of my own, and currently it's standing at 1 star of quality. While the cherry-flavored drugstore blends add a deeply moving ambiance to the piquant aroma and deep gingery flavors of the Lane "Norse Gold", the stuff is...well, rank. It's currently comprised of about 11 different tobacco blends, from tepid English mixtures to soggy aromatics to peach rum-flavored nightmares, and has been carefully aged in an old glass jar for roughly 6 months now. On the positive side, the flavor is certainly riotous and lively in its multi-dimensional body, and it's actually better than many straight aromatics I've sampled at the local TinderBox. I give this stuff away in small sampler bags with a pipe purchase, for the daring who request it, but first the buyer has to promise not to put it in my pipe...
Currently available right here if you buy a pipe! (and are very brave)

Silliem's London Blend - (Guest Review by Jesse Williamson) I've been really coveteous of their smoking accessories (lighters and tampers), and was interested when I saw that they had some tobacco blends for sale. Sad to say, London Blend didn't seem to live up to the name. The leaf is of decently good quality, but doesn't look anywhere near as good as, say, a Dunhill or Gawith blend. Although it smells promising in the tin, this blend just seems really uninspired. A sort of graphite-like taste (not really unpleasant, but totally uninteresting) predominates.
May be purchased from:
Pipe and Pint, (336) 218-8610 Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

Half & Half - (Guest Review by Jesse Williamson) While the perinnial favorite of many folks, I can't seem to aquire any real taste for this. I think it smells fine and tastes ok. It's a very simple smoke, and probably great during the holidays since it's strongly reminiscent of a happy Christmas eve. But it never gets touched.
May be purchased from:
Pipe and Pint, (336) 218-8610 Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

Captain Black White - (Guest Review by Jesse Williamson)This I smoke on rare occasion. A very popular burley-Cavendish blend that everyone pretty much loves the smell of. It's loaded with gunk, but can smoke somewhat dry. Extremely simple and straightforward smoke, with vanilla casing strongly dominating. The flavor is not "clean". I think its sometimes good as a change-of-pace, and for many pipe smokers it's the only thing that they'll smoke. Personally, I can think of a lot of other blends I'd rather puff on most of the time, but it's enjoyable on a hot Summer afternoon while watching old-fashioned parades.
May be purchased from:
Pipe and Pint, (336) 218-8610 Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

Borkum Riff Whiskey - (Guest Review by Jesse Williamson)The cut is pretty good, and it's of decent quality. I like the "Natural" more, though. Tends to leave a lot of gunk and a pretty strong taste in the bowl, so be careful. I don't know that the taste reminds me of whiskey, though...
May be purchased from:
Pipe and Pint, (336) 218-8610 Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

Borkum Riff Natural - (Guest Review by Jesse Williamson)Well, it's probably the best "drugstore" tobacco that I've tried so far. I sometimes keep a pouch of it handy for when I need to grab something very quickly, and simply don't want to smoke something too interesting. Does gunk up a pipe! While this does occasionally get smoked by choice, it certainly is at those times when my cellar is looking very sparse indeed...
May be purchased from:
Pipe and Pint, (336) 218-8610 Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

Erinmore - I was really, really tempted to give this concoction a 0 star rating, but the fact that it burns evenly and at least works like a tobacco should gives it some redeeming value. That said, I really think it's god-awful. The flavor is best described as cramming a pineapple and a chunk of fruitcake into your blender, setting it to liquefy, and then pressing the output into little chunks. Once you smoke this in your pipe, it will NEVER let go - be warned, If you have a pipe to spare and don't mind fruity tobaccos, you might well love it... as for me, I'm slipping the remains of my tin into someone's pocket at the next CORPS show.
May be purchased from:
Pipe and Pint, (336) 218-8610 Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

Butera Sweet Cavendish - "Swamp Thing" was a DC comics character composed entirely of stagnant swamp slime that never dried out. During my tenure with this tobacco, I frequently expected "Cavendish Thing" to rise out of the bowl. When I first opened the tin, I wondered who had moisturized it - it was practically swimming in shininess, and left wet smears on my fingers. I innocently thought I'd dry it out, so I spread the entire tin of tobacco out on a kitchen platter during the winter months for a solid week. It smelled wonderful, I must say, with that sweet vanilla richness of the best Cavendish blends, BUT... it would not dry. After a week of environment exposure that would have left any other tobacco like Rice Krispies, it was still soft, squishy, and moist. In its defense, it's actually a decent smoke in flavor, and doesn't bite as much as the usual aromatic-style tobacco, but egads - I was expecting the bottom of my corncob to turn soggy and fall out from all the moisture. Probably better enjoyed by drinking it through a straw straight from the tin.
May be purchased from:
Pipe and Pint, (336) 218-8610 Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

McClelland's #14 - Opening this tin, I was immediately greeted with the trademark pungent scent of ketchup that has come to equal "tongue bite in a can" to me. The label description is, "Dark with Latakia and black Virginias...classic full mixture". This is accurate in that the blend is dark colored, but in smoking the flavor of the tobacco is readily overpowered by the sheer scorching ability of the burn. For contrast, I smoked a bowl of C&D's Black Dawg earlier in the day while canoeing around the lake, puffing hard and not really paying much attention to my technique, and it smoked like a dream...yet in the evening when I moved to #14 and gave it my full attention for the slowest, mellowest smoke possible, one bowl left my tongue like a potato chip. There must be some serious biological incompatibility between McClelland blends and me since almost every blend I've tried leaves my tongue and gums extra-crispy. Highly recommended for the serious masochist.
May be purchased from:
Pipe and Pint, (336) 218-8610 Greensboro, North Carolina, USA