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The Codger Cabin

I've been wondering....where do you guys buy your SWR, CH, and PA? I don't smoke that much anymore, but every once in a while I get the urge. I would love to try any of these older "codger blends," but don't want to go to the trouble of ordering, paying shipping, etc. I've inquired at a couple of drug stores, but all they seem to have is Captain Black, and then BIG plastic bags of other brands I've never heard of. What local stores might I try to see if they have any of these old blends in a pouch??? Thx in advance for suggestions....
Do "smoke shops" carry them? For that matter, do "CBD/smoke shops" carry tobacco at all?
 

Columbo

Mr. Codgers Neighborhood
I've been wondering....where do you guys buy your SWR, CH, and PA? I don't smoke that much anymore, but every once in a while I get the urge. I would love to try any of these older "codger blends," but don't want to go to the trouble of ordering, paying shipping, etc. I've inquired at a couple of drug stores, but all they seem to have is Captain Black, and then BIG plastic bags of other brands I've never heard of. What local stores might I try to see if they have any of these old blends in a pouch??? Thx in advance for suggestions....


I can't speak to the others, but at this point I buy my daily blends from various online vendors, in tub quantities. All the major online pipe tobacco vendors carry them, as do many of the major cigar-centric big warehouses, such as JR. These vendors also sell pouch quantities.

But you're right to look for pouches if you've never tried them, or don't plan on smoking much of it. A 12 or 14 oz tub is a lot of product if you find you don't like it.

You'll probably have an easier time finding these brands locally in pouches rather than in tubs. Finding tubs locally can be a chore. But with pouches, the quality may drift around due to storage conditions and stocking age. SWR is more prone to dried out pouches than the Middleton brands, IMO. Keep that in mind, as one bad pouch is not necessarily indicative.

The usual around town subjects are some of the older grocery store chains, some Walmarts, some convenience and some drug stores. Wherever cigarettes are sold, you might see these sitting in pouches, as they have a limited RYO audience as well.

Some cigar stores do carry PA or SWR, but it is strictly hit or miss. Last I checked, my nearest local cigar store still carries PA, but only in pouches. A local cigar store may also be able to place an order for you, or bundle your order in with their next big one to their distributor. Some grocery store courtesy counters may still take orders, too. My local family pharmacy can order just about anything I like for pickup the next day ... but I've never asked him about ordering pipe tobacco. He would probably faint if I tried.

The bigger chains are probably going to be limited to what they get in, as you have discovered.

CH is a harder to find brand locally than the other two. It always has been. But that doesn't mean you won't stumble on to it from time to time. SWRA, H&H and the others are even harder still to find.

Otherwise, many cigar and pipe smokers will just toss a couple pouches on to their regular online tobacco orders. If you decide to place a $75 or $95 free-shipping order for a bunch of things, that's the time to add a few pouches on.

Right now, PA and CH are getting harder to find, as production has been halted for a couple months pending a sale of the brands. SWR is made very nicely by STG presently (it seems that STG is now making most of the OTCs), and that shouldn't be too hard to locate.
 

steveclarkus

Goose Poop Connoisseur
I've been wondering....where do you guys buy your SWR, CH, and PA? I don't smoke that much anymore, but every once in a while I get the urge. I would love to try any of these older "codger blends," but don't want to go to the trouble of ordering, paying shipping, etc. I've inquired at a couple of drug stores, but all they seem to have is Captain Black, and then BIG plastic bags of other brands I've never heard of. What local stores might I try to see if they have any of these old blends in a pouch??? Thx in advance for suggestions....
I get my tobacco from either Pipes and cigars or Smoking Pipes. Half and Half, Sir Walter Raleigh and Carter Hall can sometimes be found in grocery or drug stores. There just aren’t many Brick and Morter Tobacconists around any longer.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Being in the UK, my Codger blends might be your exotica! Condor, St Bruno, Presbyterian, occasionally Erinmore

Gareth

I was wondering how to define the codger blends for over here.

The ones you list are, I believe, the "Big Tobacco" blends, but for many folks (including old codgers) the most accessible tobaccos might the the green drums of Gawith Hoggarth tobaccos at their local tobacconist. Of course some of the Gawith blends have been around for a century or two, so they'll be remembered being smoked by long time pipe smokers in their earlier years with the pipe.

There's other old timer brands like Clan, Craven, Gold Block, and Walnut (now Original) Flake, and Three Nuns. Maybe they would be codger blends to some folk.

I only really started diversifying with tobaccos last year, having predominantly stuck to a few of the Kendal blends before, and a lot of the samples I've smoked from other blenders, seem just as good. Or at least, the tobaccos that are available in tins. I haven't explored many tobaccos that come in factory sealed pouches. There isn't much of a price distinction between codger and non-codger blends either. Aside from a few costlier brands like Davidoff and Nording, they're all within a quid or two of each other.
 
Got home early, and the weather has warmed (as it usually does every few days even in January and February). So I loaded a half-bowl of some Sir Walter Raleigh in my small GBD bent apple. I did not rush the smoke, though perhaps it was a bit too moist to start, since it took 3 matches to keep it lit. Quite a bit different from the chocolate-maple "mystery" blend I've been sampling, but I liked it. I'm getting little hints of it still in my beard, I think!

At $2.00 or so per ounce, this is a great bargain.
 
I smoked a lot of Velvet, Kentucky Club, Union Leader, Briggs, Edward G Robinson's Pipe Blend, and Edgeworth Ready Rubbed back in my college days. All gone now, save for EGR. I avoided PA for years; it was the ultimate punch line to the ultimate phone prank, but I've come to appreciate it. Burned a lot of CH too, and Sail Natural when I could find it. Back then pipe tobacco was so cheap you could buy a pouch and not feel too put out if you hated it. I threw out Holiday, Sugar Barrell, Field and Stream, Bond Street, Paladin Cherry (eeeyuck), and the most horrid, wretched, cringe-inducing smoking product ever devised, Mixture #79.
 
Ok, all you old dinosaurs, cheapskates and mild burley sippers. You know who you are. Time to out yourselves. We all buy and smoke all those fancy English, VaPers and exotic aromatic blends concocted by today’s piper Picassos. But how about those blends from back when grandpa was in diapers? Some have been around for over a century, and still sell like gangbusters in 2019. Some call them codger, OTC or drugstore blends. The tobacco snobs just call them lousy or ‘monochromatic’, even though they’re not.

I’ve been smoking for close to 50 years. I’ve smoked $8/oz uberblends in haughty London briars, and can smoke anything I want. I’ve got a tremendous stash of top tier designer leaf in the basement. But a lot of mornings and evenings, it’s a humble bowl of PA (or sometimes when I have a sweet tooth, SWR) in an elderly Stanwell, or sometimes a yard pipe or cob. It lights right up, and burns cool to the heel. And not just to break in that new Pete or Sav that your wife bought you. You know what I’m talking about.

It’s simple, but it’s good. Like a basic cup of coffee, without the triple latte berry blast swirl and eleven sub notes. Simple, relaxing, easy. We’re the same ones who still splash on Skin Bracer.

So fess up and come clean. I just did. I’m a codger piper. Who here is secure enough to admit they still smoke the old standards their fathers and grandfathers puffed on, or that they smoked 40 years ago? Tell us what you like about these classics and why. Consider this your codger safe space.

You and I have a lot in common Colombo. I have a ton of the rare blends, hard to finds and such that I’ve collected over the years. That’s the “hobby” part for me. I’ve bought a $300 Radice, smokes fine. So does all my other $50 and less pipes that I grab far more often. I thought cobs were gimmicky. A bad way to enter pipe smoking. Boy...was I wrong. I finally grabbed a Missouri Meerschaum. Never looked back. I smoke my cobs far more often than I do my briars.

All the legendary blends I have, my favorites are the classics, the house bulk blends. They are more easy to enjoy, to relax with and rest.
 
I never tried any of these "drugstore" tobaccos (except I think I tried Borkum Riff once?) in my '80s and '90s smoking days. Most of my tobacco came from Tinder Box or small independent pipe shops. Now, though, I've bought some Sir Walter and some Half & Half, and am ready to try them. Their scents just in their pouches is very enticing.
Tried Half & Half for the first time just now, a half bowl in a small-chambered bent billiard. About a 25-minute smoke, not hot or unpleasant, but I'm not sure I liked it the taste enthusiastically. (Remember I'm an aromatic man.) I'll put some out to dry a bit more overnight and try it again in the morning.

I expect that even if I don't love it, I can mix it with the chocolate-maple blend I have, or the Sir Walter for that matter, and get quite a bit out of it.
 
Yeah, those codger blends are termed "slightly aromatic", and it's definitely there, it's not an aromatic. It is, however, great when you need a break from aros and don't really feel like an English lat bomb. Being mostly burley, they'll blend in wonderfully with anything you want to add it to.
 

Columbo

Mr. Codgers Neighborhood
Tried Half & Half for the first time just now, a half bowl in a small-chambered bent billiard. About a 25-minute smoke, not hot or unpleasant, but I'm not sure I liked it the taste enthusiastically. (Remember I'm an aromatic man.) I'll put some out to dry a bit more overnight and try it again in the morning.

I expect that even if I don't love it, I can mix it with the chocolate-maple blend I have, or the Sir Walter for that matter, and get quite a bit out of it.

Not everyone likes H&H, even among OTC smokers. So your reaction is not uncommon.

If you are a devoted aromatic smoker, these blends are not going to knock your socks off with the flavor intensity you’re likely used to. Many are untopped or barely topped at all. They are going to taste like ... tobacco. A mild straight Burley in most cases. With hints of whatever light casing recipe the blend calls for.

If you are that partial to aromatics and want to stay in the OTC neighborhood, then besides EGR, the one you really owe it to yourself to try is SWRA. In my opinion, SWRA punches way above its weight, offering a very nice liquored flavor while still tasting like good quality tobacco. And the ladies absolutely love its room note. Next to the PA, or whatever other codger staple I happen to be smoking through, I always keep an open tub of SWRA on my pipe counter.
 

steveclarkus

Goose Poop Connoisseur
Not everyone likes H&H, even among OTC smokers. So your reaction is not uncommon.

If you are a devoted aromatic smoker, these blends are not going to knock your socks off with the flavor intensity you’re likely used to. Many are untopped or barely topped at all. They are going to taste like ... tobacco. A mild straight Burley in most cases. With hints of whatever light casing recipe the blend calls for.

If you are that partial to aromatics and want to stay in the OTC neighborhood, then besides EGR, the one you really owe it to yourself to try is SWRA. In my opinion, SWRA punches way above its weight, offering a very nice liquored flavor while still tasting like good quality tobacco. And the ladies absolutely love its room note. Next to the PA, or whatever other codger staple I happen to be smoking through, I always keep an open tub of SWRA on my pipe counter.
I believe I’m going to have to buy a tub of SWRA. Can’t find it in pouches and pouches often don’t represent the tobacco at its best. Having a bowl of H&H at the moment. Smelled it every day as I was growing up so how could I not like - probably a genetic imprint.
 
Did another half bowl of the Half & Half today, after letting the tobacco sit out on a plate last night. Either I'm getting used to it, or drying it works well, because I enjoyed the smoke even more: 25 minutes in a Savinelli billiard. I did need to relight it about 18 minutes in, which I did not yesterday, but that is probably because I did not pack it the same way. It seems like good stuff!
 
When I first entered the working world - in the late '70s - there were pipe-smokers all over the office. One of them kept a pipe burning pretty much all day long, and he smoked H&H exclusively. I learned to hate and despise the stuff. It smelled like a tire fire. I understand the current iteration is an improvement over the version that Pinkerton produced, and is closer to the original American Tobacco Co blend. The version I tried, when I got around to trying it, was probably the Pinkerton one - it was pretty awful.

But it wasn't as bad as Mixture #79.
 
When I first entered the working world - in the late '70s - there were pipe-smokers all over the office. One of them kept a pipe burning pretty much all day long, and he smoked H&H exclusively. I learned to hate and despise the stuff. It smelled like a tire fire. I understand the current iteration is an improvement over the version that Pinkerton produced, and is closer to the original American Tobacco Co blend. The version I tried, when I got around to trying it, was probably the Pinkerton one - it was pretty awful.

But it wasn't as bad as Mixture #79.
There is, some say, a hint of cigarette tobacco about the stuff. Since I never have smoked the white sticks, I can't say about the taste of them. This newer, reintroduced blend of H & H seems to smell and taste quite good, though.
 
Wish I could have grown up in that era where you could smoke while on the job site. It was on the way out when I started working.

My friend said he he has a pouch of half and half that he's going to send me. So I look forward to giving it a try.
 
Wish I could have grown up in that era where you could smoke while on the job site. It was on the way out when I started working.

My friend said he he has a pouch of half and half that he's going to send me. So I look forward to giving it a try.

It was pretty cloudy in our office back then. I didn't smoke all that much at my desk, though - I never mastered the art of answering the phone without knocking hot ash all over my shirt.

The owner of the buisiness didn't smoke, but he chewed/dipped incessantly. You learned quickly not to accidentally toss anything into your wastebasket that you may have to retrieve - the boss would often stroll by, say something to you, and then use your trash can for a spittoon.
 

steveclarkus

Goose Poop Connoisseur
When I first entered the working world - in the late '70s - there were pipe-smokers all over the office. One of them kept a pipe burning pretty much all day long, and he smoked H&H exclusively. I learned to hate and despise the stuff. It smelled like a tire fire. I understand the current iteration is an improvement over the version that Pinkerton produced, and is closer to the original American Tobacco Co blend. The version I tried, when I got around to trying it, was probably the Pinkerton one - it was pretty awful.

But it wasn't as bad as Mixture #79.
I did the same thing and the Pinkerton was horrible. Pinkerton made a mistake in blending and sent all over the country nearly ruining H&H reputation. SGT sent Pinkerton back to chewing tobacco production permanently for that error. It was a long time before I attempted H&H again.
 
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