More on the infamous 1792

Wow, it has been a long time since my first trial run of 1792 Flake. I didn't want to smoke it in the Kirsten again, because I wanted to smoke it in a regular all-briar pipe. But which pipe? Having heard scary stories about 1792 permanently flavoring a pipe made me wary. But I needed to smoke this leaf again. One smoke was not enough to form a valid opinion.

I don't think two smokes are enough, either.

So I finally decided on the unnamed Italian bent billiard sandblast. This pipe has always had an odd quirk of imparting its own flavoring to anything smoked in it (sort of chocolatey hints). So I figured nothing would be lost if it became permanently flavored with 1792. Also if you check the old post I mentioned that the tonka flavoring seemed to put me in mind of lightly flavored chocolate coffee. I decided this pipe would be a good match for it.

The bowl of this anonymous 'blast has significantly more volume than does the Kirsten, and it was a much longer smoke. In that first post (linked above) I mentioned that it made me thirsty. This larger bowl made that a problem. In fact, the thirstiness didn't go away for hours. I woke up several times during the night to drink water. This thirstiness effect will probably put me off 1792 for even a semi-regular smoke, but I think I will continue to keep it in my cellar. I am very interested in trying it outdoors and getting some opinions from innocent bystanders.

Room note? Oh, room note. Well, after finishing the smoke I went outside for a few minutes, and then came back in. The house in general was pretty much free of any smell, but inside my Sanctum, where I had smoked the pipe, the room note was not so much a note as a klaxon. Or maybe a gong. A big gong.

1792 Flake is not for the faint of heart. Or the faint of nostril. I think this would be a good barbecue smoke. When I barbecue, I also enjoy outdoors pipe smoking, and I usually stick with something fairly robust that is still noticeable--and that blends well--with mesquite smoke (C&D's Gray Ghost is my favorite barbecue smoke). I'm not sure yet how well 1792 would "blend" with mesquite, but it should have no problem beating it into submission.