Saturday, April 9, 2016

‘Mr. Crowley’

     
UPDATE—2/27/2021: C&D will release a new batch of this mixture on Friday, March 12, 2021.


I’m not sure what to make of this, but Cornell & Diehl, one of the most prolific blenders of pipe smoking mixtures in the United States (if not the world), will release a blend named for Aleister Crowley soon.



Courtesy Cornell & Diehl


Crowley, the irregular Freemason, entrepreneurial mystic, self-described “Beast,” and all-around nut, was a pipe man who allegedly smoked Perique tobacco straight. I say allegedly because smoking Perique straight simply isn’t possible as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know the right analogy, but imagine consuming a meal of nothing but Scorpion Peppers, or quaffing a tall glass of undiluted Everclear. Or eating the peppers and washing them down with the grain alcohol. You get the idea.

Courtesy Cornell & Diehl
777 tins!

Which brings us to this new product. Named “The Beast,” this will be one of C&D’s Small Batch line. No word yet on a description of the mixture. I’d anticipate a blend heavy on Perique, I guess. (Perique is called a condimental tobacco, because its use is supposed to be light. Produced only in St. James Parish in Louisiana, it is a spicy tobacco that adds a peculiar potency to many kinds of pipe blends—but certainly not aromatics—and a little goes a long way.) Cornell & Diehl once had a blend named Crowley’s Best, but that’s something else, and was named for Fordham football legend Walter Crowley.

No release date announced, but I’ll update this edition of The Magpie Mason when that information becomes available, and I’ll certainly bring a tin to New York Pipe Club when I have one in hand.

UPDATE—APRIL 19:

Courtesy Cornell & Diehl
     

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