VA Perique for Pipe

Sweet Virginia tobacco spiked with some peppery perique.

My original intention here was to just create perique, and I think I got pretty close to that, but then I realized that there’s a reason people don’t really smoke perique all by itself- it’s pretty intense.

There’s a somewhat fermented dark fruit taste with a peppery kick. For the dark fruit, I put a little splash of INW Dark for Pipe. To get a little bit of that fermented taste, FA Liquid Amber just seemed to make sense. To get a little bit of spicy, peppery kick, I’ve got INW Black for Pipe, FLV Kentucky, and FA Black Pepper. The Kentucky also helps give a bit of depth and body.

VAPers are pretty popular blends, so I figured I’d toss in some sweet Virginias. To get some authentic tobacco leaf taste in there, I went with the INW Virginia Tobacco Absolute. To get things a little sweeter, I went with HS Virginia. I think FLV Virginia would also work pretty well here in place of the HS. They are pretty similar in taste, but the FLV might have a bit more bite to it.

Definitely required a nice, long steep. I tried this final version after about 10 days and prepared to go back to the drawing board. Got busy with other things and tried it after a month and it was perfect.