It’s strange how things twist and turn as we go along. About a year ago, we talked to Dunhill about bringing back some of their old blends, one in particular was a Latakia blend that was only sold in their stores. It derived its name from the comment “…smooth as a b___’s b____m.”, but we were told that they couldn’t reintroduce it because of the name referencing an infant. The other blends they discussed with us never sold very well in the past, so we decided to pass on them. So many people have written us over the years about that old Latakia blend that we set out to find a tin. I had smoked it long ago, and would have continued to enjoy it if I had easier access to a Dunhill store, but it was so long ago that my memory of what it was like had faded. We finally tracked one down and I got to work trying to recreate the blend. After a couple of months, I felt pretty good about the blend. Imagine our surprise when we heard that Dunhill was bringing the blend back with a name change. They were going to call it BB1938. Why they weren’t willing to do this six months earlier is beyond me, but I had already done the work, so we decided to release our version as one of our MATCH blends.
The description of the original said that it was mostly red Virginia, with some bright and yellow, and a fair amount of Latakia, so that’s exactly what I used in our blend. It turned out to be, as was the sample I worked with, a very smooth blend in which the Virginias and Latakia are in real harmony. It’s sweet and smoky and remarkably smooth. I completely understood why people wanted to see it return. I feel that it’s a pretty faithful reproduction, and we decided to release it as a bulk blend to make it more affordable. Give it a try and let us know what you think.
Bloody Brits huh! This is however a fantastic development for your match Blends market and I wish you all the best with it Russ!! I think its just great that these old blends are being made available to the younger guys who deserve to experience the greatness that they all were in their heyday. I just wish the folks at P&C would revisit shipping to outside of the U.S and include the pipe smoking brothers who deserve to get a crack at these unique and great tobaccos which are not available anywhere but at P&C. I suppose finding a local Dunhill store would be similar in its frustrating reality so I guess you know how I feel about that as well. – It Sucks. Best Regards, John.
John, we’re having ongoing talks about international shipping. It’s not that we don’t want to do it, but past bad experiences have made people a little gun-shy, and I understand their concerns. We’re still working on it and I hope that someday soon we’ll begin shipping outside the US again.
Thanks Russ, I know we’ve touched on this subject in the past and I know you are doing what you can so thanks vey much for that indeed. When / If it ever gets done, I’ll be the first guy in line. – Cheers, John.