John Middleton, Inc Carter Hall

Ahhh. Carter Hall. 

I think the romanticizing of old classic blends gets a little tedious. I'm of the opinion that the present day is just fine to be a pipe smoker, with houses like G.L. Pease and McClelland and Cornell & Diehl doing their thing, let alone the golden oldies still around, like Sam Gawith et al. Pipe smokers, I think, evolve with the times, and there will always be quality blenders making quality blends as long as people don't get too attached to the bygones.

But... Carter Hall.  It's still here. You don't scour eBay for a vintage tin and plunk down 150 dollars for 50 grams. You don't set up an alert on your preferred site in hopes of scoring the one tin that 2,000 other people are also waiting for (*cough* Penzance *cough*).  You don't stockpile a stash and wait 5 years for it to age properly.  You throw in a tub with your order (I'm developing a fondness for these 14-oz tubs) and you smoke it right away, if you want.   The tin art is like everything else about this- utilitarian and plain. The sticker label on my can was lopsidedly adhered, which I found charming.  You pry open the homely tan canister, remove the cheap round of paper laid carelessly on top and take a long whiff of the tobacco. No wine, no figs, no dark fruit, no campfires; no alluring scent of pine or spice. The smell is only exactly what you'd expect from the components and the topping. Cocoa from the burley-- not dark chocolate, but a sweet mild chocolate powder. Nutty, but a good plain nut: hazelnut, not almond. Some ripe banana, and a very slight chemical tone in the sweetness. A bit saccharine, but in a good way. The banana reminds me of the classic southern banana pudding, the kind with Nilla wafer cookies on top. The smell isn't strong or room-filling, but, boy, it's good. 

Don't bother drying it out, it's good to go. You don't fuss with packing technique, either. Not that I mind fussing; it's the fiddliness of the hobby that I enjoy so much. But you don't have to fiddle. You use the three-layer method, maybe. Even that seemed unnecessary with this tobacco. This is the first blend that I've ever successfully, workably packed by scooping with the pipe and twist-tamping with my finger. 

The burn is second to none.  Those smokes where you don't know the bowl is done until the draw is too loose-- that's this. White powdered ash, zero dottle. My Jobey Stromboli canadian, a good 7 inches in length, smoked like a champ. A bit hot in the bowl, but that's because of over-enthusiastic pulling. The long shank cooled everything down. When I slowed down like I should, a good hour and forty-five minute smoke ensued. Good, thick smoke. 

The flavor is all the best parts of a really good bourbon, without the bite of alcohol. Caramel, syrup, a bit of white sugar, some ripe banana. Milk chocolate from the burley, exactly what you expect from the tin note. Every puff brings the same thing, there's no development or narrative. The topping doesn't burn off (an admirable feat in itself); what you taste in the charring light is what you get on the last draw. And the sweetness lingers wonderfully in the mouth; an echo of smoke and white sugar. I hope all this verbiage doesn't impress upon you that this is a complex smoke. There's not a lot going on here in the smoking. Flavors don't weave in and out. It's just good, plain tobacco. I think this might make the perfect lawnmower smoke. It's not so complex that you have to sit down to contemplate it; it's a smoke you can enjoy with half a mind, if you've a mind to. On the other hand, it's a good smoke for lounging as well, because the flavors are just that good. It's not an "after-dinner smoke" in the vein of Nightcap, where you want to have something solid in your stomach to bolster you against the tobacco's strength, but it's an after-dinner smoke in the sense that it's sweet as a good dessert and not so complex that your palate will be fatigued by the smoke *and* the meal. The strength for me was a little higher than I expected; no headspin, but a little twinge in the stomach.  The mechanics are great; the cut, moisture and consistency combine to make this one of the few stuff-and-smoke blends I've ever tried. This does tend to leave my pipe a bit goopy, but pipe cleaners are cheap. 

Despite the bourbon flavors in the tobacco, I think a bourbon's complexities would be clouded by Carter Hall's sweetness. I paired it on several occasions with coffee (black for a bitter counterpoint or with a bit of almondmilk and sugar for sweet indulgence) or beer (a simple brown ale worked nicely), and I liked it just fine. 

Not every simple smoke is good and not every complex one is bad. And vice versa. The simplicity of a smoke (and pretty much anything else) isn't the measure of its quality. But this tobacco, for me, defines "good simplicity" the way Blackwoods Flake defines "good complexity". 

It's nice, as a new pipe smoker, (are you still "new" after 4 years of pretty occasional smoking?) to have a blend you can call a go-to. While I'm not that kind of smoker (I smoke only occasionally, as I said, and I always switch up my choice of leaf), if someone asked for a blend to call their regular, I'd recommend Carter Hall. If I were to become a daily smoker, Carter Hall would be on the shortlist for "my daily smoke". I can see why so many older smokers liked this; who knows, if I live to be an old codger myself, maybe this will become my blend of choice.