Tabacos Wilder Finamore Ltda Irlandez Traditional

This is one of two ¨Traditional¨ (the other two available being chocolate flavoured) drugstore blends available in Brazil, a country not quite known for its history of pipesmoking. For good reason, as it doesnt have one. These drugstore tobaccos are strictly a way for tobacco stores to keep the sale of pipes (for use in smoking cannabis) legal. So dont expect much from this tobacco. Ive smoked 250 grams of the stuff (I had for some reason only brought 1 100g tin with me from Europe, to last 4 months), so I know my way around it. It changes a lot in the first couple of days after opening the pouch, in a good way. When you first get it it is somewhat moist, and has either a lovely scent of rum and chocolate, or a sickly sweet perfumed aroma. If you have a pack with the rum/chocolate smell, that will over the course of one or two days turn into the perfumed one. The perfumed topping proceeds to dissappear over the next few days. As this topping is decidedly disgusting, it is recommended to open the pack a few days before smoking. The tobacco packs fairly well, but is somewhat perturbed by the concept of being lit, which can be a bit of a pain, but after intitial lighting it will proceed to smoke without relights for approx. a half bowl. Taste notes (when the perfume is gone), go from an ashy unpleasant sensation, over to a quite pleasant sweet, tangy, nutty flavour. Asides from this, it likes biting. Not that much, but any puffing of a more then medium rate will get you bit, and even a medium rate will get you a tingle of the tongue, that doesnt quite dissappear if puffing even slower. The ashy unpleasant taste, along with the bite can be minimized by smoking this blend in a meer. This is by far my preferred way of smoking it, as i can easily retain the nuttyness, without the unpleasant (bad virginia induced i believe) taste, resulting in a rather nice smoke for the first half bowl. After the first half, the tastes stack, and so do the humidifiers apparently. This results in an ashen unpleasant taste (lets call it cigarette, but actually its worse), along with difficulty in keeping the pipe lit. For this reason I recommend you use a shallow wide bowl, and simply chuck the tobacco out when this occurs. All in all this procedure should result in an actually somewhat pleasant experience (which is why i havent stopped smoking for my stay here), and gets a ¨somewhat recommended¨. It is a far cry from proper tobacco, but it can, with proper procedure, be a pleasant smoke, and is infinately preferable to the second brand of ¨traditional¨ tobacco available. That blend simply tastes of bite, any time, every time. Couldnt smoke for a week.

My highest recommendation however, goes to not running out of baccy in brazil. Or smoking cigars. there is an ok shortfiller robusto available everywhere at a buck a piece. But really... Take enough baccy with you.

Yours sincerely Jonathan.

ps. Buy your drugstore pipe to smoke it in at home. The brazilian drugstore pipes are bored with a 2mm airway, hitting the chamber approx. half a centimeter above the bottom of the bowl. Aside from this, they are not made from briar, but a local hardwood.