Lane Limited 1-Q

Less icky than BCA, but not my idea of what tobacco was intended for. It is the McDonald's cheeseburger of tobaccos. It is like eating, and cheap but ultimately rather unsatisfying compared to grown-up food. For all that it does smell rather pleasant and isn't as bad as some tobaccos. If you need a sweet introduction to tobacco here you go.

Sometimes you just want a no nonsense tobacco to throw in your pipe and go. I see a place for easy smoking, relaxing, “all day” smokes in my rotation. I cut my teeth on Bur/Va/Cav blends such as Captain Black - Original so I always have a bit of nostalgia for these kind of aromatics.

I think the absence of burley makes this blend age slightly better than some aromatics I’ve had. In my experience, burley ages a blend like fine milk so it’s absence makes this a good blend to cellar. It mostly just melds the flavors together a bit more so don’t expect anything exceptional from the aging, but at least it won’t ruin the blend and make it taste like ash and dust.

The topping is neither light nor heavy and sits comfortably in that Goldilocks “just right” zone. The vanilla and caramel come through more than anything else, but you can still taste tobacco, unlike some heavier aromatics I’ve tried. The Virginia gives this blend a light but solid enough body that a lot of aromatics seem to lack. Between the warm vanilla and rich caramel I occasionally get some light notes of citrus, grass and hay. The cavendish doesn’t take up too much of the mixture and only comes through as a rare (but welcome) note of dusty old cellar. The overall blend has a warm toasty, bread like undertone that comes through more toward the middle and bottom of the bowl.

Overall, this is a good all day blend that you can maybe get away with smoking indoors. It smokes nice and cool and has a good amount of smoke in spite of the lack of burley. Good for something light in the morning and pairs well with coffee. I always make sure to keep a few ounces of this lying around, even if I don’t smoke it everyday.

I tried Lane 1Q at the urging of a friend and based on reviews and I was quite pleased! Easily a daily smoke, I buy this in bulk and love it. Folks around always have a positive comment on its aroma. Its mild in the nicotine department and I recommend it to new pipe smokers regularly.

I love this tobacco. No particular part of it stands out, but it is a good solid mix of tobaccos, that burns cool, and has absolutely no tongue bite. It is really a great all day smoke and lends a great aroma to wherever you are smoking. It is, after all, the number one selling bulk pipe tobacco in the country.

My wife bought my first pipe for me for Christmas along with three samples of tobacco. Lane 1Q under a local tobacconist's label was one of them. I instantly loved it and after trying and liking a huge variety of tobaccos, I still love it.

It is smooth, flavorful, has the best room note, and burns to the bottom of the bowl with ease. I have my first pipe, a Wiley freehand, with a large bowl dedicated to it.

I like it so much, I keep a pound in the cellar.

Simply a great tobacco. I bought it first from justforhim.com under the name of "just for him" tobacco. It has deep hints of vanilla and maybe caramel, and its aroma is delightful. This is definitely a good evening smoke with a cup of tea. It also works well as cigarette tobacco for all you RYO's out there.

I actually buy quite a bit of this. It is handy to have a blend that visitors can remark "Now that smells very nice"... though I always suspect they actually mean "Your other tobaccos smell very bad!".

But occasionally I just want something bland when I'm alone even, so I have to say, even though this is kind of the "newbie" blend, I actually do poke it into a pipe and smoke it... often the first smoke of the day.

But the main reason I use so much is that I can use it to cut other blends if they're a little too strong for me or if I need a little "figgier" texture. I keep two bowls* of Larry's Blend Latakia, for instance, one at full strength and one cut 25% with 1Q (infidel!!). It also mixes well with Louisiana Red and comes out close to Anniversary Kake with a little more punch at around half and half!

I smoke a lot of pipes each day and my tastes change rapidly, so this particular inexpensive blend helps me give myself a wider variety.

Update 7/15/07: Well last night I had another fortunate accident while dishing out a sample of 1Q for a beginning friend. I put a quarter cup of 1Q in the envelope, thought a while and then reached up to get my bowl to give him another 1/4 cup... but accidentally grabbed the trout stream which was sitting next to the 1Q (at a glance they look a lot alike). I should have smelled the butterscotch scent of the trout stream but somehow wasn't paying enough attention... ended up with a new mix that wow golly I really like! Trout Queue... I love it! Already smoked 4 loads of this stuff today and it's only 3pm. Tell ya what, if you want to really help a newbie find a blend he can make all by himself, this will be a good one. The full blown trout stream tends to get a little hot midway and lose its fullness... somehow the 1Q picks it up and runs the rest of the way to the goal and does a back flip!

*I keep my bulk blends in 2-cup Pyrex bowls with a snap-on lid. These stack nicely and are clear on the sides so I can easily identify them in the stack, and I simply tape the name of the tobacco on top of the lid. Makes it very easy to load my pipe right over the bowl.

This is not what I think of as a tobacco. It looks like tobacco but I really don't taste anything other than an occasional whips of vanilla. Don't expect this to help if you need a Nick hit either. I did finish my 2oz. bulk but I usually smoke outside at night. This blend has to be smoked during the day so you know if it is lit or not (OK that might be extreme but it makes the point)!

There isn't much more for me to say about this blend that hasn't been said already. I do have an interesting story about 1Q and am wondering if anybody has heard this rumor. I used to get custom blended tobacco from a guy that had a smoke shop from the 50's to the 80's and then he was blending in his garage in his house. The story goes that Lane blended this tobacco for President Eisenhower. They named it 1Q for the public but named it 'Ike' internally for when he would have it ordered. I dont know if this is true or not but I heard it from a couple of old timers that knew alot about the pipe business and its golden age.