Bespoke cigarettes

[chatterton]

I have seen the Ian Fleming's exhibition lately, and I've discovered that he used to smoke bespoke cigarettes. Is it possible to commision some in London these days?

[storeynicholas]

Morland (Fleming's brand) and Sullivan Powell have gone. B&H (which, I think bought out SP - formerly in the Burlington Arcade where the pen shop now is) no longer have their Bond Street shop and it is unlikely that you would readily get bespoke cigarettes unless Dunhill or perhaps Davidoff would oblige. But you would probably have to order in very large quantities to persude them to do it. When Sullivan Powell's Oriental Cigarettes were banned, as they each contained over 15mg of tar, they disappeared overnight. I have an ebony holder which I had made with exactly their guage and serves as a reminder of those sweetly-scented cigarettes. Afterwards, some people got their cigarettes from Turkey direct (as Turkey was unaffected by the EU regulations) and, presumably, one could get them made there now from selected tobaccos. The playwright John Osborne wrote a thundering good letter to The Times, in protest at the ban; The Times published a Thundering Good (and very Humorous) Leader in support of his position and several people wrote to congratulate him on his letter. He said that he received so many free big boxes from Turkish cigarette makers as a result that he would probably never have to buy a cigarette again!
NJS

[chatterton]

Thank you very much, I must admit that your erudition is quite astonishing.

[storeynicholas]

It's just a question of being old enough to remember the shops and to have sampled the products. l left a blue box of B&H oval Cairo cigarettes at a friend's house many years ago and, years later, when I visited, I ran out of cigarettes and, to my delight, he (a non-smoker), produced this box, still with some in! There were once several great brands of oriental cigarettes - Abdullah and Passing Cloud and so on. One important point that Osborne made was that he smoked only 2 or 3 oriental cigarettes a day as a restrained pleasure and it is true that Sullivans were not cigarettes that one would chain smoke - mind you Fleming used to order 600 Morlands a week.
NJS

[Guille]

NJS,

I'm sorry for changing the topic of this thread, but given your cognoscenti knowledge on the topic of tobacco, I wanted to ask you something I've wondered occasionaly. I'm only a cigar smoker, so my knowledge about this is quite limited and I hope my questions don't seem ridiculous.

I buy my cigars in the best tobacconist's in Madrid, he specializes in cigars and pipes. Looking around his store I see lots of pipe tobacco packs from different brands, and in some I read 'tabaco de pipa' (pipe tobacco) and in others it says 'tabaco de liar' (translated as 'rolling tobacco', I think). I don't really differentiate them, although I know pipe tobacco is for pipes and rolling tobacco is for self-made cigarrettes (or whatever you call them in english).

I wanted to ask you (or anyone here who knows) what the difference is between both? Physically, chemically, and qualitatively what are their differences? Or are they really the same only that pipe tobacco is flavoured (I believe) and rolling tobacco isn't? Also, could you use either for each other's task, that is, rolling tobacco with a pipe, pipe tobacco for rolling cigarrettes, or this is an abomination of common sense?

Sorry if the questions are quite stupid, I just couldn't find any web page with good information about this, and once I heard someone say that he rolled cigarrettes with pipe tobacco, and that confused me.

Also, I wanted to thank you for sharing your knowledge of oriental cigarrettes and tobacco in general.

[storeynicholas]

Tobacco is a big subject - not altogether a popular one - just how much do you want to know?

[marcelo]

I would like to join Guille in the attempt to obtain some more knowledge on this subject matter, fully aware of the lack of popularity this theme has proved to have in some recent threads.

[storeynicholas]

I would like to join Guille in the attempt to obtain some more knowledge on this subject matter, fully aware of the lack of popularity this theme has proved to have in some recent threads.

A potted description of tobacco? There should be a health warning and an 'Abandon Hope' sign, then. But I 'll see what I can put together.
NJS

[JRLT]

My father used to smoke Cairo and I remember wistfully the beautiful blue box and smell. Can you still buy them anywhere in the world I wonder? So sad that the UK government has imposed these ridiculous bans and limits. Equally fondly I remember Gauloises, Disque Blue and Gitanes, all in their filterless soft packets. Now I just smoke the occasional pipe and cigar. Are cigarettes really as addictive as is claimed? I could always take them or leave them, so I chose to leave them. Regular smoking was something I always felt might become a habit rather than a need.

As to the question of pipe vs cigarette tobacco, I have always thought that cigarette tobacco has chemicals added to help it to burn independently without the smoker having to puff away constantly. It is of course also cut thinner and I suspect, for that reason, would burn too fast to be suitable for one's pipe.[/i]

[storeynicholas]

I am fairly sure that Cairo aren't available - although I have to say that it is possible that the marque and the machinery were sold off. It was EU regulations that finished them off in the UK. The thick blue boxes and the thick tissue paper inside and the smell, as you say - opulent, luxurious and very enjoyable. Somewhere I have John Osborne's letter to The Times and their Leader in response. I'll try to find them.
NJS

[storeynicholas]

I've found the leader and here is a scan. Putting the Osborne letter up would certainly stir up great controversy and so I omit it - although it is referred to. The date - approximately 1993.

[img][img]http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg55 ... dImage.jpg[/img]

NJS[/img]

[RWS]

. . . . Putting the Osborne letter up would certainly stir up great controversy and so I omit . . . .

No, please do show it to us. I'd quite like to read it, and few men can be more opposed to tobacco than I -- and I am solely because I wish neither to be obliged to smoke nor to be forced (through taxes, chiefly; I omit the harm to GNP, &c.) to pay for the impaired health of those who do smoke: each person should have a legal right (just as, I think, each has a moral charge) to "work out his own salvation".

[Guille]

Tobacco is a big subject - not altogether a popular one - just how much do you want to know?

I'm tempted to answer "everything", but I fear the consequences and connotations of that word. So I will just say that I want to know a lot, without restrains on the healthy issue or others. I want to know for example if you inhale oriental cigarettes to smoke them, or smoke them to the throad, like cigars and pipes? I want to know for example, what do oriental cigarettes contain, only tobacco, other plants, or also chemicals? Because I might be interested in trying them. Also, I've heard people talk about cigars with filters, do you know anything about them?

JRLT, thanks for your answers. But I don't mean cigarette tobacco from common cigarettes, I mean own-rolled cigarettes, isn't that made with pure tobacco, I believe the packs I've seen with them said so, but I'm not sure, I might be wrong. Also, what about rolling a cigarette with pipe tobacco, would that burn to slow, or would it be fine? Would it be inhale-able or not?

[storeynicholas]

. . . . Putting the Osborne letter up would certainly stir up great controversy and so I omit . . . .

No, please do show it to us. I'd quite like to read it, and few men can be more opposed to tobacco than I -- and I am solely because I wish neither to be obliged to smoke nor to be forced (through taxes, chiefly; I omit the harm to GNP, &c.) to pay for the impaired health of those who do smoke: each person should have a legal right (just as, I think, each has a moral charge) to "work out his own salvation".

It's not controversy over smoking so much as over regulation by the EU and I think that I have agreed not to bring politics in here, so I shan't ( especially so soon) forget! However, the letter is in the records of The Times....
NJS

[storeynicholas]

Tobacco is a big subject - not altogether a popular one - just how much do you want to know?

I'm tempted to answer "everything", but I fear the consequences and connotations of that word. So I will just say that I want to know a lot, without restrains on the healthy issue or others. I want to know for example if you inhale oriental cigarettes to smoke them, or smoke them to the throad, like cigars and pipes? I want to know for example, what do oriental cigarettes contain, only tobacco, other plants, or also chemicals? Because I might be interested in trying them. Also, I've heard people talk about cigars with filters, do you know anything about them?

JRLT, thanks for your answers. But I don't mean cigarette tobacco from common cigarettes, I mean own-rolled cigarettes, isn't that made with pure tobacco, I believe the packs I've seen with them said so, but I'm not sure, I might be wrong. Also, what about rolling a cigarette with pipe tobacco, would that burn to slow, or would it be fine? Would it be inhale-able or not?

Guille, maybe, if you set out all your questions in a single list, all interested can then give their answers and that way, there is no surplusage to wade through.
NJS