If you are like me, you've been sitting on your last stash of Gold for Pipe, saving it for your "classic" GfP recipes and nostalgia. Why mix a recipe or develop a new one with a discontinued flavor, one might ask? Because I was in a mood and knew exactly what I wanted. Let's dig in.

Concept

I wanted a bacco blend, I knew that much. I settled on something Pipe and thought let's try to make it a blend of light and dark, leaning darker and add some sweet aromatics to it with just a little spiciness. SnV would be a bonus but a short steep would suffice.

Ole Tyme Pipe

| % | Vendor | Flavor | |---|--------|--------| |0.5|FLV|Arabian Tobacco| |0.5|INW|Classic For Pipe Dark| |1.5|INW|Classic For Pipe Gold| |3|FA|Soho| |2|INW|Vanilla For Pipe|

I knew I wanted to start with Gold for Pipe, but I wanted to lean away from the gold, bright or lighter flavors. I decided to pair it with Dark for Pipe. I figured this would be a seamless blend. DfP is such a lovely, rich pipe flavor; it brings that touch of dark fruit and a richness that would suit the pairing and only pull the GfP down a little bit. Thinking this is a nice enough base to work from, I contemplated choices for an additional tobacco. With nothing striking me as an obvious choice, I decided to use my favorite 'additive', FLV Arabian. This brings a little 'zing' and a hint of ash that Black for Pipe has but Dark really doesn't. I figured it might add some sharpness to the aromatics and leave a bit of a lingering taste in the finish.

With the tobacco layer in place, I tried to think about how sweet I wanted to take this. I wanted what seems like a medium sweet compromise for me: vanilla and depth of flavor. To that end, I opted for Vanilla for Pipe. A no-brainer for an aromatic pipe blend anywhere, it just works so well with the other Classic for Pipe flavors that there was no question really. It adds a clear and distinct vanilla note but the extra woodiness and muskiness plays in perfectly to bring it all together into a more musky flavor and smooth over the edges between the flavors.

I decided to hedge my bet a bit with SoHo here. I knew that anything added to these might stick out so I wanted something really capable of enriching the whole mix in the background. Any RY4 could do this job, but none as silently as SoHo. RY4 would bring extra notes that could add complexity in different ways.

Possible Subs

Subbing for GfP seems counterintuitive. How could you sub the featured flavor that the whole recipe is based around? Easy, you just don't have it. So, you'd have to sub. Yes, I am sharing a recipe with a discontinued flavor. I hope that in the development notes, something can be gleaned from the casual mixer who may want to have a springboard to work from to develop their own personalized blend. And, well, this is formulaic enough that something should produce similar enough results.

So, subbing for GfP, naturally we'd lose some of the decent pipe flavor but I think one could mix and match anything somewhat pipe-y to get a nice midrange bacco blend. Going with what's most widely available, I'd probably want something like Kentucky Blend 1.25 / Virginia 0.5 / Am4A 0.3 and scale up or down to match with DfP, but that's a bit of a guess. I don't have enough experience with that combo to know how exactly to make that work. I have tried to make a sub for GfP with Gold Ducat and Am4A before and it wasn't quite there so that's on you to comment on if you have a GfP sub, fam.

On the other hand, the Dark for Pipe here is more essential in my opinion. It's that 'secret weapon' flavor that bends whatever bacco blend you use to drag it down into that bit of richness which plays off the other parts. An obvious sub would be to go bolder, but use less, of Black for Pipe if that's on hand. You could also try building your own 'lighter' version with VT Red Dates cranked up to 2+ and something darker to pair with it. I would put anything musky here: FLV Sweet Cigarette, Sweet and Smokey, a really light touch of FLV Cavendish (like 0.2%) with something else to fill it out, or some of the SC/FE Flavors like Cohiba or Cigar. If using Cigar, however, I'd consider swapping out the SoHo for TPA RY4D because that is indeed a very nice combo. Lastly, A touch of Tobacco Absolute here could go a long way to making this over the top with just about anything you decide to put here to fill it out.

Arabian is a bit of a different story altogether. It's here as an ashy additive and a spice accent (yes at 0.5% you pansies). I find that VT Bakery Spice works really well to spice a mix and would likely work wonders here, if making it less aggressively bacco overall. Maybe add a bit of DNB if you feel it's missing that element?

The VfP is a tough one. If you do try to sub this one, you may find some of the 'fullness' gets lost so make sure what you use has the 'textural' element that will bring you some depth. My top choice would be FLV Smooth Vanilla for the added muskiness that it brings (making it not really shake and vape; I give You'll also likely get a bit of creaminess that will probably play well with the SoHo so maybe lean into that and try TPA French Vanilla Deluxe, the obvious INW Shisha Vanilla, or any Vanilla Custard, really, will do.

SoHo is unique. It adds AP, sweetness, and depth. Doesn't mean it can't be replaced, however. Sub away this one if you want to. I think this part has the greatest potential to add some richness and potentially lift the mix up to new levels. If you care to wait, try FLV RY4. If you have a bias towards any specific RY4, this is your slot for personalization. There's also room to use a nuttier bacco flavor and lean more into that layer: Red Burley 0.4%, FM Light Tobacco, FM Bourbon Tobacco, INW 555 Gold, INW Tobacco Symphony, any of the AP heavy Hangsen or SC/FE baccos. And/or even any of your regular bacco pairings. Here are mine: WF Hazelnuts and Cream, FLV Milk & Honey, FW Hazelnut, Buttrip, WF Caramel Rice Crispy Treat, WF Pralines and Cream.

Final Thoughts

The mix, as it stands, is lovely. It's exactly what I wanted. That said, why offer a million alternatives? Because, goddamnit, we mix! We try new things that spark us to try newer things. Keep not smoking, people. Also, I offer a thousand alternatives for u/T-A-R-A-X so he can figure out a way to make it all better ;)

-i