"On Burley" with "Perique and Other Specialty Burleys"

(added June 30, 2006)

By H. ‘Doc’ Burns, PhD

Burley tobacco is a straightforward, quite bland tasting, mainly American grown tobacco which is full bodied and mild in character. The two historically 'American' types of tobaccos for commercial use, ('American' in the way the American evolved tobacco is grown, cured and produced), are the 'American Mixture', a cut Burley Plug mixed with flake Virginia, and the straight Burley Plug itself.

Originally, the Burley grown in tobacco states like Kentucky, Virginia and Ohio were varieties called Red Burley, Little Burley, Twist Bud and Burley. About the beginning of the War Between the States, a mutation of the leaf was grown and became known as White Burley. George Webb, of Brown County, Ohio, brought home some Little Burley seeds he bought in Virginia's Brachen County, and planted them. Where he expected the early green leaves of Little Burley, he discovered a creamy coloured young crop. Believing they were bad seeds, or diseased, he destroyed the fields. This was 1864, and due to the beginning of war, seeds were in short supply the next year, so he sowed the remainder of the 'bad' seeds, and hoped for a normal crop. He was dismayed to see the odd creamy seedlings. Harvesting the crop in hopes of getting something for it from the buyers and hopefully purchase some proper seed, he was surprised to find the buyers liked this light bodied, fine textured leaf, which produced a milder smoke than the standard Burleys of Ohio. It wasn't long before White Burley was almost the only Burley leaf being grown and by the mid-1870s, it was the most popular filler in Plug, became the main ingredient of American cigarettes and the base for most American tobacco blends.

Compared with contemporary flue-cured Virginia, which has the highest sugar content of all the main tobaccos, Burley's bland taste is due to a low sugar content in it's chemical make-up. It, something like tofu, absorbs large amounts of the flavours with which it's blended-other tobaccos, natural and artificial 'toppings' or 'casing', known as its "drinking quality". This, its fine texture and good burning quality has made it America's most popular tobacco. It is now grown throughout the tobacco growing States, making up 30% of the U.S. crop and is now grown in Canada, Mexico, Italy, Spain, Greece, Brazil, some Central African countries and Japan.

Burley is available now in cake, cube cut, sliced plug, or, most popular, cut, crushed and 'ready rubbed' plug, With its bland taste, it is almost always flavoured by the manufacturers, and except for the original aroma and taste, straight Burleys are very similar smokes, although, depending upon the grade of leaf and manufacturing process, it can widely vary in smoothness. When not carefully produced and aged, Burley can be overly robust or even harsh, and tends to be flavourless, but top leaf, when well matured, can be an exceptionally mellow, slow burning, mildly flavoured all day smoke. It's slow burning properties, especially the coarse or broad cut versions, makes it a very good 'outdoor' smoke.

These days, Burley is the favourite base for flavoured or what are now popularly called 'Aromatic' tobaccos, ("Aromatic" properly refers to Oriental blends), mixed with varying grades of flake or ribbon-cut Virginias, and sometimes blended with Cavendish, Black Cavendish, Latakia, and/or Turkish tobacco. These mostly American-produced mixtures, made from highest quality leaf and expertly blended can be excellent. The lower end Burley based blends are mediocre, at best. Based on lightly flavoured, mild Burley, only top-flight quality ingredients and Burley's body can save the blends, known, high end or low, as 'American' blends. Burley has found a great following as a high-end tobacco in its own right among pipe smokers, especially since its use and distribution in Danish and Dutch blends. In the past few years, Danish companies, such as Mac Baren, have adopted White Burley, and using the highest quality available in the U.S. and various other countries, have created Burley based blends which sell very well and can command an upgrade price.

I use Burley in my own blends, but with a larger ratio of single and blended Virginias, to give the blend a richer, fuller base. I then tweak it with small amounts of Perique, Turkish, Latakia, Black, (unflavoured, unsweetened), Cavendish or other quality flavouring tobaccos, (I use no 'toppings' or 'casings' nor tobaccos which contain them). Two of the most popular of my 'house blends' have a substantial amount of Burley in the blends; 'Burns' Blend No. 3', or 'Pub Blend', in which the Burley takes the edge off the other tobaccos in the mix, thus, although full bodied and flavoured for the smoker, it has a friendly and pleasant 'room note', making it acceptable, even attractive to others about, (obviously blended before smoking it in pubs, the places created and crafted over the centuries as a place to meet friends and neighbours for a "pipe and a pint", or a "bowl and a beverage" became a Crime Against the State), and 'Burns' Blend No. 96', for outdoor pursuits such as fishing, sailing, backpacking or working outside--for all day smoking, and enjoying, as the highest quality coarse-cut Burley component smokes easily but slowly, not allowing the breeze to smoke it away and complimenting the outdoor smells of trees and water.

Perique and Other Specialty Burleys

Perique

Perique is, to my taste, the gem of 'spice' or 'flavouring' tobaccos. There will be a large number of pipe smokers, particularly Latakiaholics, who will vehemently disagree with this, but I believe no one can say that it isn't a unique and defining tobacco when added to a blend, be it with its most popular companions, Virginias, or added to Balkans and Orientals as a contrast to Turkish and Latakia tobaccos. Perique has a full-bodied, strong taste, often described as peppery, with a subtle undertone of figs, and is dark, almost black, curly, and oily looking on its own. It adds to whatever it's put with, a smooth fullness and lift in strength. It is used largely in combination with Virginias in ratios of less than 5% up to a potent 25%, producing a blend, which is beautifully complimented in flavour. The pH of Perique is quite acidic which balances the alkaline Virginia, reducing or removing one contributor to the 'tongue bite' so many find with VAs. Personally, I haven't had my tongue 'bitten' in over two decades, probably more, I just can't remember, even though I smoke VAs (and some Burley and Orientals), almost exclusively, especially the past few years since the pendulum swing between all English/Balkan blends and all VAs, each for varying amounts of time in my 35+ years of pipe smoking, has seemingly stuck on the VA side. and have always invariably smoked Virginia/Perique blends, my personal favourite mélange, year round. It is my belief and experience that smoking practices give one 'tongue bite', and though some tobaccos and blends' 'biting tendencies' are probably more exacerbated by these practices, "The fault, dear BoB, is not in our Dark Star, but in ourselves...". Still, I too much prefer a smooth blend over a harsh one, and VA/Periques can be among the smoothest.

Perique is a Red Burley, which only grows successfully in a small, wedge shaped piece of land west of New Orleans called St. James' Parish. Within St. James' Parish, the best, and only current location the Red Burley for Perique is grown, is a relatively tiny place called Grande Point Ridge, near Paullina, LA. A dark alluvial soil, (soil deposited by floods receding over the æons), found there, luxuriant and fertile, is known as Magnolia soil. This soil and the climate are perfect, and practically unique for growing the Red Burley for Perique. Growers have tried sowing the Red Burley seed, taken from plants in St. James, in places all over the world with similar climate and soil conditions without any significant success other than in the Kentucky Green River Valley, which can be grown in larger crops, and is processed to make Perique. Though not of the same quality, the St. James' Perique is rare, thus Green River is used in many blends. Some of the tobacco growing African countries have had limited success with the process, and the Perique made from these crops find their way into some of the lower priced, lower quality blends on the market, often for it's "name value" in the descriptions.

The refined process used today to produce Perique begins with air drying, though for a shorter time than standard White Burley, stripping the main veins then the leaves are tied into 'torquettes' or tight bundles. These are pressed in large oak barrels with very heavy pressure, the 'juices' being collected as they seep out of the top of the press. The torquettes are turned and returned to the press a number of times over the better part of a year, fermenting "anaerobically", or without air. The whole process takes a year at the very minimum and is highly labour intensive in relation to other strains of tobacco. This, in combination with land area constricting crop size makes Perique rare, and the best, very expensive.

With a process created in pre-Columbian times, the Choctaw and Chickasaw natives of Louisiana used the particular Red Burley to make a strong, high nicotine content, strongly flavoured tobacco by using hollow logs and poles to press the harvested tobacco, allowing it to steep in its own juices and ferment. There are two stories of the appropriation of this process to make Perique, though they are similar enough to possibly be the same story with a few of the details confused. In one, a French Colonist, named Pierre Chemot, observed this process in the 1750s, refined it and sent the result to France. Perique was apparently M. Chemot's nickname.

The other story is slightly less suspect, though either, or both could be complete fiction, historical truth, or, most likely having elements of both.

In the mid 18th century, after the Acadians reached Louisiana from Maritime Canada and began to settle, becoming known as 'Cajuns', a French colonist, Pierre Chenet, seeking aboriginal medicines, was taught the method by the Choctaws. He refined the process, and sent the product to France. "Perique" was apparently Chenet's nickname as well. The name probably came from 'prique', a Cajun variation of 'prick', used by dock workers referring to the long bundles of Perique, called 'carottes', awaiting shipment, and their phallic appearance. To whomever the nickname belonged, Perique is one of the stars in the tobacco world, whether added to English, Balkan or Oriental blends, often as a smoothing element and finishing touch, or to Virginias, in my opinion it's highest calling. When properly blended, one shouldn't be able to taste it as a Virginia with Perique, but as an entity in itself, neither Virginia, nor Perique, a unique tobacco, and well worth discovering.

A friend, Tyler Lane, (of Tyler Lane Pipes) sent me this account of his visit to Percy Farms the summer of 2004:

"It was quite a treat to sit with [Percy] in his living room and ask him questions about my favorite spice tobacco, Perique. I learned all sorts of interesting things, most of which I have already forgotten. "The highlight of the time was a trip out to the curing barn, where one of his sons raked about 5 lbs. of Perique out of a barrel for me to buy on the spot. (I had only asked for, and was charged for, 2 lbs.) The barrel mine was pulled from was the 2000 crop. When the screw press was twisted out of the barrel to access the tobacco, there was a layer of waxed paper that had to be removed from the top. Amazingly, it was virtually impossible to tell the waxed paper from the tobacco. After 4 years, they both had the same color and texture. To remove the tobacco, a big hook was used, and it wasn't until the tar paper like substance in the barrel started separating into wrinkly leaf shapes, as it was drawn from the barrel, that this substance would be recognized for the tobacco that we love. The smell of that barrel and barn will be with me forever. (As will my fear that it the barn would fall on my head at any minute! This is NOT a high dollar operation.)"

The premiere Louisiana Perique is in a precarious situation. With limited crop area and as a labour intensive, specialty market product, Percy Martin Farms is the only farm still growing and producing Perique full time in Grande Pointe Ridge, the area with the best of the "Magnolia Soil" needed to grow the specific Red Burley for the St. James' Parish treasure. In the late 1990s, the Martin farm suffered two years of very poor crop conditions. Without a partnership formed in 1999, with the Nichols and Brown Company of New Orleans, it was feared that Percy Martin would stop production, leaving the small, (but important to we enthusiasts), market to modest farms producing Red Burley as a fraction of their crop, possibly without a facility to properly process the Perique. The stability offered with this partnership, along with renewed interest from cigarette and pipe tobacco companies after the possibility of the end of Perique production in the area, will perhaps bring other farmers in the area back to Perique, but with the labour involved compared to the return, the future of Grande Pointe Ridge Perique remains in some doubt.

Addenda

Percy Martin Farms and Nichols & Brown have reached and agreement and they now represent the operation. I have attempted to contact M. Martin to discover how he, his family and farm faired during and after the recent hurricane disaster, after excess rains spoiled about 60% of his 2004 crop, with the 2005 crop not fairing much better. There has also been word of his selling 100% of the processed Perique from the 2003 and 2004 crops to the cigarette company that makes "American Spirit" cigarettes. Without yet receiving a promised answer from the Percy Farms reps, Nichols & Brown, LLC, I will be making contact within the next few days and will add whatever I learn to this article when I get through.

Kentucky

I have been doing some research on Kentucky tobacco. For the most part, those tobaccos named Kentucky are White Burley, but with a difference. While most Burley is air cured, Kentucky Burley is dark fire cured, giving it a fuller, deeper flavour and colour and a higher nicotine content than most Burleys. In reading agricultural reports from Kentucky and from North Carolina State University, it seems the growers there have been busy and are almost ready to register some Kentucky varietals as a new type of Burley. As quality Burley is such a useful and enriching colour on the blender's palette, and the use of dark fire curing in Kentucky has added so much to a number of blends I particularly enjoy, (notably Greg Pease's 'Cumberland', Peterson 'University Flake', Orlik's 'Kentucky', etc.), a true Kentucky Burley varietal will be welcomed. They can't be that far off, as such tobacco-growing countries such as Malawi, Zimbabwe and Brazil have been importing Kentucky Burley seed, and the leaf used greatly by companies like Gawith & Hoggarth.

Mahogany

As St. James, Louisiana's Perique is a specially grown and processed Red Burley, and Cyprian Latakia is specially smoke cured Smyrna or Izmer tobacco grown in Cyprus, Mahogany is particularly grown and processed, usually from Kentucky Burley seed. However, unlike the dark, fire cured Kentucky, it is air cured then lightly fermented. Mahogany leaf is picked late in the season from mature plants, and is sometimes treated with a second fermentation process, deepening its dark red-brown colour and interesting flavour.

Sometimes used for cigar flavouring, like a lot of 'Dark Tobaccos', Mahogany is a useful and enchanting flavouring tobacco, very aromatic and unique, though generally used in limited amounts, partially due to its high nicotine content. Adding to the usual confusion surrounding tobacco terms is the common use of "mahogany" as a description of tobacco colour, often referring to darker red and orange Virginias.