Tobacco
Sweet is the Rose’s scent—Tobacco’s smell
Is sweeter; wherefore let me charge again.
Old blackened meerschaum, I have loved thee well
From youth, when smoke brought sickness in its train.
Foolish I was: Manillas I disdained,
And cigarettes to Burmahs did prefer,
And even spumed Havana’s fragrant joy;
But now my mind is pained,
In that my smoking days I did defer,
Nor knew this pleasure when I was a boy.
Upon first char, there is a slight room note of ash from the pyre of Jan Hus, followed 150 years later by a hint of St. Bartholomew Huguenot blood. With the relight there comes an initial powerful note of Highland Cùmhnantaich. I also noted a distinct sinister taste which was probably Bloody Mary around 1559. As you smoke further, Knox and his followers smash the Papist idols; lower in the highlands of the bowl, you can hear the Covenanters sigh under Catholic/Anglican oppression.
The Virginias are partially settled and colonized, while the Orientals and Latakia threaten the shipping routes as they enlarge the Ottoman Empire. This tobacco burns unevenly but intensely, uniting the warring Scottish clans under the banner of Protestantism. Frequent relighting may be needed, due to massacres and state-sponsored persecution. Shattered stained class is glimpsed as the Reformed doctrines assert themselves and move south to inspire Cromwell‘s armies.
Deeper into the bowl, I caught a whiff of the bleeding head of Charles the First just before the Restoration.
The room note lingers well into the coming centuries and diffuses sovereign grace to all the Elect of God’s true church. This is a highly-recommended tobacco and best smoked in an Elizabethan churchwarden or a Calvinist bagpipe.
Presbyterian ages very well. I have some cellared from 1618 which has not only maintained but improved in flavor, with Popish tendencies greatly reduced.
Presbyterian Mixture is best enjoyed in the New World, since Anglican prelates may interfere with its enjoyment on the British side of the Atlantic.
CONNECT/HOOK 