The Pipe Bit: Cherry Orchard

By Chris Rentner

 

            If I would have turned into a cherry, I would have bounced up the stairs from the Uhle warehouse, rolled carefully through the store to avoid becoming cherry juice, and out onto West Wisconsin Avenue.  I then would have used my stem and leaves to feed the fare box of the bus, and ride home, trying not to roll off my seat, and hope the other passengers wouldn’t notice a cherry in their midst.  I’d have blushed, a shy cherry, though it wouldn’t have been noticeable on my already red complexion.

            In my early days of working for Big Tobacco (Uhle’s), some pipe tobacco blends were still produced by using liquid flavorings in-house.  One of these blends was Wild Cherry.  The blending bin was filled with several dozen pounds of burley and other tobaccos, and mixed together.  Then it was time to add the cherry topping.

            I would pour the cherry-flavored concentrate (a commercial concoction for pipe tobacco, not cherry juice) into a squeeze bottle, and add water.  This was shaken, then added to the heaps of tobacco waiting in the bin.  I would pour about a quarter of the bottle onto the tobacco in the bin, blend, then add another fourth of the bottle until it was empty.  When this process was complete, the batch of Wild Cherry would be ready to package.  Also, most of the warehouse and I would reek of a sweet cherry scent.  When a fellow member of The Help would come down to where I was blending Wild Cherry, they would usually be compelled to make a witty remark along the lines of, “My eyes ain’t watering because I’m sad.”  The aroma was pungent, fruity, pervasive and strong until the blend was packaged.  Which was a good thing—it was Wild Cherry, after all.

            Except that, in those days, being single and morose, I took the bus to and from work.  After mixing up a batch of the cherry blend, I too smelled like Wild Cherry—in fact, I reeked of it.  The ride home was trying, my twenty-something male ego being humbled and other riders subtly shifting away from Cherry Man.  And as Wild Cherry was popular, I made it quite often, and got a new cologne for my efforts at the same time.

            About ten years ago, liquid pipe tobacco flavorings were left to the behemoths of the industry; since then, Wild Cherry is made with a quality Cavendish that already comes blended with cherry topping.  My fears of being turned into a cherry were set to rest.

            A cherry pipe tobacco doesn’t have to be one note.  A sampling of blends from different manufacturers:

            –Very Cherry (Lane Ltd.)—like cherry soda.

            –Three-Cherry Blend (McClelland)—a mix of Queen Anne, Bing and Maraschino cherries.

            –Black Cherry (Altadis)—sweet and a bit less fruity than other blends.

            –Midnight Cherry (Stokkebye)—sweet, calm and subtle.

            –Cherry Bomb (John Mellencamp)—too cloying.

            BLOGGER (at office door of Cold Dead Hand of Management):  …so for the next, uh, post on the, you know, blog, I was thinking maybe something about…cherry…?

            CDHM (stares at blogger for a full minute, then with wide smirk):  Well, that would certainly fit you, Chris.

            BLOGGER (stricken):  well, I…(chuckles uncertainly) it’s just that, it’s….(CDHM slams office door).

            Cherry flavoring is very popular in all kinds of tobacco products.  It’s in Sweet Dreams Jubilee cigarettes, Swisher Sweets cigars, snuff and Candlelight’s small cigars, to name only a few.  I think it’s popular because it goes very well with the savory taste of tobacco, complimenting it with a fruity sweetness.  The taste is usually mild but not intrusive, and cherry is a familiar flavor, a known quantity, a comfort.

            Wild Cherry rolls on.  Me too.