Blending existing brands of tobacco together is one of the most rewarding elements of the the MYO/RYO experience. Even though the blends that are commercially available today are in many cases, outstanding as stand-alones, each person may find that some or even significant improvement is possible by combining other tobaccos with their favorite base tobacco. Adding tobacco like Ramback Turkish to almost any blend can make a wonderful difference. The same can be said for halfzwares like Stokkebye's Bali Blue or even better, Stokkebye's Amsterdam, Stockholm, or London Export. These aromatic and exotic tobaccos can provide a level of satisfaction that no one single blend can offer. A lot of people smoke these sophisticated tobaccos by themselves but as blending ingredients, they have few equals.

We are going to show you some blending techniques, but as blending needs to be a fairly exacting procedure (in order to duplicate blends accurately that you may come up with), the use of a quality digital scale is important. This first video will deal with the use of just such a scale, the MYWeigh ibalance 2500. Then on to the actual blending videos.

If, when blending tobaccos, you find that the result is not satisfactory, you might be wise to start with smaller amounts. In the last video in this section we'll show you specifically the AXE scale which will precisely blend one cigarette's worth of tobacco at a time. However, blends with a number of components can be done in a bit larger quantities, up to an ounce while risking little tobacco. This first video is an overview of blending in general and one blend in particular which is specifically: 40% D&R Penhooker Light (a Canadian Blend), 20% Windsail Platinum (one of the incredible new pure flu-cured Virginia blends from D&R), 10% Two-Timer (a delicious double toasted Burley also from D&R), 20% Ramback (D&R's spectacular Turkish), finishing off the last 10% with Stokkebye's new London Export (for that final zap of the mildly exotic). In this video, we discuss the properties of each tobacco as to how their flavors fit into this blend, and then show you how we use the scale to achieve reproducible results. The percentages are related to this scale's ability to accurately measure tenths or hundredths of an ounce. This one ounce, 5 component blend is one of the most enticing blends we have come up with. Let's look at how we did it. All scales for this series are manufactured by HBI Technologies, www.hbiinternational.com.

This next video shows the creation of three different blends. Using the same ibalance 2500 scale, we use different units of measure to achieve each of these blends. This not only shows the versatility of the scale, but the diversity of what you can do with various tobaccos and the various total quantities you can choose to experiment with.

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In this next video, we show what happens when you combine the total output of the preceding three blends. Now we knew in advance what this final combination of tobaccos would accomplish, and towards the end of the video we show the actual overall percentages of each component. Remember you can pause the video at any time (and zoom it up as well) in order to have time to jot down the individual component values. The late Peter Stokkebye, the Master of Tobacco, and I spent many pleasurable hours experimenting in just this way. Its a lot of fun and is at the heart of the full enjoyment of the make you own and roll your own experience. For your friends that smoke cigarettes or even those that make their own but have not tried blending, offering them one of these custom blended jewels, will likely blow them away. Even James Bond's (007) custom cigarettes could not match these innovative combinations. I show you in this video as well how to mix the final and larger amount of tobaccos in the really nice large bowl that comes with the MYWeigh scale.

And finally to close this section on blending, we show you the AXE scale from HBI Technologies. This credit card size scale is accurate to .1 gram (one tenth of one gram) which means that theoretically you could create a ten component blend that would be just enough tobacco for one injected cigarette. There is no better way to begin the blending methodology than to start in small amounts and one cigarette at a time from accurately measured component tobaccos is really a lot of fun. You'll be surprised at how much reduction in your tobacco intake can result from this kind of meticulous attention to each smoke. And since the AXE can hold up to 150 grams, using a small salad bowl with it, you may not need any other scale.

There will be many more blending recipes in these pages as well in the Tobacco Section of RYO Magazine www.ryomagazine.com. We hope you will take our advice and start custom blending. You won't believe the difference it can make in both your continued enjoyment, and the sense of adventure you'll feel when doing your own experiments. And remember, though oft said before, those that truly examine and relish each blend of tobacco, tend to smoke a lot less and fairly quickly may lose, as well, any dependency on the chemical by-products of smoking.