A Study in Study

Around Christmas there has traditionally been a “one and done” red Virginia blend by KBV. This year we’ve introduced a non-seasonal red Virginia puro menu item that will stay on until the sources dry up from this Earth.

We developed a mixture of old (7+ yrs), very old (14+ yrs), and young (<7 years) grades to create an engaging sipping blend. The majority of the body ribbons would be in the old category with equal portions of very old to young. We though it was great, but we were still in the “don’t sell straight red Virginia outside of Christmas” mindset at the time. This also might sound weird, but sometimes a blend is waiting for the right branding idea to come along.

At the same time that Ken was working on the “unnamed red Virginia project”, he also got inspired to revisit a year-one blend series called ‘Spaghetti Western’. We decided to use this red base in an innovative stoved dark fired concept, a latakia blend, and a perique mixture that will debut next year. Study in Scarlet is already woven into the new favorites.

The inspirations for this blend are of course Christmas Cheer (since this was planned as a seasonal red) but also Tudor Castle which used a bit of young red Virginia in balance.