Dunhill's Blends: The Blend Catalogue and Packaging History

Dunhill's Blends is the collective name for the named blends coming out of the tobacconist's shop Alfred Dunhill opened in 1907 on Duke Street in London. How the catalogue grew and shrank year by year is the subject of Dunhill Pipe Tobaccos: 1907-1990; the individual character of the blends and their present-day counterparts are covered in Dunhill Tobacco Blends. Here we look at the lesser-discussed side of the catalogue: the forms in which the tobacco was packaged, how a recipe was written into the ledger, and what changed when the blending business moved to another facility.

Tobacco Sold by the Unit

The catalogue's first leap on the packaging side predates even the named blends. "Self-Filling Tobacco Cartridges," introduced in 1910, were paper-wrapped cylinders of pressed tobacco; instead of weighing and filling, the smoker placed the ready cylinder directly into the bowl. Because of this, the product was sold by the unit rather than by weight. The system was patented in 1910; its scope was expanded in 1918 and 1920. The system's flaw became apparent over time: for the cylinder to seat properly, the bowl's inner diameter had to be maintained, meaning the pipe needed regular reaming. The cartridges stayed in the catalogue up to the years of the Second World War; records indicate that Edward, Prince of Wales, and his brother George VI were among those who favoured this form.

The second innovation was a product of front-line conditions. From 1915, blends were also offered as quarter-pound pressed cakes wrapped in lead foil; the cake's outer covering was cloth, which could be used as a pouch as the tobacco was rubbed away. This "travel pack" stayed on the list, unchanged in form, into the 1960s. In the same years, temporary blends called Campaign Plug and Campaign Mixture, along with a plain Campaign Pipe aimed at bulk purchase, were offered to the troops.

Proportions in the Ledger

Every bespoke recipe built at the Duke Street counter was numbered and entered into a ledger called "My Mixture," but most of these entries were not lists of raw leaf. A recipe was usually written as a proportion of existing catalogue blends, with a short note on cut or moisture where needed. In other words, the named blends were not just products but a kind of alphabet used at the counter; the first ready-made trio released in 1912 — Royal Yacht, Cuba, and Durbar — are counted as the first letters of this alphabet. Almost the entire range gathered today under the heading of English blends was already on the list by those years: numbered recipes dominated by oriental tobacco, mixtures carrying Latakia, plain and aged Virginias, and even Cuba, built from cigar leaf. The price of this breadth was that the work spilled beyond the counter: pressing, toasting, and steam-ageing (stoving) require equipment and time, and the blend must rest both in bulk and in the tin. What makes this picture traceable today is John C. Loring's catalogue survey covering 1910 to 1990.

Experiments on the Margins of the Catalogue

The firm made at least three separate efforts aimed at women pipe smokers: in the early 1920s, at the end of the 1930s, and between 1950 and 1960. The first two left no concrete trace in the catalogue. According to Loring's survey, the 1954 catalogue lists, under the heading "My Lady's," three numbered recipes — one Virginia, two oriental; the name of Mary Dunhill, who would go on to hold the chairmanship of Alfred Dunhill Ltd., appears next to the first. The same records also show that a recipe with reduced nicotine, My Mixture 950, was added in 1938. Another marginal venture was on the distribution side: from 1923, through the subsidiary Parker, founded in 1922, another manufacturer's blend was wholesaled outside America; this tobacco was never sold under the Dunhill name.

When the Recipe Moved to Belfast

One reason the catalogue contracted after the 1960s lay on the leaf side. The bulk sale of oriental leaf without regard to regional distinction, and the restriction of Latakia production in Syria, made it harder to sustain complex recipes built on sub-varieties. Durbar's drop from the list at the end of the 1960s, followed by its replacement in American racks with a recipe numbered 1066, is cited as an example of this contraction. The real break came in 1981: most of the blending business was transferred to the Murray, Sons & Co. facility in Belfast. Northern Ireland's more flexible blending regulations, a mass-production system working with fewer leaf varieties, and shortened resting periods removed the heavy maturation aroma smelled on first opening a tin; some recipes judged too complex to produce efficiently were also dropped. The Duke Street shop kept up bespoke blending for another two decades or so, with recipes specific to that address alone prepared by a small-volume workshop in London. With the new century, blending in London came to a complete end.