Pipe lovers ride a trend with hot new flavors

Bowling Green is ideal for spring and summer strolls. Hell’s Kitchen is a dark and dingy domain for gritty New Yorkers. And Liberty Island is the place to honor the city’s cultural diversity.
The best thing about these local landmarks: You can now put them in your pipe and smoke ’em!
A group of traditional tobacconists has turned this town into tobacco flavors with a series of pipe blends based on New York icons.
“The tastes are supposed to give smokers something that’s uniquely New York,” says Lou Carbone, president of the New York Pipe Club. “We wanted to avoid cliches about how the Big Apple should taste.”

Now in its fifth decade, the Pipe Club is one of the city’s venerable smoking organizations. But it recently turned a new leaf with its New York State of Mind series, blended by one-time New Yorker Russ Oullette.
So what does New York taste like when it’s turned into tobacco? Put on your smoking jacket and take a tour from your easy chair:
* The Bowling Green blend packs a faint feeling of the fresh outdoors (though, of course, it is illegal to smoke in any park). This is a Virginia blend — meaning that it’s a light and mild smoke — with a savory and citrusy sensation. Perfect for the warmer weather.