PipeSMOKE 06/97 - A&C Petersen

Summer 1997
Volume I
Issue 1

A&C Petersen
by Alan Schwartz From the moment you walk in to the A&C Petersen factory, you know these guys don't just make tobacco, they live it. On the horizontal support beams that cross the room are literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of tobacco tins collected over the years by the Petersen brothers, Hans and Jens -including many older American specimens that tobacco museums and collectors would envy All around the office are other artifacts - antique machines for pressing, cutting, and mixing tobacco are standing accents, along with cigar store Indians, old smokeshop signs, and display posters.

The conference room is set up like a smokeshop, with counter-height glass cases containing pipes and tobaccos, old and new cigarette packs that have visual or historical interest, and humidor sections full of cigars. The walls are covered with tobacco posters and prints and woodcuts from old books on tobacco plantations in the "New World." In short, the room is a microcosm of the tobacco universe of the past and present.

The display is neither just for show nor for the personal pleasure the Petersen brothers feel by surrounding themselves with the visible history of their craft. "If you don't know where you come from, then you don't know where you're going," Hans says. "That's part of the reason for accumulating this stuff, in addition to the plain fun of collecting. But there's also a practical side. I get a lot of ideas about packaging, about brand names, even about new blends from all this. And some of the older machines we come across help us to design new ones."

The Petersen brothers are not only collectors of tobacco history-they are part of it. Their great grandfather started a tobacco, cigar, and snuff factory in Horsens, Denmark, in 1865; his sons took over around the turn of the century, and then one of the grandsons, the father of Hans and Jens, started his own factory in 1932. In the 1970's, having done their apprenticeships in England, Germany, and the U.S., Hans and Jens began to operate the A&C (Alfred and Christian-their respective middle names) Petersen factory on their own, still in Horsens, in the "Midwest" of Denmark. Like most educated Danes, they speak fluent English and German, the languages spoken, not so coincidentally, in their largest markets.

Whether it is a classic natural or lightly aromatic Danish blend, a deeply flavored black Cavendish that is favored by American and German smokers, a full-bodied traditional English mixture with Turkish and latakia tobaccos flavoring the Virginia base, or the latest flavor innovation in the global market, the Petersen's make it, either for their own brands or for someone else's. For variety and sheer tobaccomaking experience, A&C Petersen is tops.

Our journey begins in the warehouse, accompanied by both Hans and Jens. While both Petersen's are extremely knowledgeable, the labor is divided such that Jens is the tobacco man and Hans does the marketing and administration. Jens' responsibilities include purchasing all the leaf, overseeing the blending, and running the testing and development laboratory. Hans develops ideas, globetrots to service accounts, and supervises the retail and franchise operations of the Paul Olsen "My Own Blend" smokeshops....

For the conclusion of this article, see the current issue of SMOKE magazine, available at a tobacconist near you.