Ask G. L. Pease (Volume 22)
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Kevin Godbee - Feb 26, 2013
- 10 min read
G. L. Pease
As I put the finishing touches on this edition, I’m sitting on the back porch, enjoying a beautiful, cool but sunny almost-spring day. Birds are singing, bees are busy gathering pollen and nectar, and legions of chorus frogs are on the prowl, devouring insects and looking for love. Between my teeth is a small 1918 Keystone billiard filled with a long aged mixture, its fragrant smoke softly dissipating in a very gentle breeze. This pipe was a lucky find; and I got it for a price much lower than so much enjoyment should cost. When it arrived in the post, there was little doubt it had been, shall we say, enjoyed rather a lot, but its restoration was relatively painless, and the result was well worth the efforts. It is a wonderful old pipe with many stories to tell. At nearly a century-year old, it’s still looking pretty darn good, smokes beautifully, and is a delightful testament to the enduring quality of the classics.
Throughout the history of the pipe, there have been many explorations of aesthetics, of technology, of materials, but here we are, nearly 160 years after the supposed discovery of briar, most of us smoking pipes that aren’t much different from what our grandfathers or great-grandfathers would have smoked, and in some cases, we’re smoking those very pipes. In so many ways, today’s pipes are yesterday’s pipes are tomorrow’s pipes. Nihil sub sōle novum. Each time we light a bowl, we hold something timeless in our hands, something very rare in today’s world of disposability. That’s pretty special.
On to the Q&A.
Mark wonders: I’m always buying new tins of tobacco to try something different or something I’ve heard about that I just have to try. The problem is that I end up with lots of open tobacco. I’ve been storing the unsmoked leaf in small canning jars. My question is, how does opening a tin interupt any aging that may take place. If the unsmoked tobacco is put in a jar and left sealed, does any aging occur from that point on, or is the process totally halted. Also how does opening the jar every couple months to take another sample out complicate the process? I’m thinking that by using the canning jars I’m maintaining the moisture content, but that’s about it. Your expert opinion would be highly appreciated!
A: This is one of those tough decisions faced by those of us who enjoy aged tobaccos. Once the seal is broken, things change in that little microcosm, and you’ll never get back to square one. “Aging” still happens, but it’s quite a different sort of thing. How much different it is depends on many factors, including how long the tobacco had originally been aging in its sealed tin. I generally recommend smoking up an aged tin fairly quickly once it’s been opened, which is why I prefer smaller 2oz (or 50g) tins for the cellar, but it’s not always practical to do so. By keeping the contents of that tin in a tightly sealed jar, you’ll at least maintain its quality over the weeks or even months that it takes to finish it, but it’s almost certainly going to undergo some additional changes during that time. You may find that you actually enjoy the aged blend more after a couple days of air time. It’s not unlike how an open bottle of wine changes as it “breathes;” though the time-frame with tobacco is much longer, it too can “open up” over a few days or even weeks to offer new dimensions. One good thing about tobacco is that it won’t “turn to vinegar” over time the way an open bottle of wine will (as good a justification as any for finishing the bottle).
If you’re trying blends that don’t have much age under their belts, then just jarring them up again and putting them aside will provide at least some if not most of the benefits of time that you’d have gotten had you left the tin sealed in the first place. It’s really all a matter of exploration and enjoyment, after all, and figuring out what works best for you.
Alain worries about the tobacco apocalypse: I have been reading a lot lately about people cellaring tobaccos to hedge against future tax hikes and government legislation. How, as a business and a blender, are you protecting yourself from predicted government legislation against tobacco. It would be a shame to see many blenders have trouble staying open due to government meddling. Any insight would be appreciated. What does your tobacco stash look like?
A: Tax hikes and increased legislation are as inevitable as inflation; it’s the only way bloated, top heavy government agencies can continue to exist. Of course, we’re all concerned over the proposed additional regulation and taxation, and the fact that it appears as though Big Brother just wants tobacco to go away. Personally, I think it’s kind of a Chicken Little, “Sky is falling” scenario. While it’s certainly true that there’s a very loud, vocal subgroup opposing tobacco use of any sort, the fact is that tobacco production and sales in the US account for a very large and healthy revenue stream, and if all the antis got their way, eliminating tobacco in all its forms, the resulting deficit through the loss of that revenue would be huge. You can’t fill a hole with hot air. But, the gasbags will keep trying, and no matter how we look at things, tobacco will never be any cheaper than it is today, so buying for the future is certainly not a bad hedge if you want to enjoy your pipes into the next decades.
The possibility of FDA regulation, on the other hand, is a more significant threat, especially to the small producers (like, ahem, G.L. Pease). While the large factories could absorb and amortize the resultant costs more easily, the sad fact is that if we were forced to perform the very expensive third-party testing and analyses that the FDA would require of every batch, we’d either have to raise prices drastically, as well as reduce the number of blends offered, or shut the doors forever. The result to the consumer would be a dramatic decrease in the choices available to them. Many of the small-batch premium tobaccos we enjoy today would disappear, and all that would be left are the mass-market products from large producers. Ironically, the majority of pipe smokers in the US wouldn’t be effected, as only a small percentage of the roughly 2.5 million who enjoy the briar buy the small-batch, boutique tobaccos. But to those of us who do, this is one way the sky could definitely be falling. For a change, threats of increased taxation are not the greatest enemy we face. Again, stocking up for the future might ultimately be your best recourse, and a change in careers might be mine.
My stash? I’ve been accumulating slowly over 30 years. I could stop acquiring new tobaccos today, and enjoy my pipe for another 30 years, or longer. And, yes, I continue to add to it, though its mostly my own blends at this point.
Steven asks: Greg, I’m curious as to what some of your favorite tobaccos are (other than your own, of course).
A: A lot of my cellar consists of blends that are no longer available. My all time fave, as many know, is the fabled Orient Express #11 made for the now defunct Garfinkel’s of Washington DC by Sobranie House. To my taste, it was one of the most exquisitely balanced, complex and nuanced tobaccos ever produced, and I consider it very good fortune that I was able to acquire quite a few tins before it disappeared forever. (In fact, before Larry shuttered the shop, he sold me his last pound, a box of 8 2oz tins. I’ll never forget that sad phone call.) There are a number of the old classics that I have laid in, and still enjoy a great deal. I have to admit that between the time spent smoking my own prototypes during development and enjoying my stash of aged tobaccos, I don’t have much time to sample much of what is currently being produced, and new stuff just keep on coming. I’ll never catch up…
Spartan wants to know: In "Number 20", you wrote an answer pertaining to nicotine in aged pipe tobacco. Some of which reads, “The higher the pH (more alkaline), the more readily available nicotine in the smoke stream can be absorbed. If the aging of the leaf reduces sugars, the pH of the smoke will likely rise, increasing the bioavailability of Vitamin-N. But, this doesn’t always seem to be the case.” Is there an easy way to measure the pH of my tobacco?
A: The short answer is no. What you’d want to do is measure the pH of the smoke produced, not the tobacco itself, and that gets a bit tricky. The smoke has to be captured, usually by filtering it through a liquid medium, and the pH of the solution measured and normalized to get a meaningful result. It’s easier, but not simple, to find the pH of the leaf itself. Unfortunately, the result on pH of the aging process remains somewhat mysterious in a real sense. It’s true that some tobaccos seem to “get stronger” with age, whist others become “milder.” Certainly much of the available sugars are being consumed by microbial metabolism, but at the same time, longer chain carbohydrates are being digested to produce simpler sugars. It’s a sort of race condition that is difficult to predict. It’s on the long list of things I’d love to put more research time into. Sadly, my own metabolic machinery seems to be digesting time at an an increasing rate…
From Bob: I realize this might be an oddity, but here goes: A very few tobacco blends that I love are actually better, to me, when they’re younger. Penzance, for example, has an oriental zing that disappears after a couple of years in the tin. But I’m a stockpiler. And I hate thinking that the qualities I love in some blends are going to simply vanish when I open some of my tins 10-20 years from now. So I’m wondering: Is there any way to dramatically slow the effects of aging on tinned blends? Since heat speeds the effect, would refrigeration slow them? And would screw-on/open-with-a-coin tins retain their seal if actually refrigerated over time? Thanks!
A: Cold storage will certainly slow down the chemical and organic processes that take place as a tobacco ages. It’s not likely to grind to a halt, but it’s probable that keeping tobacco close to, but above the freezing point, will cause it to retain some of its youthful attributes for a longer period. Freezing would slow things down still further, but the damage to the structure of the leaf might affect the its smoking characteristics in ways that we won’t like. Additionally, depending on what you prefer about these young tobaccos, you may find that storing with plenty of additional air space may be to your advantage. Regarding the seal on those tins, it’s hard to say. Cooler temperatures, of course, will increase the vacuum slightly, but it will also make the seal less pliable, and could result in early failure.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to stop the hands of time. Your best bet is to enjoy the young tobaccos for as long as they are available, and hope for the best with whatever you put into cold storage. Or, invest in my new venture, the WayBack Corporation. I’ve retained Mr. Peabody as CEO, and we’re currently testing our latest time-machine technology. We should be ready to release our product very soon, so it should be on the dealers’ floors about ten years ago…
That’s it for this month. Keep ’em coming.
-glp
All Photos Credit & Copyright © G. L. Pease from his personal collection. Used by Permission
 Since 1999, Gregory L. Pease has been the principal alchemist behind the blends of G.L. Pease Artisanal Tobaccos. He’s been a passionate pipeman since his university days, having cut his pipe teeth at the now extinct Drucquer & Sons Tobacconist in Berkeley, California. Greg is also author of The Briar & Leaf Chronicles, a photographer, recovering computer scientist, sometimes chef, and creator of The Epicure’s Asylum. See our interview with G. L. Pease here. |
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! 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Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. 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Well there’s nothing like a touch of the plague to usher in the changing season. Leaving the airport just when the first advertisements for all things pumpkin spice began to appear—lattes, muffins, shampoos, trash bags, and myriad other concoctions—so, too, my ability to breathe freely disappeared. The unfortunate side effect of losing one’s sense of taste and smell for weeks is the utter inability to enjoy tobacco. Not that I consider myself an expert on anything but my own tastes, but be forewarned that this review was made with mildly impugned sensory equipment. Just when a comforting pipe was most needed, its comfort was denied. Be that as it may, the road to recovery found me limping along on one lung this past month, trying to wrest the particulars of two blends on offer from Sutliff: the latest 175th Anniversary blend, Silver Quarter, as well as their spooky seasonal Maple Shadows II. Silver Quarter is a new style on offer from Sutliff, their first coin-cut blend. 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The tin notes are, forgive the pun, on the nose for a good VaPer blend: mild tart sweetness peeking out from behind dried hay and slight chocolate undertones, with a lightly tannic finish of weathered oak. It is always a joy to prepare a coin cut, my preference being to put a few in my palm and vigorously warm my hands together to fully break them apart. These well-formed discs pack and light easily, and smoke with little prodding to the end of the bowl. For technical points it scores well—it smokes light, and it’s easy to tend the ember. While it gets sharp after a few quick bowls, pacing should be heeded to easily smoke down to the heel without inviting bite. Of the flavor, though, I am left a bit wanting. There are tart and high notes aplenty, but very little of the lemony citrus I would anticipate, as well as scant midtones; they tend more toward the red wine-vinegary and sour. The flavors are muted, also, lacking the sweetness and piquancy of other marques—the small measure of Perique tickles the nose now and again with peppery hints, and there is a smidge of a deeper sweetness to be found in the Cavendish from puff to puff, but overall it lacks some dynamism. The Virginias, to my palate, come off a bit on the dry side, and here they dominate the blend. The aftertaste and mouthfeel are neutral, again evincing more of the dry, woody, tartly tannic end of the spectrum. The blend has plenty of polish, but not enough depth or richness (*yet) to make it a standout. Here, comparisons are inevitable: Luxury Bullseye Flake has more sweetness, both from its Virginia as well as its Cavendish, and a better finish; Davidoff is similar but with a pronounced umami that is absent here; as for Escudo, I haven’t had any fresh tins lately so it would be unfair to compare. While it rates as a solid, fairly mild smoke, particularly to lovers of the genre, it does not surprise with any exceptional flavors. To be fair, all the boxes have been checked for the blend to benefit from some real aging, and it would be worth checking in on this after a couple of years sealed away. I’ve set half my tin aside to sample again in a month or two, in case I’m merely suffering from the lingering effects of parosmia, and will amend this review in that case. Maple Shadows II, on the other hand, made up for the weeks of sniffling and sneezing I’d endured. Offered in a full 8 ounce tin with delightfully spooky Halloween art, it’s (hopefully) enough to last through the season. Somehow I had missed this last year, so it’s a real pleasure to get some in my candy bucket this year. As the chilling winds of autumn draw eerie prattle from contorted, deciduous limbs, we find ourselves possessed by the spirit of the season. Bewitched by a dissonant charm, we’ve created Maple Shadows. In a season that is defined by the unlikely harmony of treats and frights, we’ve joined the enchanting sweetness of maple with the earthy spice of Dark Fired Kentucky for a smoking experience that captures the senses with an otherworldly fusion of flavor. This may be the best aromatic blend Sutliff’s ever made—and they make a ton of them. First off, it’s not overbearing in the least—quite the opposite, it is also one of the more restrained aromatics they’ve ever made, with a clear but very light topping that melds oh-so-well with their choice Kentucky added to the mix. Opening the tin, the sweet maple is up front and center, but so too is the must of fallen leaves, bready pie crusts, and a crackling fire in the hearth—a perfect invocation of HerbstdĂĽfte in a can. Packing best in an open and capacious bowl, the flavoring is subtle, and recedes to the background while puffing. With a sweet coffee or tea to accompany, the aftertaste of the maple is reinvigorated on the palate […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 632. Our featured guest on tonight’s show is the host of the Pipe & Tamper Podcast, Mike Murphy. Brian and Mike will have an extended chat revolving around the days before, during and after the Las Vegas International Pipe Show. We will hear about their travels to the show and the anxiety of Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida at the same time while running a show and not knowing if your house is going to be there when you get home. In the end, the show went great and our homes survived, although many others in Florida were not so lucky. We’ll have clips from the show, and shoutouts to other podcasts and vlogs that were broadcasting from the pipe show.
The pipes chosen for this essay are outstanding. I’m in love with that Keystone and GBD (Unique?)
I forgot to add that in conversation with JM Boswell of Boswell Pipes, he has also mentioned that the FDA has been leaning on him regarding his toppings and it worries him greatly. Nothing good can come of governmental meddling, a lesson the restaurant industry has learned with the recent menuboard caloric content labeling mess.
Good article!
Many thanks for writing.
Al, the GBD is an old New Era (say that ten times fast), not a Unique, likely from the 1920s or 1930s. (GBDs are SO difficult to pin down, sometimes.) It’s a fascinating little thing. The Keystone is possibly a GBD second, as it’s an Oppenheimer product, as indicated by the silverwork. It’s really a wonderful pipe, and a lovely smoke. Glad you liked the photos.
-glp
Those pipes are just gorgeous.
Greg, Yet another great article & the pipes are, in a collectible sense, museum pieces (but no doubt very well used too).
Point about the FDA is disturbing – between them and our health regulators this side of the pond it is certainly time to stock up. I have seen so many good and some great producers disappear, or at least get taken over by Orlik or KKK, this side of the pond. I had been watching “Pipes Magazine” and as there were no recent features on the FDA had assumed they were at least slow bureaurats (not a typo). Are we drinking in the last chance saloon and, not to beat about the bush, is it “last orders please” or nearly so?
Ed Turner
“there’s a very loud, vocal subgroup opposing tobacco use of any sort, the fact is that tobacco production and sales in the US account for a very large and healthy revenue stream…”
I think you undersell the antis, Greg. These people are numerous and in positions of power all over the country, from local health boards to congress. They’ll drag along (mostly) leftist politicians that, despite appreciating the luxury of tobacco tax revenues, will sacrifice the revenue stream to push forward the antis’ agenda because they won’t want to be seen as pro-tobacco/smoking/individual rights, etc. Just as the temperance movement achieved prohibition the antis will get us as close to that through regulation and taxation as possible without making it entirely illegal. Trying smoking in a public park, and in some places your own car, and see what happens.
The more pressing problem is that at least one, maybe two full generations of Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that tobacco smoke isn’t just bad for you but is the equivalent of a dirty bomb. Few non-smokers will support our right to enjoy tobacco when they think they’re doing us and themselves a favor by eliminating it. Unless pipe and and cigar smokers get politically active with smoking issues the proverbial sky really will be falling. Thank goodness Mayor Bloomberg is showing people what type of door they opened with smoking bans.
Other than that, another great column, Greg 🙂
At the risk of being pummeled, may I respectfully add this: I’m a pipe smoker. I smoke in moderation — great moderation compared to some folks I know. A bowl a day maybe three or four times a week. Always at home in the evening.
I’m a college professor, so it seems like a natural time to deal with the pain of grading papers by enjoying a bowl and accompanying it with a good wine.
Having said this, I must come down on the side of the opponents of smoking in public places and advocates of higher taxes on tobacco. Forgive me, but it’s clear that there’s connection between disease and tobacco use. Latest research shows that there’s no statistically significance between cigarette smoking, although I don’t know that the methodology accounted for dosing.
Is it not possible to hold two seemingly contradictory thoughts at once: 1.) We enjoy pipe tobacco and good pipes. 2.) Tobacco use is, without question, closely associated with serious health problems.
I don’t see a contradiction here for the pipe smoker:
Risk is pervasive. Everyone knows that, yet, familiarity doesn’t diminish the validity of the premise. We drive cars. We pay dearly for the privilege. We fly, and we pay dearly for extra security. The idea’s clear. My argument is that pipe-smoking is an aesthetic experience that we value, and that, like driving, carries a risk that is both absolute (in terms of the cause-and-effect relationship) and probably dose-related.
Short of giving up our valued aesthetic pleasures, such as good wine and fine pipe tobacco,can we not accept, a.) that non-smokers in public spaces have no obligation to ingest our secondary smoke; and, b.) that we accept the risk and its price of using pipe tobacco and cope with that risk however we see fit — e.g., coping can mean anything from adjusting our dosing to doing nothing at all. But, I fail to see that the civil liberties of pipe smokers are being limited by being required to enjoy our pleasure in ways that do not infringe on others’ right to breathe that’s not laced with smoke?
But, of course, we have the right to choose what we do so long as we affect only ourselves, understand the risks, and mitigate the risks.
And, yes, I’m one of those crazy, liberal college teachers. I work in Holocaust and genocide studies, so I’m terribly sensitive to matters of human rights and infringements thereon.
I offer these comments with the most sincere respect and openness to others’ views; I certainly make to claim to having an Answer. As I tell my students, questions are more important than answers.
Thank you for reading this.
warm regards,
avi
Avi, you might want to read this –
–
https://pipesmagazine.com/blog/kevins-blog/here-we-go-again-ridiculous-melodramatic-absurdity-disguised-as-facts/