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- 2010-08-21 14:32:12
Businesses Threatened by Smoking Ban … Again
From: - 2010-08-19 15:27:50
New Proposed Flavored Tobacco Ban Includes Pipe Tobacco in Utah
From: - 2010-08-09 09:15:34
Introducing Pipe Pictures Magazine
From: - 2010-08-07 09:29:22
Dan Tobacco Re-Introduces Old CAO Blends
From: - 2010-07-30 16:07:02
Carnival Cruise Lines to Ban Smoking in Smoking Lounges
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- 2010-08-21 14:32:12
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Businesses Threatened by Smoking Ban … Again
August 21st, 2010
Savannah, Georgia - Today’s sanctuary for and one of the last bastions of camaraderie, friendship and sociability - the corner cigar store - could become history along with many other businesses in Savannah if City Council has its way, says the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association.
The current proposal would eliminate exemptions in the Georgia state law by making all workplaces smoke-free. This includes all indoor and outdoor areas of bars, restaurants, private clubs and other businesses, including cigar stores and within 20 feet from the entrance to any such workplace.
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New Proposed Flavored Tobacco Ban Includes Pipe Tobacco in Utah
August 19th, 2010
It’s Déjà vu all over again in the state of Utah.
New York City banned all flavored tobacco products including pipe tobacco earlier this year. Now, Representative Paul Ray, Utah State House of Representatives, is also completely ignoring the fact that it is already illegal to sell tobacco products to children.
He is using the same old worn out excuse that he wants to save the poor children from mistaking tobacco for candy. Hmmm … why doesn’t he ban candy then?
It seems Ray got his ego bruised when he was challenged in the past, so now he has expanded his efforts.
Introducing Pipe Pictures Magazine
August 9th, 2010For those of you that just like to flip through magazines looking at pictures of beautiful pipes, here is our new feature sponsored by Smokingpipes.com.
Carnival Cruise Lines to Ban Smoking in Smoking Lounges
July 30th, 2010
Carnival has announced it is "testing" the idea of banning smoking in cigar bars on it’s cruise ships.
If I would have read this news article on April 1st, I would have immediately dispelled it as an April Fool’s Joke. Unfortunately, it’s no joke my friends. You’d better check before bothering to pack your pipes and tobacco the next time you book a Carnival Cruise.
Why, you ask? Carnival ships have a cigar lounge, don’t they? Yep, that’s true, but the cruise line is experimenting with a total smoking ban.
Country Girl Smoking a Corn Cob Pipe
July 29th, 2010Here’s Chelsea hanging out at the farm enjoying a beautiful Summer day in the country. She is aptly decked out in her plaid shirt, denim skirt, and cowgirl boots.
The Missouri Meerschaum "Mizzou" Corn Cob Pipe completes the picture of a perfect sunny day in the country relaxing with a pipe.
Country Girl Smoking a Corn Cob Pipe - CLICK HERE FOR FULL GALLERY
You can buy the pipe Chelsea is smoking here
You can buy the pipe Chelsea is smoking here
Finals of the Tobacco World Cup
July 21st, 2010by Sykes Wilford, Smokingpipes.com, and Kevin Godbee, Pipesmagazine.com
When one has an opportunity to visit two of the largest pipe tobacco manufacturers in the world on back to back days, comparing the two is all but impossible. Mac Baren and Orlik, between them, produce over half of the world’s pipe tobacco. Along with the Lane factory in Tucker, GA, they make up the big three pipe tobacco producers in the world. And they’re both on the island of Funen that sits between Sjaelland, the largest of the Danish islands, and Jylland, the peninsula that juts off of the European mainland. Indeed, they’re an hour drive apart on either side of the island. Having had a thoroughly hospitable reception at both factories and being tremendously impressed by both operations, we nonetheless found ourselves drawing some comparisons.
Having left Orlik, we started discussing the differences between the two. Perhaps the similarities are more obvious: both operate massive, modern factories, both are fanatically dedicated to the quality of their tobaccos, and both have a long history and make famous brands that have stood the test of time. But this, our dear readers, is about the differences.
For starters, no pun intended, let’s talk about lunch. Typically, large companies have cafeterias. In the United States, outside of Google, such places offer fare that make sixth grade school lunch seem palatable. At both Mac Baren and Orlik, we were pleased to discover that the Danes have a subtly different approach to such things. They serve edible lunches in company cafeterias. Offering traditional Danish comestibles, including black bread, a variety of impressive cheeses and cold meats, paté, and full salad bars, Sykes wants one of these for the Smokingpipes.com campus. Imagine visiting a tobacco company and coming away with company catering ideas. Picking a winner in this category was impossible.
Both Orlik and Mac Baren have machinery that causes otherwise reasonable grown men to act like eight-year-old boys who just saw a backhoe. Conveyor belts, automatic weighing machines, little robotic arms to fold packaging, slides, chutes, and sundry whirring doodads abound, but the nod, if only a half-nod, goes to Mac Baren, who can go from tobacco coming in from the ceiling, to pouches, to cartons, to outer cartons, to palletes, all without ever being touched by a human hand. Orlik was close, requiring slightly more human intervention, but in this category, Mac Baren is a clear winner.
Both factories produce rope tobacco. Rope tobacco is a traditional method of fabricating tobacco for transport, back when finding a way to keep tobacco smokable after a transatlantic journey on a wooden sailing ship was a serious problem. The tobacco is literally spun into ropes: the process lies somewhere in between cigar rolling and rope braiding. But, the factories’ respective methods are a little different. Mac Baren uses whole leaves as something comparable to the binder and filler. Orlik uses thin pressed sheets of tobacco, similar to those used for flakes, but much thinner. Inside, Mac Baren generally uses loose leaf dark fired Kentucky, whereas Orlik uses pressed perique or black cavendish. From this process comes some of the world’s most famous, most tastiest blends, including Mac Baren Roll Cake and, Sykes’ personal favorite, Escudo, which is made by Orlik (which we both happen to be smoking while engaging in this absurd literary exercise). However, the nod goes to Mac Baren in this category, for they have what looks and works like a giant RYO cigarette machine. Frankly, the little machine that presses it into a rope at Orlik just isn’t nearly as cool.
About an hour on the road after our visit to Orlik, Sykes turned to Kevin and said “did the tobacco blender guy make you think mad scientist too?” To which Kevin retorted with a maniacal laugh. Yes, Orlik has its very own evil genius tobacco blender. Here in Denmark they offer a personalized blending service where different stores or individuals can choose to craft their own blend. The idea started in the 1930s and grew into Paul Olsen’s My Own Blend, which Orlik purchased from the Olsen family in the 1980s. Today, roughly eight metric tons of pipe tobacco is custom blended for customers and stores to the exact recipe, based on almost fifty component blends and dozens of flavorings, by Lasse Berg, Chief Evil Tobacco Genius (ok, we made up the title). It is abundantly clear that a) Lasse thinks he has the best job on the planet, and b) he played with chemistry sets as a kid. At one point, he showed us a cola flavored tobacco topping of his own creation, of which he was very proud, but then went on to admit that he doesn’t use it very much because, apparently, no one really thinks of cola as a tobacco flavoring. He went on to create for us, sans cola topping, individualized blends based on our preferences. Sykes’ had more perique, Kevin had more rum. Also, during this exercise, Kevin drank a bit of the rum used on the tobacco (he approves), also giving Orlik the nod for best adult beverages (Mac Baren did not offer adult beverages at 10am when we arrived there). So, two categories at once to Orlik: mad scientist tobacco blender and best adult beverages. Does it surprise anyone that the mad scientist blender was also the keeper of the adult beverages?
While we were visiting Mac Baren, after the factory tour with Per Jensen, who is something between a product development guy and a general Mac Baren evangelist, we sat and had coffee with him. As our conversation meandered from topic to topic, we ended up with Per showing Kevin, with Kevin’s pipe, how to pack flake tobacco by folding it and packing it vertically. So, not only did they humor us with a factory tour, fed us lunch, plied with coffee and tobacco, they even had a Mac Baren executive pack Kevin’s pipe.
On net, it was a tie. Both organizations are impressive and were wonderfully accommodating to two very excited, tobacco crazed Americans.
Bloomberg’s Nazism Strips Rights, Closes Business
July 13th, 2010
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is one of the largest foes of personal choice, individual rights and freedoms, and luxury tobacco.
This year alone, all flavored tobacco, (including cigars, and pipe tobacco) has been banned in New York City, taxes on tobacco have been raised to 75% from 46%, and now Bloomberg wants to ban outdoor smoking.
Previous PipesMagazine.com articles:
New York City Bans ALL Flavored Tobacco
New York Wants to Increase Pipe Tobacco Taxes from 46 percent to 75 percent
New York Wants to Increase Pipe Tobacco Taxes from 46 percent to 75 percent
June 21st, 2010
ALBANY — After a Friday of furious budget activity, the Legislature returns to the Capitol today to vote on Gov. David Paterson’s latest provocative one-week budget extender — including a chunky tax hike on cigarettes and tobacco products as well as stepped-up tax enforcement on sales of tobacco products on Indian reservations.
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Massachusetts Proposes Anti-Tobacco Propaganda Where Tobacco is Sold
June 21st, 2010
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is preparing to post propaganda pictures in some 9,000 locations where tobacco is sold using a federal stimulus grant of $316,000 to at least partially pay to print them. That hardly contributes to job creation and economic recovery in the state, according to the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association.
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Luxury Tobacconists Say Increased Pa. Tobacco Taxes Will Lower Tax Revenues
June 20th, 2010
Gov. Ed Rendell’s budget for Pennsylvania’s 2009-2010 fiscal year that begins in two weeks will be looking in part to increased and new taxes on cigarette and cigar smokers for additional tax revenues which the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association says will never come.
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