-
-
Subscribe
------------------
------------------
-----------------
Did you ever wonder where all your favorite store blends / private blends come from? How does the tobacconist provide all their special blends? Do they have a secret tobacco plantation out back?
There are many excellent bulk pipe tobacco blends that are exclusive to specific retailers. Here’s the inside scoop on how this works.
Tobacco growers / manufacturers produce many different types of tobaccos that are available exclusively to tobacconists for the purposes of blending together to formulate their own creations. There are so many different types of tobaccos, curing, aging and fermenting methods, along with a myriad number of potential casings that the possibilities are almost endless. You will probably not find the same private store blend beyond the store that has created it.
Here is a picture of the Peter Stokkebye "Tobacco Bar" at the annual IPCPR trade show. Tobacconists can create custom blends on the spot and then place orders for the ingredients needed in the ratios required.
Here is a closer look at some of the aromatic blends retailers can pick from to make their own creations.
Now you have an idea of where some of your favorite store blends may come from.
Did you guys know that Salvador Dali smoked a pipe?
Viprati Pipes makes a Salvador Dali collection too.
Here is a self-portrait of Salvador Dali smoking a pipe. This is a scan of a postcard Laura got me when she went to the Salvador Dali Museum right here in St. Petersburg, walking distance from our condo downtown. (She went without me, as I was away at a pipe show.)
Here’s a Sir Walter Raleigh Pipe Tobacco Ad from Popular Mechanics April 1959 edition.
It says:
Smells Grand! Smokes Sweet! Packs Right! Can’t Bite!
That sounds good to me. I’m ready to smoke some right now, and when I do I will be nice and relaxed, smoking slowly, enjoying the flavor and the time to relax.
You can also see how the chicks dig him, which is totally true. My pipe is definitely a chick magnet … or is it my two-seater convertible? I’m not sure, but just don’t mix the two together. The wind will not make for a good smoking experience.
I love seeing these old ads. It makes me wish it was 1959 right now, but with personal computers and the Internet.
What do you think of this ad?
Heather Webber, writer of The Nina Quinn Mystery Series likes the smell of a pipe. In the Cozy Chicks Blog, she writes, "I was coming out of a store yesterday, getting soaked from the pouring rain, when I caught a whiff of a tobacco pipe in the parking lot. I actually stopped, rain droplets coursing down my face, and just breathed in the smell. I love it."
She also says, "This isn’t to say I’m ready to take up smoking a pipe …"
I posted a comment to encourage her to give it a try. Feel free to do the same.
I commented:
You should try smoking a pipe Heather. You do not inhale like cigarettes and pipe tobacco doesn’t have all the nasty chemicals added to it like cigarette tobacco does.
If you want some pointers, let me know. I’d be glad to help. Writer Melissa Vivigatz smokes pipes and says, "Usually the urge comes about when I am writing, and especially editing, but kicking back awhile on my park bench under the willow tree or redwood in the backyard over morning/evening tea works too."
(By the way, the Melissa Vivigatz reference is from here: http://mvivigatz.homestead.com/pipes.html)
You can see her full post and all the comments here: http://www.cozychicksblog.com/2009/05/sniff.html
Pipe Smoking is Good for You
These days, as any pipe smoker will tell you, the media is full of reasons why you shouldn’t smoke and invariably cigarettes, pipes and cigars are all lumped in together. The newspaper reports will tell you that smoking is bad for your lungs, bad for your heart, bad for your arteries and just generally bad for your health in general.
And, obviously, some forms of smoking are detrimental to your health and dwelling on all the bad aspects of smoking certainly does sell papers and attract viewers to television programs. Everybody loves to hear bad news so the papers and television stations are going to stress the bad side-effects of smoking and they’re not going to tell you anything about any positive side-effects that may have been documented.
In fact most people probably don’t even stop to consider that there could be some positive side-effects to some forms of smoking … but there certainly are positive side-effects and we’re going to look at some of those right now.
It is fairly well known that some very famous people smoked a pipe. People like FDR and General Macarthur were well-known pipe smokers and, when you come to think about their lifestyle, it’s no wonder that they smoked a pipe. Pipe smoking is very very relaxing and when you’re in a job with high stress levels such as the two guys I just mentioned, then you can understand why they sought some peace and time for reflection with their pipe.
These days there are lots of us who work in very stressful positions and what can we do to try and beat that stress? We can drink, we can pop pills, we can even go and see a shrink for some therapy sessions but none of those can relax us as much as a quiet time watching the events of the day come and go in the wisps of smoke that come from a bowl of fine premium tobacco.
Sitting back with your pipe is an escape from the world and all the stress that had built up throughout the day. It’s a time for reflection when you can come to terms with the challenges that you’re facing and it prepares you for the stress and challenges of another day.
But there are more positive side-effects to tobacco than just stress relief.
There’s a suggestion that smoking may be a form of pain relief. A friend of mine suffers from some serious knee damage but can’t avoid spending long hours every day on his feet. Of course that puts some incredible strains on his knee and the pain at the end of the day can be almost unbearable.
He’s tried painkillers and he’s tried injections but there’s nothing that takes the edge off the pain that he suffers from more than tobacco. Just a few puffs and the pain is beginning to dull for him. Now I’m not trying to suggest that smoking a pipe will cure chronic pain and it certainly doesn’t take away all the pain that my friend suffers from but it does dull the searing pain that afflicts him at the end of a busy day to the point where it’s more bearable.
And pain relief isn’t the only physical and mental thing that smoking can help alleviate. Medical research is beginning to show that tobacco helps to prevent colon and prostate cancer … now there’s a shock! Tobacco actually helps prevent some forms of cancer … I bet it’s going to be a while before that fact becomes a lot more public than it is today.
There’s even some suggestion that smoking helps thin the blood and reduces the chance of blood clotting.
There’s also evidence that tobacco smoke helps alleviate illnesses such as Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease and Tourette’s Syndrome. And some research suggests that schizophrenia and some addictions can be helped by smoking.
However, there is one key point here that must be stressed. We’re not talking about smoking cigarettes here. Cigarette smoking certainly is harmful to your health and you only have to think about all those chemicals in the cigarettes you smoke … and the paper wrappers … and the way a cigarette is smoked … to understand why cigarette smoking is harmful.
Pipe smoking though is different. Most pipe smokers do not inhale to the same extent that a cigarette smoker inhales and it’s that difference that’s the key here. When you don’t inhale deeply as cigarette smokers do then you’re not damaging the delicate structure of your lungs but you are still getting the positive effects of smoking.
Now you may think that all these beneficial side-effects of smoking are something that are quite recent medical discoveries but that’s not the situation at all. The known positive side-effects of smoking have been known for many hundreds of years and tobacco was recognized as having medicinal properties well before the Europeans first discovered tobacco in the New World.
Pipes and tobacco have been uncovered at archeological digs throughout north, central and south America and the first Europeans to arrive after Columbus found that many of the tribes they encountered regularly used tobacco to treat a wide variety of medical problems.
Of course “modern” science doesn’t like to look back at what’s gone before and sometimes doesn’t even care to admit that there are opposing views to what they’re promoting. That’s probably what we’re seeing today as more and more research dollars are pumped into proving tobacco is bad for you while very little is put into promoting the positive aspects of tobacco.
I suppose that it’s understandable that even the cigarette companies aren’t going to be interested in funding tobacco research that shows that their products don’t have the same positive side-effects that pipe smoking can have.
So we’re left with the situation where just a small group of researchers, often starved of funds, are prepared to go on researching the positive aspects of tobacco and smoking. Even when they make new discoveries and breakthroughs it’s hard for them to get the message out.
But we can take heart from that research that is being done for it is showing that pipe smoking does have some very positive side-effects so don’t be afraid to sit down tonight and enjoy the relaxation that only we pipe smokers can appreciate. It’s not as bad for your health as others would have you believe.
An amazing discovery was made this morning. It was reported on Fox News that a study by Baylor College of Medicine showed that pipe smokers scored higher on a standardized test and got better grades than the non-pipe-smokers. Pipe smoking can reduce stress, leading to enhanced concentration and thus better academic performance.
Pipe smokers have long known about the health benefits of pipe smoking. Some of the best thinkers and geniuses of all time, like Albert Einstein and Mark Twain were pipe smokers.
It was also reported that, "Pipe smoking is safe for adults and children of all ages. It does not cause cancer or have any negative health effects. As a matter of fact, men who smoke pipes live 33.7% longer than those who don’t. Women who smoke pipes are 27% thinner, better looking and have bigger boobs than those who don’t."
Actually, only part of the above is true. The part that is true is that pipe smokers have long known about the health benefits of pipe smoking. Some of the best thinkers and geniuses of all time, like Albert Einstein and Mark Twain were pipe smokers. Pipe smoking does in fact relax you.
The part about the Baylor College of Medicine study was paraphrased from a ridiculous news item I saw on Fox news this morning saying that chewing gum improved academic performance.
You can read about that here: Web MD. (Of course, the study was funded by Wrigley).
I can’t wait for Altadis to fund a study on the benefits of pipe smoking. There really are health benefits from pipe smoking and we will have an article about that here in the coming week. I am not joking about that.
Ah, the good ole days when you could enjoy smoking your pipe wherever you wished and it made women desire you.
I found this on Dr Hermes Retro-Scans - Scans of classic pulp, comics, movies, paperbacks and babes of yore.
This is from the January 1947 issue of POPULAR SCIENCE.
I was elated a couple of months ago when I read a Wall Street Journal article that pipe smoking was making a come-back and some of this new popularity was being discovered on college campuses. They told of students smoking pipes at Central Michigan University, Vanderbilt University, University of Illinois, University of California at Riverside, and Temple University, in Philadelphia. The Wall St. Journal Article is Here
Well all of those students should thank their lucky stars that they do not go to the University of Oklahoma where “the UCO Student Association Senate passed a resolution that puts the university on the path to becoming tobacco free.
The resolution, which passed by a majority vote of 45 to 37, called for making the campus entirely tobacco free. The resolution bans cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, snuff, spit tobacco, as well as herbal tobacco products.” - Full Article
And they are very proud of themselves!
I think they should all be sent home and given a spanking by their parents, and grounded for a week.
Unfortunately, the majority of people are lemmings and sheep and believe whatever the media and pleasure police tell them. So many people are still buying into all the second-hand smoke falsities that have been manufactured by anti-smoking Nazis. That is a good name for them too. Did you know that Hitler was vehemently against smoking? He hated smoking almost as much as he hated Jews.
Instead of banning tobacco, they should ban stupidity and then we would be rid of at least 45 students over there.
I better go smoke a pipe and relax.
I was surfing around the Internet … picture a 45 year-old with mustache and goatee on a virtual surfboard with pipe in mouth … when I came upon a post by Ryan Oakley on his “Grumpy Owl” blog.
As many of you know, last Friday was International Pipe Smoking Day, and that is what prompted Ryan’s post.
I like how he compares and contrasts the differences between pipe smoking and cigarette smoking. He mentions cigars too, which I smoke as well.
Ryan says:
Two pipe smokers can sit down and discuss the art for hours. Speaking in jargon, we’ll recommend blends, the appropriate vessel to smoke them in and talk about flavours. The conversation may occasionally veer into cigars or hookahs but cigarettes will only be mentioned with absolute contempt.
Most of us started by smoking those. Then we grew up. Cigarettes are for children. Once you reach college age, you need to decide whether you’re going to be a cigar smoker or a pipe smoker; a money man or an idea man. But what you cannot continue to be is a cigarette man. Those people are just suckers.
Read the rest of his great post here:
International Pipe Smoking Day
| Pipe Manufacturer & Retailer Spotlight | Pipe News | Pipe of the Week | Pipe Smoking Thoughts | Put that in Your Pipe |
Wine | About
Us | Contact
Us | Links
| Privacy
Policy | Terms
& Conditions | DMCA
Notice | Advertising
| Site Map |
| Getting Published on PipesMagazine.com |
All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2009 - 2012 Right Click Media, LLCThis site, PipesMagazine.com, is not in any way affiliated with Pipes and Tobaccos Magazine.
We are an online magazine & community and do not publish a print version.
We use the SafeSurf Rating System to signify that PipesMagazine.com is for adults only
