Last Sunday I met with pipe-maker extraordinaire Michael Parks at his workshop in Bowmanville, ON, a nice little town about an hour east of Toronto. We chatted for three hours on everything from making pipes to social networks while drinking coffee & smoking bowls of his favorite tobacco, McCranies Red Ribbon. (Mike received a huge store of his favorite ‘baccy from McCranie himself in exchange for one of Mike’s pipes.)

For those who don’t know, Michael Parks is one of the handful of top-tier pipemakers in the world. He’s a young guy, so he’s not as well known as S. Bang or Baldo Baldi, but give him time.

He’s been a busy guy. When not fulfilling commissions he’s on the road. The last coupe of months he did the Vegas & the NY Shows, and very successful they were for him. In the NY Show, for instance, he sold 9 of 10 pipes, at an average price of $950/pipe.

I know a lot of artists, but I’ve seldom met one as thoroughly dedicated to his craft as Mike. Mike lights up when he talks about the different materials he uses, grabbing a giant piece of briar he plans to turn into Shelob, the spider from Lord of the Rings (as part of a huge commission to fashion pipes based upon the trilogy), or an authentic wooly mammoth horn he’s using to fashion a stem on an art-deco style cigar holder for another big commission. Piles of sketches showing various pipe shapes are strewn about the workshop, as are assemblages of briar blocks in various stages of completion, most of them drawn over with complex geometric inklines, measurements and tiny illegible notes about color or finish. Yes, this guy takes his craft seriously.

We’ve arranged to have a more formal interview next month, which will give me time to prepare. I’m looking forward to it.

Town Topic was one of the gifts to myself that I unwrapped xmas morning. It’s a maple cased McClelland aromatic that got good reviews, and I’ve been wanting to try it.

My first bowl was very delightful — it’s an excellent aro. The maple flavor came through without being at all cloying. Indeed it’s almost as good as Mellow Mack, which is my favorite aro.

I’ve been almost enjoying McClelland’s Holiday Spirit the past couple of months. I say almost, because though there are nice things about it, it never really clicked for me. It’s darkly sweet, but it didn’t capture the “holiday” notes I was expecting. Indeed the first few puffs of it taste kind of moldy, which was rather offputting.

I added some Mellow Mack to it to add some high notes and bring out the incipient pecan, but, surprisingly, it didn’t really seem to have any significant impact.

But maple? After just one bowl of Town Topic it hit me that this might be just the thing to bring Holiday Spirit to life.

So I did a half-and-half Holiday Spirit with Town Topic, and it was a wonderfully winning combination that made it live up to its name. The maple flavor was just the warm, high, xmassy flavor missing from it, and the flavors complemented each other perfectly, making this, for me, a truly quintessential Holiday aro (with perhaps the best room note ever!).

If you have these blends sitting around I highly recommend giving it a try yourself.

I’ve decided to call it Winter Celebration, and I plan to always have enough of each blend on hand to be able to whip up another batch.

It seems to be a time of contraction: I had difficulty coming up with ten favorites this month, since, unusually, I’ve really only been focused on a handful of new favorites.

I’ve tried a few new blends, but I haven’t gotten them to “work” yet, so I couldn’t call them favorites. Thus I’ve included blends in my top ten I haven’t smoked at all this month, just to have them with me on the island for when I want them.

For me there are some interesting things in this list. For one thing Three Oaks Original has assumed a place just behind Three Oaks Syrian — they’re so similar, and yet just different enough that one cannot substitute for the other. I’ve also put Black XX Rope in the list, which I’m ambivalent about at the best of times, but can’t help craving once in a while. Ten Russians makes its first appearance, a veritable tsunami of latakia that is a slap in the face that hurts so good when you want it. And, finally, I’ve added Stonehenge, a strange but tasty little tidbit I rather like.

• 10: McClelland: Dark Star
•   9: Erinmore: Balkan Mixture
•   8: Samuel Gawith: Black XX Rope
•   7: Hermit: Captain Earle’s Ten Russians
•   6: G L Pease: Chelsea Morning
•   5: McClelland: Royal Cajun Dark
•   4: McClelland: Holiday Spirit
•   3: ST: Stonehenge
•   2: McClelland: Three Oaks Original
•   1: McClelland: Three Oaks Syrian

The moment I saw this Chacom Mahogany Volcano I had to get it. And after an impatient year of unseemly coveting, I finally got it (for 35% less than retailers were asking for it).

As I mentioned previously, this being a Chacom I suspected it may not be a good smoker, as Chacom is wont to put design before utility. But I didn’t expect it to be such a bad smoker. The stem, for instance, got hot. I’ve never had a stem get hot before — I could feel the heat of the plastic on my lips and in my fingers as the smoke passed through the chamber. And it didn’t smoke like briar, but more like some kind of softwood, like larch or plank or some other inappropriate wood. I was seriously disappointed. I’m willing to sacrifice some smokability for bleeding-edge design, but this was beyond the pale.

But, just like that other Chacom I coveted, that lovely Dublin Arabesque, I wasn’t going to let this beautiful pipe go to waste. I was determined to make this pipe work with some blend.

I had purchased it to be my one of my classiest pipes for one of my classiest blends, to be used almost daily. I’m one of those smokers who dedicates pipes to genres, and I had wanted this pipe to be for English blends where the latakia is not the dominate note, specifically Pease’s Chelsea Morning. But this pipe turned that wonderful blend into something harsh, acrid, and frankly unsmokable. I knew the pipe wasn’t broken in yet, but it was clear that this pipe was never going to work with this blend. So I tried a few other english blends and balkan blends in it, and every one of them was turned into a sub-par smoking experience.

When I finally accepted that this beautiful pipe was not going to work with the blends I had destined for it, I figured what the hell, let’s try that new concoction I spoke about in my previous post, a combination of Ashton’s Winding Road and McClelland’s RCS.

And what do you know… it was a terrific smoke! As if to emphasize the truth of my two previous posts, my new blend (which I now christen Stonehenge) brought this pipe to life just as the pipe brought the blend to life, revealing some new delicious layers only hinted at in other pipes.

The pipe still has a ways to go to be completely broken in, but I’m delighted to know that I can use it instead of ruing it. I may not be able to use it as I’d intended, but I can adapt. Now I’ll try some of my other favorite aros in it and see how they do.

Shapes & blends… so many variables. Just shows you shouldn’t give up finding the right combinations.

There are two blends I almost like but couldn’t give more than one star to: Ashton’s Winding Road, and McClelland’s Royal Cajun Special. They both use quality leafs, and each blend almost works, but neither succeeds to my tastebuds. I felt bad about giving them both one star, but I just couldn’t recommend them.

Winding Road has a nice citrusy topping on some quality virginias, but, as I say in my review, like so many aro virginias it’s too high-key for me, by which I mean it’s too soprano, too treble, not enough mid range and bass. Plus it burns ferociously hot. But there was definitely something in the blend I liked, so though I hated to give it a 1-star review, I honestly really can’t recommend it as is.

Royal Cajun Special Is one of three blends from McClelland that employs their astoundingly wonderful new leaf Cajun Black, a darkly sweet leaf like nothing else out there. However, I felt compelled to give this a one-star recommendation because the blend has some kind of ingredient that tastes off to me, something vaguely citrusy that clashes with the overall dark sweetness, like coming across a moldy blueberry in your pancakes, or ketchup in your chocolate pudding. It’s a quality blend that others obviously enjoy, but I couldn’t in good conscience recommend this one either.

After spending the money on both of these blends I didn’t want to throw them out, so I kept them around wondering if my tastes would later change.

But then I had an inspiration: why not mix these two together? If the Winding Road is all high-key without any bass or much depth, and if the RCS is predominantly dark and bass with a treble that’s jarringly inappropriate, perhaps these two will complement each other perfectly, like two pieces of a broken, ancient medallion.

And that’s exactly what happened. Since both had an unobtrusive citrusy note they harmonised very nicely on that note, creating a nice sweet citrusy-fig flavor; the range was now filled out from high to low; and that taste of something slightly off in the RCS now served as an interesting counterpoint to the whole, like the way blue cheese works with pears. And now it burns nice and cool, too. Each blend was like a catalyst to the other, bringing two blends that felt incomplete on their own into something complete, like the two halves of that broken talismanic medallion that, like Isis’s medallion, when joined, create magic.

Well, almost magic. The flavors aren’t entirely integrated, but that doesn’t mean they don’t work nicely together, thus giving it an interesting and subtle complex sweetness. I’m hoping that if I tweak the proportions and let the leafs sit together for a while the flavors will meld a little better.

But I’m pleased with my experiment. I took two 1-star blends that I had little hope for, and by putting them together created a solid 3-star blend. (I harbor a hope that this could become a 4-star blend in time. I’m going to continue experimenting with it.)

Now I feel like I didn’t waste money on duds, so I’ve got no complaints at all.

I’ve recently been smitten by McClelland’s Three Oaks Syrian. I tried it in a few pipes, and it was excellent in all of them. Then I tried it in my Chacom Arabesque Dublin, a birthday present from herself last year.

First a note about this pipe. I love this pipe. To my eye this is a beautiful pipe. Chacom may not make the best smokers, but they’ve got a great design sense, which to me counts for a lot. (Check out their (old) catalogue to see what I mean.) Don’t get me wrong, they’re not bad smokers, but between form and function they’ll err on the side of form. And for an aesthete like me that’s a perfectly understandable and acceptable trade-off.

But even so, I was disappointed by the lacklustre smokes this pipe gave. I had such hopes for this particular pipe, a pipe I had coveted from the moment I saw it, which my wife went out of her way to get for me. Plus it was symbolic, not only of her assent, but support of me taking up the pipe again after a thirty year hiatus. Try as I might, this pipe never gave me a great smoke. It never really even gave me a good smoke. It just refused to bring out the flavors. It didn’t sit property in my mouth, it felt too wide or something. So, in its role as a symbol it wasn’t all that satisfactory, and I came to resent it a little — few things are more disappointing than a symbol that goes sour.

But I accepted this with grace, since I was ambivalent about using it at all in the first place. I mean, did I want to mar the rim with burn marks, or otherwise risk damaging it? Or were these simply justifications to myself to mask my disappointment? A pipe is meant to be smoked, that is its nature, that is its essence. A pipe that doesn’t smoke is like a gun that’s never fired or a politician that’s incorruptible — they fail to fulfill their essential nature.

I went months without smoking it. I would see it sitting comfortably on its rack everyday, but it didn’t seem worth picking up and firing up. What a waste. But dammit, I wanted to use it! It’s just too pretty not to use.

Back to the tobacco. Like I said, I was smitten by this extraordinary new ‘baccy I discovered. It was probably the classiest smoke I ever had. So I figured, why not try my classiest smoke in my classiest pipe…?

I took that Chacom Dublin Arabesque off the rack for the first time in months and packed the Three Oaks Syrian into it using my customary Three Bears method (fill and pack with the finger of baby bear, finger of momma bear, finger of pappa bear). I didn’t want to build any expectations one way or the other. I had a purely “we’ll see what we see” attitude; I didn’t harbor any hopes other than not wanting the pipe to turn a wonderful tobacco into a bad smoke, as it had done with others.

I lit up. The false-light was very encouraging.

Then the true-light.

It was a revelation: after one puff I knew that these two were married forever.

The pipe brought this tobacco to life. (Actually, it beatified it.) Not only that, the tobacco brought the Arabesque to life for the very first time. It was a stellar smoke, the kind pipesters remember.

I suppose the pipe was waiting for the right blend before opening itself up to it.

Which raises the question — how did this happen? What is it about certain pipes working synergistically with certain tobaccos? Is it the shape? Does the shape of the pipe and the size of the bowl, and a host of other variables, create some kind of physical condition that permits the gaseous molecules of certain leaves to interact in unique ways that brings out their flavor?

It’s one of those rare, magical moments in our hobby. “The pipe had found it’s soul-mate in the form of the ‘right’ leaf for it,” as G L Pease puts it.

“Why is it that some pipes just ‘work’ with some tobaccos better than others? Why are some tobaccos so sensitive to the pipe they are smoked in, and some pipes so finicky about the company they keep?”

I find myself asking the same thing as Mr. Pease. How did this pipe, which had been such a dud before, suddenly become a champ with this blend? “Mysteries abound.”

Indeed.

My first thought was to explore the very same question in a different arena: alcohol. The idea of determining which beverage to put into which glass for maximum enjoyment must have evolved somehow — it can’t have been sheer fashion. Supertasters must have experimented with trying their favorite beverages in different glasses, asking themselves the same question: why does this glass bring out the flavor, but this one doesn’t? And just as the culturally literate will agree on the merits of one writer over another, so these sensitive tasters were able to apply the aesthetics of their sensory experience to agree upon the merits of one glass over another for certain types of alcohol (and having just as much fun in the process as we do).

I expect it’s related in some way to how aesthetic experience is hardwired in our brain. There’s a reason the golden mean is used as a compositional structure across all cultures. It’s just one of those things where art & science somehow meet each other in the structure of our brain, an aesthetic structure that those sensitive to it find inherently pleasing. Studies across cultures show this to be true.

Is there a likely correspondence between bowl shapes that bring out or inhibit certain characteristics of a given leaf, or particular proportions of leaf blends?

It’s axiomatic in our hobby that Billiards are preferable for virginias. (I’ve read this several places, but I can’t find the references right now.) Others claim Dublins are best for virginias since they “concentrate” the flavors. My experience is that Brandies are best for balkans and Dublins for latakia forward blends, and I have one Apple that works beautifully with stoved virginias.

Wine tasters share this concern with shape & flavor, and have gotten quite far in their study:

“Large bowl glasses with tapered openings, some of which are specifically designed to enhance aromatics of different wines, can assist in capturing more aromatics within the glass for the drinker to detect.”

Indeed it seems there a comparable number of barware glass shapes to pipe shapes. I can’t help but wonder, however, if the development of different barware glass shapes was a conscious effort to bring about a desired effect:

Brandy snifter: The shape of this glass concentrates the alcoholic odors to the top of the glass as your hands warm the brandy.
⋅ ⋅ ⋅
Champagne flute: This tulip shaped glass is designed to show off the waltzing bubbles of the wine as they brush against the side of the glass and spread out into a sparkling mousse.
⋅ ⋅ ⋅
.Pousse-café glass: A narrow glass essentially used for pousse café and other layered dessert drinks. Its shape increases the ease of layering ingredients.
⋅ ⋅ ⋅
Sherry glass: The preferred glass for aperitifs, ports, and sherry. The copita, with it’s aroma enhancing narrow taper, is a type of sherry glass.

I have no idea. I’m no authority. I’m just thinking out loud. I just find the topic very interesting. As someone who believes that our brains are hardwired for a shared aesthetic response to certain stimuli (culturally channeled, of course), I can’t help but believe that certain shapes work best with certain tobacco blends. And I’m curious to know what that correspondence is. Indeed I think it would make for a good study in our hobby.

Still, none of this will explain why a beautiful pipe that was an awkward wallflower at the party suddenly became the queen of the ball when the right blend came along. But the kiss of the princess turned the frog into a prince, and that was magic too. And as the prince and princess rightfully married and lived happily ever after, so did this blend take this pipe for a life of wedded bliss. This is the fourth such pairing I have, and each one is magic.

“When the convergence of all the elements happens - physical, metaphysical, aesthetic, emotional, and quite possibly spiritual components that all contribute their parts to the experience - there’s no need for the intellect to be engaged at all. It’s just pure freakin’ magic. That’s just the way it is, and just the way it should be.”

Well said, Mr. Pease.

Isn’t that a beautiful pipe rack?

My 50th birthday is coming up, and sigoth (significant other, my lovely wife), asked what I wanted. I was pulled up short — other than the the entire Criterion collection, a Grade 6 pipe commissioned from Michael Parks, or a windfall to eradicate our unsecured debt, there’s really nothing.

But one’s 50th is a significant event (if one takes such things seriously), and she wants to acknowledge it in some way. So she came up with the idea of having her side of the family chip in to get me a nice pipe rack.

(Like I said, she’s lovely, in every possible way.)

What a delightful idea!

I have long lusted after a pipe rack crafted by by these two cousins, and it appears I’m going to get one far sooner than I had anticipated.

I think their pipe racks are gorgeous. I had a brief email exchange with the cousin named Tim. Apparently the rack will be custom made, so I can think about exactly what I want.

I would be less than honest if I said I’m not a little giddy about this.

I cannot refrain from playing this game with all my favorite things in life: books (fiction & non-fiction), movies, records, paintings, porn, and now tobacco.

Hard as it will be, I will limit myself to my ten favorite tobaccos. Even more difficult will be ordering them — based upon the dire need to jettison them one at a time in order to survive until I eventually wash up ashore. Oh, but I shall miss some others…

• 10: McClelland: Frog Morton on the Bayou
•   9: Erinmore: Balkan Mixture
•   8: Samuel Gawith: 1792
•   7: Esoterica: Pembroke
•   6: McClelland: Dark Star
•   5: McClelland: Oriental Mixture 14
•   4: McClelland: Mellow Mack
•   3: McClelland: Royal Cajun Dark
•   2: G L Pease: Chelsea Morning
•   1: McClelland: Three Oaks Syrian

This is my review of McClelland’s Three Oaks Syrian posted at Tobacco Reviews:

Perhaps this is another instance of having very different tastebuds than every other piper because my experience of this blend differs quite strongly from the previous reviewers. Indeed it almost seems to me like we’re reviewing different blends.

For me this blend is very full and very smoky, with the Syrian Latakia coming front and center for a bravura performance. The orientals and virginias are in the shadows, ever present only if you pay attention to them, occassionally joining the star for a brief appearance, providing some distinctive harmony, then receding back to the shadows. And I don’t taste anything sweet, in the usual sense (is ouzo sweet?), except for a single little nuance lurking way back there you have to look for.

I would also say this blend is deliberately not balanced in the usual sense, because it’s not intended to be: the proportions serve to highlight the star rather than share the stage with her, thus it is balanced just as it ought to be: you don’t upstage the coloratura during her big number. It seems to me the blenders found the very line where any more Syrian Latakia and the flavor would have hurtled over the cliff into a single-note sharp, tarry murkiness, any less and it would have dissipated into its surroundings. Given the degree to which the semi-transparent ouzo-lemony-creosote-laden smoky flavor dominates it’s quite remarkable how complex and nuanced the blend remains.

If it’s valid to compare tobacco with wine or scotch as a nuanced art for the tastebuds — and I believe it is, since they all are concerned with the artful and subtle combinations of unique flavors arising from vegetative matter infused with the essence of their origins — then this blend is exemplary of tobacco as a “single malt”. Each single-malt scotch has a unique signature, and I can’t think of any tobacco blend this analogy applies to better than this one. Instead of peat or iodine as the bed of nuance, we have here a silky smooth creosotic plane of flavor rippling with nuance. I don’t know anything else that comes close to the flavor of this one.

I must confess I do not understand the comparison of this with Artisan’s Blend at all — Artisan’s Blend is not anywhere near as smoky or creosotic, and the orientals are much more prominent there, as is the presence of the perique. It’s surprising to me that a previous reviewer considers this an oriental forward blend for oriental lovers; the only tangy-spiciness of oriental I discern is some background colour through the semi-transparent waves of latakia. (And I’m an oriental lover. Oriental Mixture No. 14 — now there’s an oriental forward blend!)

Otherwise, the moisture out of the tin is perfect. Another reviewer suggested packing it tighter than usual and I agree. It’s a very cool, dry, remarkably smooth smoke with a unique cotton mouthfeel you can sink your teeth into. It’s not an all-day smoke, much like Cragganmore or Laphraoig would not be all-day drinks. This is a special, delectable smoke to be savored.

About the only thing I agree with the previous reviewers on is that this is one of McClelland’s finest offerings — and that’s saying a lot! I am very impressed by this blend. Very impressed. It’s perhaps the best “single-malt” tobacco blend I’ve yet tried.

No, no “perhaps” about it. It is the best “single-malt” tobacco I’ve smoked.

Highest recommendation.

About five days ago I got your standard autumnal head cold: clogged sinuses, headache, fatigue, though not a sore throat or coughing, thankfully. But it was unpleasant enough for me to spend two sleepless nights rolling around in discomfort, except for a merciful half hour catnap every hour or so.

I’m doing better now. I hate being sick, so I attacked the cold head-on with my customary method of drinking an unseemly amount of (non-alcoholic) liquids, not letting my sloshing stomach or water-logged dizziness deter the incessant imbibing of quart after quart of water, juice or tea. (I see now that a big factor in my sleepless nights was an uncontrollable urge to micturate quite frequently during the long, dark nights.)

Unfortunately I’ve used up all my sick days and I need the paycheck so I can’t fully recuperate like I ought to, meaning the symptoms continue to linger, and probably will for another few days.

Sharing this self-indulgent tale of discomfort was precipitated by the forum discussion Oct 2009 — What are you smoking? Nothing. That’s what I’m smoking. Nothing.

Not that I’m complaining. Ok, well, maybe I am a little bit. Yeah, perhaps I am a bit jealous that others are enjoying a leisurely smoke while I merely pine for one. But that’s fine, I’m happy for you, really.

But you know, it’s actually ok. Though I would have loved to have a bowl the past few days, I can wait.

And that’s the point. I can wait. Unlike cigarettes, which (as I love to quote) are a “pleasureless vector for an addictive drug”, I don’t feel like I’m depriving myself of a fix. Though I was actually better than most at putting down cigarettes fairly easily, it would have been more of a struggle, and I probably would have succumbed a couple of times, which would have kept those sinus-juices flowing days longer. Cigarettes would have been a siren call from my body to keep it aground on the shores of  sickness.

My desire for the pipe is purely behavioral. Yes, I miss it, but it’s no big deal; I can easily wait until I’m all better before I sip the nectar again. To complete the quote cited earlier, “pipe smoking can still be enjoyed for the pure pleasure of it.” Amen to that, siblings of the pipe.

And that, to me, more than anything else, demonstrates that pipes are a hobby, not a habit.

Then, hopefully, before the month is over and the topic begins again next month, I’ll share with the forum the ‘baccy that breaks the fast.