Reading Between The Lines – Pipe Smoking Tips
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Bob - Aug 24, 2009
- 7 min read
By Bob Tate
I would like to talk a little about the information that novice pipers will come across. The reason that I named this article “Reading Between the Lines”, is because I want to impress upon the readers that you should read between the lines and take all information about pipe smoking with a grain of salt. This even includes anything that I have written. Everything that I read or hear, I always take with a grain of salt. This includes the so called ‘Professionals’ that work at B&M’s, but I will talk a little more about that later.
There is very little in pipe smoking that I consider hard set ‘rules’. Yes, there are some ‘rules’ that should be followed very closely. Such as cleaning your pipes after every smoke and having a good rotation, but even that is debatable. Does cleaning your pipes after every smoke and having a good rotation help the enjoyment of pipe smoking? In my opinion, yes it does. But back before pipe smoking became a hobby and there were a lot more people smoking pipes, a lot of them smoked the same pipe every day and did not clean them after every smoke. They certainly seemed like they enjoyed their pipes just as much as I do. Am I right and they were wrong? Or were they right and I am wrong? The answer is neither. Pipe smoking is all about enjoying YOUR pipes, tobacco, and smoking.
I do not put much value into those who consider themselves ‘Expert Pipe Smokers’. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not including pipe makers and tobacco blenders in this discussion of being an expert. They are obviously some form of an expert because they have studied the art of pipe making or tobacco blending and they apply their knowledge in their trade and make a living from it. So they have to know quite a bit about what they are doing are they wouldn’t be able to make a living doing what they do.
The ‘Expert Pipe Smokers’ I am referring to is, the people who say; “I have been smoking a pipe for so many amount of years and I have all of this knowledge and this is how you are supposed to smoke a pipe”. In my opinion, the individual person finds their own way to smoke a pipe. If you enjoy smoking a pipe the way that you smoke it, you are doing it correctly. Once again, that does not mean the so called ‘experts’ are wrong, because they are not. They are enjoying their pipe smoking as well.
I do always listen to and read every bit of information that becomes available to me because I am always learning. There is almost always some bit of information that I was not previously aware of. Sometimes the new info or tip helps me to enjoy my pipe journey better and sometimes it does not. I keep using the things that work for me and do not use the things that don’t work. I do not discard any info whether it works for me or not because it might help out a fellow piper even though it did not work for me. A prime example is the fold and stuff method with flake tobacco. I know that a lot of people use that method with much success, but I can not use that method. I do not get satisfactory results from it although others do.
This applies even more to tobacco reviews. Remember that every one has different tastes and what tastes good to me, might not taste good to you and vice versa. When I write a review, I keep that in mind and try to remain objective. I really hate when I read a review and the reviewer tears apart a blend that he doesn’t like just because he doesn’t like it without any explanation of why he doesn’t like it. I have seen reviews of aromatic blends and the reviewer starts his review with, “Let me start by saying that I hate aromatics.” And then proceeds to bash the tobacco. Well if they hate aromatics and can not be objective, then why are they reviewing an aromatic?
When I read reviews of a tobacco that I have not had before, I look for certain things in the review. I tend to disregard the reviewers personal taste as far as the blend goes, unless I know the reviewer and know what their tastes tend to be. Here are some of the things that I look for when reading a review; what type of tobaccos make up the blend, what type of blend it is, does it sound similar to a blend that I have smoked and if so did I like it or dislike it, if it had a lot of bite to it, etc.
Now back to when I mentioned B&M’s. Just because someone works in one, does not mean that they know what they are talking about. There are two B&M’s that I used to go to frequently. I still occasionally go to one, but I do not go to the other one at all. The first one, the one which I do not go to at all anymore, the clerk was a little knowledgeable about pipes, tobacco, and cigars; but they used to lie all the time instead of telling the truth or simply saying “I don’t know”. Anything that they didn’t carry, they would claim was inferior, was overpriced, was discontinued, or another of many other excuses.
Here are a few examples of what happened to me there.
One time I went in and asked if they had any Cornell & Diehl tobaccos. They told me that C&D tobaccos were not very good and people would not buy them so they stopped carrying their products. Needless to say, this was bull. I have become a fan of C&D tobaccos and they make great blends using top notch tobacco. Another time I went in there and asked if they had any Peterson University Flake. They told me that Peterson discontinued that blend, another lie. The last time that I went in, I asked if they had any Opus X cigars and they told me that Fuente didn’t allow the state of Maryland to sell any Opus X cigars, another lie. That was the last time that I went there. This happened when I was relatively new to pipes, about 4 years or so ago. Except for the lie about Opus X, that was about 1 year ago. So you see, with me being new to pipes, I assumed that they knew what they were talking about and telling the truth. I found out a few weeks after each incident that they were in fact, not being truthful.
The second B&M has a clerk that is just totally ignorant to anything pipe, cigar and tobacco related in general. One time I went in there and was looking at Meerschaum pipes. I asked him who the manufacturer of a particular pipe was and he said Meerschaum. I said I know it is Meerschaum, but who makes it. He said that Meerschaum WAS the manufacturer. I had to explain to him that there were in fact many manufacturers of Meerschaum pipes. He got angry and walked away. I left shaking my head.
Another time I went in there and the same clerk was working. He was showing some people some nasal snuff and obviously didn’t know what it was nor did the customers. He told them to put a pinch of it in their mouth and that is how you are supposed to use it. After the people put it in their mouth and said that they didn’t taste anything, I had to laugh and I explained to them that it is nasal snuff and is supposed to be used in the nose. I have also had to explain to other customers that his info on pipe smoking was incorrect and explain to them why his information was wrong and what they could do to fix the problem that they were having. I still go there occasionally because they have a great selection of stuff, but I do not deal with that particular clerk.
So like I said at the start; read between the lines and take everything with a grain of salt. Keep building your knowledge and try many different things. You will come across things that don’t work for you. But when you find something that does, it will make your pipe smoking a little more enjoyable. Find out what works for YOU and smoke your pipes the way that YOU enjoy them, not the way that someone else said you should because they are a supposed ‘expert’.
Happy Puffing!
Written by Bob
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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! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! 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. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
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. Naturally a Virginia-Perique, it is enhanced with a traditional core of black Cavendish. In the tin it holds much promise, with a lightly bready and very woody, if ever-so-slightly sour, aroma. After some time acclimating to air, the bouquet softens further and offers hints of the burley with some chocolaty notes wafting through the more dominant dry grassy aspect. The tin art is of a coin-style bas-relief bust, presumably of a founding Sutliff brother, à la The Old Boss On the reverse of the tin we find the blend’s description: Reflecting on Sutliffs 175 years of tobacco excellence, we came across a brand that embodies true value, SILVER QUARTER. This name pays homage to Sutliffs roots, the legacy of two brothers who popularized pipe smoking in the burgeoning mining society of San Francisco. We celebrate this heritage with a coin cut composed of the finest African Virginias, complemented by a core of Perique and Black Cavendish. 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. 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With a sweet coffee or tea to accompany, the aftertaste of the maple is reinvigorated on the palate […]
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Vegas Baby The show started out strong on the 14th floor hospitality suites hosted by the Vegas Pipe Show and Smoking Pipes as well as room hopping to carvers, estate sellers, and vendors to pre-game for the festivities. If you’re interested in what that looks like I’ll refer you to last years pipe show round up. I circled with Brian Levine to get the totals in comparison to last year: This year’s show numbers: 108 Exhibitor tables, 445 attendees, 3,250 Raffle Tickets, 100ish dinners, 172 Rooms in the Hotel. Last year, by comparison, 107 exhibitor tables, 425 attendees, 2,200 raffle tickets, 104 dinners, and 175 rooms on Friday and Saturday nights. We were at capacity, basically, when it came to vendor tables and the dinner, so there is no physical room for growth at this point except for attendees. That said, we filled that smoking lounge to the brim. New Carvers Spotlight Garret Woo (Pipes by Woo) How long have you been carving? Garret: I’ve been carving since 2021, and I’m guessing your next question is probably how’d you get started carving? James: Yes. Garret: In 2021 I took a break from my full time job – that included machining and assembly work and I thought maybe it was time I made something that I would like and I started looking at youtube and Instagram and putting together my shop. I did struggle on the stems to start and there was a lot of failure at the beginning. James: How many pipes have you made so far? Garret: I number my pipes, so I just finished up 186. James: What is your favorite shape you’ve been making? Garret: I really dig Canadians and pipes with longer shanks and lovat Canadian blends. I like to play with different shapes of stems on the longer shanked pipes. The billiard would be my go-to shape but I want to learn more techniques on freehanded shapes. I like to put brass and copper adornments on my pipes with my machining background it helps. James: What is the craziest thing you’ve seen at this show? Garret: The first thing that comes to mind is the table over there with C-Pipes with the shapes and the size and petiteness and the intricate details they did. You can check out what Garret is working on by going to his Instagram. Stefan Cashwell James: how long have you been carving? Stefan: about 3 years. James: What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at the show? Stefan: The Adam Davidson pipe with the clear shape and the bamboo—I don’t know if it’s 3D printed or what, but it’s amazing. James: What’s your favorite shape to do? Stefan: That’s a tough question. I think they’re all the same shape, but what’s fascinating is that Dublin, volcano, and blowfish are all the same depending on how you turn them. Playing with that, with all its variations, is a lot of fun. My favorite accent to use is also horn; it’s finicky, but it’s a great accent on pipes. You can check out Stefan’s work on his Instagram. Science: Meet Pipes I chatted with Chris from the San Diego Pipe Club; he started off doing stem replacements for estate pipes but also improved the airflow. James: How are you doing 3d printing? What is the thought process? Chris: It’s a 3D-printed pipe with a briar insert. The design is a calabash meets a Peterson system meets a metal Falcon/Kirsten radiator style. It is a bottom draft smoking bowl like a radiator like those metal pipes. The inside chamber is a calabash. The stummel and accent rings in the stems are all 3d printed. The insert is briar, olive wood, or I have the potential to use meerschaum as well. This idea came about through the San Diego Pipe Club, wanting to see if we could 3D print a pipe and being curious about the technology; I have a printer and design ability, so here we are. James: What’s the type of plastic you’re using? Chris: It’s all PLA plastic, a renewable potato starch plastic that is food-safe. The stummels are printed with a plastic that has wood in it 40% wood fiber, bamboo, rosewood, ebony, redwood, and walnut are the woods I’m printing. For the accent rings I just got a new material that I’m printing that has 40% copper, so its real metal that you can sand, and polish the same as wood filament. The stems are 3d printed as well. The concept is renewable and cheap from a production standpoint, with the ability to make a very high quality smoking pipe based on the experience. By combining the calabash system pipe and bottom draft hole and using 3d simulations to see airflow, I can see where I’m having eddies and ripples in my current, and see where my moisture and all the particles are dropping back out from a vapor to a liquid. Most people who have tried these say the stems are clean, and they don’t even have to run a pipe cleaner afterward because everything collects at the bottom. Chris has also been experimenting with color-changing plastics so you can see the hotspots. Chris said he was able to use this to slow down his cadence, which, of course, could mean you could get a slow-smoke training pipe to teach yourself to perform better. If you’re interested in learning more or want to check one out, you can contact him on Instagram: Copper Beard Pipe Works The Negative Space The show was buzzing about one specific pipe, which had everyone guessing how it was made. I chatted with Adam Davidson briefly about it. James: How did this idea come to fruition? Adam Davidson: Smokingpipes.com had an expo back in August open to all of the makers they carry. The theme was to make a pipe utilizing bamboo. Given that the last time we had the expo I made a smooth Almond with three bamboo shanks, […]
