Mood & Environment While Smoking @ Pipe Shows
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Kevin Godbee - Apr 27, 2011
- 3 min read
I have mentioned in the past how there are many variables that can affect the pipe smoking experience.
I also frequently refer to pipe smoking as an experience, because to me that’s what it is … an overall experience that touches on all 5 senses.
You see and feel the tobacco. You smell and taste it, and you can hear the match or lighter, and sometimes the crackling, and hopefully not the gurgle.
Some of the variables that can affect the smoking experience are; time of day, what you ate or didn’t eat, the weather, climate & season, how relaxed or not relaxed you are, and many more not to leave out the obvious; like the tobacco and type of pipe.
I am sitting here at 8:00 AM on a mid-weekday morning smoking Dunhill Early Morning Pipe in my Ardor Giove Ninfea – 114 (YS), and I am thinking back to last year’s Chicago Pipe Show.
I recall sitting in the smoking tent on Sunday afternoon with our Associate Editor Bob Tate and Rick Newcombe (pipe collector and author of In Search of Pipe Dreams). Rick pulled out an aged tin of EMP. I can’t remember how old it was, but I think it was something like 20-years old. He was generous enough to let Bob and I fill up our pipes not once, but twice. I am enjoying the pipe of EMP that I am smoking right now, but I do recall how amazing the very old Early Morning Pipe tobacco was that Rick gave us.
I love the one Ardor pipe that I have. It is that special pipe that no matter what I smoke in it, the tobacco always tastes better in my Ardor.
Then it hit me.
No matter what the pipe or tobacco, every pipe that I smoke while at a pipe show is always more enjoyable.
I think it’s because of the great mood it puts me in to be around hundreds of other brothers and sisters of the briar. Being around tons of pipes and tobaccos helps too.
In today’s world the opportunities to be around other pipe smokers in person, rather than virtually online, are far and few between.
Pipe Shows are truly a wonderful experience.
I know that some of you may have restricted budgets as the economy and jobs market is still not so hot to put it mildly. Plus, many new pipe smokers are 20-something college students on a tight budget. However, I would like to suggest that you do whatever you can to make it to at least one pipe show this year, even if you have to put it on a credit card or borrow money from mom & dad.
An important ingredient to truly living your life is to create experiences that turn into fond memories.
I offer you my personal guarantee that attending a pipe show will do this. If you think smoking your pipe at home while reading this website is enjoyable, I direct you to the lyrics of a ’70’s song (from back in the last heyday of pipe smoking), where Randy Bachman of Bachman Turner Overdrive sang … ‘You ain’t seen nothin yet. B-, b-, b-, baby, you just ain’t seen na, na, nothin yet. Here’s somethin’ that you’re never gonna forget. B-, b-, b-, baby, you just ain’t seen na, na, nothin yet.’ This is an oldie that some of the younger readers may not be familiar with, so if you’re interested, here you go.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7miRCLeFSJo
For a list of pipe shows around the country, please visit our Pipe Events page.
Kevin Godbee
Owner / Publisher – PipesMagazine.com
Right Click Media, LLC
Written by Kevin Godbee
12 Responses
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowl’s surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the work’s been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once I’d cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but it’s how I roll. If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. There were none of the usual vanilla, cherry, berry or anise notes of typical aromatics, nothing that could be compared to aftershave or deodorant soap, but something almost musky, a little earthy, something exotic. The shop’s owner couldn’t tell me what was in it, how, or where it had been produced. The old blend had been retired before he’d bought the place. The printed catalogue gave no clues, either, other than being overprinted with the word “DISCONTINUED” in bold, rubber-stamp type. (And, I don’t recall it as being “highly aromatic” as the description indicates.) There was still quite a bit in the jar. Being, at that point, an intrepid explorer of all kinds of tobaccos, whether I thought I’d like them or not, I had to give it a try. It was burly based, but also comprised a good measure of virginia leaf, and maybe some other varieties; I didn’t have enough experience at the time to really pick it apart. But, that aroma was unlike anything I’d experienced before or since. It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasn’t. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply can’t. I won’t. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
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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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.
You got that right!Good song too!
shakey
Hopefully I can convince the wife we need to be in Vegas the first week of November, I would love to attend a pipe-show and discover this phenominon for myself!
+1 for the BTO reference – always nice to get our CanCon
And there’s none better than the Chicago show. Can’t wait to meet up with you and Bob there!
I’m looking forward to seeing you Doc! I’ll be making some remarks in the UPCA meeting. Save me a seat. Unfortunately, Bob won’t be making the show this year, so I will be running my butt off.
Well I love the music,but since I was in high school at that time it wasnt anything legal in my pipe.A stage I have since grow out of years ago.
Never been to a pipe show but will have to definately try one this year.
Most definitely will be going to the Vegas one again this year. Hope to see you guys there.
Kevin,
The mood is definitely a factor at pipe shows. The Vegas show is great in the fact that attendees can smoke while visiting the various exibitors in the main hall. I will definitely be there this year!
Other shows that have to resort to “smoking tents” to allow smoking at the show, somewhat dampens the experience of the attendees. They can’t smoke while they shop.
The exibitors, on the other hand are the ones that suffer. As an exibitor myself, I usually have to be at the table for the whole show, and not being able to indulge in the leaf all day long, really sours the experience. Going out to the tent for an hour isn’t an option.
The no smoking policy is a double-whammy for exibitors, because an attendee will usually do a quick tour of the hall, find some tobacco samples, then dash out to the tent for an hour or two. This hurts sales because the attendee isn’t looking and possibly buying something. He’s out in the tent with his buddies, and not in the hall. Cool for the pipe smoker, bad for the pipe seller.
One possible way to avoid the problem is to dispense with the hotel exibit hall entirely, and set up a huge tent in the parking lot next to the hotel, and conduct the whole show “under the big top”. Cirque du soleil does this all the time in large cities.
Just a thought from my side of the table.
CACooper
Cooper Pipes
http://www.PipeandPouch.com
I have come to regard the Chicago show as some kind of pilgrimage I have to make. For now though, I will wait for your videos haha. I stopped by the local shop today for some pipe cleaners and I was talking with the owner about how I never see a pipe smoker around. He said he gets good business but he has never seen a costumer outside of the shop, it is a very, very small city too.
“Plus, many new pipe smokers are 20-something college students on a tight budget.”
Aw ya I got a shout out haha just kidding. I really am a 20-something ‘new’ (a year) pipe smoker on a tight budget.
CACooper makes an interesting point about the double whammy for exhibitors at shows that prohibit smoking. However, I disagree to some extent about the problem of smoking tents. When they first introduced the smoking tent, I too thought it was a terrible idea. But then I discovered it forced people to be less clique-ish. You had to sit with people you did not know and so consequently got to meet even more people than I normally we would. I still have fond memories of sitting with a bunch of guys from Poland, whom I had never met, and had a great time with them (they know how to party!)
This is a great article and is spot on Kevin!
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I know that almost everything that I smoke when we are at pipe shows tastes better than normal. This is a good and bad thing though :-).
It is bad because blends that I have smoked at shows never really taste the same when I smoke them at home and I wish that they tasted as good as they did at the shows.
It is good because I remember that they tasted better at the show and I remember what I was doing when I was smoking that particular blend at a show and it brings back the memories of that time with clarity.
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I also remember smoking the Early Morning Pipe and 965 from Rick. They both tasted amazing! I smoke both of those blends frequently now, but they never taste as good as they did that day in the smoking tent.
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I love going to pipe shows and I agree that every one should try to attend at least one show for the experience. The problem is that once you attend one show, you will always feel the need to attend more. They are an amazing time.
As with the experience of any fine thing, the enjoyment of luxury pipe tobacco is as dependent on mood, setting and personal circumstance as much as the quality of the tobacco itself. These things go hand in hand; and while we routinely make do with less than optimum circumstances and still manage to derive a fair measure of enjoyment, an environment of fraternity and camaraderie go a long way toward enhancing the pleasures of the pipe. The original Americans, who gave us the “gift” of tobacco knew this, and its truth is as ancient as it is enduring.