Breathing Room

Breathing Room

I love surprises. A couple months ago, I pulled the rings on freshly minted tins of three experimental blends. These had come out of the press just days earlier, and had no time to settle before being sliced and tinned. They were fresh and young and interesting, but not yet representative of what they would …

Fireside

The Top Half, Please

From a bunch of basket bargains to some very nice hand-made beauties, a great many pipes have passed through my hands over the years. I’ve always loved the hunt for the next member of the stable, and all the horse-trading along the way has done a lot to keep the fun alive. Many pipes, whether …

Ask G. L. Pease

Ask G. L. Pease (Volume 34)

G. L. Pease As I sit down with this month’s questions, I’m enjoying a wonderful bowl in little sandblasted apple made by one of my favorite makers. While this normally shouldn’t be worthy of mention, really, in this case it is. When I got this pipe in trade from another collector, it hadn’t been smoked …

Ask G. L. Pease

Ask G. L. Pease (Volume 33)

G. L. Pease Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that pipe smokers were around even before the interwebs, and our modern technology-driven ability to communicate with one another effortlessly. There was a time when we congregated in tobacconists’ shops, pubs, bars, and other public venues, but so much of that is gone, now, and our numbers …

Out of the Ashes

It’s Not That Simple

G. L. Pease After a few hundred years of people smoking pipes, you’d think we’d have figured it all out. It seems a simple thing: Choose a pipe, fill it with tobacco using whatever well practiced technique is currently in fashion, properly apply the preferred source of flame, and sit back to enjoy a lingering, …

Out of the Ashes

Indulge Your Pleasure

G. L. Pease I knew a guy whose pipes all had little grey, rectangular tags dangling from their shanks by thin white strings, each one showing the date of the last smoke, what was smoked, and a number and letter grade reflecting an overall rating of the experience. Once he’d hit upon the "right" mixture …

Ask G. L. Pease

Ask G. L. Pease (Volume 26)

G. L. Pease Amongst pipe tobacco aficionados, there seems to be no end to tightly held beliefs, some of which may have at one time had a basis in reality, some of which seem to be just frivolous flights of fancy. We are participants in a pastime rich with both history and romance, and the …

Ask G. L. Pease

Ask G. L. Pease (Volume 25)

G. L. Pease Some really interesting questions fell out of the mailbag this month, with topics ranging from humidification, to tobacco colors, to blending, to toxicity. For a change, though, it’s not the toxicity of tobacco that’s in question, but rather that of flavoring agents, and of different woods when used in pipe making. Some …

Out of the Ashes

Lights, Smokes & Leaves

The Care & Feeding of the Pipeman – by G. L. Pease Indulge me. Take a moment to close your eyes and reflect on your earliest experience as a budding pipe smoker. It could have been months ago, years, or even decades. Imagine that first bowl in as much vivid detail as you can conjure. …

Ask G. L. Pease

Ask G. L. Pease March 2012 (Volume 11)

G. L. Pease It seems this month’s mail was dominated by questions and comments about aging. I’m glad we’re talking about tobaccos, here, and not me, because I simply refuse to comply with the universe’s insistence that I grow older, dammit. Call me Peter Pan. (What’s that confounded ticking, and who let a crocodile in …

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Breathing Room

The Top Half, Please

Ask G. L. Pease (Volume 34)

Ask G. L. Pease (Volume 33)

It’s Not That Simple

Indulge Your Pleasure

Ask G. L. Pease (Volume 26)

Ask G. L. Pease (Volume 25)

Lights, Smokes & Leaves

Ask G. L. Pease March 2012 (Volume 11)