The NeatPipes/Radice AeroBilliard

G. L. Pease This little review has been a long time coming. Too long. I have my reasons, my excuses. And, this time, they’re actually pretty good ones. Mostly, it’s because, in order to do the pipe justice, I felt it important to do more than just smoke it a few times and scribble down …

Out of the Ashes

The Irony of Tolerance

G. L. Pease "A pipe is the fountain of contemplation, the source of pleasure, the companion of the wise; and the man who smokes, thinks like a philosopher and acts like a Samaritan." -Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (19th C) I grew up with the notion that other people’s views, no matter how different …

Out of the Ashes

Looking In Mirrors

G. L. Pease Some years ago, a certain tobacco, one that was evidently quite popular, highly regarded, and fairly readily available, routinely found its way into my pipes. I bought and smoked tin after tin, and stashed away more than a few in the "cellar" for aging. This is no shattering news, until the dropping …

Out of the Ashes

Three By Three

G. L. Pease Some months back, I embarked on a little experiment, smoking three recently opened tins, and for reasons I can’t really explain (because I haven’t a clue), I alternated those three tobaccos in three different pipes. Despite the fact that I’ve always been a champion of seeking out those special pairings between a …

Out of the Ashes

Ashes to Ashes

G. L. Pease Over the years or decades that some of us have been pipe smokers, we’ve seen blends come, and more often go. For a variety of reasons, many great, and many more not-so-great blends have disappeared from the market. Some of these, the best, or best known, have been subsequently replaced by a …

Out of the Ashes

Beauty and the Billiard

G. L. Pease In the (somewhat more than) three decades I’ve been accumulating pipes — I choose the word purposefully to distinguish the briar aggregation that currently shares my residence from the purposeful, themed groupings curated by more deliberate and true collectors — I’ve found myself attracted at various times to many different shapes, at …

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

Creatures of Habit

G. L. Pease What sort of pipe smoker are you today? Do you like to play the field, constantly trying new blends, endlessly seeking the next great pipe? Or are you happily a creature of routine, finding satisfaction with a single tobacco and the same few pipes you’ve had for years? Yes, it’s reductionistic, and …

Out of the Ashes

Nothing Endures but Change

G. L. Pease Decades ago, a talented blender in a small town Tobacconist’s Shoppe, in a land known for its fragrant and delicious blends, produced a magnificent mixture of such unique characteristics that pipe smokers in the town were soon belting out its praises. Stories of this special tobacco spread, and pipemen from neighboring towns …

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 …

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