Pipe Mysteries
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G. L. Pease - Jun 3, 2022
- 6 min read
Each month, my brain fabricates a few good ideas for this column, and a lot of silly ones. Usually, one of them sticks, and things just sort of flow from there. Sometimes, though, all those thought trains get derailed by some random preoccupation that takes hold with the tenacity of a terrier. This is one of those, for what it’s worth. It started when, stimulated by reading a recent wonderful review in this very publication of my own Westminster, I just had to open a similarly aged tin.
For no discernable reasons, I’ve spent the past several months smoking mostly Virginia dominated blends, some with perique, some without, some with orientals, some with just a pinch of latakia. Those who have followed my follies for any length of time will recognize this as somewhat anomalous, as I’ve almost always been a bit of a steadfast latakia-phile, especially in the cooler months that we’ve now left behind. But, all through the autumn and winter months of 2021/22, Virginias have dominated my puffing patterns. I’ve really enjoyed the jaunt, but it was time to book passage back home, at least for a while, and that review was all the fare that was necessary for the trip. I grabbed a tin of a big, full mixture, pulled the ring, and fastened my seatbelt for the ride.
That first bowl, after so many months, was nearly transcendent. All those familiar aromas and flavors were just so comfortable, and at the same time so nostalgic. This is the stuff that pulled me to the world of the pipe all those years ago. Aromas of wood smoke and leather and exotic spices that dance in the air and on the palate, reminiscent of those early days when I first wandered into Drucquer & Sons and fell in love with pipes and tobaccos. Back then, Virginias never held my attention for more than a bowl. I’d tried many of them, of course, but again and again, after a bowl was finished, I wanted something more savory, more complex, more Balkan. Those were the blends that felt complete to me, then, that I had a deep relationship with, while the Virginas were just delightful dalyances, a bit of an amuse bouche in preparation for the main, the plat principal which would almost always follow. (And, to stretch that analogy, perhaps to its breaking point, that’s where I’d always stop; I’ve just never been much of a desert guy.)
A few days into this rediscovery, I pulled a cherished sandblasted lovat from the rack, filled it from the tin, gently applied fire, and waited for the music to start. The first puffs were like the orchestra tuning up; all those notes from all those instruments were there, if somewhat cacophonous, but then things went sideways. At the second light, the conductor’s baton poised for the downbeat, most of the orchestra, en masse, got up from their chairs and walked off the stage.
The relationship between briar and leaf is one of those great and wonderful mysteries to me, and is something I’ve written about before. (cf. The Pipe Doesn’t Matter.) It’s a discussion that often generates more heat than light, but it’s one of those vexing things that never seems to resolve. I’ll never understand those who insist that the pipe doesn’t matter, and this is just another example of why I continue to insist that it does. More on that in a minute or two.
This particular pipe is a wonderful example that has provided many splendid smokes, always with Virginia dominated blends. It delivers a richly flavored, effortless smoke, cool and dry right to the bottom. Not this time. It didn’t taste bad or off; it simply attenuated the flavors I was expecting to the point of non-existence, delivering nothing more than warm air to a deeply disappointed palate. And, that’s the WTHH (What The Heck Happened) moment when the preoccupation mentioned in the opening paragraph began. Similar things have happened before, and as any sensible person would, I’ve just switched pipes, stayed calm, and carried on. I’m not always sensible, and this was one of those times, and this was one of the most extreme examples of this peculiar phenomenon I’ve ever experienced.
So I chose, instead, to take the opportunity to see if I could learn something, beginning by isolating the obvious things. First off, I could rule out the geometry, the so-called “engineering” of the bowl and airway. The day before, I’d smoked the same tobacco in an almost identically sized, shaped and drilled pipe, and it was superb. To rule out the possibility of “dirty shank syndrome,” I cleaned it thoroughly with several pipe cleaners and some high proof alcohol, let it rest overnight and tried again. No bueno. Visiting the cake, which I prefer quite thin anyway, I reamed it almost to the walls. Ditto. The salt and alcohol treatment similarly had no effect. Neither did a visit to the lab oven with the bowl filled with activated charcoal.
I tried drying the tobacco. No joy. Maybe it was me – some subtle change in body chemistry, or an interaction with what I’d been eating or drinking? Was my palate fatigued? Was the climate influencing things in a bad way? Another pipe, known to be more sociable with full mixtures, filled with the same tobacco quickly falsified those conjectures.
Waiting a couple more days, I filled the thing from an old tin of UK-produced Capstan blue, and it performed absolutely brilliantly, like nothing odd had ever happened. A bowl of aged Fillmore the next day was equally engaging. Then, another bowl of the aged Westminster. Nothing but an hour of puffing on hot air.
In my experience, more pipes form happy relationships with Virginias than with the fuller of the latakia mixtures. Not being much of an aromatic fan, I don’t have sufficient experience with these tobaccos to do more than speculate there, but I suspect they may behave a bit more like Virginias, or even less sensitive in this respect. This might be at least a partial cause of some of the occasional good natured arguments that turn up about things like curing methods, bowl coatings, whether or not finish has an effect on the way a pipe tastes; tobacco preference could be the catalyst that finds the smoker on one side or the other of the aisle in those debates.
But, what’s behind this? There’s a lot of stuff that pipe makers have control over. They can carefully select their wood from trusted sources, dry and season it the way they like it. The way they can control chamber and airway geometry has a significant influence on what I call the smoking dynamics of a pipe, and to some extent, can influence flavor. They can control the comfort of the smoking experience by crafting well shaped mouthpieces. They can create beautiful finishes. But briar seems to be some sort of mysterious substance placed on this planet by malevolent space aliens to confuse and vex us. Or maybe just me.
Finally, after some weeks, and dozens of bowls, it was time to return to something closer to sensibility, simply accept the fact that this pipe will forever be dedicated to Virginias, and share the story with those who haven’t already decided that I’ve lost my mind, and remain at least somewhat entertained by my occasional expositions of folly. It’s a crazy lens through which I sometimes view the pipe landscape, and I’ve scribbled all this not really to convince the reader of anything, but to convince myself, and, to that end, as I tap away, happily puffing on an excellent bowl of Virginia in this finicky briar, I have been at least partially successful. Pipes serve better as mysteries to be enjoyed, not to be solved.
Photo by G.L. Pease
Written by G. L. Pease
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Ok, so it’s that time of year, as we all know. Family feasts, houses, yards, and big trees festooned with lights and dangling ornaments, just high enough to keep the cats from reaching a paw into the greenery. It’s also the time of year when your pipe-smoking-significant other makes vast hints about a new pipe. That’s to be expected since he or she was a good boy or girl during the year. Yes, ladies smoke pipes, too. Oh, you want an example? Okay, try Actress Greta Garbo, Millicent Fenwick, Mary Frith, and my late grandmother (who died when she was 93) dipped snuff and smoked a cob occasionally. So now that we have settled that the gentler side of life will puff a pipe too, let’s move on to the upcoming biggest holiday of all. Of course, that huge event is brought to us by the hefty fellow in a red suit, puffing his pipe all the way in a sled filled with presents, being led by a reindeer with a red nose. Or some such. That’s Santa Claus, of course. Becoming a bit more serious, Christmas is such a wonderful time for families and friends. It’s also quite special for pipe puffers. For many of us, this brings up a nostalgic look back to our pipe-smoking or cigar-smoking friends who have died during the current year. A great journalist pal whom I often joined in a local brick-and-mortar pipe and cigar shop. I puffed my pipe, and occasional cigar, as he enjoyed a cigar. He died in October and will be missed. On the happier side of things, Christmas is also a time when mind workers of the world renew their collections with fresh additions. Pundit included. A French passion has overtaken Pundit, from reading more Albert Camus, a heavy cigarette smoker, as were many French intellectuals of a certain time. Instead of cigarettes many of us prefer the more relaxed enjoyment of pipes for that “calm and objective judgment” in the comings and goings of the world. This brings me to French pipes. While visiting France once in the long ago, I happened by a “Tabac” shop in Paris, Tabac Des Vosges. I purchased a beauty of a Chacom bent. I also later bought a Ropp made from ancient briar. To learn more about the dawn of briar pipes and beginnings, take a peek at a well-done piece by Davin Hylton in Pipe Line on April 12, 2023, on Saint-Claude, France, the birthplace of briar. Also in the long back when, on a cold Christmas afternoon, Pundit wandered into an Atlanta bricks and mortar pipe shop to look around. There, resting in an enclosed glass counter was an exquisite Comoy. An older gent, smoking a beautiful bent, asked me if I wanted to look at that pipe. It had a $100 price tag. A college student working for a grocery store chain to help with college tuition at the time, Pundit didn’t have one hundred cents, let alone a C note! I declined and found a $5 basket pipe. A Christmas tradition had just begun. Since that early time, Pundit has made it a holiday ritual to either reward himself, or a special friend, with pipe or tobacco. A Claudio Cavicchi would be nice. Just sayin.’ And now for a couple of December-born Pipe Smokers of the Past: Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born on Dec. 30, 1865, and died on Jan. 18, 1936. I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble—Rudyard Kipling. Martin Van Buren, born Dec. 5, 1782, and died July 24, 1862, U.S. President, 1837-1841 As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it—Martin Van Buren. And one more note to recall a deceased World War II veteran who loved William Somerset Maugham, the author. Maugham, a pipe smoker, was born in Paris, France, on Jan. 25, 1874, and died on Dec. 16, 1965. One cool afternoon as the veteran and I talked while sitting in his backyard patio, he looked off into the distance as if studying something. Nothing in particular. Just looking. He turned to me and said if I wanted to learn about life, “read Somerset Maugham.” I did. It wasn’t until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, ‘I don’t know’ –W. Somerset Maugham And now a Parting Shot: Any day with an old friend with pipes and tobacco is a good day.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 637. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Nate King. Most people know of Nate as an excellent pipe artisan. He also has an honorary Master of Pipes degree from the Chicagoland Pipe Collectors Club, and is a member of the prestigious Confrérie des Maitres Pipiers de Saint-Claude. To be inducted into the Confrérie, this past May Nate travelled to Saint-Claude, France with master tobacco blender G.L. Pease, who was also inducted. It was quite a time in France, and at the ceremony. We’ll hear all about those adventures on the show. At the top of the show we’ll continue the virtual tour of Brian’s pipe collection with six of his Satou Dublin-shape pipes.
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.
