Synergy
-
G. L. Pease - Mar 15, 2022
- 4 min read
It started out like any other day, then the world changed. I woke up, made my morning espresso, waited for the fog to clear, and set about my affairs. Part of my morning routine usually involves a pipe, of course, so I trundled into the office, chose a pipe, and grabbed the tin of tobacco I’d been enjoying for the past few days. I’m not normally a creature of habit when it comes to what I fill my pipe with, but for some reason, I’ve found myself exploring this blend exclusively since popping its top. I filled my pipe with the same haphazard disregard I always employ, sat down to check the morning’s email, and struck a light.
This tobacco has been consistently great, just as it has been when I’ve smoked it in the past. I don’t tend to smoke blends that don’t make me happy, so there’s nothing unusual in that. As I took the first puffs, everything was as expected. Rich flavors from the Virginia leaf took center stage, the Latakia, orientals and Perique playing harmoniously on my palate, doing the same joyous dance I’ve come to expect from this blend.
A gentle tamp of the ash dome, another kiss of flame, and BOOM, a Spinal Tap moment, like someone had just turned the amplifiers to eleven. It wasn’t sweeter, or cooler, or brighter, or more complex, or more of any of the usual descriptors we might apply to a great smoke; it was just more. It was huge. It was delicious. I was tasting things from the tobacco that I’d never fully noticed before, so much so that I put the morning tasks on hold so I could just sit and do nothing but enjoy the incredible experience.
My friend Fred Hanna has written about the Magic Pipe that is so good it makes every tobacco taste great. This ain’t that. The pipe is a rather modest sandblast billiard that I’ve smoked many times. It’s well broken-in, has always been a fine smoker, and I expected nothing more or less from it this time. Predictable and reliable.
Too, I’ve occasionally posited, in jest, that there are Magic Tobaccos that taste great in any pipe, no matter the pedigree. This ain’t that, either. This tobacco is not some rare, vintage blend with decades of age under its unobtainium cap. It’s just a solid performer that, while being somewhat sensitive to technique and to a lesser extent the geometry and flow characteristics of the pipe, has always been, like the pipe, predictable and reliable.
This was different, though. The synergy between this tobacco and this pipe cast some sort of spell that could not be ignored. There are things that might help to explain this phenomenon. Most notably, perhaps, is that every time we smoke a pipe, the results sit on the shoulders of every previous smoke.
Objectively, today’s smoke will always be influenced by yesterday’s tobaccos. All tobaccos leave their spirits behind to haunt future bowls. How dramatically these phantasms haunt the current smoke depends on many factors, but one of the most significant influences is how different the style of the current tobacco is from the lingering ghosts of tobaccos past. I’ve had really interesting results when switching a dedicated Latakia pipe over to Virginias. The decreasing, subtle contribution of the Latakia’s smoky tastes can make the first few bowls more complex, and definitely interesting. Conversely, I’ve often used several bowls of Virginias to “sweeten” one of my Latakia pipes that has gone a bit flat. (Try it. You might like it.) To paraphrase Heraclitus, no one ever smokes the same pipe twice.
More subjectively, though, our expectations can play a role when we choose a pipe. We subconsciously remember the last few times we’ve smoked it, and can enter the experience with a bit of bias, a sort of sensory anchoring heuristic. My old friend Duke used to say, “If you think it will smoke well, it will.” There might well be some nugget of truth in his optimistic aphorism.
I remember one evening at a pipe dinner, I smoked a bowl of very well aged Drucquer Red Lion in a beautiful Barling Quaint belonging to my friend Brian. I could not talk him out of the pipe, no matter what I offered up in trade. I shared the tobacco with him, he granted me the booby prize of letting me smoke his Barling. It was thirty years ago, but the memory is as fresh in my mind as if it was yesterday. Duke’s Law at work? I’ll never know for sure, but the smoke was transcendent, and certainly memorable.
So, always seeking increased understanding, I waited a couple days, lathered, rinsed and repeated, tailoring my rather tatty, moth-eaten cloak of objectivity as best I could to make it fit, but still hoping for the same experience, even while half-expecting a more typical result.
And, there it was. Amps on eleven. Smoking bliss writ large. I haven’t had the nerve to try it again, fearing that these two data points, while certainly establishing a line, may still be anomalous. Even my dedication to inquiry has its limits, and the fear of disappointment looms in the fragrant clouds of yesterday’s exquisite smoke.
What remains is to decide whether to further the experiment, and possibly dedicate this pipe to one blend, and one blend only, or to just cherish this matched pair of memories, as I do the reminiscence of Brian’s Barling, carrying on along the Magical Mystery Tour of pipe smoking while chasing the next occurrence of synergy, silently hoping that it doesn’t take another thirty years. Meanwhile, the pipe patiently rests…
Photos by G.L. Pease
Written by G. L. Pease
More Pipes and Tobaccos Articles
1 Response
Recent Posts
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 640. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Ben Rapaport. Ben has been known internationally as an avid pipe smoker, antique pipe collector, and book author. His first book on pipes was published in 1972, and his latest book – his 10th – is out now in very limited quantities. The distribution has already sold out, but you can still get a copy of “The Wide World of Wood Tobacco Pipes. Two Centuries of Craftsmanship and Creativity” by contacting him directly at ben70gray@gmail.com. At the top of the show we’ll be turning the tables on our recurring Ask the Pipemaker segment. This time, Jeff Gracik will ask the questions, which Brian will answer as a pipe collector, and you can give your answers too.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 639. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Per Billhäll. Per is the owner of Scandinavian Pipes, which is an online retailer of high grade pipes. He started smoking pipes in the 1960s. His first high grade pipe was made by Hans “Former” Nielsen, who is one of the living legends from Denmark. That led to Per becoming a huge pipe and tobacco collector, and show attendee where he became well known. Along with pipe book author Jan Andersson, they started The Pipe Club of Sweden in 1991. Then in 1999, Per started “Scan Pipes”. He is now one of the pipe retailing legends from Sweden. At the top of the show Brian will talk about holiday blends, and other special pipe tobacco blends.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 638. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Fae “The Sassy Pipe Lady” Simmons. Fae is the owner of Tobacco Treasures, which sells new, vintage, & estate pipes, and smoking accessories on Etsy. She has been in business since 2017, and has been surrounded by pipes and tobacco most of her life. Her father and his brother smoked pipes, and so does Fae. Her husband is also a retired tobacconist that worked all over the industry from coast to coast for several different companies in the industry. She has a great story of how her business got started with a great inventory of unsmoked vintage pipes. 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.
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.
Great Article! I’ve enjoy many blissful bowls of Vintage GLP Abingdon and Drucquer’s 805 over the years. I’ve seen some of Brian’s Quaint’s, they are truly amazing pieces!