IPCR 2019 Update #2 What’s New in Pipes? Dunhill is back?!!?
-
James Foster - Jul 3, 2019
- 10 min read
James Foster, CST
After my previous article covering the regulatory affairs in the industry and the changes to International Premium Cigar &; Pipe Retailers Association (IPCPR) tradeshow, I thought a good follow up would be all the good news and great new products that are still hitting the market this year as a bit of a pick-me-up if you were feeling a bit down in the dumps. This post will be a bit picture heavy so strap in. Also, note a few of these pipes and brands I didn’t get a chance to talk with very much because the manufacturers are all doing business with the retailers so the press is always advised to leave them alone until they are not busy. Given that fact, I may not have as much information on all the pipes that you might expect, and in some cases, I may have only had 1-2 minutes to chat.
We’ll start with Sutliff and MacBaren as I did have a chance to chat longer with Jeremy McKenna, President of Sutliff Tobacco about their latest production for John Cottons. An aside: Sutliff is celebrating 170 years as a manufacturer in the US this year.
John Cotton’s Double Pressed is the latest blend Sutliff is proud to produce and to our knowledge double pressing has never been done in the industry. When you want to mature your tobaccos you can do it with time or heat, pressing brings out the sugars with the heat and pressure. MacBaren uses hotpresses, so these are a combination between Denmark’s MacBaren factory where they hotpress the tobacco, cut it, and rubbed flakes out in a ready rubbed tobacco. Then the tobacco is shipped to Sutliff in the US and repressed it for either a plug or crumble cake. One is a Virginia and the other is a Kentucky. The double pressing helps mature the tobacco more and takes the bite out. You could still cellar this tobacco but with a double press, it’s not necessary; it’s ready to smoke right out of the tin. They tried this process as a trial and it’s taken off very quickly and the John Cotton’s Virginia Double Press won the best Virginia at Chicago Pipe Show this year. I had a chance to sit down and sample it, and it really tasted like an 18 month to 24 month cellared Virginia very mellow and enjoyable.
I also asked Jeremey about the Pipe Tobacco Council and the FDA as he’s on the industry-only council with many other pipe tobacco manufactures working with CAA (Cigar Association of America) IPCPR-PAC, and Cigar Rights of America (CRA) in the various lawsuits against the FDA. The PTC is made up of Laudisi, C&D, Sutliff, Arango, National, STG and a few others and the PTC shares lawyers with the CAA. This last Thursday (June 30th 2019) the PTC met with the FDA where they presented their case where tobacco should be tested and shouldn’t be tested and provided evidence about it. I did ask if there was anything consumers could do, or donate etc – but PTC is a manufactures organization so the only advice is to write your congressman.
Briarworks has some newer pipes that you may not have seen and I sat down and put my feet up at the booth and chatted with Pete Prevost.
A handful of retailers have picked up the newer stems – the most popular colors are black, tortoise and the coffee colored stems.
Pete’s Vanna White Hand show’s off the stem change on their C-22 bent billiard and billiard and used a shorter, fatter, tapered stem. “I felt proportionally it makes it a great looking billiard. A lot of people say it kind of reminds them of a Dunhill LB except not as big but proportionately the look is similar,” Pete Says.
The author shape is not a new shape in the classic line but Pete did mention they have been producing a lot more of them lately.
Newer to the lineup and the first time offered at IPCPR tradeshow are the new Briarworks Moonshine line with morta pipes. They plan on offering some more shapes with morta soon. Additionally, Pete mentioned that they are starting to do some 9mm filtered pipes on the shapes they can for the EU market and sparingly in the US.
The OOM Paul shape is the first time also at the tradeshow and surprisingly enough it passes the pipe cleaner test. “It is such a steep angle that you do have to twist the cleaner or pre-bend it but it does work,” Pete says.
Next I passed by Maurizio Fraternale’s booth who distributes for brands like Caminetto and Ser Jacopo. They had this massive Caminetto with a beautiful grain that was blasted on the bottom and sides and smooth around the rim. It dwarfed all other pipes on the table.
Of course no trip around the table should be complete without some pictures of the unique and “insane” pipes from Ser Jacopo.
Great little reverse calabash here.
Swinging by the Arango Cigar Company who distributes many brands such as Erik Nording, Wessex, Chacom, Butz Choqiun (BC), and IM Corona to name a few. I spent a little time with Knud Nording (Erik’s son) looking at what is new this year.
New this year in the Hunters Series is the White Rhino. The light greyish skin of an adult White Rhino will sometimes fold in panel-like areas and the body shape is broad and fairly short giving it a sturdy appearance. This gave the pipe it’s panels and the nice melange grey ring to separate the mouthpiece from the stem- and it inspired the slightly forward tilted bowl on the pipe.
Nording Vahalla line – series 351 sandblasted and light brown and is new for Nording. The spigots are new for them as well and the spigot is changeable into a churchwarden stem.
Similarly the signature smooth also have spigots, look amazing.
The new line that looks like a flower with rustication and smooth mixed pipe.
Brand new IM Corona Old Boy designs – Arabesque design in matt black and pewter.
The cammo and the blue design Old Boy’s are brand new as well they just got the prototypes a few months ago so look for them at your local retailer soon. Similar price points you are used to seeing for all of these.
Butz-Choquin pipes had some new and interesting pipes available this year as well.
As of 2018 the new Camo Pipes
And of course the baby pipes, so tiny, perfect for the one minute and thirty second smoke break.
I chatted with Antoine Grenard who runs Chacom factory in Saint-Claude and took a look at the Pipe of the year available in many options and colors. The top left is actually a lighter grey morta pipe – the morta is sourced through Mimmo. Antoine decided to sandblast the morta because the grain pops out and you can see all the details better, but it’s very new for Chacom to work with morta.
The Noel pipe or Christmas pipe for 2019.
There is also the new marble finish pipes as well for 2019.
New for Wessex this year is their pokers.
And this new egg shape which is very strange looking and the way you smoke it will be a bit different of an angle than you’d expect.
Of coruse, BJ Long was in attendance, nothing new here but stacks and stacks of pipe cleaners.
Next up we’ve got the Laudisi (LDG) Group which has Peterson, Savinelli, C&D, GL Pease, and Kiribi lighters.
Peterson Summertime 2019 pipes will be out in July 10th.
Peterson Christmas 2019 will be out around September of 2019.
Pub Pipe will be out July 10th as well, a smaller version of the house pipe with a rustic and a smooth. Many of the new pipes are sporting the newer rustication which many have indicated they really like.
The Savinelli St. Nick “Christmas Pipe” will be out in August.
GL Pease has a new tobacco coming out very shortly called Penny Farthing
It’s a shag cut tobacco that’s Virginia, Perique and maybe a hint of Kentucky. Upon sampling a bowl, it burned down quick as expected from a shag cut, subtle hints of citrus, some spice, all in all very nice.
The LDG booth was also not lacking political visitors. Minnesota House Representative Jim Nash stopped by to chat with Bill Haggerty at Laudisi.
Zippo has a few new options and products like new custom 360 degree laser engraved lighter that wraps all the way around.
New Zippo made Butane lighters are new and will be shipping in September.
Wood paneled zippo lighters, emblems are wood front and back, made from different woods like oak or birch.
Zippo now has their own candles as they purchased Northern Lights Candle company in January of this year.
I stopped by the Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) booth, or really the General Cigar booth. As you can see pictured above: the pipes section is only a tiny spot in the corner. As STG has worked through their acquisition of General Cigar it made sense in their minds to bring the General Cigar booth and not bring a separate STG pipe tobacco booth.
The good news from STG is that we’re going to see 14 blends of Peterson Tobacco coming out and by the end of July, and they will be fully caught up with backorders. UPDATE: Announced July 3rd. STG has acquired Dunhill pipe tobacco brands.
Scandinavian Tobacco Group A/S acquires premium pipe tobacco brands
Scandinavian Tobacco Group A/S has closed a deal to acquire certain pipe tobacco trademarks and designs from Dunhill Tobacco Company of London Limited, a subsidiary of British American Tobacco p.l.c. Included in the deal are premium pipe tobacco trademarks such as Early Morning Pipe, Nightcap, Royal Yacht and Elizabethan Mixture that were previously sold under the Dunhill brand and carry a solid reputation as well as premium positioning. The price paid is confidential, but immaterial.
Scandinavian Tobacco Group will market the acquired trademarks as sub-brands to existing brands in the company’s portfolio. The acquisition strengthens Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s product range in the premium pipe tobacco segment in important pipe tobacco markets such as the US, Germany and across Asia.
Regis Broersma, Senior Vice President for Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s Smoking Tobacco & Accessories Division says: “We are very happy and proud to add these well-known pipe tobacco brands to our existing strong portfolio. They will enhance our offering to our consumers – and we look forward to protecting and explore the full potential of the portfolio by leveraging our sales and marketing competencies.”
I reached out to Leonard Wortzel at STG for a bit more information and he let me know they have the rights to all the brand names such as nightcap or 965 as well as the tin art. They just can’t use the word “Dunhill”. Stay tuned for more information as the true Dunhill blends are coming back.
“Essentially. We’ll be replacing “Dunhill” with another, existing brand. Can’t quite announce that name yet. Instead of “Dunhill” Nightcap, it will be “Brand X” Nightcap,” says Leonard.
Lastly, on updates in the Pipe World, I sat down with Chris Gawith, owner of Gawith and Hoggarth and Samuel Gawith brands. I spent over an hour with him in an interview which will come in a future article but I wanted to include a quick note about what we can expect as we’ve all noticed shortages in the US market as far as finding their products on our shelves. Chris explained that they’ve had some serious changes (similar to the US) with regulations on how European producers operate which have affected all levels of their company to be compliant with the EU and the UK laws.
Additionally, G&H previously had two distributors in the US market. One for Samuel Gawith (Phillips and King) and one for Gawith and Hoggarth (Arango). They have now centralized on one – Phillips and King. They’ve made significant changes as well for their order taking and now setup online ordering so that distributors and retailers (in the UK) can order online as opposed to calling in on the phone. Chris has recently taken over the company with the passing of his father and is now in the process of applying his expertise in engineering (he’s an engineer by trade) to the company with process improvement and oversight.
The key take away from our discussion is to look for more products coming over soon to the US market. Stay tuned for a future article with a more in-depth conversation with Chris.
 James Foster goes by the online handle of Pylorns in the forums, and he is the creator of an app for keeping track of your tobacco cellar inventory called The Pipe Tool, serves as the President of the Austin Pipe Club and is a Certified Tobacconist. |
Written by James Foster
More Pipes and Tobaccos Articles
9 Responses
Smokingpipes.com Updates
35 Fresh Brulor Pipes |
12 Fresh Ashton Pipes |
6 Fresh White Elephant Pipes |
6 Fresh Estate Pipes |
6 Fresh Savinelli Autograph Pipes |
Recent Posts
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! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. 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.
Well there’s nothing like a touch of the plague to usher in the changing season. Leaving the airport just when the first advertisements for all things pumpkin spice began to appear—lattes, muffins, shampoos, trash bags, and myriad other concoctions—so, too, my ability to breathe freely disappeared. The unfortunate side effect of losing one’s sense of taste and smell for weeks is the utter inability to enjoy tobacco. Not that I consider myself an expert on anything but my own tastes, but be forewarned that this review was made with mildly impugned sensory equipment. Just when a comforting pipe was most needed, its comfort was denied. Be that as it may, the road to recovery found me limping along on one lung this past month, trying to wrest the particulars of two blends on offer from Sutliff: the latest 175th Anniversary blend, Silver Quarter, as well as their spooky seasonal Maple Shadows II. Silver Quarter is a new style on offer from Sutliff, their first coin-cut blend. Naturally a Virginia-Perique, it is enhanced with a traditional core of black Cavendish. In the tin it holds much promise, with a lightly bready and very woody, if ever-so-slightly sour, aroma. After some time acclimating to air, the bouquet softens further and offers hints of the burley with some chocolaty notes wafting through the more dominant dry grassy aspect. The tin art is of a coin-style bas-relief bust, presumably of a founding Sutliff brother, à la The Old Boss On the reverse of the tin we find the blend’s description: Reflecting on Sutliffs 175 years of tobacco excellence, we came across a brand that embodies true value, SILVER QUARTER. This name pays homage to Sutliffs roots, the legacy of two brothers who popularized pipe smoking in the burgeoning mining society of San Francisco. We celebrate this heritage with a coin cut composed of the finest African Virginias, complemented by a core of Perique and Black Cavendish. The tin notes are, forgive the pun, on the nose for a good VaPer blend: mild tart sweetness peeking out from behind dried hay and slight chocolate undertones, with a lightly tannic finish of weathered oak. It is always a joy to prepare a coin cut, my preference being to put a few in my palm and vigorously warm my hands together to fully break them apart. These well-formed discs pack and light easily, and smoke with little prodding to the end of the bowl. For technical points it scores well—it smokes light, and it’s easy to tend the ember. While it gets sharp after a few quick bowls, pacing should be heeded to easily smoke down to the heel without inviting bite. Of the flavor, though, I am left a bit wanting. There are tart and high notes aplenty, but very little of the lemony citrus I would anticipate, as well as scant midtones; they tend more toward the red wine-vinegary and sour. The flavors are muted, also, lacking the sweetness and piquancy of other marques—the small measure of Perique tickles the nose now and again with peppery hints, and there is a smidge of a deeper sweetness to be found in the Cavendish from puff to puff, but overall it lacks some dynamism. The Virginias, to my palate, come off a bit on the dry side, and here they dominate the blend. The aftertaste and mouthfeel are neutral, again evincing more of the dry, woody, tartly tannic end of the spectrum. The blend has plenty of polish, but not enough depth or richness (*yet) to make it a standout. Here, comparisons are inevitable: Luxury Bullseye Flake has more sweetness, both from its Virginia as well as its Cavendish, and a better finish; Davidoff is similar but with a pronounced umami that is absent here; as for Escudo, I haven’t had any fresh tins lately so it would be unfair to compare. While it rates as a solid, fairly mild smoke, particularly to lovers of the genre, it does not surprise with any exceptional flavors. To be fair, all the boxes have been checked for the blend to benefit from some real aging, and it would be worth checking in on this after a couple of years sealed away. I’ve set half my tin aside to sample again in a month or two, in case I’m merely suffering from the lingering effects of parosmia, and will amend this review in that case. Maple Shadows II, on the other hand, made up for the weeks of sniffling and sneezing I’d endured. Offered in a full 8 ounce tin with delightfully spooky Halloween art, it’s (hopefully) enough to last through the season. Somehow I had missed this last year, so it’s a real pleasure to get some in my candy bucket this year. As the chilling winds of autumn draw eerie prattle from contorted, deciduous limbs, we find ourselves possessed by the spirit of the season. Bewitched by a dissonant charm, we’ve created Maple Shadows. In a season that is defined by the unlikely harmony of treats and frights, we’ve joined the enchanting sweetness of maple with the earthy spice of Dark Fired Kentucky for a smoking experience that captures the senses with an otherworldly fusion of flavor. This may be the best aromatic blend Sutliff’s ever made—and they make a ton of them. First off, it’s not overbearing in the least—quite the opposite, it is also one of the more restrained aromatics they’ve ever made, with a clear but very light topping that melds oh-so-well with their choice Kentucky added to the mix. Opening the tin, the sweet maple is up front and center, but so too is the must of fallen leaves, bready pie crusts, and a crackling fire in the hearth—a perfect invocation of Herbstdüfte in a can. Packing best in an open and capacious bowl, the flavoring is subtle, and recedes to the background while puffing. With a sweet coffee or tea to accompany, the aftertaste of the maple is reinvigorated on the palate […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 632. Our featured guest on tonight’s show is the host of the Pipe & Tamper Podcast, Mike Murphy. Brian and Mike will have an extended chat revolving around the days before, during and after the Las Vegas International Pipe Show. We will hear about their travels to the show and the anxiety of Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida at the same time while running a show and not knowing if your house is going to be there when you get home. In the end, the show went great and our homes survived, although many others in Florida were not so lucky. We’ll have clips from the show, and shoutouts to other podcasts and vlogs that were broadcasting from the pipe show.
Vegas Baby The show started out strong on the 14th floor hospitality suites hosted by the Vegas Pipe Show and Smoking Pipes as well as room hopping to carvers, estate sellers, and vendors to pre-game for the festivities. If you’re interested in what that looks like I’ll refer you to last years pipe show round up. I circled with Brian Levine to get the totals in comparison to last year: This year’s show numbers: 108 Exhibitor tables, 445 attendees, 3,250 Raffle Tickets, 100ish dinners, 172 Rooms in the Hotel. Last year, by comparison, 107 exhibitor tables, 425 attendees, 2,200 raffle tickets, 104 dinners, and 175 rooms on Friday and Saturday nights. We were at capacity, basically, when it came to vendor tables and the dinner, so there is no physical room for growth at this point except for attendees. That said, we filled that smoking lounge to the brim. New Carvers Spotlight Garret Woo (Pipes by Woo) How long have you been carving? Garret: I’ve been carving since 2021, and I’m guessing your next question is probably how’d you get started carving? James: Yes. Garret: In 2021 I took a break from my full time job – that included machining and assembly work and I thought maybe it was time I made something that I would like and I started looking at youtube and Instagram and putting together my shop. I did struggle on the stems to start and there was a lot of failure at the beginning. James: How many pipes have you made so far? Garret: I number my pipes, so I just finished up 186. James: What is your favorite shape you’ve been making? Garret: I really dig Canadians and pipes with longer shanks and lovat Canadian blends. I like to play with different shapes of stems on the longer shanked pipes. The billiard would be my go-to shape but I want to learn more techniques on freehanded shapes. I like to put brass and copper adornments on my pipes with my machining background it helps. James: What is the craziest thing you’ve seen at this show? Garret: The first thing that comes to mind is the table over there with C-Pipes with the shapes and the size and petiteness and the intricate details they did. You can check out what Garret is working on by going to his Instagram. Stefan Cashwell James: how long have you been carving? Stefan: about 3 years. James: What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at the show? Stefan: The Adam Davidson pipe with the clear shape and the bamboo—I don’t know if it’s 3D printed or what, but it’s amazing. James: What’s your favorite shape to do? Stefan: That’s a tough question. I think they’re all the same shape, but what’s fascinating is that Dublin, volcano, and blowfish are all the same depending on how you turn them. Playing with that, with all its variations, is a lot of fun. My favorite accent to use is also horn; it’s finicky, but it’s a great accent on pipes. You can check out Stefan’s work on his Instagram. Science: Meet Pipes I chatted with Chris from the San Diego Pipe Club; he started off doing stem replacements for estate pipes but also improved the airflow. James: How are you doing 3d printing? What is the thought process? Chris: It’s a 3D-printed pipe with a briar insert. The design is a calabash meets a Peterson system meets a metal Falcon/Kirsten radiator style. It is a bottom draft smoking bowl like a radiator like those metal pipes. The inside chamber is a calabash. The stummel and accent rings in the stems are all 3d printed. The insert is briar, olive wood, or I have the potential to use meerschaum as well. This idea came about through the San Diego Pipe Club, wanting to see if we could 3D print a pipe and being curious about the technology; I have a printer and design ability, so here we are. James: What’s the type of plastic you’re using? Chris: It’s all PLA plastic, a renewable potato starch plastic that is food-safe. The stummels are printed with a plastic that has wood in it 40% wood fiber, bamboo, rosewood, ebony, redwood, and walnut are the woods I’m printing. For the accent rings I just got a new material that I’m printing that has 40% copper, so its real metal that you can sand, and polish the same as wood filament. The stems are 3d printed as well. The concept is renewable and cheap from a production standpoint, with the ability to make a very high quality smoking pipe based on the experience. By combining the calabash system pipe and bottom draft hole and using 3d simulations to see airflow, I can see where I’m having eddies and ripples in my current, and see where my moisture and all the particles are dropping back out from a vapor to a liquid. Most people who have tried these say the stems are clean, and they don’t even have to run a pipe cleaner afterward because everything collects at the bottom. Chris has also been experimenting with color-changing plastics so you can see the hotspots. Chris said he was able to use this to slow down his cadence, which, of course, could mean you could get a slow-smoke training pipe to teach yourself to perform better. If you’re interested in learning more or want to check one out, you can contact him on Instagram: Copper Beard Pipe Works The Negative Space The show was buzzing about one specific pipe, which had everyone guessing how it was made. I chatted with Adam Davidson briefly about it. James: How did this idea come to fruition? Adam Davidson: Smokingpipes.com had an expo back in August open to all of the makers they carry. The theme was to make a pipe utilizing bamboo. Given that the last time we had the expo I made a smooth Almond with three bamboo shanks, […]
Next best thing to being there. Excellent photos and heads up on blends and pipes.
Here’s hoping the changes at Gawith means possibly some of the plugs will be making their way to our shores. Not holding my breath
Very interesting read, thanks for taking the time to share it with us.
Plugs are the most labor intensive, it takes 2-3x as long to make them.
Great report, thank you! So many gorgeous pipes, lighters and tobacco. I am very glad to hear that at least some of the “Dunhill” tobaccos will live on. I am looking forward to the Gawith interview- Best Brown, Skiff Mixture and Grousemoor are in my regular rotation.
Thanks for the write up. It was an enjoyable read
Excellent article, as close as it gets to actually being there, thanks!
I firmly believe that Alfred is rolling in his grave at what his company has become. I’m sure he’s proud that it makes a few gazillion dollars a year, but I like to think that he is ashamed at how his company has forgotten its roots and has given in, without much of a fight, to the Anti-Smoking Nazis. If it were not for his tobaccos and his pipes Alfred would have, most likely, died in poverty and obscurity.
Good info, and I am glad for those who like the cachet that the Dunhill name gave to so many blends. Now many of those blends will live on without the parent name, as they are established and don’t need the imprimatur of the Dunhill (or dunhill) name.