Gaslight Pipe-Smoking Contest 2009
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Kevin Godbee - Sep 22, 2009
- 2 min read
A 37-year-old Kentucky man smoked a pipe of 3.3 grams of tobacco for 71 minutes and 30 seconds to win the Gaslight Festival Pipe Smoking Contest.
Coy Howard, 37, of Springfield, KY., smoked the pipe with a single light longest to best five competitors Sunday at the annual contest in Jeffersontown, the Louisville, KY.
Gorden Vogel, 71, took second place by making his pipe last 70 minutes and 45 seconds on a single light.
The Gaslight pipe-smoking contest took place on Sunday, Sept. 20 in Jeffersontown, Kentucky with six contestants.
Four younger men joined two old-timers in puffing and eyeing each other’s pipes under the columned portico that shelters Jeffersontown City Hall, each nursing 3.3 grams of tobacco, trying for the longest time on just one light.
Under the watchful eyes of a judge holding a stopwatch, the winner, Coy Howard, 37, coaxed his bowl of burley and vanilla-flavored Virginia tobacco to burn 71 minutes, 30 seconds. He snuffed out Gorden Vogel, age 71, who lasted 70 minutes, 45 seconds.
“I pray for two things,” said Howard, a factory worker from Springfield, Ky. “That mine does not go out and others’ do.”
Souvenir pins from many past pipe smoking competitions studded the red tobacco pouch on the lap of Griffin, a competitive puffer since 1984.
His collection included pins from pipe-smoking marathons at the Ham Days celebration in Lebanon, Ky.; the Steamboat Days Festival in Jeffersonville, Ind.; and the Kentucky State Fair.
This year, the International Association of Pipe Smokers will hold its 61st world championships near its headquarters in Mount Pleasant, Mich.
The association’s Web site lists Internet links to seven pipe-smoking clubs nationwide, including the Kentuckiana Pipe Smokers Club based at Kremer’s Smoke Shoppe in downtown Louisville.
Before the contest began, the owner of Kremer’s shouted to be heard over the keyboard and drums of a six-man gospel combo playing for festival passers-by on Watterson Trail.
This was the second year Kempf, 27, who also works as a clerk at a liquor store on Bardstown Road, competed in the pipe-smoking contest with his friend Jordan Humbert, 26, a musician.
Nate Keller, 18, said he took up pipe smoking under a tree in his Jeffersontown backyard last year to ease nerves jangled by his job setting bowling pins at King Pin Lanes on Taylorsville Road.
“After you have had a harsh day, it puts you in a mellow mind,” Keller said.
Kremer’s Smoke Shoppe
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Written by Kevin Godbee
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Before we begin, I should tell you: this tobacco review is being written by an A.I. Not the fancy new GPTs or their ilk; no, this is last century’s meat-and-bone, all-organic model. To be fair, a large part of what we call knowledge is merely the accumulated perceptions and impressions gathered from a life wandered through, synthesized into a spongy mass of what-it-is-that-we-think-that-we-know. The algorithm for this prompt is simple enough: pump thousands of bowls of smoldering plant matter into a gaping maw, cross-reference the chemical sensations with all other matter previously ingested or inhaled, sieve it all through the diffuse and fractal twin lens of memory and emotion, and churn out a panoply of adjectives that attempts to convey the sensations to someone who hasn’t experienced it yet. Odds are that a diligently trained monkey could succeed half the time; if this reviewer nears fifty-one percent then that would qualify as an unrivaled success. 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Thoroughly smoky with lemony, grassy highlights from the Virginia spectrum, it soon segues into the mid-bowl profile: heartier, smokier, with the flavor leaning to the mildly acrid and tangy tinge that is the campfire-esque signature of English blends. Caution advised, it can turn overly bitter if pushed—this is where one’s sipping technique is required to maintain the fullness of flavor through to the heel. I did tend toward a lot of relights, though it may have as much to do with technique as with the blend. Pacing is also important as the nicotine starts to manifest; though the Rustica’s contribution has been tempered well by the stoving, it can certainly upend an empty stomach. At the end of every bowl, the mouthfeel somehow gets better. The balance of sugars in the tobaccos would seem to be spot-on in this regard. I started out my tasting in cobs, then cut short an unpleasant bowl in a meer, and finally landed on my best instrument with the lovely Dunhill 4427 pictured, a quaint group 4 shell briar with a gentle curve and Cumberland stem supporting a perfectly executed acorn bowl. It surprised me here, as I’ve learned through the years that I generally have the best experience with English blends in large, wide bowls. With this blend it seems that to get the best out of the Katerini’s somewhat diaphanous influence the smaller bowl fared much better. Room note is very English, so the company you keep will either love it or hate it, and it doesn’t linger too much. I find it paired best with a strong coffee; Sumatran beans complement the flavors well, as do Ethiopian if a lighter brew is preferred. Overall impressions of the blend are that it’s a curiously interesting take on the English genre, almost a reductive reconstruction of the theme using the unique components. 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