Chicago Pipe Show 2009 Report
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Kevin Godbee - May 8, 2009
- 13 min read
The 2009 Chicagoland Int’l Pipe & Tobacciana Show had over 350 exhibitors and nearly 4,000 attendees from 65 countries. I spoke with several of the exhibitors such as; Cornell & Diehl, XYZ Direct, Tobacco Pipe Exports, Viprati Pipes, Pipa Castello, Harkam Pipe, Mac Baren and others about their new pipes and tobaccos.
Cornell & Diehl
Popular tobacco producers Cornell & Diehl were exhibiting and I spoke to the owner Craig Tarler. "Every year at the show we introduce a blend with a Comic label on it and this year its Good Morning and it shows a gentleman picking up his newspaper in his bathrobe and a Preacher and two ladies from the church saying, "Good Morning" behind it. And we enjoy doing this; everybody kind of looks forward to what we’re going to bring out. This is an early morning blend, it’s a Light English." Cornell & Diehl’s Website
Cornell & Diehl "Good Morning" Blend
XYZ Direct
I met Alan Schwartz, whom some of you may remember as the former editor of the now defunct Pipe Smoke Magazine which used to be inserted into Smoke Magazine. Alan and his wife Joan are the owners of XYZ Direct which is a distribution company for several popular brands of pipes and tobacco.
Alan & Joan Schwartz
Alan told me, "We distribute Chacon, Molina, Mastro De Paja, Peter Jefferson, Arab Pipes, Wessex Pipes and a few others. We’re actually two companies because Mastro De Paja is a separate entity. It’s an independent company, but it’s included in our group."
"There’s a third company, the Nicotier, which is the world’s largest maker of filters for pipes for 9mm filter pipes that are 95% of the market now in Central Europe and also makes the filter cigarette holders. So, we’re Nicotier USA and Mastro De Paja USA and the overall umbrella company is XYZ Direct.
The products we sell in pipes are Chacom, which is an old French company; the original Comoy company is now Chacom which is a conflation of two names, Chapre and Comoy to Chacom. And, because Comoy no longer exists as a manufacturing entity, it’s a trade name. Their actual pipes are made by other people, but used to be made by Chacom or the original Comoy factory in France.
We have Mastro De Paja which is an Italian company; a very fine, hand-made, high-grade pipes which you can see a few here. We sold out this show. We did very well.
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| Chacom Pipe | Mastro De Paja Pipes |
We have up until now represented in Europe a good, lower priced, low/medium price Danish handmade pipe. We’re discontinuing our representation as of this show. These are the last of the Neerup Indian style. Our discontinuing representation has nothing to do with the pipe, it’s just a business matter between myself and Peter Jefferson, who owns the company. He’ll be represented by someone else from now on and I frankly, and I’m not kidding, I don’t know who. But he’ll be on the market and it’s a good pipe. It’s a good worthwhile pipe."
We also sell an enormous quantity of tobacco, at least half of our business if not more. We bring in most of the classic English brands which are Astley’s, Fribourg & Treyer, McConnell, Rattray’s,Wessex … Those are the five major food groups. And, then we have some other, you know lesser known tobaccos that we also sell. But we’re known for the other stuff. We sell only to the trade. We will occasionally sell to the public at a pipe show but that’s mostly to fly the flag. We sell at retail price anyway at the trade show so we do not undercut our retailers." Pipe smoking enthusiasts should look for these products are their local retailer or at the online store where they shop.
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| Mastro De Paja Tobaccos | Robert McConnell Scottish Cake |
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| Rattray’s Hal O’ The Wynd | Rattray’s Red Rapparee |
Tobacco Pipe Exports
Next, I met up with Kevin Brackett from Tobacco Pipe Exports in Seattle.
"We’re the importers for Amadeus Pipe Company out of Pateros, Greece. The pipes that we have here are the Gentlemen, the lead line. We’re bringing out new finishes in a rustic, in a yellow, in a natural, in a blonde and a red finish. There’s 16 different shapes in each of the new finishes and they’re our new product for this year. This is the most popular shape we have; it’s the #17 in the Gentlemen Elite line."
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| Gentlemen Elite Rustic | Gentlemen Elite Yellow | Gentlemen Elite Natural | |
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| Gentlemen Elite Blonde | Gentlemen Elite Red | ||
Viprati Pipes
"I am Maurizio Fraternale. Viprati is located in Pesaro, in the North of Italy. The new one that we have this year is the Luigi Viprati 25th Anniversary Pipes. Under 50 pieces are produced worldwide. It comes in three finishes; smooth light, smooth dark, and sandblast. They have the ring in jade and the top ring in silver. This year we also have the new Heart & Crown pipes in theSalvador Dali collection.
The 25th Anniversary Pipes range from $690 to $1,100. The Salvador Dali series ranges from $620 to $790.
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| Luigi Viprati 25th Anniversary Pipes | |||
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| Heart & Crown pipes in the Salvador Dali collection. | |||
Pipa Castello
Another "Italian sports car of pipes" was Pipa Castello. I spoke to Marco Parascenzo.
"All of our pipes are hand-made. We have all the different finishes, smooth, rusticated and sand-blasted. Although all of our pipes are made by hand, we stick to the classic shapes. So the power of our brand is to make a classic shape in the handmade way. Everything is completely handmade including the mouthpiece, logo, everything. We also have pipes that come with a box that is made from the scraps of the briar."
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| Pipa Castello Pipe in Briar Case | Pipa Castello Pipe in Briar Case |
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| Pipa Castello Pipes in Briar Case | Closed Briar Case |
Harkam Pipe
"I am Karl Harkam from Austria. I started to produce pipes in the middle of 2005. Our latest new invention is "Curve Drilling" which means it’s not a straight line in the stem. It’s really curved and so they are really beautiful shapes of pipes. All pipes are handmade and a lot of work goes into them. I do this part-time so not a lot of pipes are produced, only about 25 per year.
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| Harkam Pipe Cross Cut to Show Curved Drilling | Harkam Pipe | Harkam Pipe Coffee Cup |
James Island Piper
Don Cedar from James Island Piper, Charleston, South Carolina explained, "My website has usually between 400 and 500 pipes, really in all price ranges. I carry a lot of Estate pipes in the $29 to $69 price range and then I have some premium Danish pipes that retail for over $1,000, so I have a pretty good mix and I have a lot of pipes that nobody else seems to have."
Kevin: "What would some of those be?"
"Well James Upshaw here in the United States is not widely sold. It’s an English Company, they lost their US distributor a number of years ago so there’s not many of them you see available in pipe shops. But I have a good supply. I also am the exclusive USA retailer of Julius Vesz pipes, Julius Vesz from Toronto, Ontario Canada. And I have anywhere from two or three to a dozen of any number of premium pipes, including Costello’s, Jurgen Moritz, Peter Heeschen, former Lasses Skovgaard, Benni Jorgensen, and on and on.
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| Some of the Pipes Displayed by James Island Piper | ||
SmokingPipes.com
I spoke to Antonio Saintiague, V.P. Managing Director of SmokingPipes.com.
"We’re located in Little River, South Carolina and primarily are web based business but we do have a local shop. The show this year has been fantastic for us. You know, folks kind of came in with mixed expectations because of all the news that’s out there in the world unfortunately, but it’s been quite a success.
We actually released a new tobacco called Low Country Black, which is a Latakia mixture somewhere in the vein of Frog Morton and it’s got a little bit of aromatic quality. And we feature pipes from all the Japanese pipe makers that we have exclusive relationships with, as well as some Danish makers Teddy Knudsen, Tom Eltang just to name a couple.
I couldn’t be happier with the show and how it went and the guys here at CPCC, they do a great job and Frank Burla, I mean I don’t know how he keeps it up but he is just the man. The show grows every single year. So, that’s pretty much it.
Praise for the Show
I met Gordon Roberts from Mt. Vernon, Illinois and he had this to say about the Chicago Pipe Show.
"It’s been a great show this year and I’m coming again next year."
Kevin: Is this your first time at the show?
Gordon: This is my second time and it’s increased in variety, quality, number of exhibitors since I was here last time three years ago, so I had a great time.
Kevin: And you’re definitely coming back next year?
Gordon: Oh, yeah.
Kevin: Did you buy some stuff at the show?
Gordon: Absolutely, bought, traded. I got three pipes; I traded some pipes and some accessories.
Per Jensen described the new Mac Baren blend, HH Acadian Perique. "It’s a very unique tobacco, it’s a very complex tobacco. It contains Virginians, Kentucky, and a little bit of Burley. But the key issue is that there is no top flavor at all. We haven’t put anything on top of it so the taste doesn’t come from anything else but the tobacco. And the casing is on the low side, it’s only to keep the moisture in the tobacco. So, what you experience when you smoke it is a pure, natural taste. And you get a hint of the Arcadian Perique."
Kevin: How would you describe the blend as far as mild, medium?
Per: It’s more than a medium, and it’s the third member of the HH family. Well we started with the Vintage Syrian, the second one was the Mature Virginia. With all three of them we go very, very easy on the top flavor. Acadian Perique has none, the others have just a little bit, and on the low side as well, very low. So you have tobaccos with no tongue bite, that smokes easy, are finished and you smoke to the bottom of the bowl. It’s only gray ash. And that is, in my opinion, quality tobacco.
Kevin: How do the three different HH blends differ from one another?
Per: The Vintage Syrian is the smooth, soft one. The Mature Virginia is a Virginia based blend, but it has some Oriental, a little bit of Kentucky and the only top flavor is a little bit of red wine balsamic. But all three of them are on the natural side. The Arcadian Perique will be ready in the beginning of August.
For the Vintage Syrian and the Mature Virginian we made these ceramic canisters. They are pre-packed with 1 pound of tobacco, and it’s a collector’s item. They are all individual numbered 1 through 1,500 and retail for $65.
We also have a Mac Baron pipe ashtray for $25 also limited to 1500 pieces. They are not numbered though.
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| Mac Baren New Acadian Perique Blend Available August 2009 | Mac Baren Limited Edition Ceramic Canisters with 1 lb of Tobacco | Gene Thompson & Per Jensen |
Kesling Pipes
I met and smoked with Don and Mitzi Kesling the first night of the show and they were a very nice young couple from my neck of the woods in Florida. I stopped by to see them again at their exhibit table.
Donald Kesling: "I’m a pipe maker from Winter Haven, Florida and I’m here at the Chicago show for my first time and it’s very enjoyable and it’s probably one of the greatest shows in the country right now with the amount of tables and people. And I’ve been making pipes for about two years. I really enjoy it; it’s a lot of fun. The people that you meet at these places I really feel like they could be potential friends for many, many years. I’ve already made some very close friends. My wife comes with me which is always a fun get-away and a lot of happy times and memories made. And, I’ve also had great responses to my work. I kind of do freehand work, a lot of people said that it’s reminiscence of old Dutch style things and the ancients have robbed us of our originality so we still repeat things that have been made years and years ago. But I really like what I’ve got and think people really appreciate the artistry and the construction of the pipes. Being new like this, I’ve carved out a tiny little niche for myself and I’m really happy with it."
Kevin: Tell me about this pipe right here.
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| Kesling Red Fish Pipe | ||
Donald: This is the Red Fish, it’s basically a blow fish design and the reason why I believe they call it that, and I had to figure this out on my own and I’m not sure if that’s even why but, because it’s got a compound angle. The hole is drilled at a compound angle into the bowl hole for the tobacco chamber, so it has to be set up compound and then that way you can curve the wood and bend it around because you’ve got a lot of room on one side so that you don’t get into the draft hole, so you can make it sort of look like a fish. And that’s my second try at a blow fish design.
Kevin: That’s superb. Tell me about this one here.
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| Kesling Blonde Freehand | Burl on top of Kesling Blonde Freehand | Assorted Kesling Hand Made Pipes |
Donald: That pipe is totally based on grain. You wet the material; you look at the grain structure, the bird’s eye. The burl on top was absolutely amazing. Sometimes you leave the burl on, sometimes you take it off. You remove the bar carefully and clean the burl really nice if it’s tight, you might leave it. I prefer to leave it most of the time, and then I use all kinds of accents on the wood, like I like to use horn. And I like to use natural things like buffalo horn and elk horn and stack horn and bamboo and all types of exotic woods and then plastics also.
I’ve started doing my construction with Delron to hold all the components together, tubed all the way through and then the vulcanite or the ebonite rod is fitted to the tendon and actually presses into the Delron instead of the wood and that way you have a good fit for many, many years and you don’t have broken stems.
Kevin: Great. And the Red Fish is $230 retail and the Natural Blond is$420 retail.
Kevin: What is price range from the low end to the high end right now on your pipes?
Donald: The idea behind this whole thing when I started it is I don’t have a grading system, I don’t want to. Every pipe is numbered from one on up to every pipe I’ve ever made, which is 71. If I don’t like the pipe I keep it, I don’t sell it if there’s something wrong with it, I keep it. But my prices ranges anywhere from $95 to I’ve sold pipes for up to $600. Two years maker, two year pipe maker, 71 pipes total, $95 to, and they’re all numbered so, and they’re also initialed and signed by my wife named Mitzy. So my idea is to make 1,000 pipes and then keep them all recorded in a book and where they went and who got them and then have some eccentric millionaire search the world-over and find all of them. That’s my dream.
Even though there were many, many more exhibitors, that’s all we have time for here. Alas, there’s so many pipes and tobaccos and so little time! You’ll have to go to the show yourself to see it all.
Written by Kevin Godbee
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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.
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. 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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.
Great piece Kevin with some great photos!
A lot of great looking pipes!
Thanks Python. There’s a lot of info here, but in reality this is just the “charring light” of the whole show.
Kevin, it must a gas to meet all those industry people. Thanks for taking us there.