Creation Mode
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Kevin Godbee - Mar 5, 2015
- 3 min read
Russ Ouellette
I’ve been absent from Pipes Magazine for a while now. It’s not that I don’t want to write anymore, it’s been a sheer matter of lack of time. I’ve been involved with 11 new blends that have hit the market in the last few months, and I’ve got dozens more in the works. But that’s not the only thing that’s kept me hopping.
I’m much more involved, these days, with the day-to-day operation of our company, so I’ve been getting my hands dirty with developing three new lines of pipes and new accessories. I’ve been working on new pipe cleaning products, and the results thus far have turned out great. What I’ve tried to do is to identify some of the drawbacks to some of the mainstream products and find a way to eliminate, or, at the very least, mitigate those properties.
What all of this has done is to give me a new perspective on our pastime, and has allowed me to become more creative. This past year has been rather intense so I haven’t really had the opportunity to take a step back to analyze. But now that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, some things are more apparent to me.
The first thing I’ve noticed is that there’s been a lot more innovation in the pipe industry in the last ten years than I can remember in any other decade. The new engineering approaches that have become widespread are leading to pipes that smoke incredibly well. Certainly, there’s a lot of creativity in shapes and finishes by various pipe makers. More blends are surfacing that fly in the face of convention, but at the same time, some great traditional-style blends are being brought to market.
The diversity in products today is amazing. There are phenomenal large-scale production pipes. Our new
Argo pipes are classically designed, incredibly light and utilize a larger drafthole, so they smoke cooler, drier and stay lit more easily. They share those traits with new brands such as Icarus and Neptune, so modern engineering is now available to more pipe smokers because the pipes are affordable.
Russ Ouellette in the shop working up a blend.
When I look at the hobby as a consumer, I’m amazed at the number of choices we have. Regardless of your tastes, there are a lot of options in every segment of the market. From the reliable and inexpensive Missouri Meerschaum corn cobs to the elegant and intricate designs of master pipe makers, there are a plethora of options for everyone.
Tobacco has changed too, but some of the changes are counter-intuitive. It would make sense that, since a lot of farmers have stopped growing tobacco, the overall quality of pipe tobacco would decline. But with the numbers of pipe smokers remaining fairly level, or modestly increasing and cigarette consumption continuing to wane, pipe tobacco companies have access to fine leaf. Creative thinking has been used to develop new blends unlike anything previously available.
I have so many projects on my plate that I’ve had little spare time, but that’s fine because this has been the most productive period of my life and the opportunities seem limitless. As I continue to work on these tasks, I’ve come to more greatly appreciate the people I know and get to work with on an ongoing basis. This is the only industry that I’ve been involved in where people from competing companies will offer solutions to problems with a competitor. Maybe that’s the reason why I don’t mind long hours. When you feel that you’re even a very small part of such an interesting hobby, full of top-flight people, it makes it really easy to get up in the morning.
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Russ Ouellette is the blender/creator of the Hearth & Home series of tobaccos for Habana Premium Cigar Shoppe and www.pipesandcigars.com in Bethlehem, PA. He has been a pipe smoker and blender for over 30 years, and enjoys feedback from the pipe smoking public. You can reach Russ at russo@pipesandcigars.com or by calling 1-800-494-9144 on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9 am to 5 pm and Friday from 1 pm to 5 pm. |
Written by Kevin Godbee
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I do not like hot weather. When the mercury pushes close to body temperature, my icy heart begins to melt, and when it reaches the point where I break out in a sweat as a result of the strenuous act of sitting upright, I consider calling around to see if I can book time in one of the refrigerated drawers at a local morgue. Heat and I just don’t get along well. We never have. Indulge my rambling, if you will; this really is about pipes and tobaccos. During the cooler months, I’m most often drawn towards fuller mixtures, rich with latakia, redolent of those wonderful aromas of campfires and leather and the smells of classic British sport cars and motorbikes that occupied so much of my youth. Seriously. It’s not the spice of orientals alone that brings comfort, but the warm blanket of latakia itself. These fuller mixtures recall some of my fondest smoking memories. I’m reminded of walks in the woods on cool, misty days, when the smoke would hang in the air, chilled by the moisture, its perfumed clouds delighting my senses, or evenings by the fire, accompanied by a wee dram of a fine malt, a comfortable chair and a good book. When the weather is all “hotting up,” though, I find latakia, in more than gentle seasoning proportions, to be too much of a good thing, almost overwhelming, so I turn to lighter mixtures and especially virginia blends, with or without perique. It’s something I’ve always found interesting, if occasionally vexing. Is it the temperature? The humidity? The pressure of the air molecules as they dance around, mingling with the tobacco’s smoke? Cosmic rays? Is it a subtle change in body chemistry that results from seasonal changes in diet? Set and setting? Or, is it some confluence of all these factors, and others not noted, that has such a profound influence on my smoking pleasure? I know I’m not completely alone; over the years, I’ve had conversations with pipe smokers who experience similar changes in tastes as the weather shifts. Interestingly, others insist that I’m delusional, that climate has no influence at all upon their choice of tobacco, and that they smoke the same tobaccos year round. Perhaps they live in relatively constant climates, or choose tobaccos with smoking characteristics that are less influenced by climate. Sometimes, I’m a little jealous of them; having my choices limited by something as intractable as the weather can be challenging to my inner control freak. But, the influence of climate on smoking can be subtle or alarming, and no amount of note-taking has led me to anything resembling actual understanding. Hold that thought. I first became aware of this phenomenon one cool autumn evening while waiting with some friends for a table at a popular restaurant. 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Great article! Good to hear from you again Russ. We missed you at the West Coast Pipe Show in Las Vegas back in November. Glad to hear you’re busy with some amazing new blends and pipes. Can’t wait to give them blends a go. Keep up the good work!
Your observations are right on. I can’t remember a time when more innovative thought was being introduced to pipe smoking. It’s one of those things in life that is not just a pastime, it’s a passion and today’s crop of innovators clearly seek to expand traditional horizons. I dare say history might well view this period as the “golden age” of pipe smoking. There have been times when more people smoked pipes but today there is a true passion in both the purveyors and consumers than I can recall. Creative suppliers, an appreciative consumer base and the internet to quickly spread the word have combined to take pipe smoking to a new level and I for one am delighted they have. Keep up the great work.
Good to hear from you again.
Thanks for taking the time to keep in touch with us. Above all else, take care of yourself — we all are too dependent on your skill to suffer any setbacks.
Sorry for the non-sequitir, but here’s a pipe-smoking author I just read 2 very good novels by:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gardner_%28American_writer%29 Some of his characters are pipe smokers too. John left us a little early; I’m sure he had many more good books in him.
That’s a nice pocket-watch. Such watches are more uncommonly seen now than pipes and pipesmokers- Whaddyaknow! Pipe-smoking isn’t dead, it just slipped out of favor for a bit….