A Smattering of Pipe Terminology
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Kevin Godbee - Sep 1, 2011
- 5 min read
By Russ Ouellette
As with most hobbies, we pipe smokers have our own lexicon. Most people believe that our terminology exists to allow us to express complex concepts in shorthand, but the truth is that we use this slang to exclude those who are not among the cognoscenti. For the sake of clarity, however, I’m going to throw out some definitions of terms that one might happen upon in these pages and elsewhere.
DGT or Delayed Gratification Technique- To achieve the DGT, pack a pipe, do the charring light and tamp and then set the pipe aside for enjoyment at a later time. I’ve used this method and have gotten a number of excellent smokes as a result. Although the origins of this technique are unclear, I’m willing to bet that it started with a pipester loading up a bowl, lighting it, getting distracted and forgetting what he did with the damned pipe.
Crumble Cake– 1) A pressed tobacco using cut tobacco rather than raw leaf. It is then sliced so it can be prepared however the smoker prefers- rubbing out, chopping, folding and stuffing, etc. 2) What happens on a pipe smoker’s birthday because there are too many candles on it.
Shank– The part of the stummel (see later) that goes from the bowl to the stem with the drafthole going down the center; or, a part of an animal that the doctor says we should no longer eat; or, what happens every time I take a 5 iron out of my golf bag.
Stummel– The part of the pipe consisting of the bowl and shank, as opposed to those little German figurines that Mom or Grandma used to collect.
Button– The very end of the stem which goes into the smoker’s mouth and is where the drafthole terminates; alt.- The thing that goes flying across the room after sitting on the couch following Thanksgiving dinner.
Calabash– A pipe made by fitting an oversized meerschaum bowl into the wide end of a curved, hollowed and dried gourd, or any pipe with a similar appearance. Also, the pipe that Sherlock Holmes NEVER OWNED…DAMNIT!!! Read all 56 short stories and four novels, and you’ll never see a reference to a calabash. In a future article, I’ll write about the Great Detective and his pipes, but a calabash WON’T BE one of them.
Dublin– A pipe which has a bowl that is wider at the crest than at the bottom; sort of the inverse of a volcano; or, another great city where you can’t light up a pipe in a pub.
Pipe cleaners– Twisted wires with fuzz trapped between them that are meant to be run down the stem and shank to remove tars and fluids from the inside of the pipe, but usually wind up being twisted into stick men by your children or grandchildren.
Latakia (lat·uh·KEE·uh)- A black tobacco made in Syria from the base tobacco Shek-el-Bint or in Cyprus by using Smyrna by hanging the leaf in barns with open, aromatic fires which blackens the tobacco and gives it a very smoky flavor and aroma. Also another word that Brits can’t pronounce properly.
Pressure– Physical force applied to Perique and cake and flake tobaccos to make them stick together tightly by using a hydraulic press, a screwjack or a column press. Alt.- What Kevin Godbee, publisher of Pipes Magazine.com exerts upon me right before my monthly deadline.
[Editor’s Note: Ironically, Russ is always the first one to turn in his articles.]
Corncob– What’s left after removing the kernels from an ear of corn. A very specific strain of corn is grown for the Missouri Meerschaum Company, and when the corn is shelled the cobs are used to make their world-famous pipes by finishing the exterior with plaster and fitting them with a wooden shank and plastic stem.
Smoking jacket– A loose fitting jacket (actually more of a cross between a robe and jacket) usually made of satin, velvet and or brocade, meant to protect the pipe smoker’s clothes from flying embers and to keep the clothes beneath it from picking up the smoky aroma; also what one winds up with while smoking a pipe in the car with the window open.
Woodstock– A shape also called a zulu, which has a slight (1/8th) bend and a Dublin-like bowl, with the bowl mildly canted forward. Another definition would be: an iconic American music festival held on a farm in New York State which every living person from the age of 59 to 70 claims to have attended.
Pipe nail– A very useful tool which looks somewhat similar to a nail, with a fairly large, flat head used for tamping lit tobacco, and the other end is usually shaped to allow it to be used as a scraping tool, but you can’t because you keep losing the freaking things.
Match– 1) A tobacco blend created to emulate another existing or extinct mixture. 2) A wooden or cardboard stick which is coated with incendiary chemicals at one end that can be struck to start it burning with the intention of using the flame to light other objects, but absolutely will not work in a wind above 1 mph.
Aging– Leaving tobacco in its tin for an extended period of time, or putting tobacco in a jar or similar container for use at a later time, to allow the flavor to improve; or, the natural process of growing older which makes us think that tobaccos we smoked when we were younger were so much better than what’s available today.
Dunhill– One of the most famous names in the pipe world. The company has made some of the most iconic tobaccos in pipe smoking, as well as some of the most collectible pipes ever, as well as lighters, clothing and men’s accessories. Today, the pipes are made by a company separate from the tobaccos and the lighters are made by … I can’t remember, and now I’m so confused, I need a nap. Go away.
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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 Albany, NY. 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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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. 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With a sweet coffee or tea to accompany, the aftertaste of the maple is reinvigorated on the palate […]
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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, […]
I feel so much more superior than I did 5 minutes ago. Great article, Russ!
Filed under “Dictionary”!
Awesome article. But what is this thing you call a “pipe”?
And pipe smokers stole DGT from the Kama Sutra.
I’m glad Pipe reamer was left out. lol
“I’m willing to bet that it started with a pipester loading up a bowl, lighting it, getting distracted and forgetting what he did with the damned pipe.”
Hey! I resemble that remark… 🙂
Russ, I believe the Calabash v. Sherlock thing is the result of the movie “The Secret Life of Sherlock Holmes”. A spoof and of course instantly into the realm of Urban Legend. Sad….
Great read!
Now if we could just get together on the secret hand shake!!!! Fun article
I’ll address the reason for Holmes’ association with the calabash in my next article (October). It’s a neat little story that makes perfect sense when you read it.
Russ
Great article Russ! Thanks for making me laugh!
Good list of terms to know. I’ll be sure to whip out a few of them to impress people at parties. 🙂 What’s the Brit pronunciation of “latakia”?
Simon
The pipesters across the pond say la-TAC-ee-ah, but the transliteral spelling of the port city in Syria puts an apostrophe before the q in Lata ‘Qiyah, so the American pronunciation would be the more correct one.
Russ
“…so the American pronunciation would be the more correct one.”
That’s a first! It took over 200 years, but by gum, y’all did it! 😀
Actually, I must have been introduced to the word by a Brit, because my first instinct is to say la TAK ee ah, but I know that the other pronunciation is correct and I have been corrected by my tobacconist (Canadian) in the past.
Simon
Great article russ Yet i cannot even pronounce latakia that way! must be my colonial heritage, ar the fact that we kiwis speek funnee
I’ve read that the calabash became associated with Sherlock Holmes because stage actors who played the sleuth found it easier to speak with a bent pipe in their mouth than with a straight pipe, which makes sense to me. But who knows…
I heard the same as Frank… I can’t remember now where I read it though.
Good read, Russ!
A fun read, Russ. It’s good to know we pipesters don’t have to take ourselves too seriously! 🙂
I always wondered how latakia was supposed to be be pronounced. Being from Texas, though, it’s gonna be hard not to call it lAH-TAKE’-ee-ya. Just swat me upside the head if we ever meet and you hear me say that. Also, in re. what cortez said, smack me if you catch me taking myself seriously.
I’m still not sure of the pronunciation of Latakia. Recently, when the city was under attack in Syria, the American news reporters pronounced it la-TAC-ee-ah.
I wouldn’t take as gospel anything said by a reporter.
First, thanks for the article- I enjoyed it. The real reason I’m commenting is to say THANK YOU for pointing out that Sherlock Holmes didn’t use a calabash! I have in fact read all of Holmes stories, and it makes me crazy when people show an image of the guy smoking some great huge twisted calabash… because apparently without caricature no one would know its a pipe! Bravo!
Great read Russ, real fun and of course I was at Woodstock, don’t remember it, too much pipe smoking, but still got the tickets.
Great fun as always. I think that the DGT thing started with someone like me with ADHD. But i have it under con…………………….OH LOOK A CHICKEN!
Loved the article,..plenty of humor. Hope more are forthcoming…See you in Richmond.
Funn
awesome russ, thx
How to pronounce Latakia? I first read the name and then assumed it was la-TA-kee-ah, and was corrected the first time I said it in a tobacco shop. I then learned it was the British habit to say it this way (which is actually more common English language pronunciation, emphasis on the second syllable). I figured Britain actually had lots of experience in that part of the world for quite some time, so maybe they know better.
And now I have pretty definitive proof that it is indeed la-TA-kee-ah, (and not the acquired American convention of LA-ta-KEE-ah). Here is a podcast interview with a native of the Syrian city of Latakia, the real place where the tobacco is actually produced. The man has learned English, but clearly says the name of his own city as la-TA-kee-ah. That’s good enough for me, though I’ll sound like the fussy pronunciation from now on. Oh well. Here’s the podcast audio recording. Jump ball…
http://www.ulivewhere.com/downloads/download-latakia.html
Hey great article! I look forward to your article on Sherlock Holmes’ pipes. He’s by far my favorite literary character.