Pride and Prejudice (Pipe Version)
-
Kevin Godbee - Feb 6, 2013
- 5 min read
Russ Ouellette
No, this isn’t a novel, but the title applies, because few things are as polarizing as our particular preferences about pipes, tobaccos and accessories. Much of it is meant to be humorous, some is said half-jokingly and the balance is loaded with vitriol and passionate hatred. Come to think of it, it often sounds like the discussion about the designated hitter.
Without question, the number one target of derision is one of the most popular items among pipe smokers- aromatic tobacco. Non-aromatic smokers will ask "what kind of crap is in your pipe?" and will frequently compare the aroma to fruit salad, a fire in a bakery or what it must smell like if Carmen Miranda’s hat went to hell.
In fairness, many, if not most aromatic smokers prefer them because they have a pipe smoldering for a good portion of the day and want something a little sweet, easy on the tongue and palate and fairly priced. Beside that, they may be smoking around other people and are trying to be considerate by smoking a blend that is less likely to offend the nose of the non-smoker. Still, no group is chided for their choices more than the aromatic smokers.
People who smoke Latakia blends would probably come in second to the aro clan. The aroma of Latakia mixtures has been compared to a forest or house fire, a full-blown inferno in a tire dump or what Armageddon will probably smell like. To the non-smoker, the comments about the smell tend to be even worse, most using language that would be better suited for shore leave. But Latakia blends tend to be among the coolest smokers and have a lot of rich, complex flavors. For some folks, the taste might be a bit too intense, but many of the classic blends contain varying amounts of the black, smoky leaf.
The Virginia smokers most often get the "why bother?" comments. Virginia blends tend to be more delicate, and the American palate, which leans toward grilled steaks, buffalo chicken wings and chili, has a hard time discerning the nuances of some Virginia blends. Of course, there are a lot of tobaccos made primarily of Brightleaf that have deep, tangy and/or rich flavors, but for a lot of people the comparisons seem to be the flavor of tea, toast or air. Of course, when lovers of other tobaccos try one of the Lakeland Virginias they tend to drop some of their criticisms, not so much because they necessarily fall in love with them, but more because the hefty dose of vitamin N makes it difficult for them to speak. Although some people knock Virginia blends for their lighter flavor, I think many of them aren’t put off so much by the flavor as much as the fact that the tobaccos can get a bit hot for a lot of smokers who can’t "sip" a pipe and keep it lit.
Burley smokers often get teased about their tobaccos in a similar vein as Virginia aficionados, but the joking tends to abate when dark Burleys come into play. They have a deep, earthy flavor, often with a spicy undertone. Often, Kentucky Burley is fire-cured which infuses it with a smoky flavor and aroma which is influenced by the type of wood (often hickory) used in the process. Both of them pack a significant punch. White Burleys are much lighter in flavor and nutty, but because they take on flavorings well, the critics tend to look at white Burley as just the base for aromatics, but a lot of venerable American blends depend upon it for the smoothness and cool burning properties.
As to pipes, few people get kicked around more than the corncob smokers. Usually the comments reference Popeye, Frosty the Snowman or something about a hayseed. The truth of the matter is that a cob can be an excellent smoker, adds a bit of sweetness, and best of all, they’re reasonably priced enough that if they’re dropped on the sidewalk or over the side of the boat, tears usually don’t ensue.
One of the drawbacks of cobs is that they have a relatively short lifespan, but, again, the price balances that out. If you get 6 to 12 months or more out of a 5 dollar pipe, it certainly seems reasonable. My favorite corncob-related moment was from the day that I took a phone call from someone looking for an estate cob.
There’s usually very little teasing about briars and meerschaums, but the styles and shapes are the cause for a lot of chop-busting. Those pipe guys who gravitate toward Danish shapes will occasionally get the comments about their briars looking as if they were designed by H.R. Giger, H.P. Lovecraft or Hieronymus Bosch (there must be something about the letter h). Likewise, the smokers who like those more modernistic or organic shapes will give the traditional shape smokers a hard time about being anachronisms, making comments to the effect of "You bought the first pipe Dunhill ever sold directly from Alfred, didn’t you?"
Of course, walking around with one of the brightly-colored "The Pipe" will make you an easy target and God forbid that you should have the even odder version called “The Rock” in your mouth. In either circumstance, your integrity, among many other things, will be called into question.
Of course, it’s all in good fun, as mostly all the pipe smokers I know are just happy to meet and talk to another brother (or sister) of the briar. After all, the modern credo is “Like what you smoke, smoke what you like”.
As for my preferences, they’re none of your damned business.
|
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
15 Responses
Recent Posts
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowl’s surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the work’s been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once I’d cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but it’s how I roll. If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. There were none of the usual vanilla, cherry, berry or anise notes of typical aromatics, nothing that could be compared to aftershave or deodorant soap, but something almost musky, a little earthy, something exotic. The shop’s owner couldn’t tell me what was in it, how, or where it had been produced. The old blend had been retired before he’d bought the place. The printed catalogue gave no clues, either, other than being overprinted with the word “DISCONTINUED” in bold, rubber-stamp type. (And, I don’t recall it as being “highly aromatic” as the description indicates.) There was still quite a bit in the jar. Being, at that point, an intrepid explorer of all kinds of tobaccos, whether I thought I’d like them or not, I had to give it a try. It was burly based, but also comprised a good measure of virginia leaf, and maybe some other varieties; I didn’t have enough experience at the time to really pick it apart. But, that aroma was unlike anything I’d experienced before or since. It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasn’t. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply can’t. I won’t. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
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. 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.
Good read!
Well written. As I read it I am inflated with pride as someone as finally pegged everything I feel in regards to my choice of tobacco and pipe and then quickly deflated by the pointing out of my bias of others choices. I guess I am right where I started. lol. As always, Russ has a good way with words and a knack for sparking discussion. Definitely something to think about here.
That was a lot of fun.
Great article Russ!
I can see where some may take a ribbing for their choice of pipe. Those that seem more artsy-fartsy than functional are a bit over the top, and though I wouldn’t dare say anything about it, It would linger in the back of my mind: “Is all that really necessary?”. In my opinion, it falls along the lines of a fella wearing his ballcap backwards while squinting because the sun is in his eyes. Hes wearing it that way to look cool, not because it serves any purpose.
As far as your choice of tobacco, I don’t think a person could be faulted for that in the slightest. All have characteristics that I enjoy, so I can see why any given smoker would prefer their particular choice over another.
“Like what you smoke, smoke what you like”…indeed.
Being a long time latakia lover I’ve been curious about placing an aromatic in the cellar. The main reason I haven’t pulled the trigger is, from what I’ve read, aromatics won’t taste like like they smell. I’m fine with that but I’d like it to taste like something.
I’d appreciate a knowledgeable approach if someone wouldn’t mind. The aromatic that I’ve heard has a good room note is Blue Note. Can someone speak to this blend?
Thanks Russ, that was a fun read. I smoke all of those things, lol, and enjoy them all. But aros are for when I am around other people, Latakia when I am at home, and Virginia’s when the mood strikes.
That was a good read! Thanks again Russ.
Nicely written article. I guess we’re all vulnerable to criticism from somebody. Well, maybe not me; I do it all the right way. 🙂
“A full-blown inferno in a tire dump.” Nice one Russ.
Good article Russ! I have always gone by “smoke what you like and like what you smoke” and the heck with what anybody else thinks! I love them all myself!
Good read indeed!
That was a fun read.
Great article with fine humour.
Unsurprisingly, the metal tobacco pipe has (once again) been ignored. Even though the Falcon is undoubtedly the best selling pipe in history (and of course, there are scores of other brands such as the Viking and Koolsmoke), it is largely ignored when it isn’t being ridiculed.
I feel kind of sorry for the guy who’s caught smoking Captain Black Cherry in a vintage mini-cob!
Great article, Russ. By the way my new favorite blend is Hearth and Home – Vermont Meat Candy! @Mirin: You can’t go wrong with Blue Note, my other favorite blend!
Good read.much better than anything ive read on Yahoo news very informative to us novice pipers.I have one question does anyone know what the pipe in the picture with the compass is I really like the looks of it?