Pride and Prejudice (Pipe Version)
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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.
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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.
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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. 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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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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, […]
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?