Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 565
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Kevin Godbee - Jul 11, 2023
- 1 min read
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 565! Our featured interview tonight is with Les Young. Les has been a fixture at pipe shows for many years. He is the 2023 U.S. Slow Smoking Champion, and goes by “lestrout” on the PipesMagazine forums. Hailing from the Philadelphia area, he worked for Dupont for 40 years and is now retired. He started smoking a pipe while attending MIT in Boston in 1961 – the good ol’ days when you could smoke in the classroom. At the top of the show we will have a Pipes 101 Revisited segment with a discussion of the draft hole.
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The Pipes Magazine Radio Show features interviews with pipe makers, tobacco blenders, pipe and tobacco aficionados, collectors, and more. Episodes air every Tuesday.
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Written by Kevin Godbee
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We’re in the dog days of summer, and in the heat and humidity I find my palate tends to become as erratic as the extreme weather. To be more precise, my entire biochemistry is busily making the continual adjustments that keep this finely-tuned machine old jalopy of a body in top form hobbling along, and my taste buds are a good indicator that the system is preoccupied with regulating itself. Therefore it’s no surprise that McCranie’s Roanoke, the tobacco that I’d been favoring since the winter months and regularly returning to between other review blends, just wasn’t hitting the spot anymore. We live in fortunate times that present no shortage of novel and interesting blends to try, so some speculation toward new flavors is in order. This month’s spotlight will thus fall on a couple of summer sequels, of a sort: first, the latest installment of Per Jensen’s Pipe Force line, Episode II to be exact; second, a new incarnation of Seattle Pipe Club’s Hogshead, this time with a bourbon barrel-aged twist. Much like The Empire Strikes Back improved on the previous film in that series, Episode II is a generational improvement on the English profile offered in Episode I. To my personal taste, while I enjoyed Episode I quite a bit, it didn’t have a definable hook for me; this iteration of a similar ingredient list hits much closer to the mark. Here again it is a Latakia-forward mixture presented with Katerini concoctions and stoved tobaccos, but with more variety and, for my money, more interest. From the tin: A mellow, sweet mixture of Bright, Red, and Stoved Virginia offers the exceptional base for smokey Latakia, floral Kentucky, spice of Stoved Katerini and the ambrosial berry and spice of Katerini Perique. The result is a harmony of flavor in perfect balance. The bouquet in the tin is tart, heathery, and leathery, in equal proportion. The aroma is dry and smoky with clear clay overtones and, as advertised, faint berry notes from the tin. In the bowl the sweetness sneaks in immediately, displaying a wonderful synergy between the Katerini Perique (Periquini? Katerique?) and the Virginias, offering a flavor unique and quite apart from the usual raisiny range commonly found in Virginia / Perique meldings. Conversely, the Latakia’s smoky, burning-rubber character is also influenced by the Katerini, directing it toward a very pinyon-esque range of aroma that lingers distinctly the room note afterward. Speaking of room note, it can become rather tart after repeated bowls—advise any expected visitors that no, there isn’t a diesel fire in your house, you’re just savoring your time with a new blend. It’s offered as a tight 50g crumble cake, easily broken apart for preparation. 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The tobacco is then pressed and cut for a unique and one of a kind smoking experience. Well at least they didn’t prattle on with the ad copy and let the blend speak for itself. Veering a hard left from the boisterous melange of the Pipe Force, this iteration of Hogshead is a dead simple straight Virginia blend of the same 10-year-old red & orange used in the prior, this time presented in thickly-sliced pressed flakes, aged in bourbon barrels. Deceptively simple, that is—the flavors of this blend are robust and varied, punching above their weight class for being confined to the comparatively narrow range of “just Virginia”. The first […]
This is going to be one of those friendly chats between friends. That’s you and me, pipe smokers of the realm. As I have mentioned before in praising pipe puffers: we are the mind workers of the world! “Friends” is the word of the day. One of my besties is my pipe. I take it everywhere. On a visit to Rowan Oak, way back there, the beautiful country home of legendary author William Faulkner, I was stunned almost silly walking through the rooms where the Nobel Laureate author lived and wrote of his extensive southern view. I have described this adventurous trip to Oxford, Mississippi, before. A well-smoked pipe was stuffed inside a tweed coat pocket with his favorite blend of the day. The tobacco was dried inside the bowl almost to the consistency of dust. The coat was draped over a wooden peg in a hallway as if awaiting Faulkner’s return. That scene inspired Pundit to emulate one of his favorite authors, beginning a habit that continues: pipes go with me everywhere, in coat pockets, bags, satchels, etc. Pipes are especially important in my outdoor jaunts when the sun also rises. Mr. Hemingway was an occasional pipe smoker, great angler, and outdoorsman, in addition to being rather good at penning stories. Recently reading about environmental concerns, which involve us pipe smokers since our beloved hobby is earth-bound in agriculture and nature, I encountered a beautiful line by writer, Krista Langlois, in Sierra, the magazine of The Sierra Club. She authored a story about sitting off in the distance and observing the Sleeping Ute Mountains near Cortez, Colo. The mountain, she says, is sacred and managed by the Ute Mountain Tribe. She longed to hike the mountain but had to settle for taking in the view, just as we must do as well when following the sun and just stopping long enough to light a pipe and take in the natural beauty. “But as a mountain, I will forever look at and never touch, it becomes something else entirely: a physical reminder of all I can never understand or conquer, and all I can learn by sitting still,” she wrote. Isn’t this what our pipes are for? To help us understand and perhaps conquer all we can by just being still and observing. Puffing our pipes and seeing a full moon in August. It’s known as the Sturgeon Moon, a time when Native Americans knew freshwater fish was abundant in nearby waters. Or, like the great Yogi Berra, the New York Yankees baseball philosopher/manager (who loved his cigars) once said, “You can observe a lot by watching.” And, just guessing, but that might have been time after a large sturgeon catch to pull out the pipe and smoke some of that native tobacco Native American tribes fostered. Not to belabor this point too much, but in California where sequoia trees are sacred to tribes, a certain rare tobacco plant is a coveted reward found near the giant trees. It is said tribes will trade buckets of fish for a small bag of the rare tobacco. A note now about an upcoming pipe show I know is already on many a calendar, if not hotel rooms already rented. The Conclave of Richmond Pipe Smokers hosts its 40th anniversary Expo Sept. 13-15. This year’s event coincides with the legendary Sutliff Tobacco Company’s 175 anniversary. It will be staged at the Keystone Truck and Tractor Museum in Colonial Heights, Virginia. You can check out all the details at PipesMagazine, which has already noted the CORPS Expo, at CORPS and Sutliff. One of my fondest memories is going to the historic City of Richmond event and seeing not only zillions of pipes on display but also people who love pipes and love talking about them. I listened to CORPS’s founding member Linwood Hines during that trek and knew I had found kindred souls. For a terrific story on Linwood Hines, you need to read Chuck Stanion’s piece in The Daily Reader at SmokingPipes.com. Not only is this a superb story on a legend in Pipedom but also you might learn a thing or three about some nifty tobacco blends from Linwood. Ok, on to Pipe Smokers of the Past. Some large names from the movie and theater world; literature; and the man who gave us the telephone. Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, born Aug. 13, 1899, died April 29, 1980. Gwyllyn Samuel Newton “Glenn” Ford, a Canadian American actor, born May 1, 1916, died Aug. 30, 2006. Henry Jaynes Fonda, born May 16, 1905, died Aug. 12, 1982. Bennett Alfred Cerf, born May 25, 1898, died Aug. 27, 1971. Alexander Graham Bell, born March 3, 1847, died Aug. 2, 1922. Alfred Tennyson, born Aug. 6, 1809, died Oct. 6, 1892. If you saw the Hitchcock movie “The Birds,” you know what a “murder” of crows can do to your nerves. The master of scary suspense, Hitchcock is reported to have enjoyed Dunhill pipes and tobaccos, along with his love of cigars. With that said, I’ll take my backyard birds with a nerve-settling pipe. And I can’t depart without a quote from artist and pipe smoker Vincent van Gogh. He wrote in an 1875 letter to his brother, Theo, describing his pipe as an “old, trusty friend, and I imagine we’ll never part again.” Amen, brother.
You presented a very good explanation of and tips about the draft hole.
I, too, know Les from the Chicago Shows. We’ve had wonderful talks about pipes and jazz.
He was an affable guest with a familiar (to me) pipe smoking journey (ah, smoking in class…those were the days). The discussion of techniques and methods in slow smoking contests was quite fascinating and fun.
Jennings’ choice of “Two Kinds of Blues” was a very tasty tune. I’m a fan of the Jimmy Giuffre Trio (with Jim Hall and Ralph Peña). I would have chosen a tune by tenor sax man Lester Young, in honor of your guest.
I salute your rant about the misuse of our flag.
Thanks for an always entertaining show.
Dino
Really good show!! The draft hole discussion in the Pipe Parts segment covers a very important segment of the pipe. I can’t stand a pipe that has a poorly designed bit. You but one in your mouth and if it doesn’t fit right there’s no reason to go further.
I have met Les at the Chicago Show two or three times. He’s always welcoming, and our conversations have always been enjoyable. I enjoyed listening to him describing smoking in class and it reminded me of my days in college. Yea, the good ol’ days when times were bad.
Your rant was reasonable, but I don’t get as wrapped up in this as you do. I think that when displaying the flag formally that one must do it properly. Put in day-to-day life it doesn’t bother me when people like to use the colors of it as part of a costume’s design. Think of Garth Brooks wearing the flag as his shirt. Sure, there are some lowlifes who burn the flag as a sign of disrespect and deserve whatever penalty they deserve but the Supreme Court, as usual, says this is just a form of free speech. This is just another way the court aggravates us.
The music selection was dreadful.