Curing the Rough Edges
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Fred Brown - May 1, 2023
- 5 min read
Ahh, just the thought of April showers bringing May flowers is enough to demand a commune with flora and fauna, to look up and around and admire nature’s latest colorful canvas.
And, likewise, May is the perfect time to roam the hills and dales with a fine briar and a pouch of your favorite blend. The weather is generally exactly right for walking and puffing (a pipe, that is, and not from an uphill huff and wheeze).
The Pundit dons walking shoes each May, searching for some of the more elusive wildflowers in the mountains and the flatlands. It is a fun, rewarding, and energizing experience.
Not to mention some needed exercise in the old-fashioned way—walking.
Take the beautiful and elusive fire pink wildflower (Silene virginica) in the family Caryophyllaceae. This beauty of the wilds is a Pundit fav. Unfortunately, some reports say this gorgeous wild thing is becoming harder to locate. I have found that to be true as well.
These Merry Month of May wildflower jaunts always go better with my pipe. That is especially true when I find a new wild plant with which I have never crossed paths before.
Out comes my handy-dandy plant identifier on the old smartphone, take a seat in front of the new marvel and contemplate its history with a pipeful.
Take time to enjoy your surroundings and savor the natural world around you, including the briar and leaf, another aspect of nature’s bounty.
With this spring’s arrival, the Pundit has found new loves among freshly minted blends. At times, I do return to some old familiars—Sir Walter Raleigh, Half & Half, Prince Albert, etc., the drug store blends of yore.
On a nostalgic note, the codger blends return me to college classroom days when many of my profs in English lit and history puffed the aforementioned tobaccos.
I relish those fond memories and can even recall the herbal-like scent in the classroom as smoke sifted out over aspiring scholars.
Now, some favorite offerings for out-and-about walks from the minds of Jeremy Reeves at Cornell & Diehl, say, or the mystical intellect of G.L. Pease, both of whom have fashioned some of the fine blends in the past dozen years.
Pundit is just featuring a couple of the master blenders here. Lo, there are so many great tobacco blending gurus today that it would take a long shopping list of names to do the subject a deserved justice.
So, just a couple the Pundit is trying as of this writing.
Folklore: Ran across this blend from Reeves C&D Small Batch production last year. Cellared for a bit of aging and preparing now to break it out for the real test—outside on a “naturalist” walk, ahem and ahem!
The original blend description said Folklore paid “tribute to the traditions and customs of cultures across the globe. . . Small Batch Folklore celebrates five distinct flue-cured varietals, elevated by delicate accompaniments of genuine St. James Parish Perique, lightly smoke-cured Kentucky, and exotic Kasturi leaf from 2015.
“This solid-brick crumble cake is rich and elegant, with notes of sweet fruit, citrus, warming spices, and woodsy undertones.”
The beautiful blend was also the first 16-ounce offering in the C&D Small Batch lineup. If you missed it, sorry. Sold out now at Smokingpipes.com.
Next up is one of my absolute favorites, G.L. Pease and Drucquer & Sons First Amendment.
Pundit is naturally attracted to this blend, not only for its fond farewell on the palate, but also because it is easy on the tongue and retro hales like a floral bouquet.
Please excuse the long explanation snatched from Smokingpipes.com here, but it has the history as well as the blend’s makeup:
“Founded in 1841, Drucquer & Sons was a famed London tobacco shop that relocated to Berkeley, Calif., in 1928. The shop was more than just a tobacconist though; it was a community. It was where some of the greatest tobacco blenders in recent memory — like Carl Ehwa of McClelland and Gregory Pease of G.L. Pease — first plunged their hands into fragrant tobacco. The historic shop may be gone, but its rich history and brand of pipe tobaccos continues, reformulated from their original recipes by Gregory Pease (and made by Cornell & Diehl) for the modern smoker.
“The First Amendment to the Drucquer catalog in 40 years, this blend celebrates the collective right to free expression with an enduring formula of Red and Bright Virginia tobaccos and fine air-cured leaf, seasoned with Cypriot Latakia and Louisiana Perique, then pressed and aged in cakes and sliced.”
And a final note on another Pundit love, Cornell & Diehl: Sun Bear Mountain Flower.
“Sun Bear Mountain Flower combines top-tier Bright Virginias with two distinct varietals of matured Oriental leaf. Natural casings of silver tequila and elderflower complement these tobaccos, alongside a drizzle of raw, unpasteurized honey to elevate the leaf’s inherent sweetness and floral notes.”
Previous Sun Bear versions were sweetened with honey from a variety of farms or gardens, and even honey from Reeves’ honeybee hives. Some of the natural sweeteners were “ethically sourced wildflower and blackberry honey from a family-owned apiary in Morganton, N.C., the community in which C&D called home for over 20 years. The organic Mountain Flower honey complements Sun Bear’s tobaccos, elevating their fruity and floral notes for a bright, refreshing character and a creamy rounded finish,” according to the SP.com description.
As the portrayal says, Sun Bear Mountain Flower is not an aromatic but a composite of Virginias and oriental flakes.
My favorite tobacco reviewer, Jiminks, gave Sun Bear a four-star rating when this version of the small batch from Reeves arrived in 2022.
And before departing our spring fling, here is a final pipe smoking notable for May:
Harold Wilson, former United Kingdom prime minister. Born March 11, 1916, in Huddersfield, England, and died, on May 24, 1995, in London.
I’m an optimist, but an optimist who carries a raincoat. Harold Wilson.
And from the Pundit: Like fine tobacco and wine, age cures immaturity and the rough edges.
Written by Fred Brown
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I remember the first time I heard someone else say it. “How many pipes do I need? Just one more.” It’s glib, sure, a bit of a joke, but it also rings a bell of truth, at least to me. I certainly have “enough” pipes, but pipes are seductive little things. Just when we think we’re all set, we have enough, another will come along that tempts us beyond any sense of reason. I suppose it’s the same way with any sort of collecting. There’s always another white whale we’re in pursuit of. When we finally track that one down, though, another will almost inevitably breach the surface, taking its place as the new object of our desire, enticing us to change course and set sail once again. But, there’s a potential problem with having a lot of pipes. Maybe. The more pipes we may have, the harder it can be to keep them in rotation. It makes sense. We tend to gravitate towards our current faves, the ones that most appeal to us for whatever reason, and sometimes, maybe they stay in rotation longer than they really should. The side-effect of this, of course, is that another favored pipe might end up too-long forgotten. That’s exactly what happened recently. Exhibit A: The Castello pictured is one that has been long overlooked. It’s a Trademark shape #55. It’s a really nice example of the shape. The red pearlized stem is beautifully done. The wood isn’t really anything special to look at, but it’s evenly covered, without any bald spots. When I look at it, I wonder why it wasn’t done in the more typical dark ruby-red finish that adorns most Trademarks. I’ve seen a great deal of variation amongst the grade over the years, including one really nice bent-bulldog that left the factory with a brown sandblasted finish. (For those who don’t know, Trademark has long been the lowest Castello smooth grade, usually finished in a dark red.) Was this a stamping/grading error, or is there just more leeway in the grade than we’ve come to expect? I might never know. This example is from the early 1970s, maybe even the late 1960s, identified by the upper case Ks in the grade designation. (On Sea Rock and Old Antiquari pipes, the Ks reflect the size, while with the smooth finishes, Trademark, Castello and Collection, the Ks represent the relative grade.) It has been living in a different rack than the one housing the majority of my #55s. I don’t recall why I put it there, but as many of us can relate to, rack space is often at a premium. I stumbled upon it while looking for something completely different. “Oh, you? Why are you there? I remember you smoke pretty well.” Yeah, I sometimes talk to my pipes – one of many quirks, I suppose. I won’t begin to worry until they start talking back. I grabbed it from the rack, dusted it off, and decided to give it a fill with a bowl of a slightly aged VA/perique blend, Telegraph Hill, from 2018. What a delightful smoke! At five years, the tobacco is expressing a lot of the complexities of aged Virginias and the perique adds a delightful fruitiness. When young, the composition is a bit brighter, maybe a little spicier, but time has polished any edges, and amplified the sweeter notes. Like the pipe, I’d forgotten about this blend for quite a while, but one evening in March, after chatting with my good friend Nate, who is quite a fan of it, I decided it might be time to revisit it. I got a couple of fresh ones, and excavated a couple older tins from the library. I normally reach for Fillmore when I want a VA/perique thing because of its boldness and depth, but in revisiting this one, I’m finding something soothing and comfortable about it that I’ve really been enjoying, both young and aged. Sticking with the theme of the forgotten, and as a perhaps interesting tidbit to the photographically inclined, I shot the pictures for this month’s column with my old Nikkor-O 35mm/2.0 mounted on my trusty Nikon Df. The last time I used this lens, it was adapted to one of my Fujifilm bodies, and I didn’t care much for the results, so I put it away and pretty much forgot about it. But, I’ve recently been exploring some of my old kit, deciding what to keep, what to pass along, and this one once again came to my attention, kind of like that old Castello. On the Df, there’s something about its vintage rendering that I find truly appealing. Another forgotten treasure, and just like with that old pipe, it seems that, at least today, everything old is new again. If your collection is on the large side, are there pipes or tobaccos that you’ve all but forgotten, only to come back to them one day to find yourself wondering why? Maybe it’s just another fun dimension to this endlessly fascinating journey.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 640. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Ben Rapaport. Ben has been known internationally as an avid pipe smoker, antique pipe collector, and book author. His first book on pipes was published in 1972, and his latest book – his 10th – is out now in very limited quantities. The distribution has already sold out, but you can still get a copy of “The Wide World of Wood Tobacco Pipes. Two Centuries of Craftsmanship and Creativity” by contacting him directly at ben70gray@gmail.com. At the top of the show we’ll be turning the tables on our recurring Ask the Pipemaker segment. This time, Jeff Gracik will ask the questions, which Brian will answer as a pipe collector, and you can give your answers too.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 639. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Per Billhäll. Per is the owner of Scandinavian Pipes, which is an online retailer of high grade pipes. He started smoking pipes in the 1960s. His first high grade pipe was made by Hans “Former” Nielsen, who is one of the living legends from Denmark. That led to Per becoming a huge pipe and tobacco collector, and show attendee where he became well known. Along with pipe book author Jan Andersson, they started The Pipe Club of Sweden in 1991. Then in 1999, Per started “Scan Pipes”. He is now one of the pipe retailing legends from Sweden. At the top of the show Brian will talk about holiday blends, and other special pipe tobacco blends.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 638. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Fae “The Sassy Pipe Lady” Simmons. Fae is the owner of Tobacco Treasures, which sells new, vintage, & estate pipes, and smoking accessories on Etsy. She has been in business since 2017, and has been surrounded by pipes and tobacco most of her life. Her father and his brother smoked pipes, and so does Fae. Her husband is also a retired tobacconist that worked all over the industry from coast to coast for several different companies in the industry. She has a great story of how her business got started with a great inventory of unsmoked vintage pipes. 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.
Ok, so it’s that time of year, as we all know. Family feasts, houses, yards, and big trees festooned with lights and dangling ornaments, just high enough to keep the cats from reaching a paw into the greenery. It’s also the time of year when your pipe-smoking-significant other makes vast hints about a new pipe. That’s to be expected since he or she was a good boy or girl during the year. Yes, ladies smoke pipes, too. Oh, you want an example? Okay, try Actress Greta Garbo, Millicent Fenwick, Mary Frith, and my late grandmother (who died when she was 93) dipped snuff and smoked a cob occasionally. So now that we have settled that the gentler side of life will puff a pipe too, let’s move on to the upcoming biggest holiday of all. Of course, that huge event is brought to us by the hefty fellow in a red suit, puffing his pipe all the way in a sled filled with presents, being led by a reindeer with a red nose. Or some such. That’s Santa Claus, of course. Becoming a bit more serious, Christmas is such a wonderful time for families and friends. It’s also quite special for pipe puffers. For many of us, this brings up a nostalgic look back to our pipe-smoking or cigar-smoking friends who have died during the current year. A great journalist pal whom I often joined in a local brick-and-mortar pipe and cigar shop. I puffed my pipe, and occasional cigar, as he enjoyed a cigar. He died in October and will be missed. On the happier side of things, Christmas is also a time when mind workers of the world renew their collections with fresh additions. Pundit included. A French passion has overtaken Pundit, from reading more Albert Camus, a heavy cigarette smoker, as were many French intellectuals of a certain time. Instead of cigarettes many of us prefer the more relaxed enjoyment of pipes for that “calm and objective judgment” in the comings and goings of the world. This brings me to French pipes. While visiting France once in the long ago, I happened by a “Tabac” shop in Paris, Tabac Des Vosges. I purchased a beauty of a Chacom bent. I also later bought a Ropp made from ancient briar. To learn more about the dawn of briar pipes and beginnings, take a peek at a well-done piece by Davin Hylton in Pipe Line on April 12, 2023, on Saint-Claude, France, the birthplace of briar. Also in the long back when, on a cold Christmas afternoon, Pundit wandered into an Atlanta bricks and mortar pipe shop to look around. There, resting in an enclosed glass counter was an exquisite Comoy. An older gent, smoking a beautiful bent, asked me if I wanted to look at that pipe. It had a $100 price tag. A college student working for a grocery store chain to help with college tuition at the time, Pundit didn’t have one hundred cents, let alone a C note! I declined and found a $5 basket pipe. A Christmas tradition had just begun. Since that early time, Pundit has made it a holiday ritual to either reward himself, or a special friend, with pipe or tobacco. A Claudio Cavicchi would be nice. Just sayin.’ And now for a couple of December-born Pipe Smokers of the Past: Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born on Dec. 30, 1865, and died on Jan. 18, 1936. I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble—Rudyard Kipling. Martin Van Buren, born Dec. 5, 1782, and died July 24, 1862, U.S. President, 1837-1841 As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it—Martin Van Buren. And one more note to recall a deceased World War II veteran who loved William Somerset Maugham, the author. Maugham, a pipe smoker, was born in Paris, France, on Jan. 25, 1874, and died on Dec. 16, 1965. One cool afternoon as the veteran and I talked while sitting in his backyard patio, he looked off into the distance as if studying something. Nothing in particular. Just looking. He turned to me and said if I wanted to learn about life, “read Somerset Maugham.” I did. It wasn’t until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, ‘I don’t know’ –W. Somerset Maugham And now a Parting Shot: Any day with an old friend with pipes and tobacco is a good day.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 637. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Nate King. Most people know of Nate as an excellent pipe artisan. He also has an honorary Master of Pipes degree from the Chicagoland Pipe Collectors Club, and is a member of the prestigious Confrérie des Maitres Pipiers de Saint-Claude. To be inducted into the Confrérie, this past May Nate travelled to Saint-Claude, France with master tobacco blender G.L. Pease, who was also inducted. It was quite a time in France, and at the ceremony. We’ll hear all about those adventures on the show. At the top of the show we’ll continue the virtual tour of Brian’s pipe collection with six of his Satou Dublin-shape pipes.
