Hoping St. Peter Has a Match
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Kevin Godbee - Feb 6, 2015
- 5 min read
Fred Brown
When does a fad cease being a fad and become an exciting hobby? And following that line of thought, when does that compelling hobby cease to be a hobby and become an all-encompassing serious obsession?
Personally, I’m at the serious obsession stage right now today. My pipe smoking and collecting began shortly after college, in the 1960s when I came across the old Royal Cigar Store on Forsyth Street in Downtown Atlanta and actually thought I had found heaven.
The appeal of the smells, the tins, the pipes, the cigars, the men smoking both and everyone talking pipes and tobaccos hit me so hard, it was as if I had found the Court of Montezuma and someone handed me a pipe to join in the ceremony.
To make it short, the fellas in Royal Cigar in Downtown Atlanta had me at "hello." For the next several years, I stopped by Royal Cigar at every opportunity, spending money I’d earned working in grocery stores and from summer jobs with the State of Georgia survey crews.
Royal Cigar Company, Atlanta, GA (Late 60s early ’70s?)
It was as if I had found Never-Never Land. The tobacco tins were round and came with crinkly paper that reminded me of neck collars worn by medieval princes. I was, after all, a serious romantic as well, being an English Lit major.
The experienced pipe men at Royal Cigar took me through a veritable fairly land of pipes and tobaccos. They taught me how to load the pipe, light it, smoke it slowly, enjoy the pure tobacco, and most of all, how to relax and just be one with the whole process. Zen like, yes.
I also noticed that many of my college professors, especially history, philosophy and physics, all smoked pipes. And they mostly smoked Sir Walter Raleigh or Prince Albert.
But my physics professor, Dr. Neill Whitelaw, smoked mostly Revelation. That wasn’t his only tobacco. The tops of his lab shelves were lined with the old tubs: Briggs, PA, Half and Half, Barking Dog, Country Doctor, and of course, Revelation.
It was even more thrilling to learn that my physics professor was buddies with, ahem, Mr. Einstein. I often wondered what those two talked about. As for me, I could barely understand Dr. Whitelaw in plain English. That’s why after my first Whitelaw lab exam, he suggested I "drop the course immediately." I did and told him "Dr. Whitelaw, I’m headed to the English Department, where I understand what I read." Dr. Whitelaw did not suffer fools lightly.
At my graduation, however, he was one of the first to shake my hand in a congratulatory shake. "Frankly," Dr. Whitelaw said then, "I didn’t think you were going to make it." Uh, I didn’t either.
Later, in my junior year of college, I discovered Edward’s Pipe Shop of Atlanta. It was, again, love at first "hello." Over time, I purchased several of Edward’s pipes. I loved them all, especially a Canadian that I called "My Edwardian" if you get the drift of that. Edwards bulk tobaccos taught me about burleys, aromatics, Virginias.
By now, I had several pipes in my collection, and I was on what Edwards called a "steady order" list. I received a pound of tobacco monthly, which meant I could mix and match. My pipe collection had ceased to be a fad. It had become a solemn hobby. Each time I received an Edwards Catalog, I ordered another pipe.
By the time I was the editor of a small daily newspaper, my pipe smoking had reached another level. Instead of a pound a month, I was smoking close to a pound a week!
Those were the days when you could smoke anywhere you pleased. There were few anti-smoking zealots at the time.
So, I had a pipe clenched between my teeth most of the day. I tried not to smoke my pipe in my sleep (apologies to Mr. Twain).
Also by this time, my pipe collection had exceeded some 30 briars and meerschaums. One of the meers was given to me by a college classmate, who said it was "old and no good." I still smoke it today!
And, by the way, all of those pipes purchased in the 1960s have their own little place in my pipe racks today, with the exception of one of my beloved Edwards, which I foolishly traded away at a pipe show. I have regretted that deal ever since.
Yes, I know every pipe I have ever purchased. I can recall the time and place. I have refrained from naming all of them, with the exception of a claw-meer, which is the Jeff Davis (this has nothing to do with politics or wars; Davis, president of the Confederacy, smoked a claw-meer).
I have named another my Shelby Foote (the famed Southern author, whom I knew and interviewed several times); the William Faulkner (whom I did not know, but have read and admire); the JRR Tolkien and the C.S. Lewis (for obvious reasons).
At some point, my hobby, no longer a fad, switched gears and became a serious obsession, a movement of its own, an avalanche of emotion, feeling, desire and need.
I admit it. Pipes and their lure have besotted me, taken over my very being. I am incurable at this point, I fear. Yes, this is an expensive hobby and an even more costly obsession. So are alpine skiing, climbing mountains, flying, scuba diving, fly-fishing, cars and stamps.
But at this stage, I don’t know what I would do with a day without being able to see, to hold, to cherish my pipes and the fine tobaccos I put in them.
Note: I define fine tobaccos as any tobacco that I choose to smoke, be it Codger Blend, a Match Blend of the Codgers, the latest from Mr. Pease, Cornell & Diehl, or any of PipeMagazine’s excellent sponsors.
Frankly, I have tried just about all varieties (of course that is unabashedly hyperbole; no one could smoke all the fine tobacco blends out today; but, god knows, I have tried, I have tried).
My pipes are a part of who I am. There, I’ve said it and it is the truth. I shall go to my grave holding one of my pipes in my hand, filled with tobacco, and hoping that St. Peter has a match at the other end.
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Written by Kevin Godbee
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Ah, the joys of spring. April showers bringing May flowers, trees budding, birds flitting in fits of joy, and hope springing eternal. As our friend e.e. cummings said, “always it’s spring and everyone’s in love”. Ah, love, yes, above all love. Have you ever fallen in love? With a pipe, that is. Yes, dear brothers of the briar, a pipe so fetching you are mesmerized by its glimmering beauty. Let’s go back some years. The Pundit was in an Alabama brick and mortar pipes and tobacco shop (memory says it was The Briary in Homewood) when naturally, the subject of pipes and tobacco took center stage in the conversation. The genteel chap behind the counter asked me if I had ever thought of owning a Claudio Cavicchi pipe? Well, no. For back in those youthful days I’d never even heard of a Cavicchi pipe, let alone a Claudio Cavicchi. “Oh,” said the gentleman behind the counter, “we have only a couple here. One is a gorgeous Canadian.” The Canadian was a blond beauty. I was moonstruck with thunderbolt love and pulled out my thin wallet. I threw in a pouch of Virginia tobacco to break in my new beauty. “You won’t be disappointed,” he called out after me. That Cavicchi hit me like a dancing string of lightning. It was a shimmering slim magnificence, purity of line and spirit. I became fascinated and wanted to know everything I could about the actual Mister Claudio Cavicchi. Lo, he was but a humble Italian farmer. But upon studying nature in his daily life, and experiencing renewal and growth from the Earth, Claudio one day decided he could craft pipes as well as crops. He became an artisanal pipe maker, a craftsman of world-renown, a master of design. Dear reader, there is a world of science and physics involved in his pipe creations and immaculate stains that just make the pipe’s grain glow. His meticulousness gave rise to his unique grading system ranging from a single “C” to a quintuple of “Cs.” More “Cs” translates to higher grades of briar. 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It was ordered along with another pouch of Virginia, just like the first iteration of so long ago. The new blond beauty smoked wonderfully well, just as did the original I let get away. Only this Canadian was a slightly better Cavicchi grade. Rest assured, it now holds down a permanent place in the Pundit rotation. I can see the wrinkles on your faces: But it’s just another Canadian, and why the Virginia tobacco to christen a new pipe? Well, my friends, if you have not yet tried a Cavicchi, it’s like the briar and leaf Meister behind that pipe and tobacco counter in Alabama said so long ago, “You won’t be disappointed.” For Claudio has that most sacred and, anymore at least, rare power: an agrarian connection to the land. A farmer who, to know success, attunes himself to nature’s rhythms and mysteries, beguilements, and cycles. As Pearl S. Buck said in The Good Earth, “and roots, if they are to bear fruits, must be kept well in the soil of the land.” For after all, what is briar but a root ball transformed by wood sculptors? If you need more encouragement, check out two wonderful pieces on Claudio: In The Workshop With Claudio Cavicchi June 22, 2016, by Shane Ireland in Makers and Artists …and Chuck Stanion’s A Closer Look At Claudio Cavicchi Dec. 17, 2018, in Makers and Artists at SmokingPipes.com I love these lines from Chuck’s insight into Cavicchi’s artistry: “This is a craftsman who knows pipes from many perspectives. He knows what makes a pipe smoke well and what makes a pipe look beautiful. He knows how to charm the briar to his bidding.” Now, concerning tobacco, if you wonder at Pundit’s preference for pure Virginia, please refer to the late and lamented McClelland No. 5100 Red Cake. I learned the Virginia break-in trick from a veteran pipe smoker, a medical doctor in fact, who taught me to always break in a new pipe with Virginia because of its ability to rid a new bowl of any lingering baddies and thereby prepare it for just about any sort of future tobacco blend you throw at it. His choice was McClelland’s 5100 Red Cake. That’s because Virginia tobaccos (along with burleys, perique, and Cavendish) play such a significant role in today’s blends. In olden times, pipe smokers pulled out a pouch of pure burley, loaded up, and smoked through the day. Today’s blenders are magicians, true chefs of tobacco blends. Now the Pundit is no tobacco blender, but I’m at least smart enough to abide the advice of veterans. If you’ll allow me to linger on the topic of blends, I’ll share with you by way of the Chicagoland Pipe Show that Virginia slices are a good choice when breaking in tobacco blends as well. And dear reader, […]
This cellar-diving kick is really paying off, considering the time and effort that went into stocking the coffers with tobacco meant to be enjoyed with some age on its side. This month’s candidate for review is a tin of JackKnife Plug dated 6th April 2011, among the first production runs of this blend from the New World Collection. Having done a release review for it and its fraternal twin JackKnife Ready Rubbed back in 2012, and seeing as this tin is just reaching its eleventeenth birthday, it seems a fitting time to revisit what Mr. Pease hath wrought. Opening the tin with no small amount of anticipation, one can really appreciate the way patience can pay off with tobacco. The aromatics release with a whoosh of pressure, itself an immensely satisfying sound while peeling back the lid. The scents fill the air immediately, strong and sweet tones that flood the entire room: up front, the rich bitter sweetness of a Terry’s Dark Chocolate Orange, baker’s chocolate; developing over some time with nuances like rich mulched earth, brand new leather shoes, a phenolic tinge reminiscent of Dettol or pine tar, and an underlying meatiness of a lightly-charred steak. Over the course of a couple of weeks making my way through the tin, the aroma tempers down to a more familiar chocolate-covered cherry cordial with layers of parchment and a briney umami saltiness like soy or Worcestershire sauce. It’s tempting, with all this chocolaty aroma, to take a bite out of the brownie-like bar of tobacco, a feeling I’m surely not alone in contemplating. The presentation does however invite closer inspection of the tobacco, such a tangible thing when in bar form. This 11-year-old plug is only lightly dusted with the whitish ‘sugar crystals’ often found on aged Virginia blends, and peering into the layers from outermost to innermost there is a general uniformity of color and texture all the way through—again, and not to belabor the point, but the color is a rich, bitter dark chocolate-brown that perfectly mirrors the aromas. The composition of this blend is clearly no accident, no haphazard mashing together of leaf. Greg clearly set out with a goal in mind: exploring the breadth and depth of the character that could be created when working with the darling of the pipe tobacco world at the time, dark-fired Kentucky. Dark-fired enjoyed a bit of a heyday with the release of these GLP offerings, as well as a host of others such as MacBaren’s HH Old Dark Fired. Speaking on the composition of JK Plug versus Ready-Rubbed, he notes: The blend is identical, with one small exception. The plug is constructed with a core of brights, and the darker tobaccos surrounding it. This allows the brights, theoretically, to express themselves with more purity in the blend. They’re not under as great an influence from the fire-cured and red tobaccos. Doing this with the [Ready Rubbed] wouldn’t work well, because of the way the tobacco clumps, so the blocks are not stratified in this way. The same tobaccos in the same measures are just layered and pressed for the same length of time, then the blocks are sliced and tumbled. It’s the same technique used for the Old London mixtures. It was also clearly intended with aging in mind; again, in Greg’s own words: When I first designed the stuff, I had no idea what the future would bring. There was certainly no reason to think it would do anything but age wonderfully, but you never know. The plug form causes internal anaerobic fermentation, while the outer layers are still exposed to plenty of air. The other night, I opened an 8-month old tin of the final prototype. The aroma was intoxicating, and the smoke was HUGE. I think it’s safe to say it’s going to age really, really nicely. And quickly. I would have believed the tobacco in that tin to have been 5 years old already. With more than a decade under the hood waiting to prove or disprove this theory, the bar was sliced thin and thick, folded, rubbed, and stuffed into a variety of bowl geometries to tease out its flavors, and the results are resoundingly positive. The verdict? JackKnife Plug has the character and complexion of the heartiest of English blends, while being completely absent of Latakia or Oriental leaf. It ages like a peaty single-malt of the finest provenance, developing layers and depth that belie the relative simplicity of its ingredients. I quickly gravitated toward a wider, open-chambered pipe for tasting, one that I would generally use for English blends, as it naturally accommodated the finer nuances of the smoke—and the smoke is certainly huge. The top of the bowl starts with a piccolo-like overture from the Virginia-Perique nexus, with a peppery nose prominently laying the groundwork for what’s to come—think Shostakovich’s 6th, first movement (in fact, this piece is a good parallel overall; perhaps without quite as much of the bombast of later movements). The sweetness is surprisingly underplayed, however—the Perique quickly becomes a background spice, lending sour notes while falling in step with the harmony of the Virginia’s more leathery tones. The sharp edges are all well-rounded over here; far from being able to bite, this smoke develops a thick, steak-dinner mouthfeel almost immediately, one which lingers for a good while after the pipe is finished. By mid-bowl the full composition really comes together, with the darker smokiness of the Kentucky burley stepping center stage even while some of the sweetness sneaks back in. In fact, for beverage pairings I favor an extra-sweet iced tea or soft drink as personal preference. The umami of mid-bowl builds and builds through to the heel, as the chocolaty and nutty tones segue into barbecue woods and steak char, with a touch of Worcestershire still interwoven from the Perique’s spice. Somewhat surprisingly for such a stout blend, the nicotine does not overwhelm—it’s a solid medium-plus, though, best enjoyed after a meal. While my preference with the plug […]
A super article and so very like my own pipe history, with a regular and longstanding hobby/habit now totally ingrained within me so that I am, quite simply, a pipe smoker per se. It has become part of me, it helps define me and has done so for many, many years. I cannot imagine life without a pipe and even though the ravages of age and ill health may one day force an eventual abandonment of my beloved pipes, at this moment it would be unthinkable. I have yet to fully understand the psychological make-up of myself as a confirmed pipe smoker; I only know that from a young age I knew I would smoke a pipe and that it felt absolutely right. Perhaps the era in which I grew up, when pipes were a common sight amongst both young and old smokers, gave me the predilection. I do know that many of my teachers were pipe men and several of my school chums and colleagues took up the briar at a relatively young age and no one seemed to be surprised in the least. Oh to see pipe smokers around more.
I, too, am besotted about the pipe, though I am now smoking as a simple, daily habit and simplifying my practice right down to the essentials. The expense of maintaining the habit as a hobby has made me slow down, cut back and rein in the indulgences. However, my smoking has become even more precious and enjoyable as a result, perhaps because I am not under pressure to keep on buying and acquiring. I smoke because I am a smoker. I smoke a pipe because I love it. And I hope I may continue to do so for as long as I possibly can in (relatively) good health.
Many thanks for a stimulating and encouraging article. It thrilled me to bits to read it. Enjoy your pipes today, wherever you are.
Good article.
Oh, how I miss those days in the ’60s and ’70s when pipe smoking and even smoking in general was not so objectionable as it is today.
At least pipe smoking is not so denigrated as cigarette smoking. I have received no objectionable comments to my pipe and have actually received compliments though they also say I do remind them of their grandfather with pipe (grin).
I guess it reminds them also of a more peaceful time before the intrusion of the health nuts and the anti’s and big government.
I, too, will go to my grave with pipe and have instructed my loving wife to place one of my favorite pipes, tobacco, tamper and lighter with me.
Your path took you to Royal Cigar, mine to Peretti’s of Boston and yes I too still have those pipes I purchased for Mr. Peretti. It was a great trip back in time. Things were different then for many reasons but it seems we all have those pleasant memories. Thanks for the moment of reflection. It did bring a smile to my face.
You’re not alone in this magnificent obsession, Mr. Brown! Thanks for a nicely written article that triggered a few cherished memories of my visits to the local B&M.
Fred – many thanks for a great article. You hit the nail on the head when you described the apparently seamless transition from hobby to daily pastime. I’m not a pipe or tobacco collector – I’m a pipe smoker. Simple.
Thank you fred for a most enjoyable article