Je suis la pipe
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Fred Brown - Apr 4, 2023
- 4 min read
Let’s take a quick trip to the long, long ago. Back of the beyond, as the wanderlust mountain adventurer and pipe-smoking author Horace Kephart once said of a hiking trip into the deep woods and ridges of the Great Smoky Mountains.
The time of this Pundit adventure was somewhere in the late 1940s or early 1950s on a peanut farm in the dust-covered and rutted red clay roads of South Georgia.
My grandfather was a farmer of anything that would grow green, including tobacco, sorghum, peanuts, corn, vegetables, and on and on. He even kept pigs around for (uh) slaughter and butchering for his smokehouse. Pipe firmly clinched, grandpa, of course, performed the slaughtering and butchering while his grandchildren cringed on the sidelines.
He smoked a corncob pipe, usually grabbing a browning barn-aging leaf from a hanging stalk. He’d crumble the leaf in his palms, stuff it into the battered and rim-carved cob, strike a kitchen match off a hip of his overalls, and puff contentedly.
I tried an immature leaf once, just like my grandfather. Ripping the match up my backside and puffing.
My pipe-loving friends, that is not recommended. I turned as green as a fresh tobacco leaf. I shan’t tell you the rest. You can imagine if you’ve ever experienced a seismic nicotine hit!
And, ahem, I may have been all of 10 years old at the time. I figured anything my grandpa did was simply fine for moi!
Again, not recommended.
What has me in a reflective mood is the recent bulk and tin order from Smokingpipes.com. A nice 16-ounce bag of Gawith Hoggarth’s No. 25 Mixture accompanied by its beauty of a tobacco jar (it’s a tight-locking can) and a couple of small batch tins of Erik Stokkebye’s 4th Generation Resolution.
One of my earlier years of sampling Gawith blends was the hefty 1792 flake. Brothers of the briar, I was slam dunked (please note the reference here to March Madness of bracket basketball and now the Final Four crescendo) once again with a volcanic nicotine eruption!
And those of the Briar Brotherhood who enjoy a bit of history will recall that the Revolutionary Wars in France began in 1792.
The conflicts of that era led to King Louis XVI losing his head (um, ah, via the guillotine in 1793).
This was just one year after old Sam Gawith and Thomas Harrison, his father-in-law, moved the entire kit and kaboodle tobacco operation (snuff was big then) from Scotland to the Lake District of Merry Ol’ England.
The ye olde tobacco equipment from the time of Louis XVI (with head firmly attached before the fatal blow) continues today in use for the famed Gawith and Gawith & Hoggarth tobacco blends.
So the lesson here is to watch those muscular nicotine contents if you are a wuss, like the Pundit.
However, I do enjoy the G&H aromatic mixtures, such as No. 25. Sweet, easy on the tongue, and the nic hit is not a blast of the sweats and other drastic bodily events.
No. 25 is quite easy on the nerves and is an all-day smoke for the Pundit, as are many other G&H aromatics.
I avoid twists, ropes, and plugs with strength ratings off the charts. I’m just not tough enough for these nicotine brutes but admire you pipe puffers who handle them, including something called a bogie, with little or no loud emissions from the netherworld.
And here is trusting that my pipe-puffing pals enjoyed St. Patrick’s Day with your favorite Wearin’ O’ the Green and a pipe full of, mayhaps, Cornell & Diehl’s 2023 St. Patrick’s Day Reserve from the rich mind of talented and creative C&D master blender Jeremy Reeves.
Of course shared with chums over an Irish pint or some Irish coffee, hopefully. And just because St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone doesn’t mean you can’t share a pint with your puffing pals.
And now a note from a pipe-smoking Irish Bard, just to top off the day:
Mistakes are the portals of discovery—Irish author James Joyce.
From the Irish to the greatest of American pipe and cigar-smoking authors, Mark Twain.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, famously known to the world as Mark Twain, was born Nov. 30, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, and died April 21, 1910, in Stormfield, Redding, Conn.
There are too many quotes from this greatest of authors, but here are just a couple of Pundit’s favorites:
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education—Mark Twain
Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been—Mark Twain
And another tip of the hat to the French Wars mentioned earlier.
Charles Pierre Baudelaire, a pipe-smoking French poet, was born April 9, 1821, in Paris, France, and died Aug. 31, 1867, in Paris.
Baudelaire comes to mind since he penned a poem from the viewpoint of his pipe!
This fell under the collection of Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil). Yes, that’s right. Just a few words from les poem, maestro, if you please:
I am the pipe of an author;
One sees. . .That my master’s a great smoker.
Spring has sprouted (les Pundit is not les poet). That means days are longer and pipes and tobaccos have more time to bring much joy to our lives.
And in our efforts channeling Baudelaire, Je suis la pipe d’un auteur. Until next time pipe-smoking friends.
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.
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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.
