A Guide for Getting the Best from Your Pipe Smoking Experience

[woodsroad]

Wanna see something scary?

View attachment 118580

They say you are what you eat.

 

[Chasing Embers]

They say you are what you eat.

Or whom.?

 

[Servant King]

If threads like this are the end product to 50 years of pipe smoking, I would have to say it's definitely worth it.

 

[Chasing Embers]

If threads like this are the end product to 50 years of pipe smoking, I would have to say it's definitely worth it.

Feels like the forum did years ago.

 

[mingc]

I've enjoyed my years here on the Pipes Magazine Forum and as a way of giving back, offer this guide to getting the best pipe smoking experience, based on my 50 years of practice. There are a lot of myths associated with the hobby that can keep you from finding your bliss and I will offer these observations based on my 50 years of pipe smoking. Did I mention that I've been smoking pipes for 50 years?

1. Grain matters. Don't allow anyone to tell you differently. Oh, some might be tempted to console you about the ugly pathetic pipe you just bought, but I won't. People say you can't smoke grain. That's ridiculous. Toss any pipe in the fire and it will smoke.

2. Big Names matter. That's right. If you don't have a collection of Big Name carvers you will be smoking inferior crappy pipes. It's that simple. It's especially important to start with Big Names, far more important than having developed any technique. Your bowl of "Whatsis" will taste MUCH better when smoked in a pipe made by a Big Name.

3. Technique doesn't matter. 'nuff said. Except that people who talk about the importance of developing a technique are clowns. They're just trying to build themselves up as better and more knowledgeable than you, the snobs.

4. Price is important. No pipe under $1500 is worth spit. Sorry, but that's absolutely true, based on my 50 years of smoking pipes. And, I'm being generous here. You should really not be caught dead smoking a pipe that cost less than $5000. We will mock you.

5. Drying your tobacco is unnecessary. Wet tobacco not only smokes better, it gives you a greater challenge, and who doesn't like challenges? Tobacco is always at its optimal smoking moisture straight out of the tin. If it doesn't feel wet, dump some water on it. The wetter the tobacco, the more flavor it will have. For something truly unforgettable, use toilet water.

6. There is only one way to properly pack a pipe, and that is as tight as possible. You can use a clamp to press the tobacco into your bowl if you're too weak to pack on your own. If you can draw through the tobacco easily, if you don't feel that sucking hard will cause your head to implode, you're not doing it correctly. This is based on my 50 years of pipe smoking.

7. The more the tin costs, the better it is. It's absurd that I have to point this out, but any tin that costs less than $100 per ounce is just not worth your time. And everyone knows that the only tobacco worth smoking is McClelland. If you don't have tins of McClelland, give up now. Rumor has it that McClelland will be back in production in Poland. If you don't have any McClelland, just grab some paper and a Crayola and create your own label. Everyone knows that it's the label and not the contents that matter. Again, this based on my 50 years of pipe smoking

8. Light your tobacco using a torch, the hotter, the better. All that "soft flame" nonsense is just misinformation being spread by a bunch of snow flakes. Using an acetylene torch gives you street cred.

9. You have to smoke the bowl to the bottom, with no relighting. That's the holy grail. Make sure that you cremate every last strand of tobacco. Cracked chamber walls is the proof that you are worthy. Besides, you can always buy another $5000 pipe, and you should.

10. Using a single pipe cleaner for cleaning is more than enough to get the job done and you shouldn't do this more than 3 or 4 times a year. It's OK to reuse your dirty pipe cleaners repeatedly. Nobody wants to waste money on pipe cleaners.

11. Never use a water flush on your pipe. The pipe will grow branches if you do this.

12. Believe EVERYTHING you hear on YouTube about pipes and tobaccos. The presenters are all Nobel Prize winning rocket scientists, every one of them.

13. Stem oxidation is desirable. It's taken all of my 50 years of smoking pipes to come to this realization.

14. The more you beat up a pipe the better it will smoke. So what if the Big Name carver of your $5000 pipe went to great lengths to provide beautiful grain and an array of birdseye on the rim. Burn the hell out of it. A pipe is a tool, no different than a potato peeler.

That covers the main points that you need to know to enjoy pipe smoking to the fullest, based on my 50 years of smoking a pipe. I hope that you find this useful, and if you don't, that's your problem.

Pearls of wisdom. The truth is eternal.

 

[Brendan]

I’m moving my neighbor to Poland. He’s been dead for eight years now and he doesn’t seem to be improving. Maybe they can use him at the Soylent Condor factory.

I kind of wish I could try this Polish Condor, it must be pretty bad!

Poor Poles can't catch a break - coming from someone with Polish heritage/surname.

I can't speak Polish but my Dad taught me how to say 'stick it up your arse' in Polish when I was young so I could use it at school and not get into trouble.
So if I do get a pack of Polish Condor I know what to say!

 

[Brendan]

We have wonderful tobaccos today, just as we had 50 years ago. I fear that economies, like subbing out Perique with dark fired, are going to hurt that, or machine harvesting vs hand picking are going to affect this.
Dunhill blends that were made by Dunhill went through a considerable aging and fermenting process before being released and these days some blenders just want to push the stuff out as fast as possible.
I have very clear sensory memories of some of the blends that I smoked "back in the day" and some of them were amazing and some were pedestrian, same as today. But there are a few that stand out, like Ardath's State Express London Mixture with its outstanding richness and balance, the Sobranie blends, including fabulous cigarettes like Chaliapin, that aren't duplicated today. On the other hand there are blenders making wonderful blends, many not available here, that are created with as much care and passion as any made years ago.

Moving all production to Poland is an idea.

Thanks for that Sable, I was trying to be funny in spirit with your post but I'm glad you responded with this, was a good read.

Learn something new everyday in this forum.

 

[woodsroad]

I kind of wish I could try this Polish Condor, it must be pretty bad!

Poor Poles can't catch a break - coming from someone with Polish heritage/surname.

I can't speak Polish but my Dad taught me how to say 'stick it up your arse' in Polish when I was young so I could use it at school and not get into trouble.
So if I do get a pack of Polish Condor I know what to say!

Or what to do with it.

 

[mortonbriar]

I am sceptical about some of those points, but in order to have accumulated the appropriate 50 years of experience, I will wait 37 years to respond.

 

[solideogloria86]

I no longer need this forum. I have just taken in 50 years of pipe smoking knowledge, in a few minutes. I will stick around, however. Someone needs to help spread this to all the noobs.

 

[solideogloria86]

I am sceptical about some of those points, but in order to have accumulated the appropriate 50 years of experience, I will wait 37 years to respond.

Wise

 

[Ahi Ka]

Given your 5 decades of experience, I’m surprised to see no mention of pipes by lee

 

[Chasing Embers]

Given your 5 decades of experience, I’m surprised to see no mention of pipes by lee

He didn't ruminate long enough.

 

[sablebrush52]

Given your 5 decades of experience, I’m surprised to see no mention of pipes by lee

It’s because I have five decades of experience that there is no mention of pipes by Lee.
Even Lee didn’t stick around that long. He skedaddled after about a year.

 

[Chasing Embers]

It’s because I have five decades of experience that there is no mention of pipes by Lee.
Even Lee didn’t stick around that long. He skedaddled after about a year.

 

[mikethompson]

I got to about 3 before I figured it out.

 

[JOHN72]

Point number 5 gave me good results until today. I do not like crispy tobacco. The "moist" tobacco gives me a more intense or fresh taste. But as always this is a personal opinion according to my humble knowledge. I am not very convinced with point 8, a soft flame gives me a better result. Point number 10: The cleaning of the pipe, I think before the ash cake has an important thickness, so that it can be cleaned more easily.Regarding the price of pipes, I agree that quality and a job well done, has to raise its price. But I also believe that the prices are exorbitant. Nice review, happily grateful, we continue to learn. Thanks dear friend, sablebrush52................

 

[WVOldFart]

Reading your Guide is like climbing the mountain to talk to the Guru. We are indebted to you for taking the time to write this down. This may fall into the category of Confucious, Tao de Ching, and other great works.

 

[jguss]

All this is very confusing to me, but then I’m not nearly as old as Jesse is and lack his 10 demidecades of experience. Clearly it’s scarred left him with an astonishing amount of ripe wisdom and an equally impressive fund of anecdotes. At the Vegas Show, for example, he once boasted to me about dandling Alfred Dunhill on his knee (after luring him into a horse-drawn van as I recall). The memory, which made him laugh so hard he had to run off to his room for some more Depends, disturbed me a little; nonconsensual dandling with minors has been illegal for most of my lifetime. More problematic still were the antics he, Ben Franklin (or BF as Jesse called him) and the Marquis de Sade got up to with an embarrassingly young Jane Austen. The things they did with meerschaum make me blush to remember. In any case it seems high time that Jesse’s screenname be changed to Fitty Year 52 or something similar.

 

[lonepiper]

I notice there’s nothing about tampers. I assume the old rusty hex bolt I use to tamp down the McClelland in my $5000 pipe is permissible?