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.
