Did Anyone Have a Good First Smoke?

[haparnold]

This post has me thinking back to my first smoking experience.It wasn't terrible, but it was a far sight from what it's like for me to smoke now. I was 15, smoking cavendish out of a cob, and of course I used about 27 matches per pipe and scorched my mouth with every puff of the pipe. But gosh, even then smoking a pipe was about the most enjoyable thing I'd ever done.
Did anybody out there have a mythical perfect smoke the very first time? I'm willing to bet most of us got a pretty good scorching.

 

[scloyd]

My first smoke was Tinder Box Honey Maple in a Tinder Box basket pipe. I didn't taste any honey or maple and scorched my tongue. It was not a pleasant experience but I still enjoyed my first smoke.

 

[bassbug]

I'm willing to bet most of us got a pretty good scorching.

Raises his hand sheepishly
Foolishly tried to keep the pipe lit by puffing harder and longer to avoid relighting :crazy:
It was a tough lesson to learn and I never did it again

 

[cosmicfolklore]

It wasn't my very first smoke with a pipe. My very first smokes were ok, but I wasn't taking it very serious back in college. But, when I had my very first serious smoke in a pipe, I had a Turkish blend of RYO. And, it was absolutely fantastic. I smoked a whole half pound bag, as I was transitioning away from cigarettes. It wasn't till I switched to Captain Black that I ever got my first experience with tongue bite and burn.

 

[seanv]

Nothing good about it. I quit after about five bowls.tried it again a year later and it stuck

 

[timt]

Yeah, the first smoke was pretty good. I stood outside on a cool Minnesota November evening with a large bowl of Carter Hall. Was out there 45 minutes. Time flew.

 

[lordofthepiperings]

I do remember it was a basket churchwarden and some random bulk Black Cherry blend (I'd venture to say it was probably a Sutliff bulk). I don't really remember how good or bad it was though, cause that was 15 years ago. I do remember the bowl that got me hooked on the hobby was a bowl of Peterson's Connoisseur's Choice paired with a glass of Bailey's Irish Cream on a nice spring evening.

 

[ignaciojn]

Mine was abysmal.

The awful technique I can cope with, but that chemical vanilla taste will haunt me forever.

 

[warren]

Neither my first cigarette, cigar, pipe, nor woman fully met my expectations at first. But, each and everyone made me want more.

 

[ignaciojn]

Neither my first cigarette, cigar, pipe, nor woman fully met my expectations at first. But, each and everyone made me want more.

:worship:
:clap:

 

[sablebrush52]

My first smokes were good. I was fortunate to be shown how to prep, pack, etc by an experienced pipeman. But the experiences weren't even across the board. I had a couple of run-ins with tongue bite. I learned that different blends smoked differently and figured out how to adjust.

 

[jazz]

My first smoke with the pipe was with a Peterson Kinsale XL15 and Dunhill's Nightcap that I had just purchased. After many years smoking roll your own cigarettes and the occasional cigar I knew immediately that I had found something I was going to stick with. I loved it and to this very day and despite so much more experience with the pipe it remains one of the best smokes of my life. It was intriguing and delicious in a savoury sort of way and I had no idea that smoking could be this good. I could not wait to find out what other tobaccos were out there for me to discover. I was also fascinated by the pipes and of course, I still am. I rarely smoke cigarettes now and am fine without them but I can't imagine life without my pipes and tobacco.
Oddly, I don't seem to get along with Latakia blends anymore. They seem to irritate my mouth too much and they never used to. I keep meaning to explore more of the Latakia blends but with mental UK tobacco taxes, it's hard to justify purchasing tobacco that you stand a less than 50% chance of liking. I'm really a Virginia guy these days and my purchases tend to reflect it.
I still have that Kinsale XL15 and it now only smokes Revor Plug which is also little odd because although listed as a Kentucky/Virginia I'm sometimes convinced that there is Latakia in that stuff and as previously stated it tends not to agree with me. If there are a couple things I'm certain of when it comes to pipe smoking it's that there are always contradictions and there are always exceptions to your rules.

 

[tavol]

For my very purchase I bought a MM Washington pipe a tin of EMP and a tin of SG balkan flake. For my first bowl I smoked the EMP and the bowl wasn't bad nor good infact it was fairly bland. However my second bowl which was the balkan flake was one of the best bowls of tobacco I've ever smoked, I smoked the rest of the tin and didn't have a bowl anything like as good as that first one.

 

[arvetus]

My first smoke was a cigar after the birth of my best friend's first child. After he ran out the door of the office where we were both working, he called me a few hours later to say "It's a girl! Bring us some cigars!" So I stopped at the only store I knew to sell cigars and picked up a couple, along with the fixin's to get us started. We were 25 and never smoked a thing in our lives. Neither one of us had a clue what we were doing outside that hospital in Central Michigan, trying to puff away on a disgusting, cheap cigar. I don't even know what brand it was, but I'm sure it wasn't a Padron or Drew Estate.
Over the years of kiddos being born, weddings, 4th of July parties and beach vacations, I began to like cigars on the rare occasion and get the hang of them. Then I got it in my head to try a pipe.
My first pipe smoke was a few weeks ago with some 1-Q and even though I am barely shy of 40, I felt like that 25 year old kid not knowing a thing. Visions of being like my grandfather, cool and collected in his recliner, talking to his dogs...yet here I was on my own front porch, fumbling to make everything mesh together and it was quite frustrating and disappointing and tasted like hot ash and took me about half a box of matches to get halfway through the bowl before I gave up.

 

[haparnold]

Neither my first cigarette, cigar, pipe, nor woman fully met my expectations at first. But, each and everyone made me want more.

Warren, that's pure poetry right there.

 

[mso489]

Not mythical, but pretty good. I bought a unique bent pot, probably made by Chacom, from Tinder Box that I still have, and some of their North Sea or Wilshire, which was probably 1-Q or another similar blend. What really smoothed the way was that my dad was an inveterate pipe smoker for years, decades, so all of the moves were ingrained. Little self-consciousness or uncertainty. So yeah, it was pretty pleasant.

 

[pipestud]

Actually, I've never had a bad smoke with my pipes. My tongue will sure disagree with me though. My first smoke was in a new Stanwell second filled with the local tobacconist's homemade blend of Peach Brandy Cavendish that was soaking wet when I loaded up. I packed that sucker tightly to get as much tobacco in the chamber as possible and despite the tight draw, puffed like a freight train until they rushed me to the hospital and put my tongue in a sling.

 

[workman]

My first smoke with a pipe must have been in 1999. I had been on vacation in Turkey with some friends, and when I sobered up, decided to try the meerschaum I had bought. I thought it was very expensive. If I remember correctly it cost around 8.000.000 lira, which at the time equalled 20-25$ :rofl: I had just finished school, was unemployed and had no idea about money or anything, really. Well, I crumbled a couple cigarettes into it and started puffing. It tasted like crap and would not stay lit and I just regretted having wasted 2-3 precious cigarettes. And then my little brother broke it and I didn't think about pipe smoking again till last year.

 

[johnscs]

>
Yeah ... very similar VERY first smoke here. I was 14 or 15 and the tobac was probably Sir Walter Raleigh or Amphor, but instead of a cob, the pipe was a really neglected rhodesian briar that my dad had apparently forgotten. I probably wasted 27 or more matches, too. And I remember TASTING almost nothing than the matches until I let them burn a little before trying to relight the tobacco in the bowl. No doubt, I ended up scalding the roof of my mouth, but once I got the hang of puffing that pipe, I started enjoying the taste, the aroma, and the feeling of the smoke. Hardly "perfect," but definitely pleasurable enough to make me want to pack a second bowl and become a pipe smoking guy.
I'd have to say my first "mythical perfect smoke" took place a couple of years later, the summer before college, when I bought a no-name billiard for about $25 in a legitimate pipe shop (I still have that excellent pipe and smoke it often). The nice guy running the shop was smoking Lane's 1Q, and when he said I could get a free pouch of any tobacco I wanted with the purchase of my new pipe, I naturally wanted that quintissential blend. The shop guy made sure that I packed my new pipe properly and then guided me through the first and second light. Now THAT was a pretty perfect "mythical" smoke, which I still remember: Smooth, flavorful, and very satisfying. A whole new level of taste and richness compared to my amateur start.
Thanks for inspiring a great memory!

 

[unkleyoda]

Nope.
13ish, Dr. Grabow with a stinger, Captain Black, soggy, wet, hot, packed too hard, tongue hurt, miserable.
That cycle proceeded for years. I'd buy a pouch. I'd try to smoke 5-8 bowls, and throw most of the pouch away. Then 2-4 years later, I'd do the same thing. Then 3 years ago, I set out to learn how to smoke a pipe. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos, then tried to put into action what I learned in the videos.