First 2 Marxman Smoked - Brief Result

[macaroni]

I finished my 1st two Marxman bowls. One very large bowl, one large bowl.

Result - like them both, lots. Thnx @telescopes & @Briar Lee for your many posts on this.

Detected an unusual taste to me. Spicy. Cinnamon like-perhaps, likely. I'm poor at id'ying flavors.

What fun! Smoked a VaPer first, then OJK Red.

 

[Briar Lee]

That “spice” taste is real, and repeatable by every New York City made Marxman I own. To maximize it keep only a whisper of a film of resin on the bowl walls.

Roasted cinnamon is the best I can describe it. It’s not overpowering but certainly part of the experience.

What I can’t explain is the added strength and extra nicotine I get. I’m doing that, but it’s subconsciously. Likely because it’s sooooo delicious I sip faster.


If Marx tried all that today the do gooders would have shut him down for sure and certain.

A Marxman pipe is addictive, and spoils you for all the others.

If all pipes tasted that good all the world would smoke a pipe.

 

[Briar Lee]

I’m rereading my 1960 Carl Weber Guide to Pipe Smoking and Weber wrote about how briar from fertile and temperate regions might only be 30-50 years old, and beautifully figured.

But he said briar burls from the mountains, where the heather grew from between rocks, the soil was poor, the climate extreme, and the winds always blew, might take 250 years to mature.

Weber said until recently all that high grade briar mostly came from Algeria, but as of 1960 other sources had to be found.

If the French had won the war there’d still be lots of high grade Algerian briar pipes.

As it is, go find an old Marxman with no country of origin stamp.

The looks are an aquired taste, but the pipes taste better than you can imagine.