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mityahicks

Part of the Furniture Now
Nov 18, 2018
616
3,310
Ultimate: the best achievable or imaginable of its kind.

McClelland fragrant Matured Cake. I was about Six months into the hobbie and it was perfect.
 
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pipesofsteele

Lurker
Apr 12, 2016
48
10
Western Washington
I was taking a late night walk around my college campus with a bent Dr. Grabow pipe filled with none other than Orlick Golden Sliced. It was my first non-aro and still probably my favorite tobacco. I was just amazed by the delicious flavors. To make it even better, I experienced for the first time what it's like to have no relights ?
 

Epip Oc'Cabot

Can't Leave
Oct 11, 2019
483
1,334
My first ULTIMATE bowl was my first pipefull back when I snuck one of my father's pipes and filled it with his Sir Walter Raleigh right from the can. I knew right from the get-go that smoking a pipe was a part of who I am.

It felt right, and correct, and wonderful right from the first pull I took from the stem.
 

diamondback

Lifer
Feb 22, 2019
1,215
1,934
54
Rockvale, TN
When was your first ULTIMATE bowl? The moment you knew this hobby would last and not just a passing trial or fad? For me, it was on my friend's porch on a very bitter cold, snowy evening in January. Tucked up into a corner out of the cutting wind with a 2003 Nording filled with Frog Morton Cellar.
What is your first ULTIMATE bowl memory?

Great question!

I believe it was the first time I tried Quiet Nights. By then I already knew that cigars didn’t measure up to fine pipe tobacco, but that’s when I recall having my definitive “Holy s***, this love affair will be permanent” moment :)
 

saintpeter

Lifer
May 20, 2017
1,158
2,636
Um...Late 60's early 70's. Deschutes River fly fishing for redsides. Cob and undoubtedly Half & Half or Velvet cuz that is what my step-father smoked. I fired it up because, well hell, that's what a fly fisherman did. Smoke a pipe and thrash the water.
 

Pipe-Hound

Lurker
Nov 15, 2019
37
26
Spokane, WA
In 1982 I was finishing my last year in college and my mom and dad came for a visit in October. I was living in an old shotgun apartment that was built in the 1890’s for the miners who mined the “Richest Hill on Earth”, Butte, Montana. Mom and dad stayed in a hotel for the night then dropped by in the morning to have breakfast. After breakfast we were to drive to the Jefferson River where dad and I would fish, mom would knit, and then that afternoon we’d go to the Lewis and Clark caverns to tour the cave.

Dad saw a pipe sitting on my kitchen table in an ashtray atop a mix of dark ash and unspent tobacco. Alongside the ashtray was a pack of cigarettes. Dad asked, “So are you taking up pipe smoking?” I said that I’d been smoking a pipe for a couple of years but that it was hard on my tongue and mouth and so I only smoked a bowl a couple times a week. He pulled out his pipe and emptied a fine grey ash into the ashtray alongside my ash pile.

He asked me what I was smoking. I brought him a baggie of a blend I bought at the tobacco store called “Jubilee”, an aromatic blend of dark and light tobaccos - bought out of a jar in the bulk tobacco bins. Since I can remember dad always smoked Sir Walter Raleigh out of one of his Kaywoodie pipes. I acted the expert and said that Jubilee didn’t burn like SWR, I pointed to the two ash piles in the ashtray. Dad asked if it was ok if he loaded his bowl with my brand? “Of course, go ahead,'' I said.

Mom and I worked on breakfast while dad read the paper smoking his pipe. I noticed he lit, tamped and relit. I noticed he didn’t relight his pipe the whole time we were cooking. He just sat there slowly puffing and reading and sharing the things he read out of the paper, chuckling or looking astonished by the news.

My experience with the pipe up to this point was to stuff it, light it up, take a few puffs, relight, take a few puffs, relight! I noticed my method in comparison to dads was like comparing a freight train to a stick of incense.

After breakfast, dad grabbed his pipe, tamped it, relit and smoked the remaining tobacco in the bowl while mom and I cleaned up and got ready to go. When dad finished his pipe, he emptied the ashes alongside my pile and it was as grey as the ash he emptied earlier. He noticed I noticed and then said, “grab your pipe and tobacco, and leave those cigarettes where they lay.” We jumped into my VW, he acting as copilot.

The three days they visited dad taught me how to load, light, tamp. He taught me that slow is good and fast is bad. He taught me to savor the flavor and change my habit of burning it up in 15 minutes versus drawing it out for over an hour. My ash piles became more ash than spent tobacco.

The day my parents left for home, after dinner, I smoked a bowl reminiscing about our visit and that was my first ultimate bowl. It was in a pipe and tobacco dad left me, a “broke in” bulldog Kaywoodie filled with Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco. Also, when he left, he gave me another piece of advice, “treat your woman like how you smoke your pipe, nice and easy does it every time!” This month my wife and I celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary!
 

anotherbob

Lifer
Mar 30, 2019
16,853
31,604
46
In the semi-rural NorthEastern USA
I think it was just holding that 30 dollar bent pipe with a pretty rusticated dark red finish. The first bowl was Black berry brandy and it was awesome. At that place they gave out samples of all their bulk blends so you could try before you buy an ounce for two bucks.
 

condorlover1

Lifer
Dec 22, 2013
8,561
30,423
New York
Smoking a clay pipe in 1981 whilst sitting under a railway bridge that ran over a canal somewhere in the Midlands sheltering from a late summer rain storm. I think I was smoking Condor or maybe St Bruno and it took my mind off how damp I was as I gazed in wonder at the Victorian brick work on the arched rail bridge.
 

mikestanley

Lifer
May 10, 2009
1,698
1,128
Akron area of Ohio
I was a freshman in College. The school was a few minutes from my Grandparent's home where we would have Thanksgiving dinner so I stayed in the dorm over break. I walked to the local drugstore and bought a can of Borkum Riff Whiskey and either a Medico or a Kaywoodie. Took these back to the dorm and experienced my first smoke. I burned the bejesus out of my tongue but, I knew. I didn't re-visit the pipe until 1988, when I had a Son.

Mike S.
 

Akousticplyr

Lifer
Oct 12, 2019
1,155
5,714
Florida Panhandle
For me it was the smell of a cracked tin of East India Trading Co’s Officer’s Club. Rum based. And then the smoke was just was pleasant. I was hooked.
This thread had a lot of mentions of Orlik, Nightcap and Frog Morton Cellar. When are we going to see a Cellar reissue?? Would love to try it.
 

Akousticplyr

Lifer
Oct 12, 2019
1,155
5,714
Florida Panhandle
For me it was the smell of a cracked tin of East India Trading Co’s Officer’s Club. Rum based. And then the smoke was just was pleasant. I was hooked.
This thread had a lot of mentions of Orlik, Nightcap and Frog Morton Cellar. When are we going to see a Cellar reissue?? Would love to try it.
Yep. A quick forum search and the Cellar match answer is a resounding NO. Oh well...
 
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