Is Premium Briar Different?

[sablebrush52]

My other suggestion is to put the majority of your money into tobacco and build a cellar. Pipes will be around and the same or similar price when pipe tobacco is much more expensive or unavailable altogether.

I totally agree with this. Pipes will be around, and prices on them are likely to go down in future as more collectors age out (a more graceful expression than croak out) and collections get sold at auction, on eBay, or other dealers of second hand pipes. We're just beginning to see this. There will be thousands of high end pipes going to a shrinking market over the next decade.

On the flip side, more growers will turn to more profitable and less labor intensive crops, and tobaccos supplies will continue to shrink. Anyone notice how Big Tobacco is trying to rebrand itself as a provider of healthcare products? Think they're doing that because the future is rosy?

 

[tobefrank]

Sounds like you had already made the decision and were just looking for another justification to pull the trigger on some of the pipes you were looking at. Nothing wrong with that. That’s how marketing works. It gets you to make a decision with your gut first and then justify it in your head with all kinds of ‘logical’ reasons. I’m no stranger to that process myself. My reasons usually include some celebration of a milestone or success in my business that I just need a pipe for…

 

[Sharp_tungsten]

Check out Old Dominion cobs, some of *the* best tasting pipes.

Yeah, trigger control is a tricky discipline to master!

Trigger control lol? What's that, this is like a belt fed MG when my PAD is flaring up.

 

[OzPiper]

No, no, no! The magic is real! Life would be so dreary without it.

Sorry to take this thread off tangent again

Will my wife's $20 (for the set) KMart knives cut as well as my bespoke Saji-San Damascus blade with Arizona desert wood handle ?

Hell yes, if you keep it sharp. But it sure as hell doesn't put a smile on my face the way the Saji does

 

[Sharp_tungsten]

Sorry to take this thread off tangent again

Will my wife's $20 (for the set) KMart knives cut as well as my bespoke Saji-San Damascus blade with Arizona desert wood handle ?

Hell yes, if you keep it sharp. But it sure as hell doesn't put a smile on my face the way the Saji does View attachment 98255View attachment 98256View attachment 98257

High end knives, now there is another great hobby and absolutely terrifying to my wallet. Look up Kyle Royer Damascus lol

 

[saltedplug]

Let's see: we have old briar, old britwood, oil-cured (Wesson, olive, corn, safflower ((it makes a difference))) Savinelli 10-year air-cured (or Castello), the same exposed to sunlight, moonlight or oceanic efflorescence, only VA smoked bowl-briar, and finally (how could I forget) sweet briar (how could I forget), brought to you by a year's immersion at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates and then shot into space to acquire a malingering weightlessness useful when sweet briar, good as it is, just isn't good enough.

Maybe the reason why I never got that sweet briar taste was that I wasn 't sweet enough? Sweets for the sweet, they say.

 

[captainsousie]

It's an unpopular idea here but I do believe a pipe made with better engineering and made by a better craftsman will smoke at least marginally better. This comes from my own experience where my artisan pipes and higher priced factory pipes do smoke at least a little better on average than the basket pipes and low-end factory pipes. I don't smoke enough that my sense of taste has been blunted so maybe this is a reason for the different opinion.

 

[Ahi Ka]

Give me the candy cane knife and the price difference in plugs any day

 

[Sharp_tungsten]

Just look at it. It has to smoke better than a cob lol.

 

[OzPiper]

Give me the candy cane knife and the price difference in plugs any day

That's my wife's attitude. Except she'd spend the difference on chook poo and dead carp juice. ??

 

[Ahi Ka]

That's my wife's attitude. Except she'd spend the difference on chook poo and dead carp juice. ??

I didn’t know she smoked pirate kake

 

[saltedplug]

Only if it's sweet.

 

[tobefrank]

T

Just look at it. It has to smoke better than a cob lol.

That looks like a sweet smoking pipe right there! ?

 

[Chasing Embers]

I don't smoke enough that my sense of taste has been blunted so maybe this is a reason for the different opinion.

If anything, smoking more would hone it, just ask Jim.

 

[tschiraldi]

There are significant differences in a well made, higher end pipe. The mills Do provide their best blocks for certain carvers / makers at times. Mostly, the differences will be in how that Briar is treated and the attention to detail some makers put into their pipes that you just won't get with Savinelli, Peterson, Stanwell, and the like. Castello, for example, cures their briar blocks for at least 10 years before making a pipe out of it. Jesse Jones doesn't just sand and smooth the inside of the stem and shank, he POLISHES them, ensuring there are no rough spots for moisture to get hung up on. These are just a couple of examples of things Sav, Pete, Stanwell, etc just can't afford to do and still sell pipes at those prices. There are many such steps that make higher end pipes worth the extra dough... for me. On the other hand, many are very happy smoking out of vegetables, so...

 

[lukasstrifeson]

Trigger control lol? What's that, this is like a belt fed MG when my PAD is flaring up.

Sadly the only known cure for PAD is TAD; and the only known cure for TAD is PAD - which is quite the conundrum.

- - -

Just to add to your PAD, I personally find both morta and meerschaum pipes superior to briar in taste.

Meerschaum and Briars are kind of opposites of each other in that: with meerschaums, your first couple of bowls will have this weird sea foam/almost chemically taste to it but then transitions to a superbly transparent taste (same with mortas but with out the initial weridness and mortas are especially good with latakia blends), where as briars have this initial "sweetness" to them when raw and before the bowl is charred, but that fades quickly to a more neutral taste.

 

[Sharp_tungsten]

I've been eyeing morta pipes and my PAD is flaring lol.

 

[lukasstrifeson]

I've been eyeing morta pipes and my PAD is flaring lol.

Take a peak at Chris Askwith! Does some great work out of England.

 

[Sharp_tungsten]

Take a peak at Chris Askwith! Does some great work out of England.

Is morta pretty much like a meer? Ready to go out of the box not much fuss with break in? I get a muted taste for a few days to a week with meer but its always cool and dry which I what seek over the taste. I smoke to aggressively to probably learn the subtle nuances of the flavor.

 

[lukasstrifeson]

Is morta pretty much like a meer? Ready to go out of the box not much fuss with break in? I get a muted taste for a few days to a week with meer but its always cool and dry which I what seek over the taste. I smoke to aggressively to probably learn the subtle nuances of the flavor.

Honestly if you are an aggressive smoker, corn cobs are the way to go.

That said, a morta smokes pretty great straight from the start.