Ruminations on Extraordinarily Good Smokers

[Briar Lee]

I’ve smoked over a dozen bowls in my latest large pot Three Star Lee, of all kids of tobacco from cheap to fancy, and I’m about to declare this pipe an extraordinarily good smoker.

If a pipe isn’t a good smoker I get rid of it. But some tiny fraction of my pipes seem to be like this Lee pot, so out of this world hood I want to just keep on smoking them.

My first extraordinarily good smoking pipe was a Dr Grabow bulldog I bought NOS from an old store in Lead Mine about thirty years ago.

It’s still extraordinary all these years later.

There’s an Israeli made Freehand, a pre war Kaywoodie Flame Grain Dublin, a Two Star Lee Poker, an old Bari Wiking, and a few others that taste so good and smoke so cool and sweet you wonder why the makers can’t turn out every pipe to smoke that well.

My bowl full of PS 400 Luxury Navy Flake tastes so delicious I’m wondering if that blend might not be good to garnish ice cream.

I can’t explain how one piece of briar can smoke way better than another.

But I believe a very few pipes do.

 

[telescopes]

I have a couple of Petes that meet the criteria. Come to think of it I have a third Pete, a Churchwarden, that is a consistently sweet smoker as well. Say what you want about Lees, I am sure many more others will swear by their Petes.

Overall, I have found a well cleaned and washed pipe to smoke just fine. But do I hate it when a pipe goes sour from a bit of neglect. I dislike heavy cleaning.

 

[Briar Lee]

I have a couple of Petes that meet the criteria. Come to think of it I have a third Pete, a Churchwarden, that is a consistently sweet smoker as well. Say what you want about Lees, I am sure many more others will swear by their Petes.

Overall, I have found a well cleaned and washed pipe to smoke just fine. But do I hate it when a pipe goes sour from a bit of neglect. I dislike heavy cleaning.

I’ve found the only problem with dynamite good pipes is my tendency to smoke just that good one, until the bloom fades from the rose, so to speak.

Then a cleaning will usually get the goodie back,,,,but as good as it was when it was better than heaven? Maybe not.

There has to be, some kind of wonderful tasting resins in a very few briars.