This past weekend was a good one for me, as my wife "kidnapped" me on Saturday. I wasn't sure what we were doing, or where we were going, but admittedly found it a little suspicious that she didn't care that my hair was a mess or that I was going outside simply dressed in blue jeans and a gray T-shirt, but there I sat in the passenger seat of her car on our way to try something new. Because my birthday was May 11th, and she had to work all day long, we only had a little time together that day, and this one was making up for that. The sun was shining and I didn't ask any questions; figuring we were on our way to a nice breakfast or, perhaps, clothing store to make me look a bit more respectable. Two hours later I realized where we were going (her friends had suggested she blindfold me, but that's a bit intimidating in a car for such a long time). We crossed over the bridge and entered beautiful, historic, Charleston, South Carolina. After we parked the car, she couldn't hold her secret in any longer; we were going to spend two days in Charleston doing whatever I wanted; which meant a lot of good food and historical museums. As we waited for our reservation at HUSK, a fine establishment of Southern food and brainchild of celebrated chef Sean Brock, I sipped a 1780-recipe for punch (tea, lemon, whiskey or rum and a huge chunk of ice) while sitting on the front porch. This is what front porch relaxing is all about in the South.
Two days were spent exploring new restaurants and indulging in whatever sounded good. After dinner on Saturday, we went to a nice tobacco shop, which was different years ago, but now focuses on mainly wines, cigars, and only - sadly- a few pipes and tobacco selections. She really wanted to pack my pipe and tobacco, but thought I would get too suspicious, and I was hoping to buy an older tin of Virginia Flake and possibly a corn cob. When I asked the owner if he had any Virginia Flake tobacco, he said they did not, and really didn't even know what I was talking about. Choosing a nice Arturo Fuente maduro cigar, he clipped it for me and lit it (I had kindly asked if I could light it myself, and was a bit surprised when he firmly and dismissively said "NO"). He toasted the foot with a torch lighter, which is what I do anyway, and then practically stuck the cigar in my mouth asking me to puff as he blasted the foot with the torch (something which I prefer not to do is to puff on super-heated gases) because a Mr. So-and-So showed him how to light a cigar this way. Thankfully the cigar I chose could handle the excessive heat, and my wife and I retired to the chairs outside on the sidewalk; me relaxing with my cigar and she with a glass of wine. So many places in cities don't allow smoking, but it appears some sort of permit was grandfathered in at this place, so I was allowed to puff relaxingly as we people-watched. It was surprising how many folks passed by remarking how wonderful the cigars smelled. Next time I will be sure to take a pipe, though.
The weekend reminded me a lot of the time I visited Will Purdy and his wife Georgia in 2008. They are the kindest of people you could ever hope to meet, and we spent much of my visit eating oysters, drinking local brews, and taking in the splendor of the Rocky Mountains. We'd even had elk for dinner one evening in a mountain-top restaurant. After so many years of knowing Will and his pipes, we're thrilled to finally be able to offer his work for sale. Will Purdy pipes are unique, lovely, designed from his own mind, and - if you believe that a pipe carries with it some of that creative spirit and magic (I do) - will bring you quiet peace and relaxation. We've also a splendid selection of pipes from Lasse Skovgaard, Radice, Castello, and others going up this evening, as well as new tobaccos from Daughters & Ryan. For you cigar fans out there, we also have new smokes from St. Luis Rey. The weather is turning pleasantly warm, so we hope you can relax with a "punch" of your choice and take in some quality relaxation time.
Earlier this morning I heard Adam Davidson leading our marketing bullpen in a chorus of "Schoooool's out for Summer... Schoooool's out forevaaah!" Well, he was trying to, at least. I guess this marks the unofficial start of Summer, which here in Myrtle Beach means Bike Week, beach days, and the associated influx of tourists. More generally, in the Northern hemisphere at least, this means plenty of BBQ's and parties with an outdoor component, which of course also means plenty of time for social pipe and cigar smoking.
I was at a party just this last weekend, and a Star Wars-themed one at that. Unfortunately I neglected to bring a pipe, but pipe tobacco did come up in conversation (surprisingly quite organically with no prompting from yours truly). A buddy, dressed as Boba Fett in a business suit, mentioned that he had no interest in pipe smoking, but if he could he would "fill his whole house pipe tobacco just for the smell." This statement immediately took me back to the first time I walked into our Low Country Pipe and Cigar B&M, and how immediately transfixed I was by the fragrance of the place, and how since then I've often had the same sentiment as my friend, the sharply-dressed bounty hunter from a galaxy far, far away.
This has got me thinking, as I'm sitting here staring at my Red Velvet Cake-scented air freshener (no need to turn in my man-card; I bought it because I thought it would better blend with the smell of old smoke than other more fruity offerings, because it is black, and because I like cake)... Why has no one bottled pipe-smoke up and tried to market it? This is a fairly common sentiment among non-pipe smokers. In the realm of often musky or woodsy scents marketed towards men, I'd find the generic smell of aromatic pipe tobacco, as loosely defined as we all know this to be, much preferable. One of the more enterprising among you readers should take this idea and run with it.
This past weekend was Adam's birthday. Some of you may be wondering, "What do you give a man who can make his own pipes?" The answer is: You let him feed. That may not make much sense if you don't know Adam, and perfect sense if you do. Adam loves hosting, preparing meals for others, and getting people to try new things. And so that was, pretty much, what a bunch of us let him have free reign to do this weekend - yes, both Saturday and Sunday. If what Adam enjoys most is indulging his guests, that was precisely what we were going to indulge him in. Bear in mind, we aren't talking a plate of hors' d'oeuvres and some white wine here. I was with Adam on Thursday when he picked up the main courses: two steaks measuring about four inches thick and a foot across, and half a pig -- plus its head, which the butcher kindly tossed in for free. Literally. His exact words, in a New York accent I'd thought they'd stop issuing generations ago, as he lobbed it onto the pile of animal protein already filling up much of Adam's trunk: "And here's your kisser!" It's hard to find service like that these days.
Along with massive grilled steaks and even more massive amounts of grilled pork, there was of course also some great cheeses and IPAs, and he gave several of us our first chance to try beef-marrow and parsley on crisp toasted bread, which may be one of the most fantastic foodstuffs ever devised by man. In essence, it's as if some wonderfully mad alchemist distilled an excellent steak down to a concentrated, butter-textured essence. Along the way he also taught me how a sprig of parsley served with steak isn't just there for decoration: eating a little piece between bites cleanses the palette, keeping well-prepared beef's flavor as prominent and savory as the very first taste. It's a useful tip that I figure is worth passing on, especially if any of you happen to find yourselves, in the near future, facing such massively generous proportions as we did over the past two days.
And of course, given that this was a Smokingpipes family shindig, pretty much every minute we didn't spend eating, we spent sitting out on Adam's back patio, enjoying our pipes, good conversation, and fine weather. Hopefully you'll all get plenty of opportunities to do much the same this summer.
We'll do what we can to help make that possible, of course, in the way of offering plenty of the necessary materiel: pipes, tobacco, pipes, pipe accessories, and more pipes, of course. And so with that, we come to the meat of today's update. This Monday we roll out, appropriately first and foremost, new pipes from Adam Davidson himself, joined by briars from fellow American artisan Bruce Weaver as well. Following up you'll find loads and loads of other offerings, including fresh Dunhills, Petersons, Savinelli, Stanwells, Tsuges, Chacoms, Vauens, and Lucianos, plus of course plenty of estates. For cigar guys, we're introducing both several different sizes of Quesada's "Tributo", and QueAmerica's latest Oscuro. Finally, if you'd like a bit of summer reading, there's a new edition of Rick Newcombe's Still Searching for Pipe Dreams, which now includes two bonus chapters.
And so we're back. With boxes. Twenty-five boxes, to be exact. All of them filled with pipes, tablecloths, pipes, buttons, t-shirts, pipe stands, more pipes, tins of tobacco, notepads, pens, lamps, power cords, pipe bags, and tons and tons of pipes. It all needs to be unpacked. Soon. For now, however, I'm up here writing this intro. Because it needs to get written. Unraveling the aftermath of the great Chicago show can wait a spell -- serving our customers cannot.
Of course, I'm smoking my pipe as I write. A lovely aromatic from our friends at Mac Baren, in a Rhodesian design by a Russian fellow you may have heard of: Vladimir Grechukhin. As is true with so many things, time spent at a keyboard is best done with warm briar, under fragrant plumes of smoldering tobacco leaf. After a week of heavy smoking in a tiny hotel room, usually in the company of anywhere between three-to-fifteen other fellow pipe smokers, I made a promise to myself on the flight out of Chicago that I'd "take a break" from smoke for a few days. Just to reintroduce my lungs to some fresh air. Foolish? Absolutely. It didn't take.
Which is a good thing, because I'm just in time for our Dunhill tobacco special. From now until the end of the month we're pleased to announce that we're offering 10% off Early Morning Pipe and My Mixture 965 in loose leaf. You can find these timeless favorites under the Bulk Tobacco section of the site. Just like many of you, I'll be taking this opportunity and stocking up.
Coinciding with that, in today's update you'll also find new pipes from Kent Rasmussen and Werner Mummert, alongside fresh works from Ardor, Mastro de Paja, Savinelli, Neerup, Nording, and, last but not least, Peterson. And you can add to that seventy-eight estate pipes too, rounding out this afternoon's selection. Tons of briar, tons of fun -- and more on the way soon, with all that we picked up in Chicago! In concluding, now I suppose I'm off to help unpack!
The Chicago Pipe Show was held this past weekend, but it's much more than a two-day event for nearly everyone who attends. Pipe makers work until the last minute, not necessarily to try to finish all of their wares at the same time (though it happens to many), but more of them (guilty) in trying to finish just one more, often applying the final polish only hours before our flights. Retailers also always have a lot to do in preparation for the show, both in the office and on-location, and Sykes was the first to arrive in Chicago last Monday, later followed by many others on Tuesday or Wednesday. It's a great time to meet up with collectors, friends, and other carvers we may only see once a year.
The CPCC did a fantastic job organizing the show (as always!) and we want to express our deepest appreciation to all of the members for their annual hard work! If you've never attended the Chicago show before, we encourage you to try to attend next year. Many of the carvers we showcase on our site were in attendance and you can be sure we've purchased plenty of beautiful pipes for future updates, so stay tuned in the coming weeks. As I am writing this, some of the crew is currently arriving back at the office looking as though they attended a party that lasted four days (which, in part, is true).
Today you can find a wonderful assortment of briars from Maigurs Knets, J&J, Rinaldo, Castello, Radice, and dozens of other pipes from various popular brands, and remember we're running a 40% discount on all new Ser Jacopo pipes through the month of May. Even though a good chunk of our team was out of town for most of last week, the staff that stayed behind wanted to make sure there wasn't a dull moment in preparation for your enjoyment of this update. Enjoy!
It's that time again; the Chicagoland International Pipe and Tobacciana Show now is upon us. For the uninitiated, this is the pipe event of the year. Nowhere else and at no other time is there such a large gathering of pipe smokers, makers, distributors, retailers, tobacconists... pretty much anyone with any relation to our great hobby.
Of course, Smokingpipes.com is in attendance. How could we not be? We're in room 1401 should you be around, and we'll have a few tables set up on the floor once the show opens Saturday. Make sure to stop by and say hello; really it's always great fun for us to chat with our customers. Plus we've got pipes -- lots of 'em! We're also posting updates and photos to our Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter feeds should you not be able to make it and want to see what all the fuss is about.
Unfortunately not all of us are able to attend. We've our own bi-weekly show to run. In fact, we have a pretty spectacular promotion beginning today: From the time that you receive this very newsletter through the end of the month all Ser Jacopo pipes are 40% off. Did we wait 'til upper management had left town to sneak this one in? I'll plead the fifth.
Many a time one or another of us here at Smokingpipes has started off a newsletter speaking of just how busy we've been during the preceding days. Sure enough, I could properly double-down on that theme this Monday, as between the Castello event (special offer still ongoing, for the record -- though tomorrow's your last chance at it), preparations for the Chicago show, unexpected visitors, and various projects, and so forth, we have, indeed, been very, very busy. And yet, blessedly, there have been a few opportunities to relax, as well.
This past Wednesday, for example, Brandon generously agreed to help me out with doing a little work on my old Lincoln. The plan was simple: We'd head over to his place after work, knock out the old, worn-out pins and bushings from my driver's side door, install new ones, and then I could return here to finish up my work on a project for his department. Fifteen minutes, tops, we figured. As luck would have it, however, either Ford spent the 1980s installing hinge pins made out of an alloy of truly phenomenal resilience, or just as likely, those on my car became magically fused in place at some point during the past twenty-plus years. Either way, fifteen minutes turned into three hours -- but an enjoyable three hours, I must say, as we variously hammered, chiseled, and filed in vain. Yes, in the end we counted ourselves lucky just to get the door back on straight on the first attempt, old pin and worn bushings still in place, but along the way there was plenty of camaraderie to be had. And since by that time it was too late to go back to the office anyway, we settled instead for sitting in his garage, smoking and shooting the breeze -- though not before enjoying a good home-cooked meal, courtesy of his wife. (She happens to be the sort of woman who will make guests eat, and, as fortune would have it, also the kind of cook whose offerings will make those same guests enjoy being made to eat.)
The next day, that of our Castello event, saw everyone from Sykes, to our IT department, to the guys in our brick & mortar abuzz with related activity. Those of us in marketing had by and large tied up everything we'd needed done on that project, but that of course meant immediately turning around to catch up on other work (such as that I had planned on having finished off the evening before, until Brandon and I had our chance meeting with the aforementioned, amazingly tenacious hinge pin). Once again, however, when all the effort and toil was complete, we found ourselves able to appreciate the onset of a bit of calm all the more sweetly. All loose ends in their place, I clocked out and headed up to the shop, spending the rest of the evening in the company of Sykes, Marco, Ted, Brandon, Bill, Dave, Vinnie, and all the customers both old and new who came in, relaxing, conversing, enjoying a bit of good food, and , of course, plenty of good smoke as well.
I recall a certain song from my teenage years, from which the key theme and verse was, pretty simply, "joy of labor set you free". Indeed it does, and these past couple weeks, I've seen plenty of very motivated labor indeed, something which of course comes only from people who are very motivated about what they're doing. But it also makes those times when the labor is done feel that much better as well; relaxation is always at its best when one has done all they can to earn it.
Fortunately, today as we all arose and began making our ways towards the office and the final preparations for this update, South Carolina's typically bright, sapphire skies decided to hammer down with a double-dose of rainfall. In other words, perfect pipe-smoking weather. This, naturally, is just what I'll be getting down to as soon as I've signed off on this newsletter. (No doubt many of you will have already beaten me to it -- to that, I say, good for you.) And after that? Well, there is this Thursday's update next on the calendar -- and it's certainly not going to get itself done.
And now that I've rambled sufficiently for one day, let's see what we can offer you today. This Monday brings us excellent artisanal briars by both Michael Parks and Gregor Lobnik, joined by English classics from the esteemed Dunhill. Following up comes a broad selection indeed, covering pipes by Peterson, Savinelli, Johs, Chacom, Stanwell, Tsuge, and Vauen -- plus three-dozen freshly restored estate pipes. Then on top of that, there are three new bulk tobacco offerings by C&D, sticks from Perdomo and San Cristobal, and a whole pile of Zippos to introduce, most notably those designed just for lighting up a good pipe.
At Smokingpipes.com we always do our best to bring you the best pipes, cigars and tobaccos, but today, we are also bringing some extra-special pipe-related goodness.
This afternoon at Low Country Pipe and Cigar, our brick & mortar location, Smokingpipes is hosting a Castello pipe event. From 4:00 PM (EST) through 7:00, special guest Marco Parascenzo will be on hand from Castello. (Aside from his services to Castello, Marco also runs the widely renowned Novelli Pen & Pipe store in Rome.) The evening will be full of food, drink and conversation (about pipes, naturally).
Of course, not every one of our customers can make it here to sunny South Carolina for the event, and we don't want to leave anyone out. So, we are extending the event to the cyber-world via GotoMeeting.com and their virtual meeting software. All you need to do is go to GoToMeeting.com and download their free software. Instructions on installing the software and joining the meeting can be found at the top of our website -- just click on the "Castello Live Event" image at the top of our website after 4:00 o'clock and a snazzy pop-up window will offer you a step-by-step walkthrough. We're featuring an interview with Marco at 5:00, hosted by Sykes. You definitely won't want to miss that, and Phillip, one of our distinguished customer service reps, will be available for chat.
To help celebrate the event, we are also running a special with Castello pipes. With the purchase of any new Castello pipe, customers will also receive a Castello tobacco pouch, usually retailing at $70 value. That's not just one per order, mind you, but one free with each and every new Castello pipe. And that special is running right now, so you can beat the rush.
As previously indicated, today we're bringing you a special promotion. It's quite simple, really: We've acquired a whole, extra-large bunch of fresh Castellos for a live event to be held tomorrow at our brick & mortar, Low Country Pipe & Cigar, and an even larger number of Castello tobacco pouches (normally retailing at $70 a pop) to be given away with each Castello pipe purchased. Why more pouches than pipes? Because we aren't limiting the deal, nor the pipes themselves, to just those of you who happen to be able to stop by in Little River, SC -- that's why. Nope. Instead we're offering the same deal to all of our customers, wherever you may happen to be, and with the purchase of any new Castello pipe at that, not just those from the forty-eight specially acquired for said event. We're even extending the timeframe of the online offer as well, which will begin today and continue through the 30th of this month, while supplies last.
Today is Earth Day, which was first introduced in 1970 to be the first day of spring (March 21st), but later changed to April 22nd, went international, and is recognized in more than 140 nations around the world. Where would we be without our beloved planet, and everything in our lives that mother Earth has provided (which is everything except for meteorites, star 'dust' and sunlight)? Indeed, this is the day we try to reflect how lovely the planet is and try our best -if even for one day- to try and preserve it for the future. Don't run the water as long; be sure to shut off a light when you leave a room; try your best not to waste gasoline revving your engine at a red light when the little old lady in the next lane is revving hers while giving you the "I can go from zero-to-my-age in six seconds" look.
Plant a tree. Plant a flower. Do your best not to cut down a tree or smash a flower. You get the idea. For generations, people around the world have done a fair job of re-planting after a harvest, and the briar harvesters around the Mediterranean (I would assume) do the same thing. Briar takes a long time to grow, and comes from a plant that we all hope will continue to be around for generations. This lovely material is coveted by all of us for its unique characteristics and beauty when worked by a skilled pipe carver (after being skillfully boiled and cured by a cutter). It's questionable whether or not any pipe makers are reading this newsletter today, because they're probably hard at work preparing for the Chicago pipe show in early May, but you collectors out there know a nice pipe when you see it. We carvers appreciate a beautiful block of briar and are reminded where it comes from; in the ground, surrounded by sand and dirt (some specks of which inevitably reveal themselves during the pipe making process, and which we pipemakers always hope are only skin deep). Many craftsmen feel a connection to their chosen material, and its source, just like those who puff happily on the finished piece.
We've an impressive variety of pipes for your perusal, including work from Hiroyuki Tokutomi, Benni Jorgensen, Rinaldo, and Radice. Other brands, such as Butz-Chouqin, Tsuge, Stanwell, Chacom, Savinelli, and Peterson offer unique styles and finishes smokers the world over have come to love, while there are also estates to ponder from Ireland and Italy. Also, if you're looking for Castello pipes, later this week we've got a promotion lined up just for you, which will be accompanying a live event in our Low Country Pipe and Cigar Store. Stay tuned for more info!
Six Macanudo smokes are going up for you cigar enthusiasts out there. Perhaps after you browse our site tonight and find some interesting pieces to add to your collection, you will be able to escape to some serene place to puff on a wonderful leaf - tobacco - courtesy of that unique floating marble in the vastness of everything; Earth.
There's much abuzz here at Smokingpipes.com. After all, it's that time of year; the show season is nearly in full swing. This past Saturday we were in Raleigh, NC for the TAPS Pipe Show (which, as usual, was awesome; the club members are fantastic and it was a beautiful day for a pipe show), and of course we've got the big ol' Chicago show just around the corner here. There's much to do in terms of preparation.
On Monday and Tuesday my wife and I spent the day up in Morganton, NC at the Cornell & Diehl factory. As many of you well know, we visit the fine folks at C&D annually (it's a relatively short haul from Little River, SC), however, this year I made a point to take some extra time to get down and dirty at the plant. And by that I mean I got to blend tobacco, tin tobacco, and put labels on tins. It's exciting to think that those tins that I put together from start to finish are going to be opened and enjoyed one day and that I had something to do with it. That's exactly how everyone at Cornell & Diehl feels about their product. It's a wonderful operation, and it was really inspiring to listen and learn first-hand about the passion that goes into what those guys do every single day. You can bet that we'll have a piece for the blog up soon.
In the meantime we'll be getting down to doing what we do best: serving up fresh pipes. This afternoon we're pleased to introduce Gamboni pipes to Smokingpipes.com. Gian Maria, a Rome based pipe maker, got his start in the craft back in 2007 with a little help from the Musico workshop. He seamlessly blends Danish, German, British, and other design sensibilities into a cohesive and attractive aesthetic that is very much his own. Also, the pipe maker must be big into golf what with grades like 'Hole in One', 'Putting Green', and 'Stableford'. Both good-humored and clever.
This Sunday morning I stopped by the office, and as I walked towards my desk I took a start when I noticed a rustling sound -- like something small and quick scurrying somewhere unseen. I turned quickly, alert to potential danger - was it possible one of the local semi-feral felines had somehow slipped into the office? A wayward water moccasin, perhaps, in extreme confusion over having somehow slithered its way up from the river the night before, and into our building before realizing, too late, only after I had turned the lights on, that it had meandered completely out of its element?
It was an owl. An owl, smoking a pipe. This was Katy's doing, obviously - it was on her desk, after all. A diminutive, evidently solar-powered owl, waving its round little head from side to side, and wagging a tiny origami Billiard at me in the process. Well, trying to, anyway -- the pipe had become somewhat dislodged, and now hung straight down from its beak to drag across the ground at its feet; back and forth, back and forth. This was the source of that rustling that had startled me in the first place. Cautiously, I approached and set to correcting its pipe-smoking technique. With everything in order, it was free to continue with its slow, tireless oscillation in silence.
Of course, even with the rustling sound gone, I still had the problem of feeling like I was being watched by a tiny, yet evidently relentless little owl -- and an owl that smoked a pipe at that. Just the sort of owl, I thought to myself, likely to be particularly adept at observation, and inclined towards patiently working things out.
As I looked back over at it, I noticed that it was flanked by several pipes -- full-sized human pipes. Katy doesn't even smoke a pipe, but she still keeps several around her desk. That's when I started working some things out for myself, as well. Pete, Kat, Kelly -- none of them smoke pipes, but they all had pipes on their desks; particular pipes which they always kept on their desks. Why? The only reason that I could come up with was: people, or a lot of people anyway, just like the sight of a pipe. Pipes are old-school, pipes are classical; pipes are, quite simply, charming. So it may be that even people who don't smoke them, or don't even smoke at all, might still like to keep a few around for atmosphere, waiting there just out of the corner of their eye. Much like that owl was still doing.
Well, they're welcome to it -- and so is the owl, too, I suppose, so long as I never find myself, alone in the office, glancing over to discover him having somehow moved closer while I wasn't watching. The more people who take pleasure in pipes, even if just aesthetically or sentimentally, the more people there are who will be happy to leave us to enjoying pipes in our own way -- by smoking them. And to that particular end, the smoking of pipes, we here at Smokingpipes have, of course, a fresh update waiting for you all.
So, here it is: From Greek artisan Chris Asteriou, there's a fine quartet of beautiful briars, and from American pipemaker Ernie Markel, a fine trio too. From England come the classic pipes of Dunhill, and from Russia, P.S. Studio's impressive modern pieces. Joining them you'll find a vast array of briars assembled from the offerings of Savinelli, Peterson, Vauen, Luciano, Nording, Johs, Stanwell, and Tsuge -- plus of course some estates as well. Finally, we have several new pipe stands from Savinelli.
Pipes are beautiful to me, but they are just pieces of wood to some people (not any of you reading this, I would hope). Chairs can also just be pieces of wood. Baseball bats, tables, and a million other products could also be looked upon by someone unenthusiastic about them as simply pieces of wood shaped to perform a function. It's that magical (and skillful) craftsmanship and artistry that evolved over centuries -through trial and error- that elevate something that could just as soon be busted up to keep a home warm with fire into something that warms our souls and passions.
Finding the best wood for the project or craft takes a lot of time and skill. This is why white oak is used by a cooper to make barrels (which is an extremely high skill!), hickory is often used for tool handles (because of its hard grain and shock resistance), curly maple was/is one of the choicest woods for flintlock rifles, and briar is the chosen material for pipes. In centuries past, a craftsman was necessary because most people from farmers to butchers needed tools, and everyone needed containers, and objects for everyday life -- and all of these were made by hand. These craftsmen learned what to search for in their raw materials, knew they had to be properly cured before use, and only after this would they start taking more time to make the perfectly-made object more beautiful. The maker's mark guaranteed the products, built a reputation, and were always applied with pride. (As Eric has mentioned to me, even in medieval times there were those who would unethically copy a famous smith's mark onto swords.)
Some barrels were guaranteed for thirty years against leaking or warping; flintlock rifles -with their highly-figured stocks- could sometimes look like some of the most beautiful contrast-stained smooth briars of today. It's safe to suggest that the first pipes made from briar weren't cured, stained, or polished with carnauba wax. Sandblasting briar, introduced and patented by Dunhill, opened a new door to the beauty of our chosen smoking instruments. Carvers experiment with different textures, colors, finishes, and have a lot of failures along the way, just like those other craftsmen and artists before them. Trial and error, experimentation, and learning from both successes and failures drives a pipe maker to achieve and to proudly stamp their maker's mark on a product they stand behind. After all, if those first carvers of briar for tobacco never took risks to make their products more attractive, the wonderful root, with its often stunning grain, might simply just as well be another piece of wood.
Today we have over two hundred examples of pipes from dedicated craftsmen and artisans. J&J, from California, continue to push their own boundaries and are producing some really lovely stuff. Askwith and Larryson are great examples of English makers who strive for beautiful finishes on an already-wonderfully-made pipe. Il Duca pipes push the boundaries and materials by utilizing briar, olivewood, strawberry, and morta. Ardor continues to experiment with textures and colors, as does Kevin Arthur. Everyone has something to contribute, and each hopes you will thoroughly enjoy the pipe coming from their shop.
Things have been hectic around here the past week -- but then that is more often than not the case anyhow, and most of us are used to it by the time we have our first year at Smokingpipes under our belt. Marketing meetings, emergency meetings, super-secret meetings, and of course, pipes, pipes, and more pipes. One thing that helped me get through it all was one of my favorite go-to tobaccos, MacBaren's Old Dark Fired. For once, it occurred to me to actually buy two tins when it last came in -- rather fortunate, that, as by the time I did the four-hundred tins we'd received little over a week before had already dwindled down to a few dozen. Many of you, it would seem, are of a like mind in appreciating this unique dark flake.
As busy as things about the office may be, though, we do still manage to squeeze a bit of R&R in over the weekends. (Well, we try, at least.) This past Saturday, for example, Ted called me up and asked me to haul my carcass over to a local marina, in order to join him and his wife for a few drinks and a bite to eat. Good company, good food, and a few pints of Guinness were in order, as was a bowl of Old Dark Fired. While the weather was clear and pleasantly cool, it was however, also more than a little breezy, and I found myself going to considerable lengths trying to find someplace I could successfully light my pipe. Rather than give up and do without after the sixth or seventh match was extinguished before it could even touch the tobacco, I found myself leaving the balcony, winding down the stairs, and eventually attempting to wedge myself into a two-foot wide alley, just to escape the breeze coming off the water. Even that proved for naught -- whether I underestimated the breeze, or overestimated the sheltering properties of such a confined space, I had no better luck there, either. Eventually my perseverance proved worthwhile, nonetheless, as by holding the bowl of my pipe right up against a down-wind wall, and cupping my hand over it, I managed to at last to achieve a promising billowing of fragrant smoke, and was able to return triumphant to our table.
Later on, come evening, I would rejoin the young couple for dinner at their place, following which Shelly took to keeping herself entertained with a jigsaw puzzle as Ted and I retired to smoke and enjoy a bit of obscure cinema -- the Italian-produced Violent City, starring one late, great Charles Bronson, and a soundtrack by none other than maestro Ennio Morricone himself. Though one of the best he ever starred in, I suspect this gem-noire may not have ever been particularly well known stateside, despite having been filmed in the U.S., and in English. One aspect in particular that suggests this is that a considerable amount of the original English voice-track seems to have been lost, and the movie will suddenly break into and out of subtitled Italian during the course of various scenes. (This varies from version to version -- the one on Amazon's Instant Video service seems to do it the least, the DVD I had brought to Ted's, the most.) Ted noted that they seemed to break out Italian voice-actors whenever something particularly poetic or romantic was about to be spoken. In turn I speculated that, in Bronson's case at least, this may have been because the quiet, sinewy block of a man, who'd began working in a coal mine at an age when most boys were still mowing lawns, may have stared down the director, refusing to utter the intended lines. I can't imagine very many people in the film industry were comfortable telling that man "No." back when he was in his prime.
As we watched, enjoying our pipes and cigars, I considered possible drinking games applicable to this particular film. I don't engage in such games myself, but the devising of them can be an entertaining mental exercise in and of itself. The first and most obvious, of course, was to take a drink each time someone smoked. Having been filmed in 1975, however, this proved unworkable unless your intention was to wind up sprawled and incoherent on the floor -- every major character smoked, and often. Next came "a drink every time one character or another engaged in an act of betrayal". Again, unworkable -- despite Bronson's character being a hired killer, he seemed to be the only one not stabbing someone else in the back with every other scene. (Any scene in which an act of betrayal was not occurring, of course, simply depicted the set-up for a later-revealed betrayal.) The appearance of a ridiculous outfit that could have only seemed possible to wear in public during the 1970s? Far too copious again, ranging from the monochromatically-orange three-piece suit of another assassin to the psychedelic tunic of a waiter. My last attempt was "count each time Telly Savalas waves his hand while talking, and then divide by three". Hopeless -- utterly hopeless. I knew this was far too dangerous a theme when I counted to eight hand-waves halfway through a single line, before giving up. Even Dionysus would have been reduced to a weeping, hugging, old-girlfriend-calling, gibbering mess trying to keep up with that man's conversational gesturing.
Still, so long as there was good company and a good smoke to enjoy, I was willing to accept this defeat, at least.
And, fortunately enough, today we are once again ready and able to provide you with all you need to enjoy the latter (though the former, being quite a bit more subjective, we'll leave up to you). So what is in store for this Monday? Pipes, of course -- and loads of them. Fresh artisanal pieces arrive on site from Werner Mummert, Radice, and Castello, joined by a bevy of briars by Stanwell, Chacom, Tsuge, Butz-Chouqin, Savinelli, and Peterson. You'll also find batches of Italian, English, and Danish estates as well, plus more cigars by Kristoff, the introduction of Missouri Meerschaum's deep-chambered "Freehand" cobs, and, lastly, new accessories from Savinelli, in the form of bowl-protecting leather pipe sleeves.
To be fair (to me), I didn't break anything. Rather, some crude combination of sloppy baggage handler and a soft leather pipe case (that I now have some very serious doubts about) double-teamed up against one of my most prized smoking pipes and snapped the tenon right off from the mortise. So I suppose it's more accurate to state that I now own a broken pipe that used to be not broken.
Nevertheless, I still feel responsible. As well I should. It's my pipe; I am its custodian. It survived eighty years relatively unscathed and I volunteered my charge of it. If I had packed the pipe for journey more carefully or had learned by now that I ought to travel with 'beater' pipes the thing would be fine. Coulda, woulda, shoulda -- we all know the drill.
The good news: it's repairable. The pipe, which is honestly one of the top three smokers I currently possess, can be amended and put back into regular service. And that's exactly what I intend to do. Or more appropriately, that's what I intend to have done as I long ago realized that I'm without the faculties required to repair just about anything (that's why Mother Nature invented guys like Ronni Bikacsan).
But truth be told, a replacement tenon will bug me. Yes, it brings down the value of the pipe, but I never had (and likely never will have) any ambition to sell it. I think it just rubs some weird intellectual node in the very wrong way. I guess it's like the same way a lot of car guys will sooner bore-out and rebuild the same, original, decades-old engine in their prized project rather than replace it with something new and modern. (Or so Eric informs me -- I'm not really car guy. It's a matter of those faculties, or lack of them, again.) And so I think I'd rather not intellectualize it any further than that.
Maybe the lesson is this: a broken pipe can happen to anyone. I think I take pretty spiffy care of my pipes (better than others, not as good as some), and it happened to me. It's like when a motorcycle instructor tells you that going down on your bike isn't a matter of 'if' but a matter of 'when'. Because it's going to happen. Because on a long enough timeline, it's an inevitability. Maybe it's the same with the pipes you smoke.
Sorry to sound so fatalistic, you guys. I just broke one of my favorite pipes.
Still, perhaps if you yourself have recently suffered a similar misfortune, we may be able to turn that frown upside down. There's much to be excited about here today. For instance? Well, we've got new work from legendary pipemaker Lars Ivarsson to show off. Son of Sixten, father to Nanna, Lars' pipes are arguably the most highly sought after work currently produced. The pipes are just that good. And that's why we're so pleased to showcase a couple of them here this afternoon. Also in today's update you'll find fresh pipes from Kent Rasmussen, Rolando Negoita, Randy Wiley, and Claudio Cavicchi in addition to a hatful of new pipes from Peterson, Brigham, Winslow, Nording, and Johs. Oh, and be sure to check out the new series we're offering from Savinelli! New pipe stands from Neal Yarm also hit the site today (they're very cool, by the way). And as usual, there are a whole slew of estate pipes newly available. So let's just be glad it's Thursday!
Ever since the get-together at my home and workshop on St. Patrick's Day (which was sunny, warm, and beautiful), it's been rather cold, rainy, and dismal here in the area. When checking the weather last week, it was reported that the month of March - for many parts of the United States - was actually colder (on average) than the month of January! What the heck! Pipe smoking friends of mine have been grumbling about not being able to smoke comfortably outside, and who wouldn't be a little antsy for sunny warm days this time of year?
As my wife and I talked about having some friends over for Easter, she pretty much had just one wish; to hold a bunny - sunny day or not. A seemingly simple idea once you understand that she and I have observed a few unusually docile rabbits in our yard chewing on sprouts -- believe it or not our neighborhood has a handful of beautiful cats that walk around and seem to be friends with the rabbits (something usually not seen outside of animation). My wife suggested we try to trap one of the floppy-eared things. I told her that if we succeeded, I would surely let her pet it before firing up the grill.
As it turned out, Easter was a beautiful day. Sunny, warm, and the perfect day to leave the garage door open while a few of us sat outside having a few drinks while a duck was slowly smoking on the grill. The day was picture-perfect for puffing my pipe, and the open door alleviated my guests from sitting in a too-fragrantly-smoky room. Between pouring a pint, showing a friend how I made silver caps for military-mount pipes, and discussing various topics, the girls (and admittedly me, too) kept scanning the tree line for floppy-eared creatures. Then, while checking on the duck, my wife squealed as we all saw two brown-and-white rabbits hopping through our back yard. As the sun was setting, we saw a woman getting closer and closer to them (they'd by now worked their way around to our front yard). Eventually she caught one and we discovered they were actually her pets. My wife got her wish to hold a bunny on Easter. His name is Timothy Flowers. It was nice to meet some of our new neighbors and learn of their unusual hobbies, but then again they met me. I suspect their high school guidance counselors had never asked if they'd ever considered a career in making tobacco pipes, somehow.
With that story, we're happy to announce that for the month of April we are running a Dunhill tinned pipe tobacco promotion: buy four of the same Dunhill blend, get a fifth free. We're also showcasing five beautiful pipes from Michael Parks today. Michael, you see, visited me last weekend and our offices last Monday. His pieces are meticulously made and inspirational in their perfection. We've also got creative pieces from Ichi Kitahara, displaying the sort of "balanced asymmetry" he learned from Tokutomi, along with a whole lot of his own personal inventiveness, Dunhill, dozens of fresh briars from other popular brands, and thirty-six estates -- along with some new accessories, plus "little cigar" kreteks from Djarum. Perhaps, like my wife on Easter Sunday, today you might just find something you've been wishing for!
As I sit here, smoking my fine Peterson Churchwarden with its smooth Ebony finish and silver band, a question comes to mind: How the heck did we come to this, to an entire industry and culture of smoking dried leaves in a wooden bowl with a straw attached?
Sure, we know about the European explorers coming to the Americas and finding tobacco use amongst the natives, but I am talking about earlier than that. How did man first come up with the idea?
I imagine some poor schmo sent out to try a bunch of plants to see if they are edible. He comes across a tobacco plant, nibbles on a leaf, spits out the foul tasting weed and starts to move on. But then he notices something: a strange, yet pleasant feeling. (Remember, this is the first exposure for the entire human race. There are no genetic dispositions or any individual resistances to nicotine at all). He comes back to the bad tasting leaf, tries it again, chews and spits, getting a little kick.
Excited about the find, he picks a few specimens and makes his way back to the tribe. Hoping to impress all the other men with his find, he offers them some around the evening fire. However, unimpressed by the taste, they scorn him and toss the weeds in the flame. That might have been the end of it, but the unique scent of the burning leaves enchant the men, and perhaps the warm nicotine glow starts to make them feel unusually amicable. So the tribe starts using the leaves of the tobacco plant as a regular part of their evening fires.
As time goes by, the scent, and pleasant feelings produced by the smoke, draw them closer and closer to the fire, trying to attain more of this pleasing effect. But the fire is too hot to really enjoy cuddling up to. They try building smaller separate fires, but it is more trouble than anything else.
Finally, some smart guy carves a bowl, out of stone perhaps, and burns the weeds in that, being able to hold the bowl under his nose and inhale deeply. This is nice, but the smoke still stings their eyes, so another brilliant chap grabs some nearby reeds, trims it down and uses the hollow tube to suck in the smoke from the top of the bowl.
While some others take a shortcut, and begin rolling the first cigars, after all this, it is just one refinement and improvement after another until we're back to our briar stummels and vulcanite stems.
Of course, this is just a silly daydream, musings about the nature of our love of pipe smoking, and certainly should not be taken too seriously. Fact-checkers put away your red pens.
However, for our modern day tribesmen looking for a new bowl to inhale the pleasing effects of burning tobacco leaf, we have plenty of new pipes to choose from. There are pipes from Tokutomi Pipe Co. and Peter Matzhold, as well as updates from Mastro de Paja and Ardor. There are new lines from Savinelli and some new, or long lost, lines from Peterson as well. There are also updates from Johs, Brebbia and Neerup, and a whole slew of estates of various origins.
There was a small gathering at my home yesterday in celebration of St. Patrick's Day, which was something I'd been planning for a while. Whenever the opportunity arises to host some friends, and force-feed them like an Italian grandmother, I have a lot of fun. It all started when I purchased a ten-pound salmon on Friday, cut it in fillets and other pieces, cured it with salt and brown sugar over night, and slow-smoked it over hickory at a very low temperature for about nine hours. On top of this, two corned beef brisket tips and a dry-rubbed pork butt got the first kiss of smoke early Sunday morning for a long, slow, smoky experience. Eric pulled up to the curb a little after noon, so I gave him a tour of the place and workshop. Ted and his wife arrived soon afterwards, followed by Brandon's family. The idea for the day was casual relaxation in the warm sun, some leisurely snacking, and anticipation for the meats later. A blob of dough was rising in a bowl while a gallon of milk was slowly forming into curds on the stove. Guinnesses were poured, as well as red wine for the ladies, and everyone was hanging out in the garage (workshop) puffing their briars, taking sips, and engaging in various conversations. As things finished in the kitchen (mozzarella pulled into taut strings, rolled with olive oil, salt, and pepper came up first), everyone seemed to be enjoying the beautiful day. The salmon (especially the almost bacon-like belly) over sticky rice with sugar snap peas were handed out in little bowls, followed (hours later), by thin slices of smoky, succulent, pastrami-like corned beef and eventually crusty French bread warm from the oven with avocado oil and sea salt. Taking various breaks to sip my own Guinness and smoke a pipe with the fellas, I noticed my hands were developing a rather impressive pink 'smoke ring' from fiddling with grill and hickory chunks all day.
We all shared tobaccos -young and bright or wonderfully aged. Eventually, hours later, the others had to part, though, and it was just Eric, my wife, and I telling stories ranging from the discomfort of school busses (which my wife never experienced in Russia, as she always walked to school) to the ideal life we would live if money was no option. All well and good, but the pork was still not done. Eric didn't seem to mind, as he was sampling some 1997 Taylor Fladgate port, while on my part I opened the bottle of delicious red wine he'd brought. It's fun being a host for friends, especially when there is good fellowship and food. At 2:00 a.m., after 17 hours smoking on the grill, and two hours after even Eric (known for sleeping little) had to leave, the pork butt was finally finished and stored in the fridge. The day had been sunny and warm, it was definitely one packed with flavorful smoking and friendship.
Today we've got a number of impressive offerings for your smoking pleasure, including thirty-six estates and new offerings from Sergey Senatorov, Dunhill, P.S. Studio, and other brands. For cigar fans we're putting up Trinidad Paradox Robusto and Toro cigars, as well as a new Smoker's glass candle. Enjoy!
Well, it had to happen sooner or later. I think I have had a rather good run, but all good things must come to an end. I have come across a tobacco I don't like. This happens to every pipe smoker eventually, and I am sure that it probably happens sooner than later.
Since I've only been smoking a pipe for about half a year, I've had a chance to sample a large variety of tobaccos (at least in my opinion). Working here at Smokingpipes.com, surrounded by a variety of more experienced smokers, I get offers to try this blend or that flake. Overall, they've been positive experiences. I've favored some tobaccos more than others, but never tried one I didn't like.
I finally hit one, however. This one - and I am not going to name names because everyone has different preferences, and that's not the point here - actually made me sick to my stomach. The thought of it even turned me off my pipe for a while. In an attempt to be fair, I went back and tried it again, to make sure it wasn't a bad lunch that tainted my first try. While the effect was not as dramatic, it still was unpleasant.
The good thing about pipe smoking is that there are hundreds of different tobaccos. Sure, there are hundreds of cigarette brands, but beyond menthol and regular, the flavors don't vary much.
There are many variations and flavors with pipe tobacco, and blending can really fine tune the pipe-smoking experience. One bad experience is just a little bump in the journey.
Of course, here at Smokingpipes.com, we have a vast selection of tobaccos for you to choose from, in both bulk and tins. Why premiereing today in this very update is the highly-anticipated People's Choice Winner from the 2012 John Cotton Throwdown, manufactured by Leo. We're also adding three new bulk blends to the site from Lane.
And what good is all that wonderful tobacco, if you don't have something to smoke it in? Well, in this update, we have just as wide a choice of pipes. There is a selection from pipe maker Grant Batson, as well as pipes from Rinaldo, Castello, Tsuge, Savinelli, Peterson, Stanwell, and Vauen.
When March rolls around, I think it's safe to say that everyone is ready for a change in the weather. Winter can be beautiful if a light blanket of snow covers the ground, and we actually had a thin layer a couple weeks ago (!), which isn't bad, considering I've only seen it happen two times in seven years. Our friends in the Midwest, my parents in Indiana, and even folks in Texas were being blasted with snow recently; proving, again, that Punxsutawney Phil (the official Groundhog Day groundhog) is not to be trusted.
March in most places is one of the the gloomiest months around. Mother Nature promises cold weather around the holidays in most areas of the country, but the way she's been playing with the temperature and humidity controls as of late has me thinking that she's been hitting the cider too regularly. Typically, this month shifts from cold temperatures one day, warm and sunny skies the next, only to slap us in the face with a cold and wet storm. Because summer and winter are the extreme temperature changes, fall and spring - being transitional - have been the favorite seasons for most people. Most guys here in the office smoke their pipes outside of work, but even the rather mild climate has made hanging out in the garage only slightly better than spending the slightly-above-freezing mornings and crisp evenings outside. Before you know it, though, a few weeks will fly by and we can all puff our chosen vessels in the comfort and beauty of nature.
Anyhoo, on to today's update. After a few months of waiting, we're thrilled to have six new Grechukhin pipes in stock! His pipes are innovative in form, finish, and overall design; truly one of the best artisan pipe carvers in the world. From Japan, five Tsuge Ikebana pipes are offered; and you can find a bevy of briars from Cavicchi, Ashton, L'Anatra, Randy Wiley, and Poul Winslow, while Nording, Savinelli, Peterson, and Brigham showcase affordable luxuries. For the estate fans out there, check out the selection for deals on smoked and unsmoked pieces!
To that end, we've got an exciting promotion going on until the end of this month (March 31st): All Dunhill bulk tobaccos are 10% off! Unlike some other promotions we've had, where the discounts show up in your shopping cart, the prices were reduced by 10% as soon as our big red "Update" button was pushed. Enjoy!
A few months back John and I were moseying through the office discussing the lack of wall art in the marketing department (I'm sure the lack of wall art comes as a surprise to all of you. You probably think we have pipes hanging from assorted fixtures and paintings of various pipe related scenes hanging on the walls. However, this simply hasn't been the case due to a few new building transitions and so on. Anyhow...). It was at this point we had an interesting idea. What if we created a 1920's-esque boxing poster? One like you would expect to see in the streets of New York, or better yet, what if you could've taken a snapshot of two gentlemen settling a dispute over a crooked game of cards with a bare-knuckle boxing match in some abandoned warehouse off of some darkened alleyway somewhere.
Well, that's exactly what we did, only we didn't simply put it on our wall, we put it in Pipes and Tobaccos Magazine as the official Smokingpipes.com poster for 2013. Now if you're not a fan of burley pipe smokers duking it out, then you should certainly check out the other side as it features some creative origami. Either way, I hope you're satisfied. And if you're thinking, "Hey, I might want such poster." then you're in luck; it's now available here at Smokingpipes.com too.
Even if you're not interested in posters, you will certainly be pleased to see the many new pipes going up on today's update. We have pipes ranging from Walt Cannoy (back in action after a long hiatus and better than ever), Luciano, Stanwell, Dunhill, Tsuge, Chacom, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen, as well as several estates. Cheers!
We've got visitors visiting our offices today (it's what visitors do, you understand), which means that on top of the normal hustle and bustle that makes up our ordinary Wednesday (getting the Thursday's update put together, and what all), we had to make the place look presentable as well. Not that we live and work in a pig sty, mind you, but between those prints and posters we've been meaning to hang, those broken pipes we can't bring ourselves to donate to the pipe science box (which means they just 'hang' around until then), and all the little nooks and crannies that need attention, we were extra busy yesterday. But we don't mind, we love having visitors, be they peers of the industry or simply curious customers. If you're ever in the area, be sure to stop by.
Otherwise, it's still business as usual in these parts though. I'd like to mention to be sure to keep an eye out for the spring issue of Pipes & Tobacco Magazine. Like last year, we've got another two-sided poster to give away this season, and you'll also find a write-up on our staff writers, and a couple of especially cool ads that highlight different folks that work here. We're always very pleased to scope out the latest addition of our hobby's finest print periodical, but this quarter's edition is quite special to us. There's even a really awesome article on Nanna Ivarsson in this spread. Yes, we're excited!
As for the update, this evening we're adding a bunch of goodies to the site. We've got fresh work from Jeff Gracik of J. Alan Pipes, as well as new pipes from Ardor, Mastro de Paja, Brebbia, Savinelli, Nording, Neerup, and Peterson. A whopping seventy-two newly restored estate pipes are added to the mix as well. We've also got a handful of very tasty (and very popular) cigars from Camacho that are back in stock at last, the Triple Maduro, in four different combinations of ring gauge and length. Enjoy!
Life at Smokingpipes proceeds at a steady pace. Our recent International Pipe Smoking Day special brought in a staggering day's worth of sales -- all thanks in no small part to our customers, both for choosing us to provide for their own needs, and for helping get the word out to their fellow pipe-men and pipe-women. Meanwhile, we've also succeeded in capturing our first wayward feline as part of the previously mentioned "Big Barn Cat Project", and are happy to report no loss of either life or limb on the part of any of the involved parties (i.e., the resident semi-feral horde, our own employees, Katie's car, or, at least as far as we know, the local veterinarian). Furthermore, our Secret Brainstorming Meetings continue to bear much creative fruit, while simultaneously thus far serving their role as a diversionary ploy quite effectively; that is to say, that we may happily report that the Super-Secret Brainstorming Meetings remain completely unnoticed, despite whatever mad cackling may be making its way out of our subterranean passages between the hours of 12:75 and 16:-15 each Friday afternoon. (All Super-Secret-level meetings at Smokingpipes are scheduled on Secret Clock time.)
At some point between all this, we've even managed to put together an update too -- this one, in fact. So here it is, just for you. What we have in store today includes the artisanal briars of Scott Klein, lovely Pesaro numbers by Rinaldo, and fine Italian classics from Castello. Joining them you'll also find plenty of handsome pipes from the likes of Chacom, Tsuge, Butz-Chouqin, Savinelli, and Vauen, not to mention a massive bunch of Petersons, including no lack whatsoever of the new 2013 St. Patrick's Day edition pieces. Add to all that thirty-six estates , the introduction of another blend by Borkum Riff , and H. Upmann 's much-anticipated new Legacy Cameroons, and there's bound to be something for everyone. Well, unless it's one of us, looking for spare time -- but that is what the Secret Clock is for, after all.
Yesterday, February 20th, was International Pipe Smoking Day, which was started by Smokers Forum in 2008 as a day to celebrate pipe smoking. After all, if the world calendar is replete with unofficial holidays such as "Talk Like A Pirate Day" or "Wear Your Pants Backwards Day" (which I expect results in all manner of accidents and complications), why not have folks around the globe gather to celebrate something many of us enjoy. From what I've heard over the years, dozens of pipe clubs everywhere get together to celebrate with contests, raffles, and good old-fashioned camaraderie. It's great that the semi-official holiday has gained so much ground in recent years, as it's introduced a lot of new pipe smokers from all walks of life to the enjoyment of pipes. Pipe smoking is gaining ground outside of the usual, stereotyped pipe smoker demographic, and we can only hope this continues.
We here at Smokingpipes.com celebrate the business and enjoyment of pipe smoking every day, as I'm sure many of you do as well. During one of our marketing meetings recently, appropriately subjected as "Brainstorming Meeting: We All Go Insane!" a small collection of staff closed the doors to the conference room and smoked our pipes, spouted out-of-the-box marketing ideas for various current and future exciting things, and laughed at each other when some of us [coughs] wanted to find out exactly how far was too far. One idea was to do a comic strip (unsure of how many), and the ideas and weird pseudo-world of characters between my ears wouldn't stop. Case in point: our first strip introducing two characters; Brandy and Flake. You can be sure we're going to whet your whistle with a number of different ideas over the coming months.
In the meantime, we've quite a staggering update for you today consisting of 166 new pipes, including new pieces from Brad Pohlmann and more of Peterson's Saint Patrick's Day pipes, along with 72 lovely estates from all over. And just like any other holiday, hopefully you will find some excuses today to enjoy some leftovers from your recent celebratory adventure.
My particular addiction is collecting. I am not sure when it started. It probably dates back to around 1978 and advent of Star Wars figures, although it didn't really take hold until the 90s at the height of the comic book craze when the comic industry was producing "gold-foil holographic 3D covers" and super hero toy lines became prominent collector's items. Throw in Star Trek paraphernalia and the renewal of Star Wars licensing, and it was a downward spiral for me.
I collected nearly everything: books, Zippo lighters, knives, Beany Babies, Hot Wheels, Pogs, Magic the Gathering cards, gem stones, Tarot cards, Native American artifacts, Happy Meal toys, GI Joes (Well, just about any action figure line) and who knows how much else that I have since forgotten and forsaken.
Relocating to Myrtle Beach proved to be a cure, or at least a way for me to cut back. Without the room or the free income I had left behind, I had to relegate much of my collections to storage in my parents' basement. And while I still collect a few things here and there, most of my urges to own every item of a set is long gone. But, since starting here at Smokingpipes.com, beginning a pipe collection seems to strike the right balance between providing a satisfying sense of acquisition and maintaining restraint.
Pipe collecting is a perfect collecting hobby for me. I was never one of those "sealed in mint condition" collectors. I read my comics, posed the GI Joes in running battles along shelves and in various otherwise unused nooks and crannies and generally preferred collections that I could use in some, at least theoretical, purpose.
And while I know that there are pipe collectors out there that don't smoke all their pipes (as our estate selections often show), smoking a pipe from a collection isn't looked upon with horror like in some other collecting fields. Experimenting with the different pipes, tobaccos, blends and accessories is part of the allure. And here at Smokingpipes, we are all about helping you enjoy that allure, and expanding your collection.
So, in honor of Valentine's Day, romantic saps, and pipe smokers everywhere, I give you my love letter to my once favorite pipe. Enjoy... And note that you may find much of it familiar, as it's primarily comprised of quotes from the hopeless romantic's ultimate drug: romantic comedies.
A better companion I've never had. Before you, I was a ship wandering aimlessly in this traitorous sea of life. I was searching for land and hopelessly wondering if it would ever be found. Our paths crossing seemed, so serendipitous. I remember studying the curves of your body, wanting to hold you tightly. Your cheeks were as close to perfect as... well, as possible. You were the picture of excellence. I was smitten. 'It was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together...' 'You had me at hello.' 'Love is too weak a word for what I felt -- I luuurve you, you know, I loave you, I luff you, two F's, yes I have to invent, of course I do...' 'There you have it, folks. Young love. Full of promise, full of hope, ignorant of reality.' We've made so many memories together...Remember that time we were driving in the car, and you burned a hole in my pants. Life was good wasn't it?
Over the past several months, we've simply grown apart. Don't get me wrong. There's still fire between us. However, it just hasn't been the same. We're less like companions and more like office mates. I wish things could be different, but they can't. It is what it is. Don't say a word... There's no need. I know you better than you know yourself... 'You like boats, but not the ocean. You go to a lake in the summer with your family up in the mountains. There's a long wooden dock and a boathouse with boards missing from the roof, and a place you used to crawl underneath to be alone. You're a sucker for French poetry and rhinestones...' I know what you're thinking before you do. As you read this, I can see the wheels turning. You're thinking, 'You're breaking up with me because I'm too... blonde?' That's simply not true. 'Life is messy. Love is messier.' 'The heart wants what it wants.' And mine wants someone else. 'There's no logic to these things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that's that.' 'Better to have lost and loved than never to have loved at all.' Right? I see you wishing me ill. Your silence isn't fooling anyone. You're planning my demise... I know it. You're thinking, 'I'm very discreet but... I will haunt your dreams.' 'Our love fern! You let it die!' Well I'm sorry, but it's over. 'So, we're not getting married but I have to get rid of my pants?'
Whether your heart's been broken or you're pipe's still treating you well, we've got a plethora of fresh pipes to choose from. By the way, we're introducing a "new to us" set of carvers who happen to be quite appropriate to this particular day -- the Swedish pipemaking couple Love & Sara. So, check out Geiger pipes. Enjoy. I know I will.
To quote the fine people behind the 24 Hours of LeMons (a specialty racing series for vehicles-of-questionable-provenance-or-mechanical-integrity) on organizing last year's Southern Discomfort event: "Weather: Clear and mild, or muggy and miserable, or freezing rain alternating with shine...who the hell knows? It's the Carolinas in February." Well, for this Monday what we've been dealt is a break from clear-and-cold in the form of muggy-with-alternating-rain-and-sunshine. I won't complain though, as it's still providing a rather fine atmosphere for a good English blend.
The on-again, off-again downpour has, however, delayed today's scheduled commencement of our office's long-awaited "Big Barn Cat Project", a team-building exercise being spearheaded by one young go-getter known as Katie Ranalli. Over the past few years, you see, the stray cat population that inhabits the Smokingpipes "campus" has been building steadily in numbers, litter, upon litter, upon litter, and is now threatening to reach a critical mass wherein feline outnumbers human. Each night as we walk to our cars, there of late seems to be more and more fiercely-shining little eyes watching us from the shadows. It's probably also getting rather more expensive for those of us who insist on feeding the blasted blessed furry darlings. (John, Lisa, I'm looking at you.) The stated goal is to capture them one-by-one, and have them fixed.
I myself have been drafted into this humanitarian (felinitarian?) endeavor on the basis that I grew up with cats. The the only one that was considered to actually be "mine" (only technically speaking, of course; he had some very different opinions) was a big, ill-tempered, unusually tenacious mongrel of questionable origins who once nearly cost me an eye is unimportant. Then again, perhaps the roughly eighteen years of experience in handling a semi-feral, domesticated-in-name-only predator which that particular fur-ball granted me is indeed why Sykes chose me to volunteer as a part of this little adventure. Still, with the good, sturdy raccoon trap we've generously been provided with, I'm confident we'll carry it all off at least mostly unharmed. Besides, what are a few emergency rabies shots when it's all for a good cause, after all? I'd alternatively suggested either creating a number of cardboard boxes rigged with one-way-only, bamboo-spiked entrances (we all know how cats cannot resist a good cardboard box), or the procurement of several South American bolas, but alas those were all vetoed by the rest of the project's (predominately female) volunteer pool.
I bring this subject to attention, of course, to show that we here at Smokingpipes really do care -- not just about you, our customers, but even for society's lesser, more potentially dangerous and/or flea-ridden creatures as well.
And on that note, while our local feline population may now be able to look forward towards a less Malthusian future, you, of course, can look forward to more fresh pipes -- today, right now. With this Monday's update we're happy to present to you new artisanal pieces by none other than Michael Parks, joined by quality offerings from Luigi Radice and sons, plus Castello as well. Following those up we have great selections from the likes of Mogens "Johs" Johansen, France's own Sebastien Beo, and the popular marques Tsuge, Savinelli, Petersonn, Butz-Chouqin, and Vauen. You'll also find plenty of estate-pipe offerings, some new smoking accessories, and cigars by both Perdomo and Arturo Fuente.
We pipe smokers tend to be a sentimental bunch when it comes to our favorite fire-pot. And why shouldn't we be? As a breed, we love pipes, but there is always that one pipe, call it our one true love, that we gush and dote over, whether it's a simple sandblasted classic that spends much of its life in our jacket pocket, or a rarefied freehand that we've enthroned as the centerpiece of a collection. Maybe some of us even carry around photos in our mobile phones, posed sensually in the most alluring light, only to be revealed to similarly smitten souls with a wink and a nod.
Given that Valentine's Day is precisely a week away, we've decided it would only be appropriate to shower the one you adore, that bent Apple of your eye, with affectations and appreciations... in the form of a love letter. And so it is here that I ask you to join us this week in this (admittedly, deliberately silly) exercise of adulation, be it in the form of prose or poetry, by posting to our SmokingPipes.com Facebook page. I'll get us started:
"When first we met, you were a jilted and battered lover. Still, I could see past the scars of your last affair and know that you once were, and still are, beautiful. You've graced this spinning blue marble of a world the better part of two decades longer than I, yet your elegance and countenance seem unbound by time. And your smooth draw... well that's just a slice of heaven."
"Recently I've been spending time with another, as you may know. Like you, she is partial to rich red dress (you know this is my weakness). But do not despair my dear, for though she is younger, sleeker, and more curvaceous, she can't compare to the way you spark and smolder; the pleasure I find in her company is but merely platonic, and no more. With your classic beauty and sultry British accent I am compelled to always keep you faithfully by my side."
Ah, enough from me, for now. It's only making me crave my next bowl. If you be a soul as yet without a mate, however, we do just happen to be the internet's premiere pipe dating service. Featuring 2500+ briar, meerschaum, clay, and cob pipes to choose from in all shapes, sizes, and nationalities, you're sure to find something to love. Why just today, we've at the ready two hundred more new applicants, each with profiles featuring honest, and often quite revealing photographs [snicker], sure to set your heart a-flutter, from the likes of J&J, Ashton, L'Anatra, Nording, Savinelli, Peterson and Brigham. And if you don't mind someone with maybe a little baggage, maybe a little more mature and worldly, we've plenty estate pipes from all around the globe as well.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
What do you do when you get a new pipe? For some, it's an obvious answer: fill 'er up and smoke it! Sometimes we search around looking for just that perfect pipe to add to our growing collection and, even in cases of ordering or commissioning a custom-made piece, it still feels like the virgin pipe belongs to someone else for a period of time. Many collectors eagerly await the time their new pipe will arrive, constantly tracking the shipment or simply counting the days on their fingers for when it will arrive. Will it be as nice as it looks in pictures? How will it feel in the hand? Will it be comfortable in the jaw, securely gripped or teetered just behind the canines? If all hopes are met, the only thing to do is to make it your own. A pipe is meant to be enjoyed through smoking, so as the breaking-in process sets in the pipe starts to build character personal to the smoker. Favorite blends, aromas, and flavors develop over time -- ones that reflect who the smoker is.
The only other times we tend to hear the phrase "breaking it in" seems to be regarding a new pair of jeans (through repeated wearing and washing) or with a baseball glove (through folding, rolling, beating, oiling, etc.). What about a home or office? A new space seems stale at first, even if it is beautiful and spacious, or humble and inviting. My wife and I moved into a home this past Saturday. With the arrival of movers at 8:15 a.m. we began taking my shop of six years apart and loading it into a truck. Exciting as it is to move to a larger place, I couldn't help but feel just a touch sad/guilty for dismantling my long-established man cave. It was a place of comfort and fond memories where friends, customers, and pipe makers shared laughs, joy, creativity, quite a few beers and countless bowls of tobacco. When I would raise the metal door to begin the day, there was a pleasant aroma of tobacco, briar dust, and the lingering scent of ebonite all around. I love this, but unfortunately couldn't put it in a box along with my tools and briar blocks.
The home we moved into is lovely, but it still felt like the previous renter was occupying the place. Scents are powerful, so my wife sent me off to the store to get some candles scented of lemon, peach, and mint chocolate for various rooms. In the span of only one day, this made it feel more like our place. All I had to tackle now was my new workshop. Boxes, benches, and bins are still scattered all over, so I sat out there with one of my pipes loaded with Full Virgina Flake (a blend of which I smoked many pounds of in my previous shop) and allowed the fragrant clouds of smoke to "break-in" my new work area. Walking out there last night to retrieve something from a box, I was pleased to find the faint scent lingering in the air. It'll take a little while, but just like breaking-in a new pipe, breaking-in my new workshop is going to take a little while. I think I'll have a few of the Smokingpipes.com crew come down soon with their own pipes to help me out.
Tonight we're happy to add a new pipe maker from Germany to our roster: Werner Mummert, a technically gifted artisan who offers a wide variety of shapely pieces. Other pipes that await a chance to become your own include wares from Dunhill, Tsuge, Luciano, Chacom, Johs, Stanwell, Savinelli, and Peterson. We've increased the quantity of estates this update to thirty-six, which might take less time to break-in overall, but a few bowls of tobacco will help them fit you like a favorite pair of jeans.
Some months ago I found myself leaning with my elbow against the van of childhood friend's band, when the lead singer of another act that had played that night referred to me, in the course of his conversation with my old friend, as "this stately mother[expletive]". I was flattered. I've been called many things by many people; bold, insufferable, hilarious, shameless, tenacious, stubborn as an old mule, well-read, misguided, refined, snobbish, short, and, oddly enough, tall (I can only assume that is a matter of personal perspective), as well as both precisely eloquent, and utterly, intentionally confusing - but this was the first time I could recall ever being on the receiving end of the word "stately". My jacket, perhaps, played a part in this. It's a rather anachronistic double-breasted number that might mislead some into suspecting that I'd acquired it by counting coup on some 19th-century military officer. The rather full beard-and-moustache combination inhabiting my face these days may have worked in my favor. But facial hair and jacket alone I believe would more likely just create the impression of a mild (at best) eccentric. The bent Billiard that happened to be clenched between my teeth, I would argue, made all the difference. Pipes are, as a rule, rather disarming, and especially in their more classical forms. This is an effect that has often been touched upon by others in the course of writing about pipes and pipe-culture, so I know I'm not alone in holding this theory. Completely, utterly wrong I may be (see: misguided), but at least on this matter I'm in good company.
Try this experiment: Picture a man of middle years, chomping on a cigar with a rifle over his shoulder. Odds are, what you've imagined is a character along the lines of the archetypical "grizzled sergeant" of old war movies, or perhaps some intentionally overblown 1980's action-flick character. Now try picturing another middle-aged fellow, again with a rifle over his shoulder, but this time with a pipe clenched in his teeth. I'd wager the image you have in your mind now is another altogether different: One of your own grandfathers, perhaps, going off to hunt with an old dog trotting at his heel, or maybe some antiquarian gentleman on safari.
Of course, more importantly pipes are simply a joy to smoke -- that is, after all, why we smoke them. If we just wanted to impress others, there are much less involved ways of doing it; ones that don't involve all the ritual, commitment, and care that enjoying and properly maintaining even a modest rotation entails. It has suddenly occurred to me that this, in itself, might in fact play a part in creating the cultural context from which springs such complementary associations as "pipe=stately [expletive]".
But that's enough wool-gathering for now: On with the pipes. Today we have at hand some drop dead gorgeous pieces from one Maigurs Knets, followed up by all manner of Italian flare and flourish in the form of artisanal pipes from Ardor, Ser Jacopo, and Mastro de Paja. Joining in are, of course, plenty of briars by Peterson, Savinelli, Nording, Brebbia, and Neerup, as well as a wide variety of estate pipes from parts near and afar alike.
As I write this newsletter introduction it is Sunday afternoon, and I'm sitting in the rinky-dink operation that is Myrtle Beach International (laughingly) Airport. Despite its modest design (if not name), as far as airports go it's not the worst, being only a little larger than a small middle-school and thus fairly easy to get around and through and all distances between any point "A" and any point "B" are but a few long strides. (Though security-theatre-wise, we do have those notorious x-ray machines now! And to think of how so many of us, as kids, secretly sent away for those "x-ray specs" advertised in the backs of comic books and the like -- how the tables have turned.)
Air travel, for me as well as other pipe smokers I presume, often represents the greatest obstacle between that last opportunity to enjoy a smoke and that next opportunity to enjoy a smoke. Not that I'm necessarily writhing in the terminal, foaming at the mouth at take-off, or fiending madly throughout for cherished nicotine, understand, but it sure would be nice if Myrtle Beach International Airport had one of those smoking habitats carved away somewhere, even if it were along the seedy back-side of the building far, far away from bright-eyed children and other such honorable individuals whose delicate constitutions and evidently hazardously fragile respiratory health so concerns modern legislators. Instead even smokeless tobacco like snuff or snus is for some wild reason totally prohibited. Bah!
Consequently, once again, I have left to the good folks at Delta the charge of my precious pipes and tobacco tucked away with painstaking attention in my check baggage. I've flown with Delta a lot over the last couple of years, and though I've slept in the Atlanta airport more times than I care to remember, and missed so many connecting flights in the last six months that my colleagues have deemed me cursed (more accurately, I didn't really miss any of those flights, rather, they, missed me!) no baggage handler has yet misplaced my luggage (i.e. sent it to the Philippines or Guam accidentally). I expect, as has been usual so far, there will be nothing to prevent me from packing a bowl right at baggage claim, with eager hands, and a too-long deprived palate.. and no doubt to the complete horror of a few of my more sensitive fellow travelers.
But should my treasured cargo disappear, and I hope that I tempt no mischievous Fury here; at least I know where to go to rebuild my trove anew. Fresh pipes we find in plenitude this afternoon from the following (and excuse the tense shift, please): Peter Heding, Rinaldo, Radice, Castello, Chacom, Tsuge, Sebastien Beo, Butz-Chouqin, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen. We're also adding thirty-six estate pipes to the mix, in addition two new pipe tobaccos, new cigars, and new cigar accessories. Lots of new stuff!
Well, for those of you who never miss your chance to read one of our newsletters, you already know that I recently had the opportunity to hang out at Adam Davidson's shop. Now before I go on, I must say this is a far cry from a shameless plug for Adam Davidson, though he is a fantastic carver, and it would behoove you to check out some of his work. Anyhow, now that my disclaimer is out of the way I shall continue.
This visit was a while in the making for many reasons. I've found for many pipe smokers their maiden smoke was inspired by some experience from their childhood involving a situation where their father or grandfather opened their world up to the child, almost as a rite of passage. This seems to leave a deep connection to the pipe, tobacco, and its aroma, which is the case for me. Having experienced this myself, I wanted to share it with my daughter as she's growing into a young lady. Keep in mind I'm not advocating under-aged smoking, or smoking at all for that matter; I'm merely attempting to pass on some of the best moments from my youth to my daughter. That being said, I wanted to orchestrate a scenario in which my daughter could see the inner workings a pipe shop. This would give her the opportunity to see who and what I worked with on a daily basis, all while also establishing a positive connection to the pipe and all of its facets.
Between our chatting and enjoying cheese samples graciously provided by Adam, we managed to witness the journey a block of briar travels through in its way to becoming a pipe. The entire process is actually quite intriguing, and reminds me a bit of the story of Pinocchio (remember, I'm a father of young children -- this is the way my brain works now). There's an interesting energy that goes into selecting the briar. As we carefully perused through the chunks, I began to wish everyone could have this experience at least once in their life. You see, there's so much more to a piece of briar than a chunk of wood. It's more like a snowflake. Each individual piece has its own signature comprised of rings, birdseye, and flame grain just as each gently falling wafer of ice crystals possesses its own unique characteristics. This further makes each pipe that much more impressive.
With the flip of a switch, the shop was suddenly filled with the sound of a grinding wheel. Dust settled before us as we watched Adam shape a pipe. As I sat there, daughter in lap, I was reminded of that which Michelangelo said; "Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it". Suddenly I realized Adam had already carved this pipe many times in his head. He knew exactly what he was going to carve when he selected the briar, and he was merely showing us that which he had seen within it.
At the end of the day, I bestowed to my daughter an experience I think she'll remember for many years to come. I know I certainly will.
How was it that I was first drawn to pipes? I never saw my father smoke a pipe; nor did my grandfathers partake to my knowledge at the time (though I later found out that one of them did for a brief period). My father only once, during my teenage years, reluctantly told me that he did try smoking a pipe in the 1970s, but it was only briefly. Because of my budding youth, my dad probably figured that telling me he smoked any kind of tobacco - even a pipe - would catapult me into the dark depths of chain-smoking, with a pack of Lucky Strikes always at the ready, rolled up into the sleeve of my t-shirt. In truth, I had noticed pipes from an early age when I was practically forced into antique shopping with the Rat Pack of my family: mom, grandma, and two aunts. Not caring about old objects much at that time, I found myself drawn to pipes scattered about various shops. I'd pick them up just like I pick up wedges of cheese at the grocery - to give them a sniff. The pipes had a very pleasant aroma, which is the same that would waft through the air when someone would stroll around puffing a briar in my youth. As I grew older, the fascination with pipes never went away (hence the fact that I now both make pipes and work here, at Smokingpipes). Ever on the journey of discovery, what attracts me most often to various things are anticipations of flavor and aroma, pipe-smoking included. I also happen to be a foodie (though my wife doesn't like that word), so when Brandon and I were hanging out this past weekend, we tried to figure out what it is we both seek: flavor.
His family met me at a little grocery/restaurant called Habibi's, a literal "mom-and-pop" business that specializes in foods from mainly Middle-Eastern and Eastern-European countries. Everyone who visits me gets taken to this place, be they pipe makers, collectors, friends, family. This is the venue not only for really good food you won't find anywhere else in the area, but a flavor paradise that will tickle your nose and make your mouth water. I seek out places like this as a way of discovering something new. Brandon, being from Norway, talked about wanting to find some cheese called Brunost. They had it, which with its chewy caramel flavor (and appearance) was something completely new to me. Later that day, we sampled some tobaccos at my place, ranging from aged Virginias to subtle aromatics. Just like Brandon seeking a flavor of his childhood, sampling these tobaccos made me nostalgic for some of the old pipes I sniffed in passing at antique shops twenty years ago. We've more memory in our nose (olfactory sense) than anywhere else. Do you ever get a taste for a tobacco you've not had in a few months or even a decade? I like to think that flavor-seekers such as us are part of what not only keeps many specialty businesses in business, but also helps make the world a very interesting and exciting place.
Well, as far as our own specialty goes, today's update consists of briars from around the world by skilled artisans, as well as a new Captain Black tobacco (an old-time brand, which no doubt was often what I whiffed a lingering fragrance of in those well-aged pipes with fondness). New cigars are available from CAO, H. Upmann brings us three-for-the-price-of-two offers on their 1844 Reserve stogies, plus there are some new accessories for the cigar enthusiast, too. We've plenty of exciting flavors and aromas packed away, so hope you'll re-discover some fond memories as well as make some new ones!
Pipe accessories; we often speak of pipe accessories, varying from artistic hand-shaped tampers to the trusty Czech tool, to Old Boy lighters, to pipe stands, and even entire pipe-cabinets. Yet it occurred to me this past weekend that there's also a more subtle, but farther-reaching category as well -- that of the pipe-smoker accessory.
You see, on Saturday night I found myself standing outside the Duck and Dive pub in Wilmington, North Carolina, taking a smoke break and chit-chatting with the organ player for the Carvers (the local surf-and-stomp band that was playing that evening), when another patron commented on the fitness of the combination of my double-breasted jacket, rather anachronistic facial hair, and the slender-stemmed old English pocket-pipe clenched between my teeth. I jokingly stated that the particularly conspicuous whiskers were mostly to annoy certain female co-workers, before pointing out that I actually went through most days thinking nothing of them on account of spending my days in an environment where the majority of my (male) peers wore their own various variations on wild and free facial hair follicles. And that's when it hit me.
A Dunhill may never look more at home than in the hand of a man in tweed, a cob's most natural environment may be under the shade of a baseball or trucker hat, and a black-and-silver dress briar is, of course, made to match formal dress, but the ultimate and most universally applicable pipe-smoker accessory, from all my observations, has been some manner of facial hair. (Even some members of the fairer sex, despite considerable natural disadvantage, seem to have grasped this.) I've long since lost count of the variety of beards, moustaches, and goatees that I've seen either Adam or Ted go through, John has grown, shaved off, then regrown at least two full and luxurious beards, ditto Chris Johnson, Chris Huff came with one already included, and Brandon's ruddy whiskers could pass him off for a member of the House of Plantagenet. I've even heard one of us confide that while his wife will complain about his beard, whenever he's shaven it off she's gotten downright angry, genuinely upset over its sudden absence.
While there is no doubt more insight to be gained with further observation, for today I'll leave the long and short of what I've gathered at this: A pipe without a good beard or moustache behind it is like a duck without a quack, women are mad and will be angry no matter you do, but are far more forgiving in the presence of fully-matured facial hair, and that in adapting to my own, unusually hirsute working environment, I've probably been unwittingly receiving a lot of curious - possibly admiring - stares at the supermarket.
But that's all from me for this newsletter, and now it's on to the main show. For this Thursday's update we have for you artisanal briars by J. Alan, Paolo Becker, Ardor, Mastro de Paja, and, newly re-introduced to our line-up: American artisan Mark Tinsky. Following up on those you'll find an impressive array of smokers by Peterson, Savinelli, Brebbia, and Neerup, and quite a varied refresh of our estate offerings, counting a full seventy-plus pipes across a broad spectrum of origins and asking prices.
If you've been in the market for anything pipe or tobacco related, you should have little trouble finding it today. We've a grand selection launching this afternoon, with new pipes from Danish artisan Benni Jorgensen, the Pesaro-influenced Rinaldo, the classic Italian compositions of Radice, Castello, and Savinelli, the handsome French briars of Chacom, Sebastien Beo, and Butz-Chouqin, plus Vauenn, Peterson, and Tsuge. We've also at hand two-dozen fully restored estate pipes available, in addition to new cigars from Rocky Patel, and Drew Estate, plus smoking accessories from Padron and Craftsman's Bench.
Having said all that, I realize some of you might be thinking... "There's just too much to choose from." To this, I say "Nay". There can never be too many choices when it comes to good tobacco, the instruments by which we enjoy it, and the accoutrements which aid us in their orderly use. At least that's what we here at Smokingpipes.com believe. So pull up your chair and dig in. It's time to find the perfect pipe and peruse for a fine tobacco or two, whether be they old favorites or novel blends you've just lately been hearing about. Enjoy, and keep on puffing.
What a strange breed, the pipe smoker. Modern stereotypes create some pretty spectacular imagery. I must admit, I can be as guilty of it as the next guy. It's quite easy for me to picture a gentlemen sitting in his weathered evening chair, pipe clenched in mouth, scotch in hand, contemplating his next sentence with great care as plumes of smoke roll around his face, almost as if the pipe and man were one. As I think on this image, I feel a certain level of dismay. I hold my breath, waiting for the wisdom of the man's next words which are about to be bestowed upon me. The suspense is nearly unbearable. But then I quickly remember this man doesn't really exist. He's a figment of my imagination. Not all pipe smokers are great philosophical men of character with limitless patience and wisdom. Some of us are still working to achieve such honorable attributes. However, all of us have a responsibility to uphold that spirit.
You see, it has taken generations of pipe smokers' deliberate contemplation regarding every word they ever spoke in order to create such imagery. It has taken generations of pipe smokers filling their minds and hearts with knowledge and life lessons to be able to own such wisdom. It has taken generations of pipe smokers living lives of honor to give the pipe smoker such a respect in society. That being said, remember pipe smokers, we have a responsibility to not destroy that which was built on the backs of those before us.
So while you weigh your responsibility as a brother of the briar, take a look at the quality briar we're offering up on today's update, including new pieces from Latvian carver Sergey Senatorov, along with pipes by L'Anatra, Randy Wiley, Winslow, Cavicchi, Peterson, Savinelli, and Brigham. We've also seventy-two freshly restored estate pipes from all over the world going up on the site today.
I should also mention we have a special treat. We're very proud of our photography team and the job they do in bringing you vivid and descriptive photographs of every single briar and meerschaum pipe we sell, and the always creative Kathryn Mann has created a short video of the guys at work.
I get asked a lot of questions when someone first finds out that I make pipes. After giving the standard explanation of what kind of pipes I make to diffuse any sort of immediate concerns or inappropriate comments, people sometimes want to learn more. "What kind of wood do you use?" is usually the next question I have to answer, which blends into a conversation about a burl that grows underground in countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. The most common question after this is "where do pipe-makers get materials?". The answer is "wherever we can".
When Brandon, our pipe manager, was recently hired, he already had plenty pipe and tobacco knowledge, as well as the all-important drive and desire to learn more. We had been discussing bamboo not that long ago, partly because we were looking at some really gorgeous bamboo from Japan, and my explanation of how a pipe-maker uses it. Last Friday, I popped my head into his office and asked if he'd like to go bamboo hunting with me later in the day. After his initial excitement mixed with a touch of does that grow here?, we set off for a secret spot someone told me about a few months ago. Sure enough, we found a hill of bamboo. The bamboo used for pipe making comes from the roots, which grow along and under the ground at the base of plants that grow close to twenty feet tall and are as big around as a coffee mug or soda can. Camp axe in hand, with one eye on the ground and the other on the swamp hoping to not spot any alligators or poisonous snakes, Brandon pointed out a thumb-sized root that we dug out and chopped free from the earth. Lots of searching led to only one serviceable piece harvested (enough for two or three pipe shanks), but I could tell that he was as excited as if we had found a Paleolithic spear point.
Making pipes is fun, and it's really cool to be able to source some local materials. I'm pretty sure Brandon has a new appreciation for the material and how it is harvested. In the future, we plan to go on more expeditions along South Carolina rivers in search of the elusive material. You can find some beautiful Tsuge pipes tonight with bamboo, though it is, of course, a different variety than what grows wild here in the American South. Japanese bamboo is regarded as some of the best in the world for pipes. The material is beautiful, fun to work with, and colors beautifully over time.
We've also quite a variety of pipes tonight from Dunhill, Luciano, Johs, Stanwelll, Savinelli, and Peterson. Rolando Negoita recently sent us some beautiful pieces; some of them sporting bamboo, while others are his popular cooling-chambered Conductas. Today we're also happy to announce we've added a new carver to our lineup: Nathan Armentrout!
And if expertly-refurbished estates are what you're looking for this evening, not only do we have pipes from the Danish and Italian masters, but today also starts our January Estate Sale: throughout the rest of the month, select estate pipes from most regions are a full twenty percent off. Dig in!
Colored stems: For them, or against them? Well, okay, it's not really that simple. Even if your tastes in the briars that you'll add to your own personal rotation is relatively conservative (as mine is), you will likely still count cumberland or horn stems as sufficiently classical and reserved of style (as I do). And of course, just because you don't feel that something a bit more extroverted of shade and hue is quite "you", doesn't mean you can't appreciate it when a more colorful stem just seems to fit perfectly some particular pipe's composition. Personally handling hundreds of pipes each week, I come across no small quantity that strike me as very well designed and composed, but which I nonetheless also recognize as best suited to a personality quite different from my own. Whether sitting in my old sedan, flopped down amongst the clutter of books, tobacco tins, and pipe accessories that typically inhabits my coffee table at home, or hanging from my jaw, they'd just stick out like a sore thumb. It would be like seeing Vinnie (from our Low Country store), the stout, walking, talking stereotype of an older generation of Northeastern urban fellow smoking a dainty cigarillo -- he's a big cigar man, by which I mean a man who enjoys, and looks most natural, puffing away at a heavy-gauge stogie. He smokes what he is -- as most of us do.
A flourishing, vibrant Ardor wouldn't be me. But neither would an intricately organic Japanese artisanal design or a big Dunhill Group 6, even if its shaping and finish are otherwise reserved and traditional. Yet, there are plenty of pipe smokers out there which one of those three would fit to a "T". And when you come right down to it, that's why pipes are created in such a vast variety of shapes, sizes, finishes, materials, depths, breadths, mount configurations, and, yes stem colors too. And today we have on hand plenty of evidence as to just how broad and complex pipedom's spectrum of style and approach has grown. Chris Askwith and Massimliano Rimensi, for example, present us with pipes in briar, strawberry wood, and morta, in designs either modern or traditional of flavor. The two Californian friends behind J&J show us some classic shaping as well, but also their unique, energetic take on the Blowfish, a shape typically at home in the Danish and Japanese schools. Maigurs Knets proves to us that the lush, flourishing style of the Art Nouveaux movement can, indeed, be applied to creating beautiful smoking instruments -- a challenge which no one seemed willing or able to tackle during its actual late-19th/early-20th century heyday. Ardor brings us their aforementioned colorfulness, and Ser Jacopo the signature creativity and gesture of the Pesaro school. Nording offers us the wild shaping of the Danish "fancy" freehand, Peterson robust Irish smokers, Storient floral-carved Turkish meerschaums, and Brebbia and Savinelli their own takes on Italian style.
And on top of that, there are of course new selections of estates awaiting your perusal as well -- seventy-two in all, split between the Danish, Italian, English, and. Whatever manner of pipe may be most distinctly "you", we hope you'll find it here with us.
With an update falling on the last day of 2012, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on a remarkable year in pipes and pipe tobacco. Smokingpipes.com has grown considerably. There are many people I have to thank for that: pipe makers and tobacco manufacturers for doing a great job, the extraordinary bunch of people that I'm lucky enough to call my colleagues here, and, most of all, you, our customers. It is your passion and love for the simple pleasure of pipe smoking that makes what we do possible. And it's that passion that you have that makes it so very much fun to do what we do. I thank you.
2012 was also qualitatively different in the pipe world. I've thought, or perhaps just hoped, for the past couple of years that we were enjoying the beginnings of a pipe renaissance. This is one of those quiet hopes that one has; a hope that one only tentatively utters for fear that it's not really true. Pipe smoking, and accordingly the pipe and pipe tobacco industries, experienced steady annual decline for fifty-odd years between about 1960 and 2010. I'm far from certain that decline has actually reversed, but both anecdotal and government statistical evidence seems to suggest that it has in the past year or two. This is the first time that I have actually felt comfortable indicating in print what I've long hoped, and more lately have come to believe, was the case: we are indeed embarking on a new age of pipe smoking, one with a modestly growing hobby and new enthusiasm from an increasing number of pipe aficionados in their twenties and thirties.
I've worked around pipes for my entire adult life, starting in college with a part-time job at a local tobacconist and, in 2000, founding Smokingpipes.com. Smokingpipes.com has never had a year that it grew by less than 12%, but for many years I believe that it grew in spite of, rather than because of, the growth (or lack thereof) in pipe smoking. This year, Smokingpipes.com sold 25% more pipes and pipe tobacco than it did last year. It may be that we’re something of a bellwether for the pipe business in the United States, but it is far from a complete picture.
In the past couple of years, however, anecdotal evidence for resurgence in the cultural appeal of enjoying a good pipe seems pretty compelling. More movies than ever seem to be sympathetically portraying pipe smokers: gone, it seems, are the days that the only pipe smoking characters in movies were over-the-top German- or British-accented villains or pretentious fops. (Curiously, this comes at a time when cigarette-smoking is far less prevalent in film.) Pipes also seem to be more visible in popular, mainstream culture, whether as a prop in Delta Airline's most recent airplane safety video or as a topic for discussion on NPR, where my good friend Kevin Godbee was interviewed two weeks ago on the subject of pipes. Pipes are ubiquitous in a way that they just were not a few years ago. I remember participating in 'pipe sighting' threads on alt.smokers.pipes in the early 2000s where someone pointed out a pipe or pipe smoking in a movie that they'd recently seen. They might still exist, but I haven't seen a thread like this in some time, probably because the surfeit of material renders pointing it out redundant.
More concretely, pipe sales to the United States are up for a number of very large pipe manufacturers. While I'm not sufficiently intimately tied to every manufacturer to have a complete picture of the market, what I hear from those I know well is immensely encouraging. The same is true for the tobacco manufacturers I've discussed the matter with. There's also been an explosion in artisan pipes made in the United States in the past few years. Government statistics, which are admittedly difficult to assess for a host of reasons, seem to suggest that pipe and pipe tobacco imports, domestic manufacturing and sales are up. Those figures are far from definitive (they often include data on things unrelated to our hobby and miss parts of the data that do relate to our hobby), but they are suggestive.
Taken collectively, I cannot help but conclude that pipe smoking is indeed enjoying a renaissance. And I find this immensely heartening. Of course, I have a serious financial stake in that; the well-being of my family, along with the families of the forty-odd people that work here, is dependent on there being people enthusiastic about pipes. It's more than that, though. I love pipes and pipe tobacco. I've spent most of my waking time (and a good portion of my sleeping time, I suspect) thinking about pipes and pipe tobacco for more than thirteen years now and I've never tired of it and want to continue to do so for the rest of my life. But that's not really it either. The world needs more pipe smokers. We are a calm, contemplative, thoughtful, moderate bunch as a rule, generous of spirit and civil in our discourse. Perhaps pipe smoking attracts people like this. Or perhaps pipe smoking engenders this to a degree, through its calming repetitions and attentive rituals. Either way, I think the world would indeed be a better place if there were more pipe smokers about to take an active role in it all.
So, again, I thank you for your passion for our shared hobby. I thank you for your support of Smokingpipes.com all of these years. And, especially, I thank you for making me proud to be a pipe smoker and be able to count myself among an extraordinary community of people from all walks of life who share the passion for enjoying a quality briar and a good blend.
Last midnight I was grocery shopping -- like many bachelors I tend to put off buying food only when there is no more food at home, and even then often only after it's been about sixteen hours since I last ate anything. (Married men live longer for a reason, you know, and I doubt it's on account of reduced stress.) So there I am, walking over towards the dairy section from the meat section (I don't believe in food pyramids -- it's man against animal in my book, winner take all) when my phone rang. There aren't a lot of people who have my number, and even fewer who would be calling at such an hour, so I had a pretty good idea who it would be even before I managed to shuffle the stack of beef I was carrying over to my other hand and fish my phone out of my jacket pocket.
Sure enough, it was none other than my nearest and dearest friend, full of seasonal cheer -- the 80-proof variety, by my initial assessment. He was indeed clearly very pleased about something, and so I asked him, "Andrew, are you drunk?" "Yes!" he replied, "But not very. About medium-drunk. I have different levels." Though I suspected that the level he had actually attained was affecting his calibration, I knew we weren't going to get anywhere if I insisted on standing there holding steaks and arguing about it. I doubt very much of any importance at all has ever been accomplished by debating in front of an audience of sausages, even when everyone involved was sober.
Over the next twenty minutes or so, my friend explained his reason for calling in considerable, if not particularly continuous detail: The Christmas package I had sent him had arrived; A silver-banded bent Billiard, a tin of Old Dark Fired, several Nicaraguan puros, an old vinyl recording of Winston Churchill's speeches, and a large, hardcover monograph consisting exclusively of photos of Cold War-era nuclear test explosions. They say the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but in my experience encouraging eccentricities works better (assuming you have an eccentric to work with, of course), and likewise does contributing to the enjoyment of habits frowned upon by those who would set themselves up as the nannies of grown men.
They will be thankful, and if you happen to write about tobacciana for a living, there's a good chance they'll manifest their thankfulness in a manner that will provide you with plenty of material. Andrew was, naturally, smoking his new pipe and new tobacco when he called. His girlfriend called out from the background to suggest that if they had guests, they were unlikely to care for its particular fragrance. Andrew in turn good-naturedly suggested that in such a case, they would be her guests, not his.
Of the handful of us that couldn't "squiggle" out of coming into the office today about a third are sick. This means that on the one hand it's fairly quiet around here, and on the other there's a lot of sneezing, sniffling, coughing, hacking, and a whole host of other such harsh, unpleasantly corporeal cacophonies echoing off the walls of our otherwise rather sadly vacant building. Merry Christmas!
It's certainly your prerogative to wonder why we're bothering with all this today. It's Christmas Eve, and for the very few of whom might even escape for long enough to browse through our updated offering this afternoon, you're likely all too aware of the fact that very little will be shipped today and nothing will be delivered tomorrow. Which, at least for me, makes online shopping completely annoying and nearly an unreasonable thing to do. But there is a reason, dear readers. There is a very good reason to shop with us today.
Today we're proud to launch the latest masterpiece from G. L. Pease's Old London Series. Meet "Navigator", a pressed Virginia-Kentucky blend married with just a hint of rum (this might remind you of his last creation, "Sextant" which also featured a Latakia component). We usually sell the heck out of a new Pease blend, which points back to my earlier statement about today being just as good as any to shop from Smokingpipes.com.
Recently, I had a phone conversation with a friend of mine. It just so happens he's a new pipe convert from the church of cigarettes. Mid conversation he asked me a question as old as the pipe itself... "How do you pack your pipe?" A few brief seconds of silence passed as I prepared to answer him with the cliché answer of, "I take three pinches... (yadda yadda yadda)". But suddenly, something clicked inside of me, and I stopped. I realized that wasn't necessarily true. I pack it based on the tobacco I'm smoking.
For example, when I'm smoking Mac Baren's Vanilla Cream flake cut, I break up the flake, and load on-end three or four longer slivers of flake in the bottom of the pipe (in order to create a pocket of air). I then begin loading the bits from largest to smallest, which gives me some less dense pieces on top. I find this makes lighting much easier and helps prevent charring the rim of my pipe. Another example I can think of comes from Ted, here at Smokingpipes.com. Mac Baren's Navy Mixture is his poison, and he loads it with great care. At the risk of sounding overly pretentious, Ted loads Navy Mixture with the attention a painter gives his painting or a sculptor his sculpture. He takes his time, enjoys the process, and sorts out pieces of tobaccos making certain to place a healthy dose of black Cavendish at the top of the bowl. This, as you can imagine, makes the initial light, sweet and quite pleasant.
The point here is... tobacco, just like the pipe you smoke it in, is made to be enjoyed the way you want to enjoy it. Yes, there are some basic packing "rules", but all-in-all it's a matter of preference. Play around with the tobacco and realize there's more to smoking a pipe than simply creating smoke.
Speaking of pipes... In today's update, you'll see a selection of pipes that's sure to please any pipe smoker. We have pipes ranging from Savinelli, Peterson, Neerup, and Brebbia, all the way to Eltang and Bruce Weaver. So, happy hunting all.
Goats and Bollywood - that's how my weekend went. Two friends of mine, who happen to be roommates, double-booked the house forcing an odd juxtaposition of overlapping theme parties. Things like this happen when most everyone you know works in higher education.
The goat roast was the first event, and involved cooking the kid, along with a leg of deer, in a pit dug just for the occasion. You'd think that this would be the perfect setting for pipe smoking, but no, that came later once the Bollywood-style tunes began to fill the living room and someone said there would be dancing - strike that, they said I would be dancing. So I and a few other refugees snuck outside to sample a couple varieties of Oriental blends. I've nothing against Bollywood and I truly enjoy sharing culture, but when it comes to coerced dancing - I'd rather just share some tobacco. Many of you, I suspect, share these sentiments.
Enough about the weekend; you all are here for an update on our latest tobacciana offerings. We've got five new ceramic ashtrays of various shapes going up today, along with three new cigar packs and a special 2013 W.O. Larson Limited Edition blend. There are also a handful of exquisite new pipes from Alex Florov, shapely new pieces from Michal Novak, and two hundred and thirty-six other new and estate pipes, each just hoping you'll pick them as your dance partner, or failing that, at least choose their company to share good smoke with.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
For many of us, this time of year is all about change. Unless you happen to live in sunny San Diego, California, where the weather man has the easiest job in the world ("On this day it shall be sunny, as it was yesterday and as it will be tomorrow!"), weather is going to jump up and down, be wet and cold, and have us searching for storms, school closings, and our packed-away winter gear. [Editor's note: It is raining in San Diego today, Adam.] This time of year is more about packing and unpacking seasonal things, be they in a box or tobacco chamber.
Just last week, my wife and I were putting up our Christmas tree and she wanted me to keep the large, multicolored ceramic lights, ones I've known since I was a little frightened boy refusing to sit on Santa's lap, hidden away. Being the, hopefully, good husband that I aspire to be, I pretty much closed my eyes, and my mouth, and nodded in agreement when she wanted teeny-tiny white lights on the tree and completely new ornaments with a gold and red theme. The kid in me comes out at Christmas, a time where I try to recreate my childhood memories in visual detail. Admittedly, I lacked enthusiasm when the antique ornaments were gazing sadly up at me from their retro plastic boxes as fresh, new sparkly decorations made their debut on the sprawling, freshly-slaughtered Fraser Fir in our living room. But I have to admit it, folks; the end result of my wife's efforts is a really beautiful sight to behold, so I'm surprisingly happy with the change.
Not only does the scent of pine now in my living room tickle the nose at home, but at work the wafting of rich Latakia tobaccos coming from Eric and Ted as the weather cools has started to whet my whistle for a favored English blend - Fred Hanna's Wilderness. Just this morning Ted cracked open one of his tins (while noting how much he prefers English blends this time of year) and offered me some. The fragrant notes of this blend seem to come alive when the temperature drops in nature, so what better time to pop a tin?
Tonight you can stay cozy in your home and browse the new wares of fresh briars. Paolo Becker, Former, Ashton, Randy Wiley, Winslow, and Claudio Cavicchi should keep you on your toes. There are plenty of Savinelli, Peterson, Nording, and Brigham pipes too; and don't forget about the eighty-four estates! And, as the holiday season crescendos to its peak, if you're wondering just how much time you have left to shop for that perfect gift (even if said gift be for thyne self), check our Holiday Shipping Schedule, where you'll find approximate deadlines, by shipping service, to have your package delivered before December twenty-fifth.
Today's update is, to say the least, large. One of the largest we’ve ever had, especially in terms of the work put into it (descriptions, photography, and so forth), thanks to a quite a bounty of premium artisan and collector pipes that have landed in our lap – not to mention a whole bunch of new accessories. Whether new or estate, you’ll find just about everything from Knudsen, to J. Alan, to Lasse Skovgaard, to Karl Heinz-Joura and Rainer Barbi cropping up in one place or another, as well as a great mountain of modestly priced briars by Tsuge, Peterson, Savinelli, Johs, Chacom, Stanwell, and Luciano, and - wait for it - we're also introducing some impressively sized Big Ben Clay Churchwardens.
As luck would have it, we also have something really, really special in English estates– distinguished even amongst the aforementioned selections. Through some auspicious bit of luck, this holiday season we somehow found ourselves looking down at an example – the first we’ve ever seen – of the full twelve-year run of Dunhill’s “Twelve Days of Christmas” pipes, which ran from 1993-2004 and are generally considered the most desirable of all their Christmas Pipes. And on top of that, all but two of them are the fourth pipes of each limited-number edition. We’d honestly be surprised if we ever saw so many “4”s in place ever again.
Well, that’s enough from me – no doubt many of you have already raced off to stake your claims. If you do happen to still be reading this, however, make sure and check out the little shipping information page we’ve put together, to help you ensure your holiday packages arrive in time.
Last night we held Smokingpipes' 7th Annual Company Christmas Party. Now if your initial thought is that it's still a bit early in the month for such festivities, or that Wednesday is a poor night to celebrate just about anything except having graduated Monday and Tuesday, then you'd be correct; it was both. However, because Sykes is leaving for Japan as I type this and thus won't be around for any kind of corporate shindig for a couple weeks, we were sort of short on calendar options when planning the dang thing. I suppose we could have thrown the party in a week without him, but that would have been just mean.
And while it was a lot of fun, and while the food was fabulous (as always), and even though I was proud to give out a handful of awards to some of our most dedicated and proven staff, I'm beginning to think I've become too long in the tooth for the kind of debauchery that is staying up until eleven o'clock on a weeknight whilst nursing a single, lonesome, beer. I'm not much of a partier. I'm a pipe smoker, and like many a pipe smoker, I prefer a long, contemplative silence, a good book, or an engaging, heady conversation with another fellow, and a hand of warm briar to the rowdy, raucous, noisy chaos of the multitude. Or maybe that's just me - Adam, after all, does have some pretty hairy tales involving his hanging out with other artisans (especially when Danes were present) at pipe shows.
I do know what all pipe smokers can agree on, nonetheless. Pipe smokers like looking at new pipes. You're in luck this afternoon, as we've got a whole bunch of new pipes that await your perusal. We've got new works from carvers Michael Lindner and Viktor Yashtylov in addition to fresh pipes from Ardor, Ser Jacopo, Mastro de Paja, IMP, Nording, Brebbia, Savinelli, and Peterson. Of course, we've got both smoked and unsmoked estate pipes to add as well, 72 to be exact. Be sure to check out the new Two Cousins pipe racks we begin offering today. And don't forget that from now until the end of the year, any order over $50 qualifies for free UPS ground shipping in the continental United States, you can still pick up a free tin of Peterson tobacco with a new Peterson pipe purchase, and all Lampe Berger and Easy Scent products are on sale (and make great Christmas gifts, btw). Cheers!
What is a pipe really? It's more than just a vehicle to transfer flavor and nicotine to your body. If that's all a person desired, they could accomplish it with some pipe tobacco and cigarette papers. No, there's more to it. There's individualism... There's character... And there's a deep connection to pipe smokers everywhere. A pipe is a vessel designed to bring the smoker enjoyment, while audaciously making a statement about one's plot in life. It's your companion, your old friend. It's as much a part of you as your beard or your arm. If your pipe could talk, it would affirm your life's journey with a subtle, but sure nod. That being said, decide who you are, or who you want to be. Are you a classic? Dunhill... Peterson. Are you idealistic? Castello... Savinelli... Rinaldo... Radice. Are you creative and cutting edge? Pete Prevost... Now is the time to get on with the adventure that belongs to the pipe smoker, it's yours. So take it.
Life is full of choices, and it's up to us to decide what is best for us given various situations. I'll refrain from discussing moral topics or those involving struggles of necessity, but drift over to the side that all of us think about from time to time, and especially around this season: Stuff! It's no secret (even here) that I like good food; buying it, making it, dining out, or - most often - buying choice ingredients to make something at home or in the office for my friends and co-workers. In the end, you often get what you pay for. Making it right is the key, really. One could get a perfectly marbled rib-eye steak and ruin it in a hundred ways. Similarly, one could use the finest cloth, leather, briar, or anything else as a raw material, and muddle it up into a solid disaster. So, given the choice, many choose to buy something good as a luxury, as opposed to trying to make it themselves, but how does one measure worth? Not everything can last a lifetime, but a great many things - including pipes - can.
As an artisan, I'm one of those weirdos that sees something really cool and immediately wants to make it [yeah, this is true for food and pretty much anything that doesn't involve computers, gasoline, or a phone-book sized instruction manual]. When my wife first wanted a pursehandbag for her birthday a few years ago, she sent me a link to a site that carried Marc Jacobs handbags. At the time (*please see weirdo), I suggested to her that I make one. Suffice to say that this was my first time trying to make a pursehandbag, failure ensued. Fortunately, making some pipes to sell to Smokingpipes helped me buy her the one she originally wanted, and I must fully declare how impressed I was when it arrived. The leather is of fantastic quality and the details throughout the design proved its worth to me.
Only a few days ago, Sykes showed me the new leather bags from Italian artisan Claudio Albieri. Not only are they of superb quality materials and craftsmanship-wise, they're also just really smart designs that have clearly been well thought-out in terms of offering something that both looks great and is also very functional. How many pipe cases have you seen that will carry your laptop, too? Sykes has a blog going up really soon which goes more into detail, so I'll simply say that you've got to see these pieces. One thing I'll point out that these bags are all made by an artisan; not a factory. Just like great handmade pipes, you'll notice the extra care that goes into making them.
Tonight you can find not only the new bags from Claudio Albieri, but a fantastic variety of pipes to whet your appetite. Claudio Cavicchi, Maigurs Knets, Scott Klein each have especially impressive pieces going up, as well as always-popular Ashton pipes with staggering blasting details. L'Anatra, Randy Wiley, Winslow, Nording, Savinelli, Peterson, Brigham, and six-dozen estates combine to make another - always different - update from the folks here at Smokingpipes.
Black Friday has past, and now Cyber Monday is upon us. The gift-giving season approaches implacably, jingle-bells jingling with every step of its inexorable tread. Or so I have rather vaguely gathered from overhearing others - like so many unrepentant bachelors, I have only the most fleeting and insubstantial awareness of most holidays, excepting the one or two that tend to involve females dressing in a particularly provocative manner at parties. Nonetheless, even I can put two-and-two together eventually, particularly when I start hearing the words "special promotion" occurring with ever-increasing frequency about the office.
And yes, as you may have already guessed, that's just what we have for you today - and doubly so. Firstly, from now up through December 31st, all Smokingpipes customers can expect to receive 10% any Lampe Berger fragrance lamps, as well as the fragrances themselves - plus a full 20% off of all Easy Scent products, too. If you're a married man, this might occur to you as particularly advantageous towards acquiring certain pipe or tobacco purchases during this special time of the year. Let the watchword for this season be: Diplomacy. On that matter, I'll say nothing more, but let us pretend I've just nudged you with my elbow and let loose with a conspirational wink. Assuming the missus isn't watching, that is.
And, well now, speaking of conspirational, wouldn't you know it - we're also offering free shipping on all orders over $50. Pure chance, that. Pure chance also that this offer is also good up through December 31st - the exact same timeframe as that other offer I was talking about. You know; the one on all those lovely, decorative fragrance lamps and their various aromatic oils, and such. Some coincidences are just too hard to believe.
Well, enough dwelling on life's curious little circumstances, we have an update to roll out. Today you'll find going up on offer several new lamps from Lampe Berger (nudge), a sharp-looking humidor from Savinelli, a convenient ashtray-and-stand combination by Peterson, plus the introduction of both Savinelli's flavorful little Apertif cigars, and a limited-edition Borkum Riff blend. Of course, for the main attraction, we then have pipes - lots of pipes. Amongst them you'll find the works of the renowned Wolfgang Becker and the fresh, new Michal Novak, plus some very fine Dunhills, all on top of dozensupon dozens of briars from of Tsuge, Johs, Luciano, Chacom, Stanwell, Savinelli, and Peterson - not to mention a good selection of English and Italian estates.
If it seems as if we've just sent to you one of these loquaciously long-winded, rhetoric laden newsletters, then I'd like to open by setting the record straight: we did. As previously mentioned, we've prepared our Thursday update for you folks a day early to skirt around the holiday (for your sake, honest). And with it comes a newsletter a day ahead of schedule as well. How else are you going to learn about all the nifty things we're up to 'round here? How else are you going to discover just what we've got up our sleeve for Black Friday?
Oh but before we get to all this business about Black Friday, and specials, and discounts, and what have you, you should really take a look at the new and improved Pipe Locator that Randy has been working on for the last few days. He's really suped-up the way the site handles these kinds of searches; you'll find improved functionality, extra filters, and pretty, pretty pictures. It's all very exciting, and while I'm tempted to type here in great length exactly why it's such an improvement over the 'old way', you're really better off just clicking through to play with it yourself. Besides, you don't want to read all that. No, what you really want to know about now is our Black Friday special, don't you?
I'm really looking for a clever way in, you guys; a carrot to dangle or a rabbit to pull out of a hat, something that sparkles and shimmies with jazz hands, you know? We really want to present something exciting and it needs to be announced the right way. On the other hand, we don't want to hype up anything too much, we'd hate to distort the expectation. QUANDARY!
All right, out with it...
We're offering 10% OFF of all pipe tobacco. Yes, this includes BOTH the tinned and bulk variety. We're running this special from this moment until Monday 9:00 AM EST. On top of that we're, of course, still running our Peterson promotion through the end of the month. Oh, it's a good time to be a pipe smoker, isn't it? It's also a good time to be a gift buyer.
Speaking of gift buying, pipe smoking, and excellent deals, be sure to check out the rest of our update, which includes fresh pipes from Tom Eltang, Kevin Arthur, Ardor, Ser Jacopo, Savinelli, Mastro de Paja, and Peterson, in addition to a bombardment of seventy-two recently restored (many of which are unsmoked) estate pipes. Golly!
Alright, so here we are. The Christmas season is upon us. Life is suddenly filled with Christmas lights, holiday TV specials, and family gatherings. I know what you're thinking... "Not another shameless commercialized plug for a product purchase." Well, forget it. I'm coming to you today filled with the spirit of the season, sitting in my garage, sipping one of my favorite brews and puffing on some Penzance in my beloved Billiard.
Now I have to admit, I'm a bit of a romantic when it comes to Christmas. It's not difficult for me to imagine an era long since passed, an era where men where men and women were women. Small town streets filled with the hustle and bustle of the shopping season. A loping V8 passing by, with the crackling radio sounds of a brass section accompanying Bing into a chorus that would woo any woman.
I'm sure I'm not alone in this. As a matter of fact, I think the very reason many of us originally became pipe smokers is romanticism. We're throwbacks to another time, however, in a good way. This being said, I'd like to challenge all of you to pick up your pipe, and pack it with your favorite tobacco. Strike a match and relish those first few puffs in the name of pipe smokers everywhere. Here's to the season, and here's to you.
As I am typing this (it's Wednesday), Adam, our resident foodie, is cookin' up turkeys and ham for our company Thanksgiving, or "Worksgiving" as I like to call it. Later today we'll feast on a smorgasbord of meat, stuffing, casseroles, desserts, and all manner of cranberry-themed goodness (including a cranberry-horseradish cream I'm contributing to the event). We'll be sure to get pics up soon - maybe there will even be a few of myself in a food-coma.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, as you may know this year the American version of the holiday falls on Thursday of next week, which of course coincides with our second update. We'll be updating the site a day early on Wednesday, November 21, instead, so no need to peek under the dinner table at your smartphone, or sneak off to a computer to see what's new.
As for this week's Thursday update, we're releasing into the wild pipes by J. Alan and a few pieces from J&J. What's interesting about this pairing is that it allows us a small glimpse into the young-American pipe scene. Jeff Gracik, a.k.a. J. Alan, is an established and well-respected maker, and his pipes in this update showcase quite a range of what he is capable of doing. John and Jared, the dynamic duo behind J&J, are up and coming in the American scene, and while it is said Jeff has played a great role in their mentorship, the two have quickly established their own "voice", and we're proud to offer their work.
We also have great new pipes from Ashton, Cavicchi, L'Anatra, Randy Wiley, Winslow, Nording, Savinelli, and Peterson. Lastly but not leastly, if you happen to be in the mood for something vintage, check out the seventy-plus estates on offer.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
As a pipe and pipe tobacco retailer you might imagine that we respond to our fair share of customer inquiries that sound something like "which blend is better, X, or Y?" Or, "if I like [this] tobacco, what might you recommend in the way of [that]?" Or, "my favorite mixture isn’t made anymore, what might you suggest in its place?" We receive a lot of queries similar to these (and many more), and we’re happy to oblige in the best way we can with our humble opinions and gentle advice.
And as daylight fades a little earlier each night, and as the temperature begins to change around the country from warmish to coldish (coldish being about as far as we ever get down here in South Carolina), I can't help but notice that we're seeing from our customers a lot more interest in (and we're responding to many more questions about) those sweet, seasonal-style aromatics that seem to pair so well with the upcoming holidays. It's happening around the office too, as John is determined to polish off his tin of Peterson Christmas Blend 2012 as quickly as possible, and Brandon has become positively dedicated to smoking Mac Baren's Vanilla Cream Flake each and every morning. The offices of Smokingpipes.com smells like heavenly confection, just as it should this time of year.
I'm not a big aromatic smoker myself these days, yet now even I am tempted to break out an old favorite or two when skies are gray and the days are offering a hint of chill. Something about a warm pipe and a sweet tobacco is just perfect.
And as far as pipes go, today's update brings a great selection that are indeed just waiting to be warmed up by the gentle smoldering of a good blend. This Monday we have on offer fresh works by the Italian artisan Gabriele, English classics and collector pieces from Dunhill, affordable hand-shaped Danish briars from Johs, and batches of trusty smokers from Tsuge, Peterson, Savinelli, Luciano, and Stanwell - as well of course plenty of estate pipes, too. Joining all of those you'll also find new lighters from IM Corona, pipe tampers by Brigham, and cigars from both Rocky Patel and Romeo y Julietta.
The fourth-annual West Coast pipe show, an event my wife and I look forward to every year, was held in sunny Las Vegas this past weekend. With most other pipe shows, the carvers that attend are usually flying solo, but quite a few wives, of carvers and collectors alike, appear at this one. Perhaps it has something to do with a venue that is not only exciting in and of itself, but that also features a free shuttle to a massive shopping mall on the strip (which just happens to be flanked by about a million-and-a-half other attractive lights, sculptures, shops, and restaurants) that makes our better halves willing to accompany us without even the slightest bit of coaxing.
Pipe guys like to browse a wonderful selection of tobacciana, as well as hang out with each other over coffee in the mornings and pints slightly later (everyone seems to take the time change into consideration when at pipe shows). I was lucky to get five full days in Vegas this year with my lovely wife; arriving early in the morning on Thursday and leaving very late Monday night. Pipe shows are great times to meet up with friends we might only see one time a year; twice, if we are lucky. Ted and John held down the Smokingpipes tables where quite a few face-to-face introductions were made with many of you. It's always great for us to meet with customers as well as other artisans, and quite a few pipes from many artisans will eventually make it to our site, as well as a staggering variety of lovely estate pipes we acquired, once they get cleaned and refurbished.
When it all began, some people were wondering just how well a pipe show would do in glitzy Las Vegas. Everyone attended the first year on a gamble [pun!], but after the show ended that Sunday and everyone was saying their goodbyes, many people I was speaking with were already planning on what they would do at next year's. As it turns out, my wife and I finally made it to the Grand Canyon this time, as well as seeing (per my wife's request) a David Copperfield show. John, Ted, and I all sampled some wonderful rare tobaccos, as well as a few blends that were just released (stay tuned!). Quite possibly the most fun show around, Las Vegas is definitely something to put on your radar for next year. Until then, check our updates on Mondays and Thursdays to see some new wares freshly-offered, and choose a tin or two to bundle up with as the winter's cooler weather begins creeping in.
Now, for today's update we have great handmade pipes from Michael Lindner, Ardor, and Ser Jacopo, in addition to briars by Savinelli and Neerup, plus meerschaums from IMP. This update is also happens to be packed with Peterson's, each just begging to be purchased with a free tin of Peterson tobacco, our promotion this month. There's also lots of estates to be had, as well, a full seventy-count in all.
It’s been a hectic time here at Smokingpipes over the past several weeks. Along the usual preparations and traveling involved in the run-up to the Vegas show, there have also been numerous special projects, regarding which most of us here have a hand in more than one at a time. Two things that have helped greatly keep us sane have been steady supplies of both quality tobaccos, and good, strong coffee. As it so happens, this Monday’s update brings us two new smoking blends, one each from Brebbia, and the renowned GL Pease. And of course, we’re fortunate enough to have plenty of our own branded blends of coffee at hand as well – the “Brazil Moreninha Formosa” and “Kenya AA”. Believe me, they are indispensable. If you’ve ever wondered what it is that allows us to keep up with the torrential workflow necessary to produce our big, bi-weekly updates of pipes, cigars, tobaccos, and accessories, you can get a taste of it yourself easily enough, just by checking under our “Gifts” section, where both blends are offered to all and sundry.
But for now, let’s get down to the main course. Today we bring you fine pieces by Rad Davis, Luigi Radice and sons, Castello, and Rinaldo, plus great selections from Tsuge, Peterson, and Vauen, and an outright huge pile of fresh Savinellis. Joining them are estate briars from the Irish and Danish, two new tinned tobaccos, and finally the introduction of the excellent, much-awaited “Mi Amor Reserva” by La Aroma de Cuba.
I'm excited. Why? Ted Swearingen and I are leaving tomorrow, flying out to Las Vegas for the Fourth Annual West Coast Pipe Show! I've never before been to Vegas, and spending my first trip there with a horde of pipe guys (and occasionally gals) seems like a pretty good initiation.
Will any of you fine folks be there? If you find yourself in attendance, please do stop by and say "Hello". I love meeting customers at these events; in fact, it may just be my favorite thing about pipe shows. This job is pretty great, but actually chatting face-to-face with folks who are on the other side of our internet connection always gives me a renewed sense of purpose.
But that's this weekend; let us now focus our attention on today. November has begun, and with it we bring you a new promotion: Buy a Peterson pipe, get a free tin of Peterson tobacco! We run this promo around this time each year, and it always goes over like gangbusters. It's a good chance to try out Peterson's 2012 holiday blend or the new Hyde Parke, both released earlier this week, as you might recall, and both of which have proven to be mighty popular in short order.
And of course, we've got pipes - just shy of two hundred-and-fifty go up on SmokingPipes today in total, including some beautiful new pieces from Peter Heding, Benni Jorgensen, and Maigurs Knets (one of which has to be seen to be believed). There is also a full six-dozen Savinellis here, including series new to our site, such as the Long John. Enjoy, and hope to see some of you this weekend.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
It's officially holiday season! Christmas blends and Christmas pipes are rolling in, and the soundtrack from A Charlie Brown Christmas is now on perpetual repeat in my noggin. Going up on the site today, in fact, we have new 2012 Christmas pipes fitting neatly alongside Peterson's just-released Holiday Season Tobacco 2012 - this year a mix of Virginias of differing shades and cuts along with no less than three kinds of black cavendish. I confess that I'll be picking up a tin of this today myself.
If you might find an English-style tobacco blend more enticing, with this update we're also releasing the much anticipated Hyde Park, again from Peterson. This one's again a blend of Virginias, but also Burleys and Indian tobacco flavored with rum and maple sugars, and a just a hint of latakia. Given that Movemeber (the official Mustache Awareness Month) is merely days away as well, this here would be a good pick for a 'Stache-Note evaluation.
Continuing today's Peterson theme, we have a new Peterson Old Boy-style pipe lighter in a formal dress-black body and chrome fixtures. Quite stunning, and suitable for any black tie holiday parties to which you may find yourself in attendance this year, or even just for relaxing in your easiest chair.
Last, but certainly not least, we're nearing the end of our hugely successful Dunhill sale, so if you've been procrastinating, you've exactly sixty hours as of this publication to take advantage of discounted Dunhill pipes, twenty percent off Dunhill bulk blends, and twenty percent off Dunhill tinned tobacco and cigars when you buy five of the same product.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
Since we are in the pipe business, I thought I would dabble on the topic of pipe finishes and the decisions that an artisan makes during the various processes. As one of the go-to pipe guys here at Smokingpipes, and having handled tens-of-thousands of pipes (new and estate), plus making my own pieces, a lot of people ask me about particular finishes, mainly smooth or blasted. How does a pipe maker begin a pipe? How does he choose the block to be a smooth? While there are many different aspects to these choices, they differ from the vast majority of factory pipes which often hold a template next to a block to see if it will fit, put in in a machine of sorts, and turn the piece. If it's a smooth - great! Blast? Also cool! Pipe artisans that I talk with often take the same approach, with varying degrees of superstition, and copious amounts of luck when it comes to grain.
Firstly; most artisans I know first think of a shape they want to make before sorting through dozens of blocks to find a particular size or grain orientation. By sanding the block's sides or wetting it with water, we can see what the grain looks like on the outside and how it might appear to shift on the front. After this, most of us draw an idea on the block and either use a band saw to rough out the profile, or simply start chewing it away on a coarse sanding disk at high speeds. Most times, we will slightly dampen the block during the shaping process to see what the grain is doing, and shift or change the shape to complement it (this is only done with the "shape first, drill second" technique, mind you). When we start to see something really nice happening, it might be time to drill the mortise, airway, and tobacco chamber before tweaking the shape around these features. Everyone I know who makes pipes is optimistic - at least while they are making pipes. Getting hopes up for a killer smooth is risky, so hoping for a nice blast is safe. Even so, there are a number of times when we think to ourselves "Oh, Momma....please don't let there be any pits!". Because every piece of briar has pits somewhere, we are really happy when we've avoided them. Sometimes a small sandpit will show itself during final sanding. Will more sanding make it go away? Who knows? Decision time (again). If the shape is perfect, the pipe might just be blasted (after all, shape always wins over grain). If there are no flaws, would this pipe look better as a smooth or a blast? Sometimes growth rings arm-wrestle with the grain and a decision must be made which one to choose. It's been said before - and quite true - that finish is often a choice. Blasted pipes don't necessarily have flaws, but are sometimes simply the finish which looks best for a particular shape or grain pattern. We've all had shapes with no pits, but the grain just wasn't good enough to justify the price of a smooth. Contrast-stained pipes (smooth or blast) are also more time-consuming, but show off the grain really well by making the briar look more vibrant.
Seeing the end product, some of us probably wonder what choices were made during the process of making the pipe. In the end, every pipe is different and lovely in its own way. What is your preferred finish? Given the update tonight, you will hopefully find something that catches your eye. New pipes from Ardor, Tsuge, Askwith, Adam Davidson (that's me), Il Duca and Peter Heeschen all came from the hands of artisans. When you receive the pipe, take a moment to think about how it was made. When you are really excited about the grain and finish, you can understand how happy the maker was seeing it blossom - and knowing that someone else will enjoy it, too!
Rather than spending Saturday in front of the television watching college football, or behind a book (of which there are many I'm in the process of reading), I spent it here at Smokingpipes.com. I can hardly complain; who wouldn't want to allocate a half weekend around gorgeous briar and in the company of pipe people? However, because of my altered routine, I unfortunatly left behind in my office the pipes I've been smoking regularly as well as a few tins of tobacco I've been enjoying over the last few weeks. And unfortunately I didn't realize this until very late Saturday night.
Here's the quandary; there I was, staring down a trunk full of aging tobacco, a bookshelf and desk cluttered with a dozen or so opened and half-smoked tins of tobacco, and a pipe rack or two (or three) teaming with rested briar begging to be filled and lit. But I didn't want any of it. I craved for the pipes and tins I'd left at work. After all, that's what I've been smoking.
The beauty of this first-world predicament is that it forced me out of what's started to become, unbeknownst to me, a chronic norm; that is straight Virginia in a straight (or quarter bent), classically shaped pipe. Yet, after a little creative thinking, a bit of squirming, and a mild fit, by the end of the night, and after a proper measure of whiskey, I found myself surprised and delighted behind an old friend of a wildly shaped Ardor filled with a rather exotic Oriental blend I'd been meaning to taste-test. It was quite good. And the experience was quite enjoyable as well. Now I'm out of a rut that I didn't even know I was in. I suppose I should work the odd Saturday more often.
Should you, upon examination, also find your routine stagnant, tonight we've got the solution. In addition to another three-dozen estate pipes, you'll find new works from Kent Rasmussen, Paolo Becker, Radice, Castello, Savinelli, Dunhill, Butz-Choquin, Peterson, Tsuge, and Vauen to add more spark to your rotation. Also for you cigar guys, be sure to check out Aging Room cigars; the M356 Presto is particularly outstanding.
Tom Eltang. Ahem. TOM ELTANG. Now that I've got your undivided attention, I'll let you in on a little secret. We’ve got new pipes by Tom Eltang.
Yes, after a trip to Denmark, and a twenty mile hike uphill (both ways!) in the snow to Tom's workshop, we're incredibly pleased to be able to offer fresh work from the immensely popular and uncommonly distinguished Danish carver. And let me tell you, once you get a look at the pipes, you’re sure to agree that any kind of wait will have been worth it. Now, I know we ordinarily reserve this sacred space for grandiloquent tautologies that serve to amuse the pipe brethren (and how!), but this is important stuff that needs announcing, am I right?
And lest I forget to mention it, there's only a few weeks left in the month, which means you've only got so much time left to take advantage of our stellar Dunhill promotion. Looking at a new Dunhill pipe? They're all discounted twenty-percent. Dunhill bulk tobacco is also twenty-percent off until the end of October. If you’re itching to stock up on tinned tobacco, we'll knock twenty-percent off of the purchase of five of the same blend. The same goes for Dunhill cigars. Holy smokes, you say? You’re darn tootin'.
All that in addition to the one-hundred and ninety-nine pipes we're adding to the Smokingpipes.com website this afternoon. As mentioned, there are new pipes from Tom Eltang, but you'll also find new work from carvers like Gabriele dal Fiume, Randy Wiley, and Claudio Cavicchi, alongside pipes from L'Anatra, Savinelli, Winslow, Nording, Stanwell, Peterson, and last, but certainly not least, Dunhill.
I've been thinking a lot recently about how little the pipe has changed over the course of time. Sure, the shapes coming from artisan pipemakers these days are pretty mind-blowing, and of course, there are innovations like Peterson's iconic System Pipes, pipes with filters, pipes with stingers, but the core technology remains the same; there's a chamber for tobacco and a shaft through which to pull smoke.
This may sound like a bad thing when placed within the context of our internet enabled society, where perpetual progressive technological upgrades are by now culturally ingrained (not that this is a bad thing either, seeing as you can check our bi-weekly updates on your smart phone while at work, which some of you are probably doing right now), but this is part the pipe's appeal, I think. That pipe your grandfather smoked is in essence the same as the pipe you might pick up new today, lending a certain "design memory" that spans and connects generations. What else is there in our lives today about which we can say the same?
I've always found it interesting that sharks, so they say, essentially stopped evolving millions of years ago when a point was reached where major improvements were no longer necessary; as a predatory machine of the ocean its basic design has long been perfected. You have specialized outliers like the hammerhead, or species that scour through sand for food, but most have varied largely in trade-offs between size, speed, and power to fill their environmental niche. Maybe the same can be said of the tobacco pipe.
Speaking of, we have a bevy of pipes going up on the site today from Lasse Skovgaard, Michal Novak, Tsuge, Ashton, Luciano, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, and Peterson, along with estates from Denmark, England, and Italy. Alongside these perfectly formed specimens we're today featuring the Blitz Clean System pipe-cleaning solution, the Pipa corncob pipe and tobacco combo, and the introduction of the new Swag Domincan puro cigars.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
This past weekend was the 28th annual CORPS pipe show in historic Richmond, Virginia. Unlike previous shows, the event was held in the very spacious Greater Richmond Convention Center instead of a centralized hotel, but this was necessary due to the anti-tobacco laws creeping through the country in recent years. Because the club has a rich history of pipe shows, finding a venue that would allow everyone to puff while they browsed, bought, and caught up with each other was a priority. Despite the location and the conflict some people have in regards to the West Coast pipe show being held in Las Vegas November 3-4, the show was still a success overall. It was great to see so many familiar faces, customers, collectors, retailers, and artisans alike, making rounds at the show. Pipe shows are always a lot of fun for anyone interested in pipes and tobaccos, and we want to thank the folks for keeping this tradition alive and thriving.
My wife and I were limited in time during the weekend, so we decided to begin the six-hour drive before even the earliest birds were contemplating catching the worm. Whenever the two of us go to pipe shows, we like to mix business with pleasure and adventure, taking in various meals, sights, and different areas of the country. It was previously determined that we would only attend the show on Saturday (though I hear Sunday was even better than Saturday), and used our downtime to venture an hour east to visit historic Colonial Williamsburg, VA. Those of you who have read some of my newsletters and blogs in the past know that the history of the 18th century is something I thoroughly enjoy, so what better chance to see this historic area again then after a pipe show?
We arrived on Saturday evening at the hotel and decided to explore some new places to shop and dine. A bottle of wine and two delicious entrees later, we were not only enjoying a brief vacation, but were pleasantly surprised that cooler, proper autumn weather had decided to roll in. Ignoring the spitting rain the next morning, we enjoyed a day full of sightseeing. The museum, shops, and buildings showcasing various blacksmiths, shoemakers, tailors, and others seemed perfect for a cool and overcast day. As usual, I'm always happy to see pipes, and did see tavern pipes and small clays in the museum as well as various shops. There were even a few folks dressed up as soldiers puffing around a campfire. Possibly due to all of the campfire smoke and historical atmosphere (not to mention a lot of horse "leavings" on the streets), I never heard anyone complaining about the smoking. While strolling with my clay, fragrant Virginia leaf keeping my soul as warm as the pipe in my hand, I only got a funny look from one family. It was a mother, father, and young daughter. The little girl pointed at me and wondered what I was doing. Deciding to make the best of the moment and area, I kindly told her I was simply a reenactor who hadn't purchased any historical clothing yet. Her parents smiled and my wife and I continued our afternoon stroll.
So, in keeping with the pipe smoking tradition that has taken root in this country since the first tobacco plants were dried and lit by natives, as well as the later trade with European countries, we bring you fresh briars from Brad Pohlmann, Askwith, Ser Jacopo, Kevin Arthur, and quite a few other brands. We hope you can always find the time to relax with a pipe in your chosen surroundings.
Today is Columbus Day, named in honor of the Italian fellow who sailed Westward towards a seemingly endless, empty, and rolling horizon in search of shorter and less dangerous route to the lucrative trade to be had in the Far East. Those who know their history, know it had nothing to do with "proving the earth was round" – that was already considered the model amongst the educated of his time, and mathematical calculations regarding the circumference of the globe had been floating around since the heyday of the ancient Greeks. Indeed, much of the dismissal Christopher Columbus’s proposed venture received went along the lines of "You're going the long way around, you ninny!" Which, as it turned out, he was.
More importantly, there was a considerable obstacle waiting to block his path, in the form of two rather large continents, which, as it just happened, would prove to stretch nearly from pole to pole. Sadly, not having attained the goal he set out with, the old explorer went to his grave believing all his efforts to be a complete wash. (Things didn't go too stunningly for the natives, either - tens of thousands of years of relative cultural and biological isolation from the European, African, and Asian continents may have spared them from Alexander the Great, the Black Death, the Huns and Mongols, and so forth, but it had its consequences as well.) One silver lining, however, was that he just happened to run smack into Cuba along his way, where some of his men discovered the native Tainos engaged in an extremely curious pastime: Rolling a strange leaf, of curious properties, in wrappers of palm or plantain, lighting one end on fire, and then puffing away at the resultant smoke. As absurd as this practice may no doubt have seemed to their eyes, some of them gave it a try (they were sailors, after all), only to discover... that it was fantastic.
And sure enough, within less than a century the practice had caught on like wildfire, while just as surely, various self-styled potentates were scolding happy smokers for engaging in the practice – all for their own good, of course. And so here we are, some several centuries later, still enjoying ourselves as we please. Those potentates themselves are long gone, and so too the power of their dynasties, but today we happily have at hand a vast cornucopia, an ever more refined and improved variety of artisan blends and cigars, which to those first curious sailors would have seemed even more unimaginable than the original practice of those anonymous natives once was.
So it is that today, in honor of this long tradition of enduring contrariness, we're happy to bring you yet another fresh update. This Monday you'll find for your edification a fine, globe-spanning selection of briars including artisanal pieces by J&J, as well as the offerings of Tsuge, Dunhill, Rinaldo, Radice, Peterson, Savinelli, Vauen, Sebastien Beo, and Butz-Choquin. Joining them of course are plenty of estate pipes, as well as some new additions to our accessories department – and finally, and rather fittingly, several excellent sampler packs by Ghurka, Punch, and CAO.
It's probably easy to postulate that, as personnel of Smokingpipes.com, we're simply the architects, adjudicators, and arbiters of the website and its peripheral provinces. And you’d be kind of right, because that's kind of the truth.
But it's not the whole truth. We're also a bunch of pipe smokers. And as pipe smokers, it's important to us that Smokingpipes.com makes sense from a pipeman's (or pipewoman's) point of view, and that it proves equal parts useful, lucid, and enjoyable. That's one of the big reasons we're usually tinkering around with the site. Whether it be dabbling in a way that directly affects your shopping experience or just tweaking a tiny piece of code on the administrative side of the site, it's always our aim to make Smokingpipes.com the best place on the web to find quality pipes at super prices, as well as a destination to discover some of the most breathtaking briar works from some of the most important and influential pipe makers of our time. It's a tall order and a balancing act, and probably a mixed bag of other well-worn clichés, but we're pipe smokers, and futzing over the finer points is what we do best, even if it’s much ado over the perfect way to show off new pretty pipes.
With that said, today we're launching a gallery feature that has been in development for quite some time. In fact, when we last invited you to take part in a customer survey, the idea that we might also present videos of particularly exceptional pipes was among one of the most suggested proposals. So that's what we've decided to do. Steadily we'll be adding to our online catalog notably special pipes that feature a brief "white glove" video, and in this way you might explore more closely every nook and cranny of a special piece before committing to purchase it, or even just savor a particularly beautiful design while familiarizing yourself with the artisan's work. As pipe smokers, as accumulators of pipes, and as guys who like to gaze longingly at pipes on the internet, we think this is an important addition to the services we offer.
Also important is the service that is our bi-weekly update. And so as Joe Hollywood says, let's cut to the chase. This afternoon is a doozy, with fresh work from Alex Florov, Bruce Weaver, Randy Wiley, and Claudio Cavicchi, in addition to new pipes from Ashton, Nording, Stanwell, L'Anatra, Savinelli, and Peterson. Oh, and of course we're adding another six dozen estates to the mix.
Four big pieces of news from the world of Dunhill trump all else in this particular newsletter, so I'll spare you any clever anecdotes of the life of a pipe smoker today, except to simply say that today is a particularly good day to be a pipe smoker. Or, more specifically, a pipe smoker who is fond of Dunhill pipe tobacco.
First of all, we just received our shipment of Dunhill 965 and Early Morning pipe in bulk. That's right, these two blends have finally returned to us in bulk quantities, representing about a 25-30% savings versus their tinned counterparts, if you're buying by the pound. It's an even better deal by the 5lb bag, if you're so inclined. We last had Dunhill blends in bulk back in 2008. Back then, the Dunhill bulks were among the absolute bestsellers at Smokingpipes.com. Moreover, we're able to offer a lower than normal introductory price on our first shipment of Dunhill bulk. We've got a good bit that just arrived, but the promotional price only lasts as long as the first shipment lasts, so don't hesitate on this one. If you're a fan of Dunhill and you like buying bulk tobacco as opposed to tins, as I said, this is a good day to be pipe smoker.
Secondly, for the month of October, the "Dunhill buy 4 tins, get 1 free deal is back"! We've structured it slightly differently this time in the hopes of it making more sense when you're on the site, so it's structured as a 20% discount on five or more tins. Better yet, this means we can offer bigger discounts for even larger quantities: 22.5% off for 10+ and a whopping 25% off for 25+ tins. That makes a 50g tin Dunhill 965 just $6.65. Now is the time to cellar up on your Dunhill goodness. The promotion ends October 31st. Or when we run out and the US importer runs out of Dunhill tinned tobacco. Whichever comes first. I'm guessing the end of October, given the pallets sitting in the warehouse and assurances from the importer, but you just never know...
Thirdly, all box quantities (ten cigars per box) of Dunhill cigars are 20% off for the duration of October instead of the regular 10% off price. If you've been thinking about trying the Dunhill Aged range of cigars, now is the time...
Finally, all new Dunhill pipes are, for the month of October, 20% off of Retail.
October is Dunhill month at Smokingpipes.com this year. Enjoy!
And, of course, you'll still find a vast array of other beautiful briars for you to peruse, ranging from Chacom, Peterson and Savinelli to Peter Heeschen, Tsuge and, you guessed it, Dunhill. Great batches of estate pipes also await your attention, too.
Right on cue, Fall is beginning to settle into the Grand Strand area. I know this not just because football is beginning to interrupt my TV schedule, but because the daytime temperature has been consistently maxing out in the lower 80s. Still a little hot, sure, but not the ridiculous sub-tropical jungle sweat-festival that is our Southern Summer.
What I love most about this time of year is what I call these first "long sleeve nights," where the weather is just cool enough to throw on a well-worn flannel shirt and do some righteous porch-sitting, a glowing pipe gently warming my smoking-hand. Or maybe some camping is in order. Just imagine sitting around a toasty fire in one those foldable nylon chairs with a few favorite folks, and your own personal little pocket-o-fire hanging from your jaw. Maybe there's a bag of large, puffy, white marshmallows somewhere in the mix, too. Mmm... Campfire marshmallows, wood-smoke, crunching leaves...
Whoah! Daydreaming at work again. Allow me to return to the task at hand: delivering to you fine folks news of fresh pipes going up on the site today. From Tsuge we've some beautiful pieces from the high-end Ikebana line. We also have a fine selection of Michal Novak's pipes, featuring his signature free-form style of carving, some great smokers from Kevin Arthur, Ardor, Mastro de Paja, Brebbia, Neerup, and of course, the old standbys Savinelli and Peterson. Last but far from least, there's a great selection of estates, professionally refurbished for your smoking pleasure. Might there be a fancy new Fall pipe for you somewhere in there? We certainly hope so!
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
Fate would seem to conspire against us all, sooner or later. And some more frequently sooner, rather than later. Earlier this month, I had to improvise an update intro on short-notice when Sykes suddenly found himself both sick and thoroughly writer’s blocked. Now, this morning, the very first thing I did after arriving at our office was watch my computer very, very slowly eat itself alive. Adam suggested I should find Dennis, our one-man IT department, and I in turn suggested it would be far simpler to just chuck the poor dear out the window and into traffic.
Sadly, all the windows in our office are designed to withstand hurricane-force winds, and as such do not actually open. And as amazingly resilient as our windows may be, I nonetheless doubt Sykes would be entirely pleased to find his employees developing a habit of bouncing intransigent office hardware off of them.
As you may have noticed by now, today I'm taking a sure-fire and time-tested approach to overcoming writer’s block in the face of adversity: Complaining. We human beings have such an amazing knack for formulating complaints, no matter the situation, that I can only assume that our evolutionary ancestors developed this ability for a very important reason, and that today is as good a day as any to give my own a bit of exercise, lest it shriveled down to a mere vestigial shadow of its former glory. Another great thing our ancestors developed for situations like these: Pipes, and the smoking thereof. Pure, relaxing bliss, in the palm of your hand. Which is why I'm smoking mine right now – and I must say it certainly seems to be working. Even as I now listen to the printer over on Cyndy's desk wheezing and creaking out what sound like its last valiant efforts at making labels, I could hardly feel more carefree and limber.
And now, for your own edification and relaxation, let us get on with the update. Today for you we have loads of fresh briar, starting out with the artisanal pieces of Paolo Becker, Radice, Castello, and Rinaldo, backed up by great selections from Butz-Choquin, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen – and then there are of course the estates, a full thirty-six in all. Rounding things off, we have a new offering from Lampe Berger, and, finally, two more Low Country Sampler Packs for you cigar aficionados.
I've been in and out of the office a lot recently on account of some very special people visiting my wife and me: her parents, all the way from Russia. The last time we saw them was back in 2010, when we traveled to and through Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Izhevsk over the course of three weeks. We've wanted to be great hosts now that it's our turn and thus have gone to great lengths to pack as much in to their visit as possible. We rented a cabin at the Myrtle Beach state park for a week in a secluded section on the edge of the forest, where they could easily walk but a few hundred yards to the ocean. On Monday, we traveled to Charleston and stayed two nights in a home that was built 1783, were we spent both evenings sipping red wine in front of the fireplace. Right across the street from the old house is the Hewyard-Washington home, where revolutionaries once met in secrecy, and where George Washington himself would later visit after our independence was won. Before checking in to our place, we walked through the Charleston museum, which is the oldest in the country (founded 1773). On Tuesday, we took a boat to visit Fort Sumter, where the first action of the American Civil War occurred. And yesterday, aside from dining on several of Charleston's signature dishes (like raw oysters and she-crab soup), my father-in-law and I visited the Confederate Museum. We crammed a lot of regional history and local cuisine into a few days in that beautiful historic city, and had great discussions of mixed Russian and English, with my wife kindly acting as our translator.
During all of the museum tours, my in-laws frequently pointed out something all of us would recognize: pipes! We saw a lot of clay tavern pipes, and found an especially nice meerschaum Billiard with an amber stem that had belonged to a Confederate soldier. Because the museum didn't allow photography, I can't share with you this heavily-used artifact that was once a constant companion to the soldier who'd later donated it to the museum. This soldier's pipe was the one that seemed to sink in the most, for me, because it belonged to a man fighting in a cataclysmic war, with or without willingness; something he must have reached for daily during very trying times. Also in the collection were smaller clay pipes and a considerably lengthy rope of twisted tobacco that some bugs had attempted to gnaw on. There was even a solid silver pipe with a horn stem, which had belonged to a postmaster! The other pipes from the Heyward-Washington house didn't seem to be as heavily-used as others, but this might have been because the family who had owned them were able to enjoy new pipes more regularly. They too were puffed on during a time of nervousness, secrecy, and revolution. When I look at these pipes, I can't help but to think of what kind of discussions were being held while their owners were smoking them in a lamp-lit room or around a crackling campfire.
We all know that filling our pipes with cherished tobaccos and puffing away leads to relaxation, though. I believe that every pipe has a story to tell. We have seventy-two estates this evening that each have hidden stories of their own, no doubt, as well as many newly-minted offerings from individual makers and brands that are waiting to open a new chapter. When you examine a pipe from an artist or craftsman, you’re seeing something that they created, and I'm a believer that every artifact has a little bit of its creator that never goes away. Please feel free to take a gander at what we have to share tonight and you might just find a pipe that is quietly calling your name.
I've long been a fan of getting my hands on just about any kind of pipe tobacco that I could get my hands on. Sure, I'm discerning as any pipe smoker when it comes to favorites, but I prefer to try something before I form an opinion on it. And I'm a big fan of tobacco in general, as our regular readers already know. Premium pipe tobacco and not so premium pipe tobacco, wet stuff, dry stuff, flavored, cased, sauced, whether it be ribbon, flake, rough cut, cube cut, or shag, I'm likely to smoke it once or twice or thrice. And a result of this is that over the years I've smoked more blends and mixtures than I can properly recall (and no, I never kept a tobacco journal and am not about to start one now). Sometimes a friend or colleague will ask me if I've tried a particular label and I honestly for the life of me can't remember if I have.
But I'll tell you what I do remember smoking. I remember smoking my first bowl of pipe tobacco. It was from a pouch of Captain Black Royal that I picked up from a drug store many years ago. I remember that it tasted heavenly (or at least it smelled that way) ...and that I fried my tongue and that it seemed to extinguish itself frustratingly often. That is to say, I was doing everything wrong, and as is often the case with frustrated neophytes, blaming it on every factor other than my own flailing inexperience and unrefined technique. I don't think this is a unique experience for anyone's first bowl, with any first blend, by any stretch of the imagination, nor do I think I'm alone in starting with Captain Black. But once we've finally attained some proper experience, it's always good to go back and give our "firsts" another try now that we're capable of gauging their true potential.
Much of this comes to mind this afternoon as I consider our update and some of the new products we've available. As you might have guessed already, they include something new to offer from Captain Black. Here by popular demand, we're happy to introduce Captain Black Regular in a big 12 ounce can. And speaking of pipe tobacco blends so ubiquitous that they can be found at most drug stores, we're also adding Sir Walter Raleigh Aromatic to the mix in a 1.5 ounce pouch. We've also got a handful of new blends in bulk available from Altadis found in this update, alongside new cigars from Brick House and CAO. And of course, I'll likely end up trying them all.
And Pipes? Of course there are pipes. Three lovely new works from Peter Matzhold, in addition to fresh pipes by Tsuge, Dunhill, Luciano, Savinelli, Peterson, Brigham, Johs, Chacom, and PS Studio. And we’ve got three dozen recently restored estate pipes worth perusing as well.
I can't point to any hard numbers, but I think it's safe to say that among pipe smokers the ratio of facial-haired men as compared to the clean-shaven is probably much higher than among the public in general, and I can count myself among you lot with an unabashedly hirsute kisser.
I have recently noticed that anytime I smoke pipe tobacco with a pleasant scent (and not just "aromatic" tobacco, mind you), and for a while after, I compulsively curl my furry upper-lip up to my nose and take a wiff. I'm actually doing this right now smoking a sweet Japanese-market tobacco, its maple-syrup-y undertones readily absorbed by my 'stache.
And so, I have invented a term for this which I would like to officially introduce into the lexicon of pipe tobacco evaluation, fitting neatly alongside the well established scent descriptors tin-note and room-note: mustache-note. Of course, evaluating mustache-note makes one look ridiculous (in fact, I'm trying to commission someone to covertly photograph me in the act for your amusement), but not any more than, say, a wine enthusiast gurgling a mouthful of Riesling, or a "cupper"s hundred-decibel slurping of a fine espresso, and ultimately offers just one more innocently eccentric way to enjoy the smoking experience.
Assessing mustache-note requires no investment in new hardware, of course (in fact, you can go ahead and throw out your razors - a rather liberating experience), but should you feel the need to make a fresh acquisition to mark the beginning of your new life, we've around 200 pipes we're adding to the site today, including the reintroduction of Mastro de Paja. Today's update also features exquisite briars from the likes of Michael Lindner, J&J, Kevin Arthur, Ardor, Ser Jacopo, Brebbia, Neerup, Savinelli, and Peterson, along with meerschaums from IMP and a full six-dozen estate pipes.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
Good news! Due to sudden and unforeseen illness, and thus a sudden and unforeseen change in who's responsible for writing today's newsletter, you, our loyal customers, will be spared most of our usual rambling, pontificating, and narrating. In short, we'll for once make it short, and get on promptly with what you're all really waiting for: Fresh pipes and fresh tobacco offerings. See? Already I've managed keep what less-entertaining purveyors of tobacciana might have communicated in a single, drab, nondescript sentence down to a mere paragraph of impish indirectness. What can I say, but that our deadline is fast approaching here and that the last thing we want is to keep you waiting while I try to confabulate something even more unnecessarily verbose.
So here it is: For this Monday we have for you fresh beauties by esteemed artisans Kent Rasmussen and Gregor Lobnik, as well as a bevy of Radices and Castellos, plus plenty of fresh, quality briars by Sebastien Beo, Butz-Choquin, Savinelli, Peterson, Vauen, and Tsuge, not too mention we've added Missouri Meerschaum to our stable. Joining these you will find, as usual, a fine selection of English and Italian estate pipes, plus new sticks from both Punch and Padron. Our advice: Load up, smoke up, and enjoy.
Often when a friend or family member wants or gets a new car, we tend to see them everywhere. Case in point; I've wanted a Chevy HHR ever since I saw one in a magazine ad back in 2005. To my eye, they looked pretty cool, had a lot of room, and had a front that reminded me of classic trucks from the 1940s. I finally got a "victory red" one last year. When I talked to my friends and family about it, they started to notice them all over the roads. My mother even started pointing them out when she was with friends. The same is true for pipes. When I started making pipes in 2006, my family started to notice pipe smokers in a different way; pleasant. "My son makes pipes" is something my mother proudly tells people; even those at her church. To say I have renown with church-going women in their fifties and sixties is pretty cool. Then again, most of their husbands and fathers smoked pipes.
Our newest employee, Christopher Huff, has been writing about some pipes, as well as entering them in our database. Naturally, due to learning more about the brands, shapes, and finishes, he started noticing them more and more outside of work. Only yesterday he turned to me with a story about seeing a pipe in a movie and thinking he knew what it was. "It looked like a Peterson, I think. Kind of an Oom Paul shape". He was referring to a scene from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966). Lee Van Cleef also smokes a pipe in "For a Few Dollars More", as Eric has noted, complete with orange acrylic stem (which Chris realized was inappropriate for the time period), and gives off his famous, one-of-a-kind beady-eyed stare. Other movies and old television shows are full of pipes once we start to pick them out. Heck, in a Seinfeld episode I watched recently (the one where Kramer's life stories are purchased by J. Peterman), Kramer is sitting in his office smoking a pipe that looks a lot like an old Comoy's Billiard - complete with C-inlay on the left side of the stem.
When we become informed, interested, and especially passionate about something, the world around us seems to make them pop up like dandelions. Given that, tonight we have quite a spread of pipes for you to sate that interest of yours. Rad Davis, Tonni Nielsen, and Simeon Turner all have offerings. Ashton, L'Anatra, Randy Wiley, Winslow, Nording, Peterson, Stanwell, and Savinelli have pipes as well. (My guess is that Lee Von Cleef was smoking a Savinelli, considering the shape and stem color - and fact the movie was made in Italy). And, if you want to find something more unusual, one never knows what will pop up in the estate sections!
When I travel I like to play a game. It goes something like this: every time I stop in a gas station or convenience store or something of the like, I determine which (if any) pipe tobacco blends are retailed. It's a straightforward game that I play by myself, and I do so simply for my own amusement. Needless to say, I'm largely disappointed with what I find.
Now, there's no way to design a winner from this sport, but if there were, based on what I've seen thus far, I'd declare the entire country of Denmark as indisputable heavyweight champion supreme. At every gas station, quick stop, mini-mart, commerce center, and shopping plaza, there is to be found, at the very least, a 50 gram pouch of Mac Baren's Mixture. That's right, you guys; quality, first and foremost. In most cases one will also find Mac Baren's Dark Twist, Virginia No. 1, 7 Seas Regular and Royal, and Original Choice. There's all this in addition to a handful of other pouch blends not available or recognizable to the U.S. This was my first trip to Denmark, and the availability of such top-notch pipe tobacco was a pleasure to witness.
Still, it's hard to beat our selection, even if I do say so myself. This is especially true as we continue to add to our catalog of options. For instance, from Dan Tobacco we're pleased to offer the newly available Bill Bailey's Birthday Blend, The Mellow Mallard, Holmer Knudsen's, and Buddies. Also what's fresh and exciting this afternoon is Dunhill Aged cigars in four distinguished sizes: Altamiras, Cabreras, Romanas, Peravias.
Speaking of cigars, we've got an outstanding promotion to roll out today that's sure to cause our cigar guys to swoon. We've picked out Punch, one of our favorite cigar brands, and have decided that from now until end of the month we'll offer 20% off of the purchase of five cigars (which are already discounted, by the way) and 30% off of a box.
And of course we've got pipes; two new beauties from Peter Heding and plenty of new pieces from Tsuge,Dunhill, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, and Peterson, as well as a new line from Chacom. And what kind of update would this be without three dozen recently restored estate pipes.
Too often we never really appreciate something until it is gone. Right now, for example, I'm missing my sense of taste, which has completely abandoned me as of about two minutes ago, when Adam gave me a small lozenge from a packet in his desk drawer. Its color was a bright candy orange, its scent fruity and sweet, and its effects akin to gargling novocain. This wasn't a practical joke, mind you; he had a perfectly good reason, which also happens to be the reason I'm writing this. I've had a sore throat for days. And that has meant no smoking.
Not a puff, not a pinch of flake, not even a single draw on the most diminutive of cigarillos. It is, suffice to say, a real drag - especially since I've long found a good dose of nicotine to be uniquely helpful when engaging in any form of writing. Don't even ask me when the last time I had a thick, bloody, char-blackened steak was. What to do? Gargle salt water and wait it out, and steal glances to my left at the zip-lock bag I've stuffed with maduros, habanos, and coffee beans, knowing they'll taste all the better in the end, for having had to do without. Ditto to my right, where my pipe rack and numerous stacks of tins are haphazardly lined in array.
And furthermore, I can make an opportunity of it to advise anyone else to enjoy abusing their good health for as long as they have it. That's what it's there for: enjoyment. Never taking it out and giving it a playful thrashing is like owning your childhood dream car and never allowing it to leave the garage under its own power. Too many years of that and what do you wind up with? A mechanical neurotic; a basketcase of desiccated gaskets that, if finally taken out for a run will, at best, stumble twenty feet in fits and starts like a senile dog, shortly before finally seizing up in great billow of smoke. Better to drive it while you still have the chance, and keep things well-lubricated and limber with use.
On that note, it's one to our update - in which we find plenty to enjoy indeed. Artisans Paolo Becker, Michal Novak, Kevin Arthur, and Massimiliano Rimensi, a.k.a. Il Duca, all bring us fresh creations in a variety of materials, IMP presents us with a dozen new meerschaums, and Brebbia, Neerup, Savinelli, and Peterson all supply us with plenty of briar. Plus, of course, there's another big batch of estates awaiting perusal: a full seventy-two in all.
Good news, everyone! Introduced with today's update is our snazzy new "gallery" style product-view format for items featuring more than one photograph. No longer will multiple shots of a pipe be hand-stitched together into one big image file; rather, you'll now be able to consider each side, each angle, individually, as if you were attending your own private art show, thumb and index finger placed contemplatively on chin.
You might notice the lack of a copyright stamp on the photographs. We're still trying to sort out the best way to handle this and yet still maintain an efficient workflow, but of course, all images are sill copyright by Smokingpipes.com. That said, we don't mind if you share them; as a matter of fact I still get a kick out of seeing our photographs posted in forums and what-not. We just ask that you give us credit or link to us.
So give the new format a test-drive. It's featured on many of the great pipes going up today-- pipes from the likes of Former, Senatorov, Tsuge, Rinaldo, Radice, Castello, Butz-Choquin, Savinelli, and Peterson, along with estate pipes from England and Italy.
This update also features beautiful new humidors from Savoy, new sticks from Alec Bradley with which to fill them, pipe cases and tobacco pouches from Dunhill and Savinelli!
Lastly, we've received more tins of Mac Barren's HH Old Dark Fired Tobacco. "Mac Baren has hit one out of the park." says Rudolph A. in a customer review, and from my own experiences with this blend, I'm inclined to agree. So, if you haven't tried this one yet, I highly recommend picking a tin or three up.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
By the time you read this, I'll be in Denmark. Having only been in the country for a few hours, I'll likely be in no condition to write cogently, so I'm writing this newsletter introduction a couple of days in advance. I make this trip annually, always around this time of year; it's something of a pipe pilgrimage, visiting the small Scandinavian country that has given the pipe world so much. This year, Ted Swearingen, Smokingpipes.com's inestimable General Manager, will be with me on his first such trip. While I did the Denmark visit solo for a few years, the last three trips were all accompanied, first by Tony Saintiague (who was then GM of Smokingpipes.com), then by Kevin Godbee, owner and editor of PipesMagazine.com, and finally by Jeff Gracik, maker of J. Alan pipes.
To say that Denmark is a special country for pipes would be rather understating it. This little country has more pipe smokers per capita than anywhere else in the world. It boasts two of the three largest pipe tobacco factories in the world. For much of the latter half of the twentieth century it was a center for pipe factories and workshops. And, of course, it was the birthplace, in the late 1940s and 1950s, of the modern high grade pipe. When Sixten Ivarsson decided that a pipe could be shaped entirely freehand on a sanding disk and, therefore, pipes could assume a myriad of forms, he utterly changed the face of pipe making the world over. Almost all artisanal pipes are today made using methods that were pioneered by Sixten or one of his students. Most of today's top pipe makers were taught by students of Sixten or by students of students of Sixten. It's no stretch to say he influenced hand-made pipes to a greater degree than any other person, ever.
Last year when I was in Denmark, I had the opportunity to video a lengthy chat I had with Lars Ivarsson about his father and about the early decades--through roughly the 1970s--of Ivarsson pipes. We finally got that wrapped up and up on the blog on Tuesday and you can find it here.
Over the next few days, Ted and I will visit with ten pipe makers and visit Mac Baren. While you're reading this, Ted and I will likely be spending time with Tom Eltang in his workshop. We'll keep you updated with blog entries along the way and, hopefully, manage to take some great video for us to get up on the site when we get home.
For now, though, I hope you enjoy tonight's update, including pipes from two famous Danes: Former and Peter Heeschen, along with a bevy of briars from pipe makers the world over. You'll also notice that we're running a summer Lampe Berger sale, offering products to mollify those around you and, hopefully, let you continue to smoke your pipes sans complaint, by clearing and scenting the air. I've found a compromise where I get to smoke my pipe indoors and my wife gets to burn scented oils has aided considerably in domestic tranquility. Apparently, while you can't put a price on domestic tranquility, you can put it on sale…
As is often the case with foodies, which I consider myself to be, new flavors and textures are things we not only seek out, but try to spread the word about to our friends. This is also true for pipe smokers, is it not? Of course it is. There are always those instances when we might find a rare tobacco and want our friends to enjoy it as well. (Then again, if the tobacco is really good and the supply is limited, we might decide to keep our comments to ourselves until a substantial amount of the tobacco newly-discovered is safely tucked away in our smoking dens.)
This past weekend I had a few new experiences, which Eric and I discussed face-to-face this morning regarding food and drink comparisons while puffing on a pipe and a cigar, respectively. As you may have picked up on by now, beef steaks, blackened on the outside and still clinging to life on the inside, make up the primary staple of Eric's diet, so I asked him if he would like to drive up to a family-owned meat market about twenty minutes into North Carolina. It's a rare site these days to find a mom-and-pop market that not only butchers their own select meats, but also smokes them in-house as well as offering high-quality cheeses and salamis, and even home-made lasagna and salads. I picked up a hard salami variety that I would otherwise have to have shipped from New York City, along with a loaf of their fresh, crusty French bread. Eric picked up one of the same salamis, some provolone cheese from Italy, as well as a pair of thick ribeyes (beautifully marbled) to see him through the weekend. For me, luring Eric into finally seeing this place was part of my informative-foodie personality. It made me happy that he not only liked the people, selection, and quality of foods there, but also that he will now go back because they are simply the best around regarding quality and fresh selection.
Also on my radar are good beers from around the world, and there happens to be a fantastic selection at a grocery near my home. There is not only a store manager there, but a specialized beer and wine manager as well. He goes out of his way to share his passion for the products his store can acquire. A friend of mine asked him to buy a smoked beer from Germany, Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen. The order was so small, we had to ask the manger to get us two from the back, as they are not even on the store shelves yet. While my friend loved it (and I did too), the flavor and aroma hit a singular olfactory memory for me; Latakia AO 1860 snuff. Fantastic beer this is! Pipe puffers who enjoy smoked beverages such as Islay whisky or Lapsang Souchong should seek it out.
We here at Smokingpipes try to get the best selection of pipes, cigars, and tobaccos and are always happy when someone comes to our site or physical store on the recommendation of a friend. Working hard to be able to introduce, share, and educate consumers about the best products available is what anyone passionate about such things would try to do. And with that, you can see a selection of fine new and estate pipes tonight, as well as Macanudo cigars. McClelland Christmas Cheer is in stock, and even though we just ran out of the highly-desirable Mac Baren HH Old Dark Fired, be sure to check back soon for more to arrive!
Ryota Shimizu, our "man in Tokyo", was back stateside this week, working in person with Sykes. Well, "back stateside" in the sense that he, as an American, was back in America. As a Californian, he was in the South for the second time in his life. Since American food (outside certain franchise chains) is hard to come by in Japan, Ted has been seeing to it that Ryota gets to enjoy all he can while the getting is good. So it came to be that last night I joined the two of them, along with Ted's wife Shelly, in partaking of great slabs of Southern barbeque ribs, followed by relaxing with pipes, cigars, Zombieland, and a bit of some very smoky whisky.
Following our little screening of comedic undead mayhem, Ted, Ryota, and I turned to the traditional male smoky-drinky ritual; i.e. swapping off-color anecdotes and discussing our various observations concerning the world. As you might expect, Ted and I had a lot of questions about Japan - Ryota's been there for years, and as an American himself, who is also fluent in Japanese, he could relate things to us from a shared perspective and background. Take, for example, the adoption of Western pop subcultures by Japanese youths. Hip-hop and rap music and fashion have a sizable following over there, large enough that specialty clothing stores catering to the scene are well-established. In order to brand themselves as having "street cred", it became common for these retailers to hire young men who could pass as the genuine American hip-hop/rap article to stand outside their storefronts and entice customers to come inside and look around. The quirk was, of course, that Americans who go to Japan for prolonged periods do so largely as teachers, engineers, photographers, and under other such forms of skilled labor. The result? Ryota , as an American, basking in the surreal experience of being approached by a young Sudanese fellow who spoke very little Japanese and possessed absolutely no understanding of English, and who proceeded to give him a sales pitch based entirely on the premise of his pretending to be an American.
After we'd all had a good chuckle, I pointed out that the emulation of "Hollywood" rebel images by young Japanese wasn't entirely new: There are classic black and white Japanese films featuring young characters who fully embraced the rock'n roll hooligan image of 1950s America. In retrospect it leaves me wondering if decades ago there were ever any, say, Galatians or Estonians who somehow found themselves in a similarly confusing predicament as the gentleman from Sudan did when he approached our Ryota. As the saying amongst writers goes, one of the difficulties with writing fiction is that it needs to be more believable than reality itself often deigns to be. And on that note, fifty or sixty years ago, who would have believed that the art of the pipe, or the artisanal blend, would have reached the level that it has today - or that the average pipe man, be he in America or Japan, Brazil or the South of France, could be presented with an instantaneous update of the freshest tobacciana offerings, all made readily available out of small office on the coast of South Carolina? But that's where we've come to - and that's just what we have for you today.
This update brings us fine new pieces from Peter Heding of Copenhagen, Michael Lindner of Michigan, and Canadian artisan Michael Parks; fresh briars by Ardor, Brebbia, and Savinelli of Italy, Peterson of Dublin, and Danish numbers by Neerup, as well as the Turkish meerschaums of IMP. Joining those, you will of course also find a bevy of estates, as usual, plus a last-minute addition of seven newly-arrived blends by McClelland.
The summer always seems to be the season for new pipe makers at Smokingpipes.com. Last week it was the talented Greek Chris Asteriou. This week, it's Latvian pipe maker Sergey Senatorov. The process of beginning to work and getting up to speed with a pipe maker is a fairly elaborate one, with examples of their work going back and forth so that we can see and handle their craftsmanship and style in person, discussions on philosophy of design, and a general period of getting to know one another. Usually, pipe makers contact us. Sometimes, we'll see examples of a pipe maker's work and contact him or her. But ultimately it's all about the pipes. We represent most of the best pipe makers in the world, which, I think, gives us a particular good vantage point from which to spot new talent.
In Sergey's case, we actually saw a couple of his pipes come through as estates before we started talking with him early this year, giving us a head-start on the whole aspect of handling his work in person. We were impressed enough that I reached out to him personally, and, as fortune would have it, he was as excited about the prospect of working together as I was. When the new pipes finally arrived (after a tremendous postal delay; we suspect that they were routed through Nairobi, Hong Kong and Sao Paolo as they made their way to us from Latvia) we were floored by the quality, execution and shaping, especially given the modesty of his pricing.
From a wider perspective, it's fascinating to see pipe makers of such considerable talent pop up outside of the traditional pipe making centers of Denmark, Italy, Japan, and England. In 2003 I was interviewed by Pfeifenbox.de, a German/English pipe news website that was popular at the time. There was some discussion about the aging of the world's top pipe makers, and the fear that the craft would die with that generation. At the time, I was sanguine: I was confident that we would see lots of new talent appear over the coming years. Moreover, I suggested that, because of the internet and globalization, that it would be a global rather than, say, solely a Danish or German phenomenon. Since then, we've seen a profusion of pipe makers from Eastern Europe, Russia, the United States and elsewhere outside the established pipe making centers become prominent. And yet, at the same time, we've seen also fresh faces in Denmark (Lasse Skovgaard and Peter Heding are household pipe names; keep in mind that the interview was nine years ago) and Germany (Jorgen Moritz and Frank Axmacher come to mind, though there are many others), while the likes of Cornelius Manz and Kent Rasmussen, who were discussed as up-and-comers in that article, have become established greats since then.
I have no particular talent for prognostication, but I'm certainly glad I was right about this. Pipes have never been better and the world has never seen this present profusion of highly talented, young artisan pipe makers. It's an unprecedentedly fine time to be a pipe smoker or collector.
Joining the remarkable selection from Sergey today, you'll find as well a vast update of some 171 pipes, including selections from Castello, Radice, Tsuge, Savinelli, Sebastien Beo, Peterson and others! Plus, you'll find the spiffy new Peterson pipe lighters on the site too. Check 'em out!
This last week Sykes, Susan, Bill, Tracy, and I were away from the office and down in Orlando, Florida on account of the 80th annual IPCPR show. This was my first time in the Sunshine State and indeed it lived up to its reputation as being a very warm and humid locale in the summer.
By and large this particular convention stays focused on the cigar side of the tobacco industry, and so naturally, we all ended up acquiring and smoking dozens of them during our seven day expedition. However, and perhaps needless to say, as our attraction ever is and ever will be smoking pipes of the highest quality, we did too obtain a bold and bountiful company of fresh new briar that’s sure to quickly trickle past the threshold of our site soon enough. We also picked up a handful of new accessories you’ll want to keep an eye out for during the next few weeks.
In the meantime, there’s plenty here already to keep you busy. To start, for the very first time at Smokingpipes.com we’re offering the work of up and comer Chris Asteriou, a young Grecian industrial designer-architect with a forte for pipe carving. Also up is new work from the talented Grego Lobnik and ever-popular Lasse Skovgaard. You’ll also find the latest from Randy Wiley, Claudio Cavicchi, Winslow, Ashton, L’Anatra, Nording, Savinelli, Peterson, and Stanwell. And what Thursday update is complete without a whopping 72 estate pipes to add to the fold? Oh and be sure to check out Cornell & Diehl's latest concoction, Guilford Flake!
A couple Monday mornings back, I had returned sleepily to our office ready to dive (or at least, slip) into my work week. But then, just after sitting down at my desk, I noticed to my great dismay that the bamboo shank on my Peter Heeschen Brandy was splitting, and horribly! Now, this was no fault of Peter’s - his work is of the highest level of craftsmanship. The pipe had been damaged in some fashion before I received it, and time and smoking worsened it to the point where it was in serious need of repair. Woe was me. Woe is me.
I needed a rebound-pipe; something to help soothe my aching heart. I took solace in the arms of a little Italian Pot - a Rinaldo - that I had kept noticing in the estate section every time I walked through our store. This pipe is everything I think a Pot should be: a proportionally large bowl canted slightly forward, just-so, and draped with flame grain, birdseye topping its ever-so-slightly rounded rim, and a thin shank and stem all of about 3 inches in length. Like my Heeschen and my old Dunhill Tan Shell before it, I often catch myself staring at the Rinaldo as it sits behind my keyboard.
Given the recent acquisition of this great little smoker, I was, of course, excited to see a bunch of new Rinaldo pipes appear on Pam’s desk. I generally light up whenever a new carver or brand comes in, but this felt like kismet. Doesn’t hurt, either, that I’m generally a fan of Italian pipes, especially those of heavy Given the recent acquisition of this great little smoker, I was, of course, excited to see a bunch of new Rinaldo pipes appear on Pam’s desk. I generally light up whenever a new carver or brand comes in, but this felt like kismet. Doesn’t hurt, either, that I’m generally a fan of Italian pipes, especially those of heavy Pesaro influence. If you harbor similar tastes, I strongly encourage you to check out the six fresh Rinaldo briars we have going up on the site today.Pesaro influence. If you harbor similar tastes, I strongly encourage you to check out the six fresh Rinaldo briars we have going up on the site today.
In addition to the aforementioned Rinaldos, today we also have a great selection of briars by Chacom, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, and Peterson, along with estates from Italy and England. For you cigar lovers out there, we’ve also got new sticks from Joya de Nicaragua, Oliva, and CAO all available this evening. A bevy of new Lampe Berger lamps and fragrances have just arrived as well, so look for those in today’s update, too.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
Some of you may recall, shortly before the Fourth of July, I wrote about how I would switch to smoking a cigar for that special day due to various aesthetic (and fuse-lighting) reasons. Well, I'll confess that sort of backfired - since then I've been neglecting my pipes to sample my way through a good portion of our brick & mortar's walk-in humidor. Granted, our shop is, like our website, tailored towards specializing in pipes, so our humidor only takes up one room, whereas a lot of other local places have essentially their whole store as one big humidor (complete with perpetually dripping, fogged-up windows). But Bill Lloyd still keeps a great selection, plus having it concentrated into one room of a 100-year old building, the aroma, aesthetics, and "feel" of our hardwood-floored humidor beats the typical detached strip-mall construction most of the Myrtle Beach area's cigar-centric shops are located in. And then there is the generous employee discount...
And yet, although the past several weeks have taught me an appreciation for cigars, it's also emphasized for me some of the undeniably advantageous attributes of the pipe as well. Put simply, smoking a pipe is unbeatably inexpensive. And by "inexpensive" I do not at all mean simply "cheap", a term we typically use to indicate low cost alone. Owning a good pipe or two provides a means of enjoying some really stellar tobaccos at a mere fraction of the cost of smoking anything else. That's just how it is. A cigar is a cigar, and they have their own unique attractions (and I have certainly narrowed down some definite favorites), but for sheer variety and ease of cost (which leaves one with that much more freedom to sample, share, and experiment), the pipe cannot be beat. (And good luck tweaking a particular cigar's blend to perfectly match your liking by mixing in a touch of tobacco from another.)
A good cigar can be a very good experience, yes, but therein lays another of its limitations. It's an experience. You smoke one, and it is gone. A pipe remains. Like the folding knife that lives in my right pant pocket, the Beo bent Billiard that lives in my left jacket pocket has been a constant companion. If someone who knows me walks into a room from which I've just previously made myself absent and sees a Tatuaje resting on the lip of an ashtray, wisps of smoke rising into the air, they might ask if it was mine when I returned. If they walk in and find my pipe propped up against the ashtray instead, they don't need to ask. They'll see it and know, "That's Eric's pipe. He can't be far."
And so it is that pipes are what we bring you today. Lots of pipes. Dozens and dozens, indeed: the works of Pohlmann, Novak, and Satou each make themselves present; meerschaums by IMP are accounted for; a broad selection from Ardor, Brebbia, Neerup, Savinelli, and Peterson would like to introduce their selves. Lastly, but not by any means the least, there's plenty of estate pipes cleaned, inspected, and looking for new homes.
Part of my job here at Smokingpipes is to inspect new pipes as they arrive at our offices. Given the huge numbers that come through, others help me with this process on factory pipes, but I still closely inspect all of our artisan pieces. Every once in a while we get a pipe that has a small defect the carver might have missed. When this happens, we let them know, and I've yet to have any maker get upset when a pipe needs to be returned. The artisan's name is stamped on the pipe, and therefore has as much vested interest as we at SPC do in making sure you, the customer, receive a product of the highest quality.
Occasionally during this process, I do offer praise and critique, pipe maker-to-pipe maker. Every single artist we carry has learned from someone else's options for color, construction, proportion, and craftsmanship, either directly or through visual understanding via the internet or pipe shows. Jeff Gracik (of J.Alan pipes) is a driving force in American pipe making not only because he makes great pipes, but he is also willing to help other makers perfect their craft. Jeff learned from other makers, and in turn is just as willing to share his own acquired knowledge of what makes a good pipe great. US pipe makers are very fortunate to have so many people in the business we can consider friends and mentors, who are not only willing to honestly critique, but tell us how to improve our craft. The result? We have a lot of pipes that are well-made, beautiful, and that a pipeman (or pipewoman) can purchase with confidence.
To this note, Artisan carvers Michael Parks and Chris Askwith each have lovely, finely constructed, charming pieces available tonight. You will definitely want to see what these guys have! Other wares, from Radice, Tsuge, Castello, Peterson, Savinelli, Butz-Choquin, and Vauen, round out the new briars, while thirty-six estates from Italy and England are waiting to be re-discovered. For cigar lovers, Romeo y Julieta have new sizes and blends. Least we forget, Peterson not only has two new aromatic tobacco offerings, but the pipe bags and pouches to fill them with!
If you've been keeping up with our Newsletter and blog lately, you may have noticed that a conversation seems to have developed, broadly speaking, about what it means to be a pipe smoker amongst the greater non-pipe smoking public. A common thread here, and in a few comments on this blog and our Facebook page by you guys, is that we are often a lonely bunch in this hobby. Sure, we can congregate and conspire on the various internet forums, but I know many of you out there are forced to puff alone - a practice not without contemplative merit, but also one that foregoes much of the shared interaction one gets when sitting with another smoker, such as the casual sharing of tobaccos (be they an old favorite, or a new discovery), or discussions of a pipe's grain, shape, finish, and heft, or even the inevitable meandering conversation unrelated to our mutually shared interest.
So my thinking is this: What if we were to become more proactive in pulling others into our hobby? In my experience, even the most ardent anti-smokers become curious when they see me with a pipe. Of course, these are not the people we would focus on trying to win over, though you can at least delight in their expressions when telling him/her that, at least in some studies, pipe smokers have been shown to live longer. Pick a person or persons, preferably already a smoker of some other sort, whose company you enjoy and bring them into our relatively arcane little corner of the greater tobacco world. We have a wonderfully rich and complex pastime that most no one knows about; send 'em down the rabbit hole. And don't limit this persuasive exercise to men-- the world could use more female pipe smokers.
The most obvious place to start is with the pipe itself. Show off your collection, and talk about what makes each special, be it grain, shape, finish, or heft and balance. Bring 'em to our site, and "ooh" and "ahh" over the wonderfully creative interpretations of "pipe" from Larrysson and the fine craftsmanship of Tonni Nielsen, both of whom, by the way, have pipes set to go up with today's update (and try not to give over to suspicions that I, as the SPC Marketing Guy, am slyly enlisting you pro bono to help us sell some pipes). Give 'em a history lesson in our Estate section, where today we've just added to our selection seventy-two more proudly restored pieces from all over the map. Also browse our smoking-hot new selection of pieces from Ashton, L'Anatra, Randy Wiley, and Cavicchi. Are they in the mood to buy? Perhaps your prospective partner in briar may wish to start with one of the quality wallet-friendly pipes we're offering from Nording, Savinelli, Peterson, and Stanwell.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
Today is about to become so much more awesome than you expected it to be. Sure, we've got the usual, variegated update of new pipes, of which there are 121 today, actually. You'll find new pipes from Dunhill, as well as Peterson, Savinelli, Brigham, Johs, Chacom and Luciano. And we've got beautiful new pipes from Peter Heeschen, too. But this isn't the "awesome" news to which I've referred. Neither is it the fact that we've got a full three-dozen freshly restored estate pipes available with today's update. Nor is it that we've handy new pipe stands to present (you'll find them in our accessories section), along with cigars from Ashton, although this is pretty sweet news.
What's most awesome about today is that as you're reading this newsletter we're quietly discounting every estate pipe on our site by no less than 20%. And every estate pipe on Smokingpipes.com will remain cut by 20% until next Thursday's afternoon update, provided that there are any estate pipes left at that point.
So if you're still reading this you're either not at all interested in bargain savings or it just hasn't clicked with you yet that YOU NEED TO GET MOVING!
Adam and Ted have of late taken up golfing, or, more accurately, re-taken up golfing. While I've been privy to a number of conversations involving the development of proper technique, these taking place but a few feet from my desk, they haven't yet attempted to drag me out onto the courses, under the hot Southern summer sun, in person. This may be because they sense a disinterest on my part towards plaid pants, heat-stroke, and attempts to accurately propel small objects long distances in the most self-defeating manner possible, or it may simply be out of consideration of my conspicuously Northern European complexion and coloring, and not all just because they think I'm an incorrigible [explicative]. While they're off to the courses in the evenings and weekends, however, I've found a new pass time of my own, one much more agreeable to my borderline-albinism. Namely, I've been taking pictures that prominently feature backdrops consisting of the local firmament. The South Carolina shoreline, I must say, produces some amazing skies.
It began with one of the oak trees beside our own offices, but I soon moved on to contrasting "technological monuments of the mundane" against some of the more imaginative cloud formations I might spot. While taking photos of lamp posts in a supermarket parking lot in broad daylight might make me appear a touch, well, "touched in the head" to some, it eventually occurred to me that, in this day and age, taking careful photographs of power transformers, various aerials, or the like might rouse far less innocent suspicions.
But then an elegant solution came to mind - I would simply smoke my pipe while I stole my largely impromptu shots. Why? Because a pipe is an inherently innocent-looking object; an effective inducer of antigens against suspicious thoughts within the minds of others, as it was. I ask you, as an experiment, to try and picture in your head a suspicious-looking pipe smoker. What do you get?
An absent-minded intellectual, a stoic man of the sea, an affectionate grandfather, a rustic with a sure-footed sense of where he stands in the world-yes, these all come quite easily. But anyone suspicious? Hardly. The closest I could come to it was a man who appeared as if he himself strongly suspected something (in which case a Calabash comes highly recommended for best effect). A Google Image search for "suspicious smoker" turns up, by and large, men with suits and cigarettes (including one of Oscar Wilde), and, oddly enough, a number of barbeque accessories, along with a scattering of paparazzi shots of celebrities sneaking a smoke on the sly. For "suspicious pipe smoker" specifically, the only images with all three words involved in its result feature Lady Gaga, whose career has largely been built upon trying to appear conspicuously suspect, and in this case I think the affected accoutrement rather backfires, aesthetically speaking. Roughly a year ago I had it from an ex-girlfriend with a wealthy, fashionista female acquaintance that briars had become vogue amongst certain circles, so, really, seeing one in this particular musician's hands comes off as more a revival of an artifact from the age of the Flappers. The dress made of raw steak was much more effective in rousing notice, or at least in my case, appetite.
And upon the end of that rather improbable spiel (in the sense that I would assume you'd have thought it rather improbable to find yourself soon reading such a thing when you got up this morning), we're off to today's update. For this Thursday you'll find some very fine artisanal pieces indeed, from Tokutomi, Heding, J&J, Ser Jacopo, Il Duca, and Ardor, followed by fresh meerschaums by IMP, and a broad selection of briars by Brebbia, Neerup, Savinelli, and of, course Peterson - oh, and don't forget the estates of course; a full seventy-two in total.
A few days ago, my wife and I were sitting outside of a restaurant in downtown Wilmington, NC just having finished our dinner. As we enjoyed that sense of ease and contentment that follows a properly lovely meal (which it most certainly had been), we each turned to our own favorite gustatory epilogues, she slowly sipping a glass of wine as I puffed drowsily on a pipe. (Both quite old-fashioned, I suppose, but therefore all the more perfect in a city with a historic district like Wilmington’s.) A few minutes later, a friend of ours, a local contractor who had been doing work in our neighborhood, came up to say hello. First thing out of his mouth: "I saw the pipe from across the street and figured it had to be you guys." Frankly, my reaction to this is a bit mixed. Are pipes really so rare that, even in a metro area of 300,000, there are so few pipe smokers who might enjoy a pipe on a Friday evening downtown that I'm instantly recognizable for doing so? That's kind of sad, really. On the other hand, a few more years of this and maybe I'll become a Wilmington institution of sorts-- that one fellow that smokes a pipe almost everywhere he goes.
Still, I think it must have been really nice to have been a pipe smoker in 1960, even if it would have negated my anachronistic path towards becoming a noted local eccentric. Other pipe smokers abounded. Men walked down the street with their pipes completely inconspicuously. Yet on the other hand, as pipe smokers today, we have the finest selection of the best made pipes and the widest selection of pipe tobaccos of any era ever. It's surprising that while pipe smoking has fallen by 90% compared to generations past, we've simultaneously enjoyed this remarkable profusion of pipe makers and tobacco blenders. Frankly, I don't think I'd give up the remarkable choices that we have as pipe smokers today just to live in a world where it was popular to smoke pipes. Of course, the best option would be for both more widespread enjoyment and appreciation for pipe smoking, and the sort of breadth of selection and quality we have today.
While a certain amount of individual notoriety is never a bad thing, this is obviously a city (or perhaps a world) in need of more pipe smokers. I dream of a day when I walk down Front Street in Wilmington to see three or four people leisurely enjoying a pipe on each block. And while I would no longer claim the apparently singular status that my pipe seems to buy me (for good or ill) at the present, I would surely feel in good company as I strolled through town.
And to that end, you'll find a bevy of briars for your perusal this lovely Monday afternoon. My friend Gregor Lobnik from Slovenia is back with a great little batch of his impressive pipes. He's joined by Radice, Castello, Savinelli Peterson, a great batch of estates, and so much more!
Some time back I purchased a pipe and accessories kit for a good friend of mine. We've been co-conspirators in monkey business of all sorts since our college days, and when I took up a position here at the Smoking Pipes offices, he expressed an interest in picking up a pipe. I'm tempted to say "I owe him one," but in truth it's more like a bunch, and as such I felt obliged to make sure my buddy got started the right way, with a finely crafted and good-looking smoker, proper tools and cleaners, and a tin of Frog Morton (whose mellow nature I believe is perfect for beginners, allowing them to experience the blend's complexities without tongue bite).
By now, dear Reader, you might think you know where this post is going; Something something, something about the goodness of giving, about sharing a passion with a close friend, etcetera. Nope.
My intentions were pure, born of camaraderie. I had visions of the two of us smoking and drinking scotch together on the front porch, weaving plans for global domination or and the like. But the intricacies of human nature, oh those intricacies, meant that the whole ordeal was tinged with greed and jealousy.
By all accounts, I'm a good person. I know this about myself, because people tell me this, and because I feed the semi-feral kittens behind our customer service annex every day. I enjoy being polite to others and being helpful. But apparently "giving"... I'm not so good at this.
In retrospect, I know where the whole endeavor went awry. While trying to find the perfect pipe for my friend, I picked one that I really liked. I don't know how everyone else does this, but my method for choosing a briar piece is simple: browse around until one "sings" to me. What I bought him was a red-finished Silk Cut Radice Billiard, a one of Luigi's more English-looking pieces, albeit with a slightly pronounced heel that spoke of its Italian origins. And it was beautiful, more beautiful than any pipe I personally owned at that time. It was a beautiful soprano of a pipe. There was lust in my heart for this object that I was set to give away. I'll confess I was tempted more than once about not giving it to him, about picking up a lesser piece for my cohort and keeping that hot little sandblasted number for my own collection.
Of course, I did hand over the pipe in the end, but to this day, every time I see it, a part of me still wishes I hadn't - and I in turn feel shame at this weakness of character. I told him about my inner turmoil, as we are both often intrigued by the font of comedy that is the irrational human spirit. My buddy was, indeed, thoroughly amused by my conflicted soul.
Keep the above anecdote in mind when scouring today's pipes by Alex Florov, Grechukhin, Scott Klein, Ashton, L'Anatra, Randy Wiley, Winslow, Cavicchi, Erik Nording, Savenelli, Peterson, Stanwell, along with the seventy-two estate pipes. Don't feel so bad if you're tempted to reserve the singers for yourself, and pick the ones you only regular-like for your friends - they're all kind of jerks anyway.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
I walked into Ted's office a couple weeks ago and asked him a very direct question: "Do you play golf?" His answer was "no" followed by "but I would like to." Although, perhaps, this might be a silly question to some, it’s not a absurd conversation between a couple of guys living in the golf capital of the world: Myrtle Beach, SC. We might not have the most famous courses (St. Andrews kind of has that one cornered), or a number of the PGA courses people play, but Myrtle Beach has 100 golf courses sprawling surrounding areas. Indeed, the courses are really beautiful, and players can enjoy rounds of golf most of the year. When I moved here from Indiana back in 2006, I brought my clubs with me, but later sold them after seeing nothing but one-hundred dollar-plus green fees at a few places. I couldn't afford that. Fast-forward six years, and I’ve learned about local discounts starting at as little as $15 for a round after 5:00 pm. With so many courses competing for attention, it seems like Ted and I will take up golfing again. I've only played one round in six years, and Ted's only played one in thirteen. It’s an enjoyable past time, for sure, but we needed to get some clubs first. And not wanting to pay three hundred dollars or more for a set we figured (just like pipes) the "estate" market was the place to look.
I took some time this past weekend to hunt around for used clubs for Ted and myself; pawn shops, golf shops, second-hand stores, and flea markets. The flea market proved to be the best. I picked up two complete sets of irons for a steal, purchased a used Odyssey putter (retail around $150) for $20, and enough gently-used golf balls so as to not worry when Ted and I inevitably hook and slice them in the adjacent woods, tall grass, or likely still, some unfortunate retiree’s window.
When you think about it, our golfing beginning isn't much different than one’s starting out in the enjoyable hobby of pipe smoking. My first pipes were purchased in antique shops. Later, nice estates were purchased online. Buying a used set of Ping or Wilson irons to see how well you like the brand isn't terribly dissimilar from purchasing an estate Dunhill, or any other brand for that matter - and the cost is about the same. When you look at the cost of drivers, most of them are on par (excuse me) with the price of a new pipe. A brand new driver will run you somewhere between $100 and $500, while those same gently-used drivers will run you roughly 50% of retail used (look familiar?). And just like pipes, they’ll have scratches and dings on ‘em. Obviously, broken clubs are no-good, and cracked clubs simply can't be saved. However, if we can get past the minor blemishes and give them a good cleaning, golf clubs and smoking pipes can be enjoyed for years. Just remember that if you ever want to try out a product with a big-name brand, there’s a chance you can find one pre-owned before throwing money at something new; just in case you’d like to see if it offers up what you are looking for: a better experience with your hobby.
Tonight we’ve available three dozen estate pipes from a lot of well-known brands, while we also have new pieces from Gabriele Dal Fiume, Tsuge, Dunhill, Luciano, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, and Peterson. Additionally, we’d like to mention that our product alert system is now synchronized with our bulk tobacco offerings. No longer will we remove a bulk pipe tobacco selection from the site simply because we’re short of it. It now remains listed as ‘temporarily out of stock’ alongside a notification option. Nifty, right?
The Fourth of July is fast approaching, and for we Americans that generally means the anticipation for an evening of pyrotechnics, be they professionally choreographed or impromptu and amateur. About a decade ago, back in New Jersey, it meant my friends and me lurking through a field at night, "reenacting" the Revolutionary War by sneaking up upon and firing bottle rockets at each other through steel pipe "muskets" (with the occasional mortar for good measure). I can't say I'm "much older and wiser now" - if we weren't scattered hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of miles apart, I wouldn't say no to Andrew, Tim, and Raji showing up on my doorstep with innocent expressions, brown paper bags full of low-yield explosives, and an offer to spend the evening engaging in a little creative anachronism.
Nonetheless, this year I will be enjoying the anniversary of our Declaration of Independence in a much quieter way. Not that I'm skipping the fireworks, mind you, just that the rockets will be launched by professionals, and bursting in air - as opposed to by friends trying to land them wherever they suspected my own last salvo came from while simultaneously fighting to stifle their position-betraying laughter.
But what to smoke? Overwhelmingly, in the usual course of affairs I stick to my pipe. The Fourth calls for something a bit brasher and bolder, though, I should think, and Adam did recently introduce me to some really sound choices from the shop's walk-in humidor (the Hoyo de Monterrey "En Cedros" proving a particularly fast favorite); so a cigar it shall be. It's unlikely that I'll be alone in that, as even with all the anti-smoking nannying and scold-duggery of today you'll still tend to find plenty of men (and sometimes a few women) enjoying cigars freely and openly on at least this one special day a year. The fact that everyone else who will see them doing so has likewise come out to experience a night of big, bright, smoky explosions would have something to do with this, I suspect.
And besides, if I do get an urge to send off a few rockets of my own in reminiscence after all, it's a lot easier to light a fuse with the tip of a Toro than it is to poke it down the bowl of a Billiard.
And with that, it's on to this Monday's offerings. We have for a fine little batch of artisanal beauties by Lasse Skovgaard; great selections of the briar by the Radice, Castello, and Sebastien Beo; dozens of fresh Savinellis, Peterson, and Vauens to choose from; lots of estates, as usual; the introduction of the Brazil Moreninha Formasa coffee blend (as in actual coffee, mind you, not coffee-flavored tobacco); and, lastly, and quite fittingly, three new cigar selections by H. Upmann, Gran Habano, and La Aroma.
Last night I dug out my LP copy of Kansas’ 1977 multi-platinum record “Point of Know Return”, poured myself a rocks glass worth of bourbon, lit up a pipe, and sat down to relax in front of the record player. Being something of an audiophile (in addition to a pipe and tobacco enthusiast), I find it easy to lose hours in contemplative silence soaking up recorded music in the same way many ensconce in front of the television (or computer) or behind a book (or tablet). Naturally, time spent this way lends itself handsomely to enjoying a carefully prepared pipe as accompaniment.
Often I’ll read through a record’s liner notes while listening to it, and as I savored “Know Return" I was doing just this when I noticed a detail of the sleeve artwork (Or maybe it was the gatefold; did I mention the bourbon?) that I really hadn’t ever picked up on before. Roughly, the subject image is an ancient journal upon a wooden desk that presents in cursive text the lyrics of each song and its supplemental recording information. Nearby the book is a surveyor’s sketch of each of the band members, an obscured hand drawn map and other indiscernible documents, along with an old bronze sextant, an ashtray, and most importantly, a churchwarden pipe of briar make.
It’s funny how a detail, intended largely as background aesthetic or atmosphere, like a pipe seems to jump out at us pipe guys. In the movies or on TV, in magazines or advertisements, in old photos; if we spot a pipe, especially in the jaw of a celebrity, you can bet that it will get mentioned or posted up in every pipe forum and message board on the internet. Folks on the Pipesmagazine.com forum are still discussing the finer points of the Hatfield pipe Kevin Costner smoked in a made-for-TV movie special a month ago. Pipe smokers suddenly want that pipe. And now pipe makers are making it. I suppose this is because when we see a smoking pipe, we see a representation of a personal enjoyment we have ourselves experienced, a part of our own lifestyle, and cannot help but take stock of what such a beauty may offer even in its most prosaic forms or in the commonest of settings. Or maybe it just agitates our acquisition disorder. Both, perhaps? Who knows?
Either way we’ve got a lot of extraordinary pipes to show tonight, none of which could be described as commonplace. Nay, each piece is worth careful consideration. From the Formers and Heeschens to the Ardors, Petersons, Savinellis, and IMPs, we’ve got plenty of gorgeous new works available this evening. Ah yes, and let’s not forget a whopping 72 freshly restored estate pipes. Enjoy!
Today we are featuring a pipe maker whose work is most intriguing: Maigurs Knets. Originally from Latvia, Knets moved to the Chicago area to work in the industrial design and hobby industries. Sound familiar? His story draws a parallel to Alex Florov's, and Maigurs was in fact inspired to begin crafting pipes by Alex (the two are acquainted through Chicago's model-making community). And while there aren't really any formal, physical similarities between Knets's pipes and those of Florov (or any other pipe maker for that matter) I do believe they share a kindred artistic temperament, meaning both are hell-bent on lending precision craft and their own distinct creative interpretation to the pipe making discipline.
Instead of responding to pipes from other makers, or even to wood working craft in general as many others do, the heart of Knets's design process draws from his lifelong immersion in the fine arts. His exploration of pipes is a further exploration of other creative interests, most notably the Art Nouveau movement, which is apparent in his more organic freehand shapes and distinguished ferrule and accent treatments. Because he operates well outside the usual influences, his artistic trajectory is unlike that of most in this business, especially in terms of his more abstract pieces, where he is free to go in any direction he pleases, as long as the form holds together aesthetically and the pipe remains a fine smoker (and by all accounts, a Maigurs pipe smokes very well).
Also in today's update we are offering up pipes from another very unique brand, Becker, along with pieces from Chris Askwith, Ashton, L'Anatra, Randy Wiley, Winslow, Cavicchi, Nording, Savinelli, Peterson, Stanwells, and seventy-two estates from around the world.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
This past weekend I attended the Kansas City Pipe Show, which is put on by the fantastic members of the GKCPC. I always attend pipe shows independently from Smokingpipes.com because I have my own agenda as a pipe carver, but it was great that we were represented by Susan and Ted. Of course, all of us hang out together enjoying conversations and meeting with our customers. I arrived on Friday afternoon and was picked up at the airport, along with two other gentlemen attending the show, by a taxi service the club arranged. When arriving at the new venue, the Double Tree, I knew the show was going to be great! In recent years, the club had a small smoking tent set up for everyone to enjoy their pipes, but the tent this year was really large - more of a pavilion, really! Walking outside of the hotel, everyone was able to smoke under the capacious cover, which was set up on a wooden patio surrounded by tall trees, with woodlands on both sides and a hand-laid stone wall covered in plants at the back. Everyone thought the surrounding trees made the perfect environment to enjoy pipes, drinks, and conversations. Lightning bugs danced like will-o-wisps all around the tent, echoing the flicker of matches and lighters within. Peace and serenity? You betcha!
Many attendees visited various Kansas City barbeque establishments for lunches and dinners. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Kansas City, eat BBQ! The club also organized dinners on Friday and Saturday evenings, which were fantastic. After dinner on Saturday, Fred Hanna gave a very casual, highly entertaining, and thought provoking presentation about the benefits of nicotine. While the presentation went more into detail, many of these points can be found in his latest book "The Perfect Smoke". The show was a success all around, with packed tables full of wonderful offerings, and we want to thank everyone involved in making it possible!
We are happy to introduce a new pipe brand from the United States: J&J Artisan Pipes. Made by John Klose and Jared Coles, two friends from the Central Valley of California, J&J craft lovely variations of Freehand and Classic shapes available in smooth or rusticated finishes. These guys are new to the scene, so please take time to see what they've been up to. Also in today's update you can find pipes from Tsuge, Dunhill, Luciano, Chacom, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, and Peterson, as well as thirty-six estate pipes and four sizes of Camacho cigars. Take time to relax with a pipe - and if anyone tut-tuts about it, just tell them the benefits (by some research) are scientifically proven!
Aging tobaccos can be quite a toss-up. By chance a perfect example of how this is so recently played out here in our own Smokingpipes pipe library. Adam, you see, had on hand two different samples of the famed Full Virginia Flake - a tin from about 2008, and a likely younger "astronaut pouch" (as I called it) that we had received in a batch of estate pipes. (Gawith didn't start using the pouches until around 2008/2009.) Some weeks ago he opened up the pouched FVF, gorgeously dark and rich, sliced consistently and wafer-thin, to share around. It proved, in all honesty, one of the best smokes I've enjoyed. We made sure to stretch out the small supply, savoring it slowly over the past several weeks; it was that good.
Once it was gone, he then in turn brought in the tin he had been aging at home and just recently unsealed - but there was a catch. He brought it in so we could try it and confirm for him whether it was the tobacco itself that was smoking differently, or just the clay pipe he had initially tried it out with in his workshop. To be perfectly honest, I believe had we tried the tinned sample first, we would have thought it an excellent smoke... but as the matter stood, we had already tasted the perfection of the pouched FVF, and it definitely colored our expectations. There was a touch of tongue-bite early in the bowl, for one thing - certainly not anything unexpected in a Virginia blend. The flavor wasn't as dark and rich, though by any other comparison would have been considered quite savory. The flakes, cut quite thick, took a lot of work to break up into something suitable for the narrower bowl's of our personal pipes - like rubbing out mulch. (Though Adam did duly note that this thicker cut would have made for a very sure-and-steady burn in a larger-bowled briar.)
So what had made the difference? A change in formula for something as iconic as Gawith's FVF didn't seem likely. How could aging tobacco in a tin, wrapped in foil, be that much different from aging it in a foil pouch? My suspicions, at least, settled on the most obvious difference between the two: The cut, while Adam pointed out that the pressing of the cake may have been different, too. The older, thicker-cut sample had clearly aged differently; sugar crystals were very evident, while the "crust" of the flakes was as black as the char of a steak fried in a blazing-hot cast iron skillet. Yet, as noted, despite this "heavier" look of the tinned cut, it was a mellower smoker, and took a bit of time to "Warm up" in the bowl - that is to say, to work its way past the initial touch of tongue-bite and present the blend's full bouquet in its own, softer way.
The lesson of the story? Realistic expectations for one, I suppose - we shouldn't expect every aged sample of a particular tobacco to turn out exactly the same. And for another, that if happen upon one particular pouch or tin that turns out to be simply exquisite, that we should, on one hand, make sure to take measured enjoyment of it while it lasts, and on the other, to see to it that we share it with our fellows while it is there to share.
And with that, it's on to today's update. This Thursday we have for you, as it so happens, a lovely pair of Adam Davidson's own work, as well as the introduction of a new name to Smokingpipes: The boldly unique designs of Czech artisan Michal Novak. Joining them are a fine selection of artisanal pieces by Grechukhin, as well as Giancarlo's Ser Jacopo workshop and the Dorelio's Ardor marque. Following those you'll further find plenty of Nordings, Brebbias, Petersons, Savinellis, and dozens of estates as well. Last but not least, today we also have one last introduction to make: A variety of some of the world's most popular pouch blends, as many of you have requested.
It's been all protruding dorsal fins and gnashing teeth here in the Grand Strand area the last couple of weeks. You see, there have been no less than five shark bites in our waters over the last two weeks. The first, well okay, it's bound to happen, especially given that South Carolina is most always featured in those lists of "Top Ten Shark Attack Destinations" found around the interwebs, and Horry County sees the bulk of the state's bites, but it is the last four that are the most disconcerting for those of us here that love splashing around in the Atlantic, almost as much as we love pipes. The thing is, these attacks were all reported last week, allegedly, within about a ten minute span! Let me tell you, dear Reader, this does nothing to diminish my already heightened paranoia of all aquatic fauna that bite or sting.
"What does this cruel yet fascinating natural phenomena have to do with pipes," you might ask? Well, obviously I expect that you have some degree of concern for my personal well being, but we also today just so happen to be introducing new pipes by Gabriele Dal Fiume, an Italian carver who draws much of his inspiration from movement in nature, particularly that of fish in the sea (and what more graceful example of ichthyen motion could there be than a shark, at least when it's not biting folks). Gabriele seems particularly fond of experimenting with the Blowfish shape, allowing his own creative whims to embellish the pipe's lines and curves. He also offers up other classic shape interpretations such as the Billiard and the Dublin, each carved both in response to the briar's grain and Gabriele's internal design-compass.
Gabriele's decorative motifs deserve some mention. His logo is in his words "a stylistic rendering of the Nautilus as the yolk of an egg, morfed with the letter 'G.'" His grading system consists of a stylized turtle, ladybird (or ladybug if you're from the American South), and a whale, and many of his stems are adorned with a snail. These offer a light hearted, whimsical appeal to the pipes, but not so much so that it diminishes the overall sense of quality these pieces project, and thankfully, there is nary a shark to be found.
Today the Gulf Stream also brings us pipes by Bruce Weaver, Tsuge, Radice, Castello, Sebastien Beo, Butz-Choquin, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen; along with no less than thirty-six English, Danish, and Italian estate pieces; and last but certainly not least, four new cigars from La Riqueza.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
Our tastes change - it's a fact. When I was little, I didn't like macaroni and cheese. As I grew older, I both came to like the concept of "pasta plus cheese", but also eventually found myself hating the boxed stuff with its powder packet, that I thought fine for a period, in favor for the stuff with a squeeze packet. Now as an adult, I loathe both of these and instead choose to make my own using a cream sauce thickened with a roux and comprising of cheddar, gouda, and often crusted with Parmesan breadcrumbs and baked to a golden, crispy crust. The stuff is heavenly, I think, but every once in a while I will be in the grocery store near the boxed varieties and feel a momentary temptation. This is probably rooted in nostalgia, and though experience has found that it tastes good for the first bite or so, distaste quickly sets in once again. For most of us, pipe tobacco goes through similar cycles. We might initially not like anything, but find ourselves drawn to heavily-marketed brands with mystery components before discovering small-batch, artisanal blends comprising of many different varieties and processes that express individual notes within the blend. In this way, it's easy to see a connection between the enjoyment of food and the enjoyment of pipe tobacco.
I was down in our retail store recently chatting with a customer I had helped out with discovering new tobaccos six years ago, and who has been a regular ever since. The gentleman had smoked the same blend for decades, and only decided to try something different back in 2006 after seeing our wall stocked with a couple hundred pipe tobaccos in open jars ripe for the picking. Samuel Gawith Full Virginia Flake made him toss aside the aromatic blend he had stuck to since typewriters were in every office and disco music was in its prime. Shortly after enjoying his first experiences with this blend, he ventured into other Samuel Gawith offerings before trying McClelland 2015 (a Virginia/Perique). I was very happy he found a new world of tobaccos, but couldn't help but to see a saddened look on his face that he wasted so many years on just one blend that had happened to be commonly available. It’s silly, really, because he enjoyed that tobacco every day. One never knows what is out there unless they search. Over the years he's been faithful to blends from a handful of different companies ranging from a few light aromatics to full English offerings, and found himself often changing what he smoked most frequently. As we reminisced the other day, he was puffing away on a bowl of Peter Stokkebye’s Luxury Bullseye Flake, and remarked that he often cycles between different blends nowadays. I asked about his old tried-and-true favorite, and he remarked that at some point he just stopped possessing a taste for it anymore. He said every once in a while he’ll get a taste for his old companion, but it doesn't seem to last more than one bowl.
Because we've totally updated the photographs for our bulk tobacco offerings, and have something around 900 different tinned and bulk blends combined (closer to 1,400 if you want to count repetition bulk and tin size), there are likely dozens of hidden gems waiting for you to discover - perhaps for the second or third time! I've written before about buying multiple tins so you can try one now and let others age a while. Quite a few change in flavor in as little as six months, while some Virginias, like a good whisky, can take close to a decade to fully mature. One precaution would be to not sell or trade all of you Latakia blends just because you've switched to Virginias (or vice versa). Who knows when your taste will change again, and you'll have a little set aside to pick up where you left off. They change in regards to pipes too, as is evidenced by the estate pipe market. Tonight you can find new offerings from Peter Heeschen, Satou, Benni, Ashton, and other brands, as well as six-dozen estate pipes. Who knows? You might decide to browse over the tobacco selection and pick up a few old friends as well as some new ones just to see if your tastes have changed. You might re-discover a gem or two.
Over the last couple of months we’ve been working on a very special project. And the rather cleverly obtuse code-name for this mystery enterprise? PROJECT: B.U.L.K. P.H.O.T.O.G.R.A.P.H.Y. (We thought it read more impressively when written as if an acronym.) Inspired by a combination of customer requests and the fact that, like most every other online retailer that sells bulk tobacco, we’ve been using the same dozen or so images to represent the vast sundry of loose leaf blends that we actually offer, we’ve decided to undertake the lengthy and daunting task of individually shooting and processing the entire catalog of our bulk tobacco selection. I’m sure it’s been just a blast for our photographers John and Chris. But seriously, they’ve done an excellent job capturing each blend, and as an added bonus, they’ve even thrown in a close-up shot of each offering so that you can really see the different components and get a feel for the cut. They’ve been working at it so madly trying to get everything squared away that they’re days ahead of schedule - even while simultaneously keeping up with our regular updates as well. All these new images should be available for you tonight. Thanks, photo guys!
Now, in case you missed last Thursday’s newsletter, we’ve just introduced to SPC a new brand of bulk-only pipe tobacco called Newminster. Produced in Denmark for Villiger, we’ve got 22 new tobacco blends available from the marque that range from the sticky-sweet Very Cherry, to the complex Superior Navy Flake, to the full-bodied and savory English Orient. If you’re looking to explore something new and fresh, here’s your chance.
And lest I forget to mention it, we’ve got a couple different Father’s Day promotions that we’re currently running up through Sunday, June 17th. We’re offering a Father’s Day Gift Set that includes a rather neat looking miniature golf bag cigar carrying case (it’s got a small humidification device inside), a couple cigars, and a cigar cutter. All this is yours for only $19.99. Additionally, we’ve reintroduced the Principal Pipe Pack that can be bought along with a new or estate pipe for the low, low price of $5.00. With it you'll find one bundle each of B. J. Long’s standard, extra-fluffy, and bristled pipe cleaners, as well as a folding pipe stand, a Czech-style pipe tool, and a handy-dandy adjustable chamber-reamer.
New pipes from Former and Pete Prevost hit the site with the update, as well as new works from Dunhill, Peterson, Savinelli, Luciano, PS Studio, Chacom, Johs, Tsuge, and Brigham. Fairly eclectic, and quite a variety, wouldn’t you say?
I returned home from Italy last week to considerable bustle and goings-on at the office. We've had a number of major projects wrap up recently: you can now review all non-pipe items on the website (since we sell the pipes individually, we still haven't figured out how to make useful pipe reviews work), you can now sign up to be notified of arriving shipments of tobaccos for items that are out of stock and, most recently, we're in the process of re-photographing every single bulk tobacco on the website, taking higher quality shots of each and every blend to help give you a better sense of what you're buying. The first of those are rolling out with the brand new Danish-made Newminster line of bulk tobaccos by Villiger. Over the next week, all of the other bulks will get their new photographs and the whole process should be complete by next Thursday.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. We received a ton of useful suggestions in the customer survey from a few months ago and we've been working to implement lots of them as we are able. I won't go into any detail yet, but there are a number of other new features that y'all asked for that we're putting the finishing touches on over the next few weeks and will be rolling out as we get them finished and polished up.
In addition to the Newminster bulk tobaccos on offer, we have another very special announcement. Some of you may remember that Yuki Tokutomi (Hiro's daughter) made pipes before the birth of her son Rinto back in 2005 and 2006. Well, both she and her mother, Kazue, are now making pipes under the Tokutomi Pipe Co. brand together. Focusing on classic Danish-inspired shapes, the brand offers up some truly delightful, beautifully crafted pipes. We only have a fairly small selection on hand to show you at the present, so if one catches your interest, don't hesitate.
Today's update is a packed one indeed, featuring not one but two Father's Day special offerings, good up through the 17th of the month, plus the introduction of the works of another young pipemaking artisan to the Smokingpipes roster.
Simeon Turner is part of a fresh younger generation of North American pipemakers that have been garnering attention in recent years, introducing work ranging from traditionalist classics to inventive freehands - or as appears to be the case with Simeon himself, designs which freely incorporate elements of both. He'd already garnered quite a bit of noteworthiness by the time he and Sykes first got to meet face-to-face at the Chicago Show, having won the "Most Improved Pipe Maker" award of the West Coast Pipe Show in November of 2011. That comes as little surprise really, as he's displayed an eagerness for the constructive criticism, and self-criticism, that is essential for even the most talented artisan to ever fully develop their potential. Obviously, we feel that development is coming along quite nicely.
In other news, from today up through the 17th, we'll be running not one, but two special deals: The Father's Day Cigar Promo, and the Father's Day Pipe Promo. The first goes like this: With any purchase of the Golf Bag Humidor we're offering with this update, we'll include for you, free, two sample cigars chosen by us at random, plus a complementary cigar cutter. For the second deal, the Pipe Promo, we're re-introducing our special deal on the Principal Pipe Pack; as before, with any purchase of any pipe, be it new or estate, briar, morta, or meerschaum, you'll be given the option of including in your order the Principal Pipe Pack, featuring a Czech pipe tool, reamer, folding pipe stand, and one pack each of soft, bristled, and extra-fluffy pipe cleaners - all at a discounted price of just five bucks even.
Of course along with these special deals and the introduction of a new artisan, we still have plenty to roll out as well. In today's muster you'll also find: Fresh pieces from Luigi Radice and sons, Castello,and Sebastien Beo, as well as Savinelli, Peterson, Tsuge, and Vauen; estates hailing from Scandinavia and Italy alike; and lastly, the introduction to our site of several cigars by Punch.
At dinner one night during the course of the recent Chicago Show, I found myself enthralled by a quite entertaining conversation happening between Alex Florov and a guy seated across the table, a man who bore a curiously strong resemblance to Adam West (to my eye, anyway). From the dialog, I picked up that he was a pipe maker, and after deciding I could live with exposing my ignorance, I asked him who he was; he seemed a man worth knowing. "Bruce Weaver. [Pulls a pipe from his bag] I'm known for my sandblasts."
After seeing that pipe and photographing others which we purchased for the site, I can understand why. It's not that his sandblasts are all that deeply cut, rather it is more in his response to the flow of the briar's grain. Of course, this much can be said of other pipe makers, but there is a definite stylized consistency, an essence shared between Bruce's sandblasted pieces. Most are ring-grained, and viewed from the sides and bottom tend to take on a rich visual texture that I find very "topographic," my favorites also featuring a contrasting smooth upper bowl with hints of plateau breaking the surface here and there. Bruce's work really has a voice of its own, and, as extensive as our roster of artisan pipemakers may already be, it's great to have him adding its unique timbre and tone to what we're able to offer our customers.
Also featured in today's update, we are rolling out our very own brand of coffee! This is something we have been wanting to do for a while, given how well a cup of joe goes with a morning pipe (or noon pipe, or afternoon pipe - this is pretty much what keeps the SPC team marching along throughout the day), and we're happy to introduce to you a medium-roasted Arabica bean of Kenyan origin, full in body yet slightly sweet, with a hint of sharpness that is sure to cut through the morning's fog.
In other news, as Ted mentioned yesterday, we've proudly rolled out a fancy-shmancy new "Product Alert System," which will allow you to elect to have an email sent to your inbox whenever we receive new stock of a previously out-of-stock item, such as those particularly hard-to-come-by, highly-demanded tobacco blends. We've also implemented a product rating and review system, where you can finally tell the world what you think about a blend X, and more importantly, help other aficionados of the briar choose the right tobacco, cigars, implements of pipe care, etc.
And as always, we've a fine selection of pipes for you to peruse, including works from the aforementioned Bruce Weaver, Grechukhin, Scott Klein, Michael Parks, Ashton, L'Anatra, Randy Wiley, Winslow, Cavicchi, Nording, Savinelli, Peterson, and Stanwell, along with no less than seventy-two estate pipes from all over the world.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
Most of us are out of the office today because it's Memorial Day. The holiday (today) is often stretched out to include an entire weekend full of the kind of festivities so many of us enjoy. After the winter months, this usually marks the first occasion most folks can enjoy the outdoors on an extended holiday which means you’re bound to see a lot of people smoking pipes and cigars. And while enjoyable as smoking is, I wanted to share a neat little trick you can do with dottle or cigar butts: gardening.
Yes, I said "gardening", and no, I don't mean you should flick cigar butts or knock your pipe dottle all over you garden. However, tobacco has been known to be a very useful addition to gardens for centuries. I stumbled upon this useful tip years ago when I was growing a basil plant and it was becoming bombarded with beetles. I decided I was either going to kill completely the stringy, wilted excuse for an herb that was peppered with holes from bugs and speckled with yellow dots or save it by using an old tin of Penzance. Smokers of Penzance, please don't give me any flack. The tobacco in the tin was given to me because it was left outside by a friend and was then bone dry. Since I don't smoke Latakia, I figured it would either kill my basil plant or make it better. I put a few flakes in a mug and poured hot water on top to make tobacco tea. This went into a spray bottle. Some of the other tobacco got sprinkled around the plant while I sprayed the leaves lightly (after plucking off the ones with holes). Adding water to the pot like I always did, I checked back in a few days. The basil was nearly double in size - or so it seemed. The leaves were all perfectly green and there were no holes from beetles. I never had a problem with beetles eating the leaves after this on the basil or anything else. As it turns out, making a tea from tobacco and spraying flowers on anything in the garden (besides tomatoes, it seems) makes bugs not want to chomp on them. Cigar butts, pipe dottle, and ashes can all be saved in a container and added to compost or soil to deter bugs as well.
I would suggest a little bit of research before you start hosing down roses or broccoli with tobacco tea from a Super-Soaker squirt gun, though. But from personal experience, the results have been successful. Brian Levine, who used to work for us, told me about saving his cigar butts and dottle to use in his flower garden for the same reason. Who knows? Maybe your wife will encourage you to smoke more cigars or pipe tobacco. You can always tell her she is free to empty your ashtray anytime she wants.
Today you can find new cigars from E.P Carrillo, along with pipes from Rad Davis, Tsuge, Dunhill, Luciano, P.S. Studio and a lot of great factory pieces as well. Don't forget to check out the estate section and add a few tins of tobacco to your order. You know, because it's good for the garden!
At a loss as to what to write for my next turn at covering the newsletter intro, this morning I simply left myself a note in the open, rather accusingly blank text file: "Dry your tobacco, fool." In retrospect, I suppose it's a subject I might as well run with.
While the initial moisture of different blends can vary tremendously, most tobaccos, and particularly aromatics, could do with at least a good ten minutes underneath a desk lamp, spread evenly upon a clean piece of paper. Rubbed-out flake, rich Latakias, simple burleys - all will tend to smoke cooler and drier if they are given a chance to air out a bit, albeit not quite to the point that they start becoming properly crispy. The simple fact is that a moist tobacco will mean more moisture that can condense in your briar's stem, more work both lighting and keeping your bowl lit, and yet also a hotter burn - which in and of itself feeds back into creating more condensation as the temperature of your draw drops in the course of traveling through the shank and stem. The extra heat certainly doesn't do your palate any favors, either, and aside from being profoundly annoying when it starts to gurgle, on top of it, all that H2O lollygagging about in the airway is itself liable to absorb and/or alter a good bit of a smoke's flavor.
For the novice it may be easy to simply assume condensation is the result of salivation. In answer to this misconception I can only recommend that they remember this maxim: Your pipe is not a trombone. Unless you're trying to play it like one, the problem isn't you - it's either your tobacco, or, as in some unfortunate cases, the pipe's design itself. Drilling and engineering can go quite a ways towards reducing interruptive condensation build-up, my Beo bent Billiard regularly tolerates my own ill-advised impatience (the very reason for the previously mentioned note I addressed to myself), but even a good pipe can only do so much. And a poorly engineered one can do a lot as well; a lot of mischief, that is. Undoubtedly, one should ask “for what length of time might I leave a pinch of tobacco out to dry?” Unfortunately really there’s no hard-and-fast rule in place here. You’ll just have to experiment to determine what works best for you. I realize this is old hat to many of you now reading these words, but for the less experienced smoker something as simple as being advised to dry your next few bowls' worth beforehand can make the difference between the pipe becoming an enjoyable part of their everyday life, and sputtering out as a short-lived lark ending in distaste and frustration. And no one wants that - not them for certain, and especially us.
And on that note, it's on with the show: Today we have a varied lot for you all, including artisanal beauties by Matzhold, Kent, Florov, Markle, Ardor, Ser Jacopo, Arthur, and Il Duca, plus fresh briars from Peterson, Savinelli, Neerup, and Brebbia - and as always plenty of estate pipes to boot.
So you’ve just spent a bundle on a new pipe. You wrestled long and hard with the decision to part with such hard-earned money over a piece of wood and rubber (or plastic; and maybe some silver or horn too), and now that it’s yours you’ve only done as much as stare at it longingly. The pipe’s been in your possession now for several weeks, and you’ve only managed, after painstakingly careful consideration and a few hundred visits to your favorite online tobacco review site, to determine which blend you’ll choose for the pipe's maiden voyage, and what time of day it will be, and which chair you’ll be sitting in the very moment you light up the treasured briar for the very first time. But alas, you have still yet to actually smoke the pipe. You want the occasion to be a special one. After all, it’s an expensive pipe and you don’t want to go and blow your first experience with it on accident - or even worse, damage the prized briar itself.
I’ll tell you right now, the less often you light your pipe the better. If you want your precious new smoking instrument to remain pristine for a long, long time, there’s about a hundred million different tips, suggestions, home remedies, folk songs, and mnemonic devices hanging around every corner of every chat room, message board, or community forum related to pipe care dos and don’ts that’ll steer you into some routine or another, ranging from the sound to the more-than-semi-laughable. Much of the information available to be found along these arteries of the internet is entertaining. Much more of it is hokum repeated by neophytes. Some of this data is plenty helpful, if not entirely overwhelming to the freshly initiated pipe smoker who’s still trying to keep straight the difference between terms like ‘casing’, ‘topping’ and ‘flavoring’. But the simple, common-sense solution to pipe longevity is to keep your relights down.
1.The wetter the tobacco, the hotter it needs to be to combust. Smoking wet tobacco not only increases the amount of times you’re exposing the rim and tobacco chamber of your pipe to fire, it’s also a simple recipe for keeping your pipe super-hot all the time. Probably not a great idea. Try drying out your tobacco some first. Or if you like the moist stuff, keep it out of your Bo Nordh.
2.Only use a torch lighter (like the kind you’ll use when lighting your cigar) on a pipe you’d like to destroy as rapidly as possible. Bic lighters, with their large, unwieldy flames aren’t much better. A Bic might not damage the chamber, but it will ugly-up a pipe’s rim something fierce over time. Butane pipe lighters, like the legendary Old Boy, are terrific. But yes, as you might expect, once its sulfur head has burned off, a match, which burns at around 700 degrees Celsius (nearly 1,300 degrees cooler than a butane lighter) is the best source of fire you can use to light up a pipe, what with its highly governable and relatively gentle flame.
3.Consider your tamper and tamping technique. By tamping around the sides of your pipe's bowl with a small, preferably concave shaped tamper, you'll keep the embers towards the center of the chamber and away from the briar walls. Also, in doing this, you’ll avoid tamping straight down on the tobacco, which is likely to snuff out the cherry, which increases the need for a relight.
I don’t recommend that you start keeping track of how many times you’ve ever lit a particular pipe. That’s just crazy. The notion of keeping one’s relights to a minimum is really more about preventing excessively exposing your pipe to unnecessary fire and heat. You know, the stuff that will kill anything made of wood, even a wood as hardy as briar, after a while. You can of course take this advice or not; smoke your pipes however you like. After all, it’s your special new pipe and you can treat it however you like. But a little simple advice can go quite a way to ensuring you'll be able to enjoy it all the more, and for all the longer.
We’ve got an outstanding update pick together for this Monday. You’ll find new cigars from Romeo & Julieta and Quorum, a couple dozen fresh estate pipes, and new works from the likes of Pete Prevost (whose work is going up on Smokingpipes.com for the very first time this evening), Benni Jorgensen, Tsuge, Radice, Castello, Savinelli, Sebastien Beo, Butz-Choquin, Peterson, and Vauen. And don’t miss our introduction of Fred Hanna’s new book The Perfect Smoke.
We've been reading a lot about the recent Chicago pipe show here and on various other blogs and such, and they pretty much all talk about the same thing: massive awesomeness. Because the show is so massive, there exists the small, unavoidable, yet perfectly obvious fact that we are all bound to miss something in our report of the show. In fact, a great number of people probably missed a lot of things, or at least wish they had opportunities to touch back to something that initially grabbed their attention.
It goes without saying that pipe shows are about pipes, but it’s also true that they would be nothing without tobacco. While I'm privy to only a small number of things that go on around here at Smokingpipes headquarters - because we are rather vast as well - I do remember hearing a buzz about a new Mac Baren tobacco some time ago. To be more precise: Mac Baren’s new HH Old Dark Fired. Mac Baren makes wonderful tobaccos, and their attention to blending, cutting, and slicing are rarely equaled which results in a line of consistent products. Ted talked about this tobacco. Sykes talked about it. There was a lot of buzz going around the Chicago show because it was first introduced there. Why did I not take the time to fire up a bowl the four days I was surrounded by pipes, tobacco, and friends? I have no idea. Perhaps it was because I was smoking some vintage Virginia flake tobaccos, wasn't in the same room when someone had an open tin, or, most likely, the fact that I pretty much stick to smoking only a few tobaccos.
Ever since I got back to the office last week, John and Ted have repeatedly asked me if I was going to try a bowl. Since I’m the one who walks around the office offering samples of whatever seemingly simple, yet subtly bizarre food I might have just prepared in the kitchen to some of my co-workers, I finally decided to try a bowl this afternoon. John's initial description of a tin aroma akin to BBQ smoke made me curious, as did Ted's threat to punch me in the face if I didn't take a bowl. The tin aroma is fantastic. The thin flakes, neatly arranged in stacks of three slivers side-by-side make for a beautiful arrangement, and the ease of twisting up a bird nest of tobacco for the bottom of my pipe to be covered with the remainder of the fully-rubbed out flake got me off to a good start. While moist in the tin, I only dried the tobacco on a piece of paper for ten minutes. The threads took easily with a match and were tamped without any need to light the bowl again. Pungently sweet smoke with a considerably balanced chord of chocolately-sweet, clove-spice asserting itself early on. The sweetness fades, but a rich spice on my palate and an ever-so-slight warming of my forehead from the nicotine kick remains subtle, but constant throughout the smoke.
For fans of Burley blends, or those of you who are a bit curious as to whether you may like this, I would highly recommend this tobacco. As I am currently typing this introduction, the fragrant smoke makes for a pleasant taste that goes extremely well with my cup of black coffee. Perhaps you might take this opportunity to see what the new Mac Baren HH Old Dark Fired has to offer.
Aside from a lengthy tobacco introduction, we have a lot of great pipes freshly updated. Pieces from Tokutomi, J.Alan, and Former can be found, as well as dozens of designs from L'Anatra to Peterson. If estates are what you crave, we have seventy-two to whet your whistle.
Working for Smokingpipes.com is, for the record, as much fun as many of you have suggested you think it is, and sometimes even more so. Case in point: Friday some of us got together to experiment with stoving tobacco. The genesis for this endeavor started when Chris Johnson offered me a bowl of five-year-old Rattray's Marlin Flake, given to him by Mimmo of Romeobriar.com fame. Let me tell you, it's absolutely scrumptious! Ted Swearingen had earlier that day discussed stoving some Haddo's, hoping to bring it closer in flavor to Sykes's ten-year-old version we sampled in Chicago and so the three of us decided we should try tossing some Marlin Flake in the oven and see how it would turn out.
I walked downstairs and purchased a shiny new tin from our brick-and-mortar, Low Country Pipes and Cigars. From this tin, I removed roughly half of the tobacco for stoving, and kept the other half to smoke through the weekend so that I might thoroughly explore Marlin Flake's un-aged/un-stoved flavor for comparison. The pipe I chose to wield for this experiment was my little Peter Heeschen brandy, a piece that I have smoked no more than a handful times (being my nicest pipe, I like to save it for special occasions; we all have our rituals and rules).
The flake to be cooked, in what's commonly refered to as Fred Hannah's 220/220 method, was placed in a coffee can topped with aluminum foil. With the oven heated to 220 F, we baked the pile for just over two hours, and visually compared the three, the fresh, the stoved, and the aged-five-years. The stoved pile was much darker, closer in color to the aged tobacco. Unfortunately, the stoved flake was now also completely devoid of moisture. I placed it in plastic bag with a Hydrostone (a small, leaf-shaped piece of ceramic) and left the stoved Marlin Flake to re-hydrate over the weekend.
The result? As you might expect, the baked tobacco does not go so far as to match the five-year-old in flavor or smoothness, but it does indeed taste better. How much better than new? Well, only a little bit, honestly. I'm guessing that certain pipe tobacco mixtures respond to stoving better than others, and one could also vary cooking time, temperature, along with moistness of the tobacco, but stoving is nonetheless not chemically equivalent to aging, and therefore cannot be expected to replace it. Was it worth the time and effort? That's hard to answer, as we did have some fun playing mad-scientists in the kitchen, and I'd say that aspect at least is worth more than the end result.
Enough about tobacco, let's talk update. Today we have for you two new pieces from our own Adam Davidson, four from Lasse Skovgaard, alongside a fresh selection of Tsuges, Dunhills, Johs, Brighams, Savinellis, Petersons, and masterfully restored estates from England and Italy. Enjoy!
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
The Chicago show has come and gone. For some it was an opportunity to buy pipes, for others it was an occasion to sell. For many it was a chance to visit with friends we don’t see but once a year. And for Smokingpipes.com it was all of the above - and then some. Fortunately, this year we were wise enough to bring along John, one of our staff photographers (among other duties), and he managed to capture dozens of beautiful pictures of pipes and people alike, many of which you may have already seen posted on our Facebook page, many more of which you’ll find on our blog in the next few days alongside an overview/synopsis/run down of our experience at the show. We’d like to thank the CPCC for putting together another simply tremendous convention, and even despite having just returned, we’re already wishing we were back there all over again. Well, okay, I think we could use a few days off first honestly, but by the end of the month I’m sure we’d be ready to throw down. Nevertheless, we’re certainly looking forward to next year’s festivities.
In the meantime it’s been business as usual at the SPC headquarters. In spite of losing a sizable portion of our total staff to Chicago last week, the gang that remained behind managed to continue to put together a couple stellar updates in our absence. And for those of you who missed seeing an estate offering this last Monday, we’ve made up the difference with a “heftier than usual” spread this afternoon.
Furthermore, we’d like to mention that we’re running a special on Lampe Berger right now; for every purchase of a new lampe we’re throwing in a free bottle of scented oil so you can get started with this beloved product that much easier, or simply add to your existing selection at home for nary a penny. Furthermore, you’ll also find new pipes from such carvers as Ardor, Ser Jacopo, Brebbia, Savinelli, Peterson, Neerup, fresh meerschaums from IMP, and beautiful new works from Tsuge, Japanese carver Smio Satou, and Austrian maker Peter Matzhold.
Great news, everyone! Due to warnings of inclement weather, Adam, who we expected to return ahead of everyone else today, has had his flight delayed - which means the writing of today's update introduction has fallen on me. Naturally this means you'll have to wait that much longer to hear how everything went at the Chicago show. (Ted, Sykes, Chris, Susan, and John were all scheduled for later flights.) "What's so great about that?", you may be wondering. The answer is... absolutely nothing, in all likelihood. All I can say in my defense is that I thought opening bad news on a positive note might soften the blow a little. (Great news, Dad! Remember how you agreed to let me borrow your fast and rare automobile last night, so that I might impress a girl with its irreplaceable styling and powerful drivetrain?, etcetera)
On the upside, however, we do have quite an update today, with one particularly special item to introduce: The first edition of Jan Andersson's Scandinavian Pipemakers. This extensive and instructive hardcover has been long in the making, and it's easy to see why once you've got your hands on it; in just over three-hundred pages, loaded with full-color photographs, Andersson covers histories and personal anecdotes alike regarding dozens of the most influential artisan pipemakers to come out of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, as well as the Stanwell and Larsen factories, who played their own important roles in what we collectively refer to as the "Danish school".
Joining this first edition of Scandinavian Pipemakers, you'll also find today close-out deals on a selection of IM Corona "Magie" series lighters, the introduction of the Savinelli "Magic Cloth", as well as fresh briars from Chris Askwith, Radice, Sebastien Beo, Tsuge, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen - so have a look, and be assured we'll have plenty of news from the Chicago Show when the other half of our staff finally does make it home.
With half our staff off at the Chicago show, all is quiet here at the Smokingpipes offices. Well, mostly quiet. Or at least moderately quieter. Pam is constantly running one place or another, getting updates together while no one else is around to handle the half a dozen other things cropping up at any given time, while I'm using Adam's absence to play plenty of the sort of music that used to make Sykes hide behind his door back when I was by his office, and which a summer intern once went so audaciously far as to describe as "not music".
On the other hand, however, I've also began sampling from the numerous Virginias lining the wall of Low Country Pipe and Tobacco, our first-floor brick-and-mortar. This is unusual, given that Virginias have always been Adam's thing, not mine. Indeed I took a rather unusual route in my introduction to pipe tobaccos, beginning with powerful Latakia blends, often supplied by Tom Marsh... and much to the dismay of Alyson and Susan, with whom I shared an office at the time.
Some may interpret that unorthodox and rather brash path as a reflection of my own personality, but it's also certainly something which was sustained by the simple fact that I have a rather insensitive palate. Eventually, desiring something that I wouldn't, shall we say, leave a negative impression upon the interior of my old Lincoln, or my small apartment, I found a few lighter aromatics I could enjoy as well, and after moving my desk into the pipe library with Adam, I've tended to smoke these more than anything. Nonetheless, with little interest in anything with a fruit flavor, I never dabbled in such blends as I did with the powerfully smoky, spicy English concoctions.
So it is that now, more than two years on, and with a sense of flavor at least slightly more attuned than where it began, I find myself beginning to poke about the Virginias, be they red, bright, ribbon, or shag. It goes to show that even those of us who can smoke all day if we please, and who have hundreds of blends available at hand, can become rather fixed in our habits. But it also shows that even those of us of a stubborn nature (as an old mule, I have on good account), and not possessed of a professional wine-taster's palate, can still (at however more slowly and finicky a pace) find and gradually come to appreciate new blends to enjoy.
And speaking of the new, as well as of enjoyment, it's time for today's update, in which you will find everything from Nording briars to a Paolo Becker morta, in a selection featuring such names as Markle, Lindner, Parks, L'Anatra, Wiley, Winslow, Cavicchi, Stanwell, and, of course, the ever-present Savinelli - plus, naturally enough, plenty of estate pipes, too.
Many of you are quite familiar with the pipeman-afflicting disorders "PAD "and "TAD" (Pipe Aquisition Disorder and Tobacco Aquisition Disorder, respectively). We, of course, are enthusiastic enablers of these conditions, as both keep us in business, which, of course, in turn helps keep those of us here at SPC who also happen to be afflicted by PAD and TAD in fresh pipes and blends, too. We enable you, you enable us. It's a pretty awesome, mutually beneficial cycle, quite frankly. We certainly feel so.
You may be surprised to learn that there is another disorder I have been observing as of late, this one a bit more insidious. I realized recently that every time I see one of my co-workers puffing away, without fail, I begin to covet his smoking apparatus. I want one just like it. It may be I already have one kinda like it. Doesn't matter though; not the same finish, or his is cross-grained and mine is flame-laden. Whatever the trivial variation may be, a little voice from somewhere deep in my brainstem gently whispers, "I WANT THAT PIPE."
To fit neatly into the previously established acronym paradigm, I'm naming this malady PED, short for Pipe Envy Disorder. There is no real cure short of becoming a hermit, but PED can be managed with a little self-restraint and the realization that what's in your hand is probably also the object of someone else's yearning gaze as well.
If you truly desire to be on the receiving end of copious cases of PED, and who among us doesn't want to be that guy, I have just the pipe for you. Today's update features a very beautiful bent Dublin by Hans "Former" Nielsen. Straight grained, with a birdseye-wreathed rim reminiscent of a Van Gogh night sky, all under a deep chestnut stain, its allure is sure to prove devastatingly contagious.
Also available, we have new pipes from Tsuge, Dunhill, Luciano, Chacom, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli and Peterson; twenty-four total English and Italian estate pipes; and new bulk tobacco blends from Altadis and Planta.
John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer
I have something of a confession to make. I am kind of a pipe smoking disaster. I was visiting a friend recently and as we spent the afternoon hanging out, I watched him diligently clean each pipe he smoked. Every smoke was in a different pipe. He rotated, cleaned, and babied his pipes. While I greatly admire this, I find myself utterly incapable of that sort of diligent care of, well, anything. My office desks, at work and at home, each have piles of pipes on them, in ashtrays and, occasionally, actually on pipe racks. Some of the pipes contain, gasp, dottle from previous smokes that I haven't yet cleaned out. I regularly run out of pipe cleaners, forgetting to buy more until my pipes are so grungy that cleaners become absolutely imperative. Once every great while, I sit down and clean twenty or thirty pipes at a throw because I've just let them get too nasty. I am a bad pipe smoker. I recognize it. I don't embrace it. I constantly declare that I'll change. That I'll stop leaving random pipes all over the house with tobacco still in the bowls, that I'll carefully and diligently wipe out the chambers and run pipe cleaners through the shanks after each smoke, that I'll actually practice what I preach. I also waste a lot of tobacco because I'll put down a half-smoked pipe and absent mindedly pack another. If I were eight, and if eight year olds smoked pipes, my mother would have taken away my pipes because I wasn't properly caring for my things.
I'm dedicated to reforming my delinquent pipe smoking behavior. I'll start caring for my pipes properly. I will stop smoking half a bowl and forget about that pipe. I'll remember to carry pipe cleaners with me. And a pipe tool. I'll be good to my pipes. Pipes smoke better when you care for them properly. They look prettier when they're all shiny and the silverwork hasn't turned completely black. I'm sure I'd derive some extraordinary sense of satisfaction from the fact that all of them were in order, cleaned, squared away and ready to go.
Of course, that would require a level of organization that I haven't yet managed in pretty much any area of my life. It's looking increasingly unlikely, as I get older, that I'll ever actually grow up sufficiently to do things like this. I love smoking my pipes. I really do. And whatever you do, don't do what I do. My understanding is that caring for pipes properly is a far more rewarding experience. And, of course, if you care for a pipe at even a minimal level, it will last, well, if not forever, than close enough to forever for none of us to ever notice the difference.
And that's part of the fun of pipes. These are permanent objects. If you smoke a cigar, you're left with a stump and, perhaps, a pretty paper band. If you smoke a pipe, you can return to that old friend over and over. Our old friends deserve our care. I recognize this and strive to improve my nasty pipe smoking habits.
And with that, I encourage you to check out today's update, replete with lifelong friends to be, with pipe makers ranging from Peter Heeschen and Rad Davis to Peterson and Savinelli, there's something here for every pipe smoker, the diligent, and the not so diligent, alike.
Lastly, you probably noticed that with this newsletter we’ve introduced Facebook and Twitter buttons along the top and bottom of the page. Feel free to “like” and/or “follow” us, if you haven’t already, to stay up to date with promotions, specials, events, and anecdotes pertaining to Smokingpipes.com.
A brand new pipe should not burn-out during its maiden smoke. That’s not to say it can’t happen, or won’t happen to us, the unsuspecting pipe smoker, from time to time, but I think we can all agree it’s certainly not supposed to happen. An early burn-out can occur, however very, very rarely, for a concise variety of reasons, chief among which is a hidden, natural defect in the briar (like a large sand pit) between the inside wall of the tobacco chamber and outermost wall of the bowl (often unseen just beneath the surfaces of both) that becomes problematic, to say the least, when christened by heat. Problematic meaning that the flaw causes the wood around it to structurally disintegrate and collapse upon itself, leaving a portion of the tobacco chamber looking like it suffered an avalanche of miniature proportions. And if you keep smoking this pipe, chances are, you’re going to put a hole right through it.
I was talking with a fellow last week who is new to the art of pipe smoking. He has as of yet, perhaps, as few as two pipes to his name, and he did a fair bit of homework, primarily by way of mining the contents of the pipe smoking forums, before he’d actually even taken his first puff. Here I’ll mention that I think some of the minutia and much of the micro-minutia regarding the “intricacies” of pipe smoking, pipe cleaning, tobacco storage, et cetera, tend to be more in the nature of personal ritual than strictly effective, but I think it’s probably a good idea to get some education out of the way when jumping into a new hobby - and these habits of ritual rarely do more harm than good, and certainly far less harm than sheer neglect would. Nevertheless, after all his study, there came at last the moment to light up his freshly-got pipe for the first time; however he was so concerned with proper packing technique, lighting procedure, cool-burning smoking tactics, and the well-being of his pipe that he found little, if any, enjoyment from the actual doing of it. And by sheer, confounding coincidence, his pipe burned-out during his, and its, very first smoke.
Needless to say, this fresh initiate to pipedom was pretty confused and upset. He had done everything right, by the book, on the nose, to the letter. And yet, his pipe chose to destroy itself right before his eyes. He tried smoking his other pipe, but was so wound up about preventing a second burn-out, that he found the smoking experience even less enjoyable than he did the first. I expressed to him both the sentiments you read in the first paragraph of this introduction, as well as my condolences - and also the facts. The fact is you ought to be able to pick up a new pipe and smoke it three or four times in twelve hours without worrying about damaging it. You ought to be able to keep this up for a few days before the pipe really starts to taste bad, or needs rest. I wouldn’t suggest keeping this pace up indefinitely by any means, but some of the very best pipes I’ve got I’ve been able to put through the ringer like heavy-weight champs right out of the box. A well-made pipe free of unavoidably and accidentally hidden defect should easily live up to some early, limited abuse. Moreover, and to the heart of it all, one needn’t have to be so careful smoking a new pipe that it’s not an enjoyable, relaxing occasion. Unless the pipe is born as doomed and fatally flawed as a classical Greek hero, you really have to want to break a pipe, or just get really sloppily careless with the thing, to hurt it - briar is hardy stuff, by its very nature. For those of you new to the pipe, just know that the odds of one burning-out on you during its inaugural smoke are slim-to-none.
And now for this evening’s selection of carefully selected and inspected briars. You’ll find new work from Lasse Skovgaard in the mix, as well as fresh pipes from Tsuge, Radice, Sebastien Beo, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen, in addition to meerschaum pipes from Storient, and two dozen estate pipes. Of course, be sure to check out the Partagas cigars we’re updating to the site. New pipe bags and tobacco pouches from Savinelli find their way to the accessories section this evening as well. Last but not least, we’re continuing our Dunhill tobacco sale: buy four tins and get the fifth free. What a deal!
We have a few exciting points to cover tonight, including both a great tobacco promotion and the introduction of two new pipe brands!
Dunhill tobaccos have been a popular presence in the cellars and pipes alike of smokers for decades, and there has always been a demand for their blends. Until the end of April, you can mix and match any four Dunhill tins, and choose a fifth tin of any Dunhill blend in stock for free! Whether you fancy a bowl of Deluxe Navy Rolls, Early Morning Pipe, 965, or any of the other six blends available, simply add them to your cart and you'll see a link to add the free tin of your choice!
And as mentioned, two pipe brands new to Smokingpipes are hitting the site for the first time tonight, which is always exciting. Viktor Yashtylov has been making waves in collector circles all over the world, and now you'll find his briars making waves with us, too. (And some of you may recall his intricately-cast brass tampers having previously done much the same on our site.) A pipe maker from Russia, he began making pipes in 2000 and is known for his sandblasting technique, finishing process, and for making pipes that are often very small, yet still elegant. We are putting up three of his creations tonight, which include a very small smooth sitter, a sandblasted classic with silver, and a smooth contrasted piece. We are also happy to announce that we've acquired a limited number of Storient meerschaum pipes in from Turkey. Many of them are of classic shapes, yet intricately carved with various motifs, while others display more modern, Freehand designs. Furthermore, while some of these pipes are of the more widely-known, light-weight quality of meerschaum, others are quite heavy by comparison, being made of denser material which some smokers believe results in a more even coloring process.
As previously mentioned, amongst the thousand-and-one other things packed into the Smokingpipes staff calendar at this date, is that Ted, Sykes, Susan, and John will be spending some time up at Cornell & Diehl. Ted is particularly enthusiastic about the opportunity to learn more about the process of preparing and blending tobaccos from the basics - indeed, this very morning he was here in the pipe library with Adam and I, discussing both those steps and elements of the process he wanted to see firsthand, and naturally enough, this inevitably led the conversation towards the potential feasibility of a series of increasingly whimsical concoctions.
The economic soundness of charring the outside of grass-fed beef steaks, then scraping them to produce a fine powder from which to create a flavor essence, we decided, was tenuous at best. Steeping a proper latakia blend in a particularly smoky whisky was a little more manageable from a financial perspective, we concluded, but we also suspected it was liable to lend itself a little too readily to inducing a "one for the blend, and one for the blender" habit, resulting in a marked degradation in the quality of the final product over the course of time.
As you can see, we've put a lot of thought into this. Hopefully when Ted returns from C&D we'll find ourselves enriched with a better sense of discretion regarding what is and is not a potentially catastrophic prospect. As the public service announcements that used to follow the old GI Joe cartoons always taught us, "Learning is half the battle." And whether you're pondering taking a little swim in the midst of a lightning storm, or considering marketing a Stilton-infused English, that lesson would appear to possess a certain intrinsic merit.
But that is the future. For today, however, we have for you a smashing update: briars by Stanwell, Peterson, Savinelli, and Brebbia; affordable freehands from Erik Nording; fresh, pale meerschaums from IMP; artisanal pieces from Tsuge, Ardor, Lindner, and Il Duca - and of course a thorough selection of estates.
Boy have we got a really nice update for you here, folks. We’ve got lovely fresh pipes from Tsuge and Peter Heeschen alike, as well as fresh work from the venerable Dunhill, Savinelli, Peterson, Vauen, and (last but not least) Sebastien Beo. This evening we’ve also got two dozen recently restored estate pipes available, in addition to new cigars from Cabaiguan and Carlos Torano.
And in other news, here’s where you’ll find us over the next month or so.
This week, Sykes, Susan, John, and I will spend a day on a pilgrimage to Cornell & Diehl in North Carolina. Because this will be John’s first visit to the operation we’ll get a tour of the whole works, which pleases me a great deal, as this will still be only my second time at C&D. Between the two of us, I’m expecting that we’ll bring home a ton of pictures to share on the Smokingpipes blog and Facebook. The Tarlers are really very wonderful people and it’ll be nice to chat with them again. Maybe we’ll pick up some new blends to carry on the site. We’ll see.
Then, this Saturday you can find us at the TAPS show in Raleigh, NC. Last year Susan and I found this show to be particularly exciting on account of the wildly diverse group of attendees. There were lots of different people of different backgrounds; there were a bunch of young people to be found, and even an inordinately substantial population of pipe smokers of the fairer sex was present. This year Sykes, John, and I will be driving up to attend, and I’m even bringing my wife, Shelly. It will be her first pipe show.
And of course, the Chicago pipe show itself is now only but a few weeks away. It’s a beast of a show to put together, and requires a pretty large team, but it’s a tremendous amount of fun, and furthermore we get a lot of really awesome things accomplished while we’re there. Meanwhile, back home in Little River, the guys in our brick and mortar shop, Low Country Pipe & Cigar, will be gearing up for the Blue Crab Festival, an annual event held in Little River, SC; an occasion we've kept a booth at for five or six years straight. Following the Chicago show in May, will be the Kansas City show in June. I’m told that it’s being held in a new venue this year; we can't wait to see the new set-up.
Yes, there’s a lot going on right now. It’s our busiest time of the year and it seems to go by in a blur. If you plan on attending any of these events, please be sure to stop by and say, "Hi!". We’d love to meet you.
A few weeks ago, we sent out a survey about your experience at Smokingpipes.com. We had almost 2,200 responses--an impressive 15% response rate (thanks guys!)--filled with detailed suggestions, comments and ideas, ranging from the sublime to the absurd (in response to one comment, no, I won't be wearing a tutu at the Chicago Show; no one wants to see that). It takes a bit of time to tabulate all of that, but the organized results landed on my desk yesterday morning. I want to write a lengthier blog post addressing some of the ideas in more detail, but I wanted to cover some highlights briefly.
One of the things that's awesome about reading through all of this is that it feels like constructive (or, in the case of tutu guy, not so constructive) suggestions from friends, rather than impersonal responses from strangers. 97.5% were either somewhat or very satisfied with Smokingpipes.com, with most of the balance being neutral. Other questions in the same vein (how likely are you to recommend us? etc), received similar response scores. So, it's encouraging to hear that, in general, we're doing a good job. Still, we could always be doing a better job, couldn't we? And, that's where all your comments come into play. Here are a handful of the most often mentioned suggestions and quick responses on those:
1) Website performance on update days: Seriously, we've thought we had this fixed so many times that for awhile there folks around here just rolled their eyes when I said I thought it'd be better. After three updates with no performance problems, I think we actually have this one nailed now. We're also working on a longer term project to add servers to our cluster to try to get in front of it before it becomes a problem again.
2) Problems with login/cart/checkout related problems: I think we have these down to almost no problems, but we're still working on it. We're in the process or reworking the cart code to better tie all this up. On this, we've fixed some stuff, we're working on fixing other stuff, and we have plans to make further improvements over the next few weeks. We hear ya on this. We're on it.
3) Shipping prices/options/service: Higher fuel prices have made shipping charges more painful across the board. We tried to address this with a pilot program we ran with UPS Surepost last year. No one liked that (not us, not you; I think my aunt Carol even called to complain and we hadn't even shipped her anything). We're working on expanding options and coming up with cheaper ways to do this without sacrificing quality of service. We should have bits and pieces in place in the next few weeks.
4) Photographs, quantity thereof and related things: We have cool plans in the works. We'll keep you posted.
I mostly just want to thank you for participating in the survey, though. Your help is ever so much appreciated. We want to make sure that Smokingpipes.com continues to be the market leader for premium pipes and pipe tobacco in the United States, and getting your ideas and acting on them is about the best way for us to do that. Thanks!
And, of course, those of you who asked for more pipes, well, we're working on that too. Starting with a good sized update today which includes pipes from Lasse Skovgaard, Rad Davis, Ashton, Randy Wiley, Claudio Cavicchi, and much more. Check 'em out!
Though smooth pipes are extremely popular, and generally command the highest prices, there are quite a few pipemen who prefer other finishes, sometimes because of the less expensive price tag, but also often because of the more stimulating textures. One of the tasks most new employees are saddled with when fresh to our office is sorting through invoices from various pipemakers or manufacturers to make sure we received what we ordered. Often this leads to the new employee scratching his or her head while wondering what the difference is between a sandblast and a rusticated piece. It just so happens that there are two boxes of briar under my desk (which I keep forgetting to take home to add to my stock) which have become very useful visual aids to show Smokingpipes.com employees what pipes are made from and how to recognize the details of briar's texture, and how they are expressed in different finishes.
The potential for a great smooth pipe is often easy to spot in a block, but it's still fun to wipe down a beautifully cut piece of briar just to show off the grain. I confess to likely deriving considerably more delight from this exercise than my coworkers, because I see potential for different shapes within each block. Some of these examples have growth rings that are very easy to see with the naked eye, so I’m able to draw a few shapes on the side of the block and explain how a pipe is cut in such a way to produce a ring grain pattern (which could also potentially be a straight grain if given a smooth finish, though unlike a sandblast, pits must be taken into consideration with the latter). Further, I’ll explain that pipes that have very bizarre grain patterns with no discernible growth ring pattern wouldn't make a nice smooth, nor would it make a nice sandblast. A sandblast, you see, is the skeleton of a pipe. Sure, some companies out there fake a ring-grained blast by carving the bowl with a tool and then lightly blasting over the top of it, which simply creates a desired effect that people like. For the most part, though, a pipe that is not pretty enough to be smooth or blasted will have the surface rusticated by various tools that leave it evenly craggy, taking the place of the briar's natural pattern.
The best sandblasted pipes will show the growth rings as wavy lines going around the bowl in some pattern, with varying degrees of consistency, depth, and density from pipe to pipe. One of the best ways to think about this is imagining that the pipe you are holding is smooth before finishing. Imagine that you have a pot of melted wax, and dip most of the pipe in this wax, and then dip it into cool water to solidify the coating. Imagine that each time you dip the pipe into wax, you stop just short of the previous dip; what you would end up with is rippled lines working their way around the bowl. Each layer leaves a little line that looks like growth rings. If a pipe has any sort of little lines running around the bowl, it's sandblasted. Further, I might add, is that there is a misconception that all sandblasted pipes are flawed pipes. Not true. There are a great number of pipemakers - myself included - that pick up a block and see such stunning growth rings and understand a that this block, as a sandblasted pipe, would be far more beautiful than as a smooth one. Some blocks of briar, cutters and makers say, are just 'begging' to be sandblasted. The texture is quite lovely and a great many of us might even prefer to see some interesting growth patterns of the wood over an even, smooth-polished surface.
In tonight's update, you can see a great number of smooth pipes, but also a huge sum of bowls that are either rusticated or sandblasted. Take a look at some pictures and imagine the wax-dipped visualization, and you may find yourself understanding the difference and technique behind the finishes. Check out fresh pipes from J. Alan, Tsuge, Dunhill, Caminetto, Luciano, Chacom, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, and Peterson to view, as well as twenty-four estates. For those of you who like a hot beverage sometime during the day, we now have mugs with the Smokingpipes logo!
Being mutually occupied by both Adam and myself, the Smokingpipes pipe library has become the birthplace of many the office's finest, or, failing that, strangest ideas and conversations. Just yesterday, in fact, upon happening across a pipe which was, to put it mildly, rather more colorfully accented than is to my personal taste, I remarked to Adam, "If I were to die in the street, it would be a shame if the police were to find this... celebration of color upon my corpse." I stated as such, of course, because I felt that, as an accoutrement, said particular briar's composition was totally at odds with my own character and tastes. Though I'll never agree that "the clothes make the man", I'll readily recognize that they do tend to reflect who he is - or at least who he wants to be thought of as being, a pretension which can be if anything even more telling.
Clothing, however, tends to be much more ephemeral than a pipe; fashions and lifestyles change both with the seasons and as we grow and age, cloth wears out, soles thin down and eventually split. A leather jacket or a high-quality pair of boots might endure ten or even twenty years of regular use, but such garments are the exception. A pipe, however... well, just look at our estate department - it's not difficult to find something thirty years old, and we've seen quite a few of far, far older vintage. And even for a smoker, rather than collector, such as I am, a pipe will still reflect pretty clearly one's tastes, demands, and self-image. Some of you may have already guessed where this is leading, which is to the impishly absurd question I brought up between Adam and myself: "Adam, which pipe would you most wish for the police to find on your corpse?" This, naturally enough, led to a lively back-and-forth.
For Adam it was ultimately decided it would be something clean and classically English - perhaps one of his own artisanal pieces. What better for a man to drop dead with, after all, than a briar he made himself? Considering my own options, I was forced to eliminate my Beo Acorn; as much as I enjoy sipping a bit of a flavorful latakia blend from it, it is too gracile and delicate in aesthetic. Plus, I would probably break it if I happened to fall upon it in the course of my sudden expiration. My Churchwarden? Well, I'd feel a bit silly walking down the street with it in the first place, much less meeting my maker with it poking conspicuously from out of my pocket. Eventually I continued in this manner until I settled into a stalemate between my Beo bent Billiard and my Dunhill bent Dublin. Despite one being very English, and the other being very French, both share similar aesthetic and functional strengths: Deep and flavorful chambers, dark and heavy sandblasts, bold and forthright bowls, and eloquently flowing gestures of shank and stem following thereafter. As I do double duty as both the office cad and the office morbid crank, as well as main copywriter and general-purpose insufferable know-it-all, these were all design qualities which I felt most naturally suited to summing up my character. Were I myself a pipe, no doubt indeed I would be a pipe not unlike one of these.
I also decided I would prefer to have met my end by being shot by a particularly tempestuous woman, as this, too, I thought, would reflect accurately in death upon my life. It would also make for an all the more interesting and memorable eulogy too, I should hope. But look at me digress.
Some of the best advice a young man may receive is to remember that every day may be his last - but not in the "eat, drink, and be merry" manner. Rather, that a man should consider his words and actions as if they might one day be his last, and what he is remembered most for. Because one day they, and their sum, will in fact be, and that one should not to risk letting the last words you speak to a friend be a lie, or to your wife that her mother's cooking would make a stray dog balk (that latter one being particularly risky). As the big things reflect in the little things, so do the little things reflect upon the big things. My advice is to make sure you always have the right pipe at hand - and all the more so if you happen to be visiting in-laws. The question as to what makes a particular briar just the right pipe, I leave up to you.
Certainly you won't lack for options as of today's update, wherein we present for you: a broad selection of Stanwells, Petersons, Nordings, and Brebbias; a massive batch of Savinellis, focusing upon their finest handmade grades; a plentiful pile of fresh meerschaums from IMP, and select artisan pieces from Ardor, Il Duca, Scott Klein, Tokutomi, and Maigurs Knets. And finally, of course, dozens of estate briars, cleaned, inspected, and offered at killer prices.
Last week I did something I never do: I smoked an aromatic. And not some lightly-cased Virginia of negotiable sweetness, either. No, this was the full-on, sopping-goopy real deal. It’s important to note that I don’t share any philosophical bias against these kinds of blends, and I don't think of them as beneath me as a pipe smoker, as it were. Mostly, the wet and sticky-sweet mixtures just don’t thrill me the way a complex and well-aged Virginia does. But when Gary Ferguson from Villiger visited us last week to show off Newminster, their soon-to-be-released line of luxury pipe tobacco blends, I couldn’t help but find myself a little spellbound by the generously-portioned sample of Blackberry Brandy he gave me.
To be sure, Gary brought with him a handful of samples. Twenty, to be exact. Between blends like Blackberry Brandy, Creamy Peaches, Very Cherry, French Champagne, Danish Black, and Creamy Vanilla, by the end of Gary’s visit, the atmosphere of our conference room was as rich and flavorful as a confectioner’s kitchen at full tilt. Yet it was the Blackberry Brandy, with its tart piquancy, and provocative candied coloring, that seemed to draw me in before all others.
And so it was that by the end of the day I had loaded up my pipe with the densely-fruity stuff and began wandering the Smokingpipes.com campus, sharing with all the delicious perfume of the unmistakably blackberry-infused smoke while soliciting feedback on the room note. The reaction was so positive that by the end of my tour I had convinced Tom, Bill, Kaye, and John to take a sample as well (and in Eric's case, taking the more direct route of grabbing a pinch straight from the pouch and putting it in his mouth); all this by doing little more than wafting the highly fragrant smoke under their noses. My response? I have to say that while it might not be my normal taste in smoke, Blackberry Brandy is quite heavenly and incredibly true in flavor to its aroma. Kudos to Newminster for enticing me out of my comfort zone.
In tonight’s update you’ll find breathtaking lighters of hand-tooled sterling silver by Sillem’s, tastefully handsome leather tobacco pouches by Columbus, and a handful of savory new cigars from A. Turrent. All this in addition to a couple dozen fresh estate pipes, and new work from Tsuge, Dunhill, Sebastien Beo, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen.
When I got hired to work for Smokingpipes in late November 2005, I had already experienced the angst of purchasing a couple of tins of a particular pipe tobacco blend, thoroughly enjoying it, and later discovering that it had gone out of production. The name and blend of said tobacco really isn't as important as what I learned from my mistake: Buy more as soon as it's realized there's a chance it could go away forever (or at least annoyingly indefinitely). Whether the company quit making the blend simply because a specific component was in short supply or whether the blender perceived that demand for this mix was too short and couldn't sell enough to warrant continued production (possibly from smokers just like me who possessed the "Eh; I'll just buy more after I finish these' attitude regarding pipe tobacco purchasing) is a dilemma I cannot address. However, buying more to smoke later may have saved it from the graveyard.
When I began working in our retail store in 2006, I talked with a lot of customers that would try a tobacco and really enjoy it. "Buy more", I would say, followed by my personal story of woe. I'd let them know up-front that I wasn't trying to trick them into buying more tobacco to raise sales; rather, I was just informing them of the facts. Once you've found a blend you love it quite certainly will increase in price (as all things do), eventually it will cease to be produced (as all things do - even if it's many years away), and it should get better with age.
I took my own advice and purchased four or five pounds of Samuel Gawith's Full Virginia Flake in bulk as well as a few other bulk blends, and between five and ten tins of each of the tobaccos I liked. It's here I'd like to mention that while some people might attempt to buy out the total inventory of a particular favored blend, and are free to do so, hoarding copious amounts that one doesn't even plan to smoke prevents all others from being introduced to and talking about this tobacco which would otherwise increase interest among friends and peers and thus may cause the blend in regard to have more fans, which will keep it in demand and surely the shops supplied, and so on and so forth.
Samuel Gawith pipe tobacco is a perfect example of the aforementioned syndrome. We used to get a lot of 50-gram tins and one-pound boxes back in 2006. Hundreds and hundreds of them. But because demand for their product is up and the general availability of it is extremely low (in small part because of smokers buying up as much as the can), many smokers have resorted to discovering other blends to replace their beloved Sam Gawith smokes (which, actually, is a good thing for the survival of other blends). Now do I think that Samuel Gawith blends will ever fall out of popularity so as to threaten its existence? No. Nevertheless, are there a lot of smokers who can now relate to my story at the beginning of this letter? Probably.
As I sit here typing this, I'm puffing on some Full Virginia Flake that I packed away in mason jars six years ago. The stuff is amazingly good. It's also a lot more expensive now that it was when I purchased it. Most importantly, I made the mistake of not buying anymore after my initial purchase, and now I can't seem to get any at all. I should have been adding to the stock whenever I could afford to do so.
The moral of this story, if I had to grasp one, is smoke what you have now, buy more to cellar (but not so much as to exclude everyone else), and try and remember to add a few more tins than you think you need each time you replenish. Again, you could accuse me of trying to 'drive sales' but really, I'm trying to save you future regret. The positives of such a practice will see you slowly building your cellar over time (be sure to write the dates of purchase on the tins to keep track of aging) and keeping the products in a trickle of demand so the companies will be less-likely to discontinue them. And you'll actually be saving money in the long run by avoiding future price increases.
Tonight you can find a great many offerings from Tsuge, Tonni, Michael Lindner, Kevin Arthur, Ashton, Randy Wiley, Winslow, IMP, Nording, Savinelli, Peterson, Stanwell, and sixty awesome estates.
For one who is a pipe collector, I suppose it is not uncommon to a have a pipe (or several) for every occasion - dress pipes for formal occasions, cherished artisan pieces for inciting envy at pipe shows or club meetings, humble, well-used, yet diligently cleaned and cared for smokers for sitting by the fire at home - that sort of thing. As a non-collector, I've noticed that, without even intending it, I've developed a utilitarian equivalent; "a pipe for every purpose". Sitting on my desk at work, where I in fact do the majority of my smoking, are, unsurprisingly, two of my most capacious briars: a Tsuge bent Billiard for aromatics, burleys, and Virginias, and an old Dunhill Group 4 for English blends. On my nightstand at home, there sits a Peterson, well, sitter - a System Oom Paul. In the front room, surrounded by cushions, I have a big, square coffee table perpetually crowded with books, and in the center of that table there is a metal plate piled with various tobaccos - and wedged in amongst them all is a long-stemmed Churchwarden. In my car, poking out of one of the cup holders, there is a cheap cob with an acrylic bit - which I need not worry about becoming oxidized in the sun. And then there are the two briars which tend to follow me everywhere, light Sebastien Beo pieces, a deeply-bent Billiard and a gracile Acorn, the latter of which is reserved for Latakia blends. In short, despite not being a collector it would seem we may still find ourselves collecting quite a few pipes - merely having devised different excuses for them all. This briar? I merely purchased it because my only other pipe at the time was a meerschaum, and I didn't want to risk damaging it while on a stroll. This silver-mounted Group 2? Well, I needed something small and handy to smoke during an intermission should I ever, by chance, attend an opera. That antique Cavalier with wind-cap? Well, you never know when you might find yourself needing to ride a horse on a windy day.
This, as I believe we all are beginning to realize, can continue for quite some time, covering any situation imaginable to justifying any given pipe's "practicality". What always helps, of course, is having a broad selection of pipes for which one might devise excuses foresee a fortuitous purpose. To that end, we happily bring you today's update, which we trust you will indeed find positively loaded to the gills with fortuity of all sorts: Quality affordable briar from Vauen, Peterson, Savinelli, Brigham, Johs, Chacom, Luciano, and of course, Tsuge as well; solid English classics from Dunhill, and a select variety of artisan pieces by Chris Askwith; thirty-six estates, cleaned and inspected; lastly, we've even thrown several new cigar offerings from Perdomo, Illusione, and Ashton.
At the beginning of last week, I went on a very quick trip to Germany. It was just four days, with two of those being entirely travel. I spent two nights with a German pipe collector-friend with whom I go back a number of years. We had a ton of fun looking at pipes, especially Danish high grades which is this man's particular interest, we ate extremely well, thanks to his wife's remarkable talents in the kitchen, and we pretty much spent every spare minute that I didn't have to go visit folks and do actual work talking about pipes, the hobby and life more generally.
As is wont to happen when you have two guys chatting for hours at a time, the subject turned to politics after awhile. We discussed American politics, German politics, broader European politics and a variety of other subjects. We also spoke at some length about the Chicago Pipe Show, an annual event that both of us have attended each year for many years. He observed how remarkably civil the event is. This is not something that had really occurred to me. Ensconced as I am in the pipe world, I often lack comparison for it. He asked "how many events, stretching across nearly a week, with fifteen-hundred-odd attendees go by without a serious incident of any kind... and not just once, but over and over, across more than a dozen years now?" He's right: aside from the one pipe that seems to be stolen each year--which is often recovered because it wasn't actually stolen--nothing untoward has ever happened at the Chicago show that I can think of. That, in itself, is remarkable. To make my friend's point, we pipe smokers seem to be an unusually civil bunch of folks.
Amidst the political discussions, where we agreed often and disagreed some, we did conclude that the world would be a nicer, less violent and generally more contemplative place if more people smoked pipes. We should start with the delegates to the UN and work our way from there.
And, with that in mind, perhaps in the furtherance of world peace, but certainly because new pipes are just fun, we have a large update for you tonight, including almost 230 pipes. You'll find exceptional entries from Hiroyuki Tokutomi and Peter Heeschen, joined by the likes of Lasse Skovgaard and Ardor. Don't miss the bumper batch of Savinellis, or the exceptional estates this Thursday!
The weather was especially fine here in Myrtle Beach yesterday, so my wife and I went to the State Park for the afternoon. We have a year-long pass, which we take full advantage of in the summer, since the park does include a rather healthy stretch of beach, but my favorite time to go remains late fall or early spring. Because these warmer days of the off-season combine comfortable surroundings, with an absence of the inescapable tourist-season crowds, she asked a few of her friends to come along. The back of my car was filled with a large picnic basket containing seasoned pork, chicken, charcoal, some cooking utensils, a small camp axe, and a pouch with some flint and steel for fire striking. Most importantly for my own relaxation, though, were my trusty pipe and some five-year-old Full Virginia Flake from Samuel Gawith.
Once we all unloaded the food and gear, the girls took to trying to make our spot in the middle of the woods a little bit more comfortable (and taking pictures, of course), while I sent off the only other male in our group to find some dead wood for a fire. Before long, he and I scrounged up an impressive amount of tinder and logs, organized just as neatly as the girls had arranged the table. Knowing that he is a high school history teacher, and an avid camper, I thought it would be fun to teach him the old technique of striking steel against flint and catching the sparks on a char cloth in a tinder bundle to start the fire, something which he had not seen before. While pieces of pork hung on a make-shift sapling spit, ready to be smoked, we chatted about history, and particularly the Colonial and Revolutionary War period. I proceeded to pull out an old clay pipe and the Virginia flake, filling my pipe beside the fire as was done centuries ago. Like most people who have never encountered flake tobaccos, he was curious as to what in the world I was doing, giving me a perfect opportunity to talk about some brief history of Virginia tobacco, its importance in early America, and, of course, explain why it looked like slices of beef jerky. Smelling the distinctive dark fruit and leather flavors from the pouch, and watching me tease the tobacco into ribbons (my preferred technique to smoke flakes in a clay), his curiosity only grew. After lighting my pipe with a twig from the fire, we continued to chat about various topics while the fragrant sweetness of the Virginia filled the air. Times like this make me especially proud to be both a pipe maker and smoker. We've already arranged for another outing in the same place, but next time I'll for certain be taking along an extra pipe and more tobaccos to help fuel the budding interest I found in the history and culture of this small, yet time-honored luxury we all love so dearly.
Tonight you can choose from two-dozen estate pipes from England and Italy, as well as dozens of offerings from Tsuge (which are selling faster than we can put them up!). Dunhill, Castello, Sabastien Beo, Chacom, Savinelli, and Peterson also have a fantastic array of shapes, finishes, and styles for every collection focus. For our cigar fans, new offerings from Rocky Patel and Romeo y Julieta should prove very tempting!
This morning, as I was first rolling my chair up to my desk, I realized that in the course of the unusual rush with which I had had to leave the office yesterday evening, I had left one of my pipes out and untended. This was a gross violation of orthodoxy! Or, you know, failing that, just my personal habits, as I typically return my pipes to their allotted places each night (for rotation purposes, you understand). Upon inspecting the lone, forgotten, neglected briar, I found as it was prostrate upon the broad and desolate plain of a clean desk, I became aware of the fact that I had only really smoked about half the bowl, and that I would be faced with one of two choices: dumping out the remaining contents in favor or a fresh load, despite possibly compromising the development of the bowl’s cake (which I confess is a bit nit-picky) or finishing it, regardless of how ashy and rank the tobacco might taste initially having been half-smoked and left to cool and grow bitter, alone and isolated from its brethren, overnight. Naturally, this got me thinking about the Delayed Gratification Technique.
DGT, as it’s commonly referred to by pipe guys, is fundamentally a method by which a pipe smoker will deliberately smoke less than half a pipe’s bowl of tobacco before setting the pipe down for an indeterminate period of time with the express intention of finishing it later. The notion suggests that by purposefully deferring the impulse to smoke the whole bowl the pipe smoker will enjoy it more once he returns to it. Many feel that in employing DGT, aside from the benefits of self-inflicted mind-trickery, the bottom of the bowl is actually imparted with a fuller, richer, stoved taste, and that because much of the tobacco’s moisture has already burned off, the smoker can expect, and should experience, less bite. As you might imagine, the underlying ‘methodology’ can vary wildly from smoker to smoker and club to club. Some suggest waiting hours before relighting; others days. Still, most prefer to let the pipe rest overnight. By and large, it seems smokers fair best here with Virginias, and then blends with Latakia, and not so much with heavily flavored/sauced/cased blends. Some guys love to do this. Some guys hate it. Others think the whole thing is straight-up poppycock. (Even if you find that DGT doesn’t do anything for your tobacco, there’s bona fide, interesting science behind Delayed Gratification: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_gratification) Personally, I don’t normally think about it very much.
But I sure mulled the Delayed Gratification Technique over this morning. Like I said, I’m not ordinarily faced with such a conundrum. To waste tobacco or to not waste tobacco? That’s pretty much the bottom line for me - even working at a place like Smokingpipes, there are some blends that are difficult to come by, and, in much the same vein, you never know when a particular favorite might disappear from the market.
In the meantime, we’ve got a stupendous update put together this afternoon. We’re rolling out new work from Rolando Negoita, Maigurs Knets, Randy Wiley, and Claudio Cavicchi, as well as fresh meerschaums from IMP, and fresh briars from Ashton, Nording, Savinelli, Peterson, and Stanwell. Also, we’re adding 60 estate pipes to the site. Be sure to browse thoroughly!
I love seeing pipes in old movies, which is just one of the reasons many of my favorite films were made between 1930 and 1950. During this time, men smoked pipes and cigars wherever they pleased and looked stylish while doing it. William H. Powell is one of my favorite actors, and is perhaps best known for his role as Nick Charles in The Thin Man movies. Even my wife, who is not especially a fan of old films, enjoys watching Nick and Nora (played by Myrna Loy) travel around New York City in classic cars or simply kicking back with a martini - or five - in one of the many fine establishments they frequented. Nora always seemed to be wearing the finest clothes, as did the other women cast in various roles. During the first Thin Man movie, there’s a scene featuring a dinner party, and my wife pointed out that one female was wearing a dress by Hermes (the white "H" gave it away). And so I mentioned to her that the company also was a pipe brand.
In most of these old movies you’ll see a lot of pipe smoking, but that rarely happens in modern films. We watched one of The Lord of The Ring movies on Saturday night and noted a number of scenes of when an elf, dwarf, man, or hobbit was smoking a pipe. "Cutty!" my wife squealed when someone was sipping a clay. Times like this make me very proud; not only because she likes the pipe, but that she knows the shape name. Pipe sighting in cinema is fun past time for many a pipe man, but it's especially nice when my wife plays along. I suppose she's proud of me whenever I can point out Louis Vuitton bags in movies too. We're training each other for brand and design recognition, you could say. How fine would it be to take a trip back to the 1930s? Me with my pipe and my wife, as beautiful as always, decked out in Hermes with a Louis Vuitton bag just for kicking around.
Tonight we have some briars that were made during this era, which can be found in the estate section. You’ll also find new cigars from Perdomo, as well as new briars from Tsuge, Dunhill, Luciano, Chacom, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen. A few really beautiful sterling silver tampers make their debut tonight, and they caught my eye as soon as they entered the building! I was going to talk with Eric about the tampers and pipe sightings I had over the weekend, but I'm shunning him. It is fun to push his buttons at work, but I'm finding much more amusement today by not telling him things. That cup of coffee he just slurped? It was made on Friday. That donut he just took a bite of? It's a little-known fact that it fell on the floor and someone picked it up to throw away and got distracted. He seems to be enjoying it, though, so I think I'll just keep quiet and let him fully enjoy is cream-filled delight.
The weather is fine, the breeze is blowing, and as an added bonus, Adam is out today. As Pam readily pointed out to me this morning, this means that I'm free for the day to play whatever strange and aesthetically questionable music I might desire... a statement which I can't help but feel contained a certain subtle implication of a criticism all her own. Perhaps even more significant, however, is that for the first time this week he won't be dragging me into some intentionally horrible conversation. Sharing the expansive pipe library as a mutual workplace, as we do, and being men, as we are, it is not unusual for either of us to inflict this sort of behavior upon each other in a good-natured manner, but for the past few days he's been having himself a particularly grand time exploiting a rather specific Achille's heel of mine. Indeed, just yesterday Sykes came in to ask a question, and before he could get a word out, I thanked him profusely for interrupting the conversation Adam was, until that moment, having in my direction. "It was a conversation which needed interrupting," I informed him. I suppose it was my notably complete lack of sarcasm, as much as anything, which lay at the source of the confused look Sykes gave us both as he stood in the doorway. He was raised with manners, as I understand it, and likely is not used to the idea of being thanked for interrupting verbal exchanges of any sort.
But today is a fine day, as I've already said, and perhaps a particularly fine one to enjoy a good smoke in contemplative solitude, at that. In fact, even now I contemplate asking Ted if he has any good suggestions for an especially powerful latakia blend; something with a proper, eye-tearing room note. Upon his return, I have no doubt Adam would be positively delighted by an introduction to any new favorites I may have acquired.
And speaking of acquiring, what better day to acquire something new yourself? Just take a look at what we have in store for this update: briars from Stanwell, Peterson, Neerup, Nording, Brebbia, and Savinelli (including more new series from the latter); a full two-dozen fresh meerschaums by IMP; artisanal pieces by Ardor, Tsuge, Michael Lindner, Lasse Skovgaard, and Scott Klein. Plus, of course, plenty of estate pipes, and as a special bonus, from today through March 17th we're offering a special discount accessory pack with every order that includes any pipe, be it new, or estate.
It's that time of year, at least in South Carolina, that sees temperatures fluctuating between rainy winter days in the upper 40s, to days approaching near 80 in sunshine. Looking outside my window as I write this, it looks about like an average day for, say, friends of ours in England, Ireland, or Scotland. The sky is gray, the streets are wet, and a light, but ever-present mist can be seen on the windshields of cars passing by. A good day, in short, to smoke a pipe inside, perhaps while watching an old black and white movie. A nice cup of tea goes well with a pipe most times, I think, and even more so when on a day like this. Just last Thursday my wife and I escaped to Charleston, SC for a day of museums and sites, and happened upon a nice French restaurant. I was pleasantly surprised when the sun warmed my shirt to the point it almost felt like summer. Taking our jackets off, and noticing that it was about 78 outside, I was telling my wife I would have no complaints if it was between 65-75 all year long, with only November and December dipping below 60. She is from Russia and of course used to bitter cold. I'm from Indiana, which isn't exactly known for balmy weather, either. It's funny how quickly we adapt. When I sit on the couch watching an old movie and smoking my pipe, I think my wife wishes for warmer weather too, if only to be free of the drifting clouds of Virginia/Perique blends in our apartment. We are both ready for some more warmth and sunshine, but understand how quickly we will then in turn wish for days like this one during the brutal Southern summer. Until then, I will take full advantage of our cozy couch, warm pipe, and classic movie from yesteryear.
Tonight you can find new pipes from Dunhill, Castello, Sebastien Beo, Chacom, Savinelli, Peterson, Tsuge, and Vauen. Estates from Ireland, America, and Italy should prove interesting. Finally, we have two new sampler packs of Cigars from Low Country, which contain offerings from Perdomo, Avo, La Gloria Cubana, and many more!
Those of you who follow us on Twitter or Facebook, or better yet, happen to live in Japan, probably know that this past Sunday was the Third Annual Pipe Fest, a pipe show convened in Hachioji that’s as exuberant and lively as its venue is intimately undersized for the impressively solid turnout. Very recently we’ve made an effort to translate much of Smokingpipes.com into Japanese, as well as establishing a Japanese-language customer service support (in the form of one Ryota Shimizu), and so naturally we thought we’d further share our support for the Land of the Rising Sun's recent renaissance of interest in pipe smoking by exhibiting at the Hachioji show. So it was that I found myself flying over to Japan, for the first time in my life, to meet Ryota "Our Man in Tokyo" Shimizu, who was kind enough to voyage with me everywhere, answer all of my dumb questions, translate everything for me, and even pay for a few lunches, dinners, and travel expenses (I could not have got along with out him, and for his kindness and patience I am eternally grateful). In addition to Smokingpipes there were present at Hachioji a couple of other retailers, but the real meat of the show was the healthy turn out of collectors, smokers, and pipe and tobacco enthusiasts, in addition to attending pipe makers like Hiroyuki Tokutomi, Shizuo Arita, Gajin Hayafune, Tatsuo Tajima of Tatu Pipes, and even Austrian carver David Wagner of Baff pipes (and if I’ve left anyone out I apologize - it was, after all, quite a crowd). All in all, it was a brilliant good time and I’m excited for us to do it again next year.
This evening you’ll find fresh pipes on the site from Becker, Askwith, Tokutomi, Kevin Arthur, and Randy Wiley, as well as new work from Ashton, Winslow, Nording, Savinelli, and Peterson. Also, as usual, we’re adding 60 pipes to our estate section. Be sure to take a look around at tonight’s latest offerings!
It's February 20th, which means it's a holiday. For folks here in the United States, it's Presidents' day. Presidents' day lumps together the birthdays of George Washington (February 22nd) and Abraham Lincoln (February 12th) with the other presidents sort of tagging along in their shadows; it became a holiday in 1968 to be part of the list of national Monday holidays. Further adding to the list, it's also International Pipe Smoking Day! The first mention of this holiday was in 2008, when members of international online pipe communities wanted to mark a day on their calendars to celebrate all things relating to pipe smoking enjoyment. Because of online communities and social media acting to spread the idea, pipe smokers around the world now mark the occasion with dinners, celebrations, gatherings, or simply firing up a pipe wherever they choose.
To celebrate one of our favorite holidays here at Smokingpipes, we're sharing the very things we all love. No, there will be no Santas, turkeys, fireworks, or egg-laying rabbits, but you can pick out something new for yourself out of thousands of items on our website. Every order on our website will receive an extra 10% off for the next 24 hours! Everything!
Every order placed on Smokingpipes.com from 4:00 p.m. today (February 20th) until 4:00 p.m. tomorrow (February 21st) Eastern Standard Time, will get 10% off. Pipes, tobaccos, and anything else you wish to purchase will have a 10% discount reflected when you check out. What better way to celebrate International Pipe Smoking Day?
New listings tonight include cigars from Padron, Augusto Reyes, and Romeo y Julieta. New pipes from Caminetto, Luciano, Chacom, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, Peterson, Vauen, Tsuge, and two-dozen estates should prove very tempting.
As in keeping with the usual course of events, chaos ensues here at the Smokingpipes offices. Our last word from Ted had him trapped somewhere in the vast Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, on his way (eventually) to Japan where he'll be working a new pipe show in Tokyo, alongside Ryota Shimizu. Ryota, an American who originally relocated to attend Keio University, and avid pipe aficionado, is the latest addition to our staff; our one-man customer service foreign office. You may have already noticed that we've begun on a Japanese translation of the site. Katie has moved from shipping to photography, while Pam and Cassidy were last seen moving furniture down the hallway. Yesterday, for some reason, a box of roughly eight feet in length arrived for Sykes - Adam guessed it was some manner of antique halberd, because Sykes has a degree in Medieval history, but it turned out to be a projector screen... as I said, "for some reason".
Honestly, I'd estimate that I spend approximately 80% of my time here at the office either in a confused state, or in the course of investigating a source of confusion. Why was Adam blasting Bill Withers when I came in this morning? What's this about Lisa hating pillows? Where has the last Rolando Negoita gone off to? Is there coffee? What is that unpredictable beeping? Yes, Adam, that is indeed a nicely-made brass compass. - and that was just within my first hour here this morning. The reality of the matter is, however, that on the whole I enjoy it. If nothing else, a perpetual state of bemusement does help keep the mind limber.
Fortunately, we have still managed to once again pull ourselves together in time for another update, and quite a large one at that. Today you'll find fresh briars from Stanwell, Savinelli, Nording, Neerup, and Brebbia, as well as a massive batch of Petersons; artful Ascortis, and stylish Ardors; artisanal beauties by Rad Davis, and Matzhold; finally, and as ever, a sound selection of estate briars as well.
As you've all probably been able to detect through our various newsletters, Eric and I have many bizarre conversations within the confines of the pipe library. In the course of concocting descriptions for pipes, cigars, tobaccos, and accessories, along with writing various blogs, newsletters, and anything else that happens to come up, countless tangential thoughts abound, and we typically wind up bouncing them off each other. In the balance between our need to write about hundreds of pipes, tobaccos, and so forth in the course of any given week, and the inevitable tendency towards developing writer's block, this back-and-forth is what keeps the wheels from coming off. (Although Pam, having walked in on us in the midst of many a far-straying conversation, probably thinks the wheels have indeed thoroughly come off of both of us, regardless.) Often, Eric will hold up a pipe and ask what I think about it. Perhaps it is a strange color, has some sort of unusual accent, or is as beautiful as a lump of coal. We try to find something of beauty in every pipe, but beauty is, as they say, "in the eye of the beholder". What would we change about this pipe if we could go back in time and sit alongside the carver? Starting with this prospect, we naturally soon found ourselves discussing what we would introduce if we had the ability to go back in time for a few days to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the year 1776. Well, it was a natural progression for us, at least.
I've always been fond of clay pipes, so I wouldn't change anything about those. Perhaps I would have introduced different shapes or materials. After all, in 1776, not only could a man smoke a pipe pretty much anywhere he pleased, it was almost demanded of him. Indulging in wine, spirits, and hard cider were also part of everyday life. Eric not only thought it would be great to smoke and drink comfortably in various taverns, but was sure that teaching people how to make instant Jello would make him a popular, and more to the point, filthy-rich fellow. Personally, I would have introduced Philadelphia cheese steak sandwiches, which I proposed would become so popular with our founding fathers, that they would soon be seen as a national dish, portrayed grasped in the talons of an eagle, or maybe even on the flag itself. And of course, since we could smoke our pipes freely everywhere, the introduction of smoking jackets would also be favored. Just imagine Trumbull's or Christy's famous paintings, with our nation's forefathers all decked out like Hugh Hefner.
Yes, Eric holds up a pipe that is rather... unfortunate-looking, and we end up with a scenario five minutes later of us smoking clay blowfishes in a tavern that serves Philadelphia cheese steaks and Jello, and Washington and Hamilton exchanging ribald witticisms with Billiards clenched in their jaws and one hand in the pockets of their opulent smoking jackets. Perhaps another good idea to pitch would be the inclusion of tobacco in the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, Enjoyment of Tobacco, and the pursuit of Happiness."
I think they would go for the slight change. Because after all, not only did Eric and I introduce good foods and some stylish clothing, but we also handed out Smokingpipes.com socks.
Turning back to the present, we have some great cigars from Carlos Torano and Vega Fina, along with nine brands of fresh pipes and twenty-four estates.
Of the three products we so recently introduced under our "SPC Gear" category last Thursday (SPC is an acronym for Smokingpipes.com, I should clarify - an unofficial interoffice shorthand term we like to use), by far the most popular item has been, not surprisingly, the glass tobacco jar. Go figure that when shopping online from a website that has built a reputation around the retailing of tobacco pipes, pipe tobacco, and tobacco/pipe accessories, a customer would purchase merchandise very appropriate to pipe smoking instead of acrylic-nylon socks and plastic cups. Nevertheless, like many of you, we do also like our Smokingpipes.com socks and cups as well, and so plan to add even more zany paraphernalia bearing our pipe-in-circle logo in the relatively near future.
A Smokingpipes.com smoking jacket of some kind strikes us as one obvious choice, and certainly worth adding to the mix. And so too would be like-wise branded slippers, if only as a properly opulent complement to the aforementioned jacket. We’ve discussed boxer shorts with little maroon logos all over them, which combined with the jacket and slippers, would make for a classic weekender outfit for the man who has not the slightest intention of leaving the house all day. Of course, hats have also been mentioned. Furthermore: coffee mugs and tumblers, Glencairn Scotch glasses, pajama pants, drink cozies, t-shirts, long-sleeved shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, brigandines, bracelets, stickers, lapel pins, fez caps, escutcheons, pens, sombreros, key chains, spurs, temporary tattoos, permanent tattoos, ivory pistol grips, and Czech tools. Lisa and Susan want to see flip-flop sandals that are debossed at the sole to leave imprints of the Smokingpipes.com logo behind in the sand. John has dreamed up a USB memory stick shaped like a pipe, something which we can actually have made quite easily, apparently. We’ll see how far we get before rhyme or reason can reign us in.
Our real priority though is, of course, delivering fresh pipes to happy pipe smokers. It’s our daily enterprise, something we aim to do best of all. Having said that, tonight you can expect to find new work from Paolo Becker, Kent Rasmussen, Claudio Cavicchi, Michael Linder, and Randy Wiley. We’re also featuring new works from the likes of Ashton, Peterson, Savinelli, L’Anatra, Nording, and Winslow. And once again, five dozen estate pipes have been added to the site. Happy Thursday!
Nostalgia is part of life, and some would say that it's made up of the best parts. We all get nostalgic for different things, and they are often the same in many ways. Some think about their college days. Football games, mingling at parties, new classes, and old friends remind a lot of us how much we might miss those days and wishing to go back and live it all again. If it were to actually happen, of course, the nostalgia would likely quickly wear off. The same thing can be said for anyone traveling home, if home is a long flight or drive away. I greatly miss Indiana in the fall, and sometimes in the summer months as well. Still, my wife and I traveled there a few years ago for a week, and I realized that so much has changed to the point that little I'm nostalgic for remains; Local foods I simply can't get, or old haunts I simply want to hang out in again for just one night.
Eric and I were discussing earlier today, during one of our frequent off-the-wall sessions, about things people remember that are better left in the past. High school reunions came up as a topic. Not that many of us dream about going back to high school; in fact, for some it is the topic of nightmares! But the simple fact of new experiences can be something to think back on. I did smoke a pipe in college, and was the only one of my group smoking one during Spring Break '99. Fondly remembering a particular 'cheap' brand of cigars that were 100% tobacco I would smoke during the summer made me want to pick up a pack last week (Eric, as it turned out, also used to smoke this same brand). Sure, I've been smoking a lot of great cigars at work lately, but I was excited about firing up this particular smoke. That the price had gone up and the number of cigars per pack was fewer were the first signs that they had changed. I could have lived with this, but the awful taste that lingered in my mouth - for hours - killed my fond memories. Eric noticed the same thing, as he used to smoke them by the hundreds in the dive bars her frequented back in New Jersey, just as I did back at Purdue. Perhaps the cigars changed, but we figure that we both changed as well in the last ten years. Even though we experienced how horrible they are now, good old nostalgia makes us think about how they used to be, or at least seem. I suppose this will always be true in one way or another.
Today, as I sit here smoking a cigar after resting my pipe, I wonder when I will look back to this time fondly. We have plenty of new pipes from Tsuge, Caminetto, Luciano, Chacom, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen up for grabs. Perhaps there is something to re-discover among the English or Italian estates. For the cigar fan, I highly recommend the Perdomo offerings (which I just happen to be smoking as I write).
Things are, as is the usual at the Smokingpipes offices... novel, shall we say. That we continue to be besieged by innumerable quantities of birds, well, actually at this point I think we've gotten used to that - personally, I hardly even notice the squawking cacophony which fills the halls every time someone opens the back door, anymore. More significantly, Sykes, having at last paused from adding any more monitors to the panoptical eccentricity that he calls his office, has added a monitor to the kitchen, instead. Upon first noticing this, I had suggested that we could use it to loop an image of a glaring, staring eye, to watch over the coffee. He abstained from entertaining this suggestion, instead setting up a real-time display of our sales statistics. Coincidentally, not long ago our extremely professional in-house software developer, Tommy, had come up with a nice bit of work which would display sales figures in the form of several different images of Sykes's head, each bearing a different expression ranging from glowering disapproval, to unbridled cheerfulness. I, naturally, suggested we could dust that little project off for our new kitchen overwatch monitor, possibly elaborating upon it by adding under each image an appropriately brief, Orwellian text; "Doubleplus Ungood", for example.
Sykes, not one to go mad with power, passed on this suggestion as well, and a modest, unthreatening combination of bars, graphs, and numbers won out instead. As silver lining, at least, upon returning to the pipe library I found Adam reveling in the discovery that nearly any movie title can be transformed into that of a blistering, brawling, possibly surreal Western tale of gunfighters, gunfighter-related mayhem, and treacherous women by simply swapping out one word with either "bullet", or "bullets". Like so: Seven Bullets for Seven Brothers, Enter the Bullet, Edward Bullethands, Charlie and the Bullet Factory, Bullet Gump, Gone with the Bullets, Bullets to the Future, Four Weddings and a Bullet, A Bullet Named Desire (wherein Blanche DuBois declares that she has always depended upon the bullets of strangers), Gone in 60 Bullets, 30,000 Bullets Under the Sea, Robin Hood: Prince of Bullets, Bullet Driver, The Silence of the Bullet, The Seven Year Bullet, Planet of the Bullets, Gentlemen Prefer Bullets - and so on. Just as remarkable, we noted, is how readily the plots suggest themselves.
All that nonsense having been said, it's time for today's bullet. We have for you: fresh briars from Stanwell, Neerup, Nording, Savinelli, Brebbia, and Peterson; artisanal pipes by Ardor, Askwith, and our old friend, Peter Heeschen. Oh, and what's more, today also see the introduction of our official Smokingpipes logo merchandise, too.
My wife and I bought a new car last week. I told her that she wasn’t allowed to drink coffee while driving, because she will eventually, inevitably spill it and thus ruin the interior. This might sound like a rather callous statement, but anyone acquainted with my coffee-crazed wife knows this to be true. She’s a beverage-spiller and a drinking-glass-breaker by design; it's an inexplicable talent for minor, yet unstoppable calamity possessed by this otherwise lovely and endearing woman. Ultimately, and only after a series of desperate, intricate, and at times contradictory objections, she conceded the point, begrudgingly... and only on the condition that I wouldn’t smoke my pipe in the car, either. I should have foreseen such a sly stipulation, but didn’t, as like many men before me, I made the mistake of under-estimating a physically diminutive, girlishly giggling, yet precociously cunning wife.
Nevertheless, there still remain many places I can go to smoke. My preferred smoking habitat is, of course, here at Smokingpipes.com, where I’m surrounded by one of the largest selections of choice pipe tobacco liable to find anywhere in the world. And considering that we can puff our pipes in the office, I’m not really very irritated that my new car is off-limits to the wonderful aroma of pipe tobacco smoke. And ash can make such a mess, or at least, it can now that ashtrays are no longer necessarily standard equipment.
In addition to our huge catalog of pipe tobacco, we have tons of pipes, and we’re constantly updating our website with fresh inventory. Tonight we’re featuring new works from Tsuge, Vauen, Peterson, Chacom, Dunhill, Radice, and Savinelli. We’re also rolling out two dozen assorted English and Italian estate pipes. And be sure to check out new cigars from Arturo Fuente, and Casa de Garcia.
I received an email a couple days ago from a friend I haven't seen in six or seven years. We both come from a small town in Indiana, population 5,000, and met in sixth grade. We were friends in high school, and even though we attended different colleges made time to visit one another from time to time. Recently he mentioned that he was going to be in Myrtle Beach for business and hoped to meet up. Yesterday afternoon, after picking up my wife from work and running home to change, we drove to his hotel and then to a nice restaurant for a four-hour dinner with drinks and stories. We discussed his life in Chicago, and talked of the various things guys we went to school with, who are now thirty-years-old, do for a living. Other topics included our ten-year high school reunion (which I couldn't attend), some girls from our graduating class that have gotten cuter with age, those that did not; those that are now married with four kids, and the jocks that are sadly exactly the same as they were. He began to tell stories about parties held at my fraternity house, to which my wife laughed until she nearly cried. I wanted to say they weren't true, but don't remember each occasion (I expect this is at least in part why they must have been good stories).
We talked about his career, and he asked how the pipe business was going. It was fun filling an old friend in on various pipe shows and what I've been doing since we last met. He told us about being recently married, going to Hawaii, and what it’s like to live in Chicago. My wife and I talked about getting married in Russia and the other places we’ve traveled over the years. Without fail, he and I often returned to discussing what we missed about our little town in Indiana. Sure, we would both be bored as hell if stuck there for more than three days, but there’s a lot of regional charm, food, and old haunts that stick with each of us to this day. After dinner we sat outside the restaurant, overlooking the water and drinking a couple beers; me smoking my pipe and him enjoying a cigar from my humidor. My wife never seemed to tire from the embarrassing memories. Few things can be as good as sitting with my lovely wife and an old friend, sharing stories and reminiscing about the old days in our hometown 900 miles away, while puffing on a pipe until late into the evening. So much has changed, but some things remain the same. I hope we don't have to wait as long the next time to catch up.
Tonight we have some great new pipes from J.Alan, Tom Eltang, and Lasse Skovgaard. Ashton, L'Anatra, Randy Wiley, Kevin Arthur, Winslow, Nording, Savinelli, Peterson, and Stanwell each boast choice offerings as well. Completing the update are five-dozen briars which can be found in the estate section.
We realize that it’s been less than 24 hours since we last sent you our regularly scheduled newsletter. However, after grave consideration, a few rounds of thumb wrestling, a couple bouts of rock-paper-scissors, and a game of Star Wars Monopoly, we decided that we ought to send out another, despite the interruption of our ordinary frequency. What’s the occasion? This afternoon we’re kicking off a pretty bodacious sale: 25% off all Savinelli estate pipes. We even added thirty-six pieces more to what’s currently available so that we might mix things up a little. We’ll be running this sales event for the next seven days, which means that while there’s certainly some really excellent deals to be had, one has only a short window of time with which to act upon such a bargain.
So whether you’re on the hunt for a wicked good deal in the estate pipe market or are a huge fan of some of the harder to find, gorgeous old Savinelli pipes, we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the selection we’re presenting, and will absolve us of this break in scheduling.
A dark cloud has been hanging over the Smokingpipes offices for the past week or so. No - fear not. It's not a matter of impending, puritanical legislation, or an outbreak of, say, plague. It's the birds, you see - a dark cloud of birds. One of the first things I noticed after moving to South Carolina several years ago was the seeming ubiquitousness of massive, ancient oak trees. That is to say, that the sort of centuries-old titans that I was used to only seeing either center-stage in a particularly nice park, or holding dominion over some hidden corner of the backwoods, here can be commonly found, for example, at the edge of a parking lot. The Smokingpipes parking lot indeed features several of these looming giants - all of which are presently occupied by vast hordes of seemingly very excited, and raucous, blackbirds.
So it is that each morning we enter the building under the gaze of a thousand of beady little avian eyes, and so it is that each time we open the door to go outside, a cacophony of chirping, calling, and squawking comes flooding in. We are not, as of yet, entirely sure what it is that they want, many of us question the pretense that they are merely idly, innocently loitering in innumerable multitudes amongst the vast bough and branches which loom so expansively over our very heads. If there is one thing we've taken away from all this, however, it's just how grateful we are that here, in the state of South Carolina, we may still legally smoke indoors. There are, to be sure, plenty who would have such activities outlawed for our "own good" - who would see us cast unto the merciless whims of nature, lest we enjoy a pipe or a good cigar anywhere that might possibly cultivate a pleasing "room note". Indeed, they would sooner see Adam and I risk possibly being terribly murdered by birds, than permit us to bask in a properly foggy pipe library, safely behind the Smokingpipes office's reassuringly hurricane-proof windows. They'd pat us on the head, no doubt, and tell us Big Mother knows best, and after our bones were picked clean by sandpipers or loggerhead shrikes or the like whilst we were stepping outside for a smoke break, proclaim that it had all been just another example of the inevitable dangers of tobacco. So it goes. Or, would go, that is.
As things stand, however, we're all still alive and well, and therefore able to bring you another update, laden with a wide variety of offerings to assist you in your own enjoyment. Featured today you'll find briars from Vauen, Peterson, Savinelli, Brigham, Johs, and Chacom - not to mention a full four-dozen more from Tsuge, and a neat little selection from Grechukhin's PS Studio workshop. Joining these, there are as well some new additions to our accessories line-up, new cigars from Partagas, a new blend from Altadis, and two dozen more estates.
One might expect that in aftermath of the madness that is the holiday shopping season, our company wide ‘to-do’ list might have shortened down a little - that maybe, for once, the Smokingpipes.com inter-office hullabaloo would have calmed down and settled into a comfortable, exhaustion-induced bit of lethargy. Fortunately however, it has not. While currently the phones aren’t ringing with the same kind of frequency that they were during the week before Christmas, we are still spending an incredible amount of time looking at pipes, reading (about pipes), talking about them, describing them, and thinking about them. We’re also constantly looking for ways to bring pipes, tobacco, and other such accoutrements to you in the best way possible, whether this means working on innovations in the manner such products are featured on our site, or streamlining the methods we employ to deliver said products to your front door. One happy consequence of this is that our to-do list IS constantly evolving, and, typically, for every item completed from this never-ending task list, two new challenges are added. This is how we keep ourselves busy - barring the occasional interruption to eavesdrop on the absurd arguments that echo down the hall, due to Adam and Eric being in the same room all day. (Last week it was whether the seemingly anachronistic image appearing on a particular Spanish cathedral was "possibly an ancient astronaut" (Adam's position), or "probably a beekeeper" (Eric's). Both, of course, were wrong. )
Having said that all that, we’ve quite a hefty update to share. We’re featuring fresh works from Sixten Ivarsson student, and master carver in his own right, Hiroyuki Tokutomi, as well as new pipes from the likes of Canadian virtuoso Michael Parks, and the very talented Danish carver Peter Heding. Be sure to check out what we’re offering from these incredible pipe makers. In addition, we’ve a prime selection of pipes from Ardor, Ascorti, Brebbia, and Savinelli from Italy, as well as Neerup, Nording, and Stanwell from Denmark. From Ireland we’re offering new Peterson pipes. Last but not least, we’re adding 60 estate pipes to the site.
There can be a number of things important to the flow of a company that, when interrupted, can cause big problems. We're all familiar with computer crashes or some other sort of data/phone issues that can make it quite difficult for some of you to order or otherwise get pipes from us. When these things happen, they flat out stink. Sykes and Tommy figure out what is wrong as fast as possible and we get up and running again, but what about when other stuff goes wrong?
Tom and Bill work upstairs as full-time estate restoration guys. They also put in data, and Bill helps inspect new pipes when they're piled up to our ears, but their main tasks revolve around cleaning and refurbishing estate pipes. As it happens, when I came in to work last Friday, Tom informed me there was something wrong with one of the buffing machines. Actually, it was the MAIN buffing machine. Something as simple as a toggle switch deciding to no longer toggle or click, because it's been turned on and off thousands of times over the years, really throws a monkey wrench into the operations. Bill took the machine apart and Chuck called a local shop (30 miles away, as it happens) that, we desperately hoped, would have a suitable replacement part. Of course they did, they naturally assured us, and I drove there to pick it up. And sure enough, it turned out instead to be more of an "almost-close-enough" part. Nonetheless, between Bill, Tom, and me, we MacGyver'd some pieces from the old switch to modify the new one. Three screwdrivers, some pliers, improper files, and one band-aid later, we brought the buffer back to life.
Guys coming together to fix stuff without the proper tools and not knowing exactly what they are doing is just something guys do. We all got some coffee and a few cigars to celebrate, as if we'd just landed on the moon, or at least fixed some important part of the spacecraft, rather than, say, an important tool for pipe-restoration workflow.
As I read over this intro prior to submitting it, it seems like one of those "you had to be there" kinds of moments. It really was a big problem, though. Our moms would be proud of us. I even put the band-aid on all by myself.
Tonight you can check out some new cigars we listed from Romeo y Julieta, H. Upmann, and Low Country. The Low Country brand is our store name, and this listing is where you can find some great deals on sample packs we made up. New arrivals from Michael Lindner, Tsuge, Radice, Dunhill, Castello, Chacom, and Sebastien Beo might catch your eye. Oh yeah, don't forget about the two dozen estates. Twelve from England and twelve from Italy. Oh yeah; had we not fixed the buffing machine, there wouldn't be any! ;)
It's a particular pleasure to be able to offer up good news to the world of pipedom. While I like to think that every update is good news, sometimes there's something just a little extra special. After much number crunching, graph making and careful discussion, we decided to drop tinned tobacco prices across the board. Last month, we increased the discounts you get if you buy multiples of the same blend. This month, we decided to just drop the base prices on, yes, everything. We realize that pipe tobacco has become steadily more expensive over the past few years. While we have little control over that, we can find a way to reduce the price to you, by finding ever more efficient ways to do what we do and save money in other areas.
This is not a special or a limited time offer. This is permanent. Yes, tobacco prices everywhere will likely continue to rise over time, but we've made a commitment to trim that rise back a bit, even if it means making a little less on each tin we ourselves sell. Also worth noting is that the quantity discounts aren't changing. If you buy five or more, you still get an extra 3% off, ten or more, an extra 6% off and, twenty-five or more, you get an extra 10% off.
We're dedicated to consistently bringing you the best selection at the best price we possibly can.
And since our great selection is hardly limited to tobacco, we have a bevy of beautiful briars awaiting your inspection. You'll find spectacular pieces from Japan from Tsuge's Ikebana line and famed pipe maker Smio Satou, you'll find bunches of great pipes from Winslow, Wiley, Ashton and Cavicchi, plus superb selections from Peterson, Savinelli, Stanwell and others. And, of course, don't miss the estates!
As previously alluded to by Ted, the Grand Strand's heavily tourist-centric economy can be both a blessing and a bane. The upside is that, whatever you're looking for, some enterprising individual has probably taken to supplying that particular niche, often for the sake of either the locals or the more demanding class of vacationers. The downside is that finding them requires sifting through layer upon layer of tourist-traps, whose offerings range from the blandly generic to the outright tacky. It is akin, I would say, to seeking out a natural beauty whom you know is attending a celebrity impersonators' convention; somewhere, out there, underneath that sea of obscuring foundation and distracting neon blues and greens. You know it, even if you're also a little skeptical as to why she would be there.
Some time ago I was conversing with an old female acquaintance when she brought up how much she had loved clove cigarettes - now banned, you know, for the children - and how, ironically enough, she had smoked so much less when she had them to savor, as opposed to the steady pack-a-day she fell into once "flavored cigarettes" were forced off the market. Naturally enough, when I later found out Djarum had cleverly switched to tobacco wrappers, thus redefining their wares as "filtered cigars", I went to see if I could track any down - and thus lept head-first into much the same imbroglio as Ted faced in his search for rare Portuguese meat products.
From the popular tobacco outlet located in the massive tourist sprawl of Barefoot Landing to various iterations of "(so-and-so's) Cigar Emporium", I searched up and down Myrtle Beach, until I at last found them in a local joint wherein the entire shop served as a single giant humidor, resulting in the entire storefront appearing, from the outside, as one big, foggy, dripping window. The next day I was discussing this matter with Adam, enjoying the novelty of the fragrant, sweet smoke of a "cigar" from an extra pack I had bought for myself out of curiosity... and, sure enough, he turned to me and inquired: "You know we have those downstairs, don't you?" So it goes.
And so it leads, naturally enough, to what hard-to-find offerings we might bring you today, such as, say - killer deals on dozens of Tsuges, joined as well by Caminettos, Lucianos, Brighams, Vauens, Savinellis, Petersons, and Johs hand-mades; a broad selection of estates from origins far and wide; new cigars from Trinidad and Rocky Patel; fresh additions to our accessories section; and last, but certainly not least, four exquisite briars by none other than Benni Jorgensen.
Now that I’ve racked up a year-and-some-odd-months worth of living on the Grand Strand of South Carolina, I’d like to report that I’ve nearly checked off every entry on my list of favored goods which are typically impossible to locate outside of small-business specialty shops (and most of which are foods).
My wife and I have located decent thin-sliced Italian salami, although we still haven’t found the proper bread to share it with. We’re told that this has something to do with the water in “these here parts”. We’ve also discovered a pretty impressive Chinese food place close by; however, the only Indian cuisine to be had requires us to drive 35 miles - though this is something we’ve proven willing to do surprisingly often. Suitable pizza, on the other hand, has to be most challenging to obtain. Again, this is (allegedly) to be blamed on the available water source. There are a lot of people from New York and New Jersey in the area who claim to take pizza fairly serious, so I’m a little shocked that they haven’t worked this out yet - especially since they are frequently asking each other if a source of a "proper slice" (always to be eaten folded in half, for some strange reason) has yet been found. But I digress. There are a handful of Mexican restaurants at hand, but none are as good as those back home in California - I guess this is the West-Coaster's equivalent of the NY/NJ pizza dilemma. Excitingly, however, we did finally pinpoint a sound supply of linguica, a Portuguese sausage enjoyed during the holidays (at least in my house), at a butcher’s shop, after making nearly a dozen phone calls. Though, this too required a lengthy trek, and I can now honestly say that I’ve driven a round trip of two hours simply to purchase meat. It was delicious meat, however and completely worth it. It saved Christmas, for me; it was Christmas-savingly-good meat. Also checked off the list is Zaya rum, a spiced beverage I prefer to Ron Zaccapa, as long as it’s the stuff made in Trinidad (and not that Guatemalan junk). And this New Year’s Eve I was so pleased to sip Plymouth gin once again. I had almost given up hope. On the down side, I haven’t had an apple or an orange in a great long while that could wow me. We sorely miss Trader Joe’s. We haven't found any good, local coffee shops, unless you count the Starbucks with a drive-thru next to a busy highway, which I do not. Additionally, no record stores, either. That’s unless you count BestBuy, which, also, I do not.
Yet in the end I've traded up. Because more than all the aforementioned articles (and many more that I didn’t cite), I aspired to be close to beautiful pipes, rare pipes, expensive pipes, old pipes, and plenty of good pipe tobacco. And that’s exactly what I found in Little River. And I'm far freer to enjoy them here than I would have been in California.
At that, we’re offering tonight a rather splendid, varied assortment of exciting new works from Maigurs Knets and Chris Askwith, along with fresh pipes from Ardor, Ascorti, Brebbia, Savinelli, Neerup, Nording, Stanwell and Peterson. And don’t forget to check out the 60 estates pipes now available as well. All this, and more, you can find right here in South Carolina.
A new year means a fresh start. Remembering the ups and downs of the previous year, lessons learned, and goals achieved, seems to have many people feeling positive with hope for the new one. Growing up, New Year's Eve was celebrated in my family by having shrimp cocktail, sparkling grape juice, observing the countdown in Times Square [on television], and making excessive noise from pots and pans, firecrackers, and other devices in front of our home seconds after midnight. Other than this, it was just another day.
My wife of three years is from Russia, where New Year's is the biggest holiday by far. Think of it as Christmas, the fourth of July, and Mardi Gras all combined into twelve hours. Everyone celebrates it. Observing both American and Russian holidays has been a lot of fun, and this year was the best so far. Ted and his wife met my wife and I for a nice dinner at our favorite restaurant. Cowboy Ribeye, deconstructed Caesar salad, home-made mushroom/veal/truffle ravioli, seafood bisque, confit, and cocktails of Plymouth Gin and key-lime-pie Martinis were a heck of a way to celebrate the conclusion of 2011. Following dinner, we picked up another Russian friend of my wife's on our way home, while yet another arrived later. The girls were beautifully dressed, wearing heels, and sipping champagne. We had caviar, various Russian salads, and toasted midnight with more champagne and wishes for good health and luck through the new year. Driving around to various places after 1:30 a.m. was perfectly fine for me - I was the designated driver, and wanted my wife and her friends to enjoy their favorite day of the year. Finally arriving home near 5:00 a.m. we opened a bottle of champagne as well as presents to each other from under the tree. Instead of Santa Claus on Christmas, in Russian tradition it's Grandfather Frost that leaves presents on this night.
We recalled 2011's various vacations and trips to pipe shows, and the customers I've met and the friends many of them have become. Pipes are a huge part of what made 2011 a success, and allowed us to visit lovely people as well as places. For 2012, I have goals for my workshop and smoking room at home (meaning that I will finally have one!). I'm going to remove all of my tins of tobacco aging in cardboard boxes, on which my wife drew little drawers and nobs with a marker, into a proper piece of furniture. Something cool like an antique chest, I'm hoping. After all, what could be better than stepping into the spare bedroom smoking room, looking at a growing collection of 18th century items on the wall, stepping over to the tobacco chest to select an aged blend, and puffing on a pipe while relaxing at home?
We thank all of you for a great 2011 and look forward to helping you grow your cellars and collections in 2012! To start off the year on the right foot, we have pieces from Sebastien Beo, Peterson, Savinelli, Chacom, Dunhill, Radice, Lasse, and Tsuge. Don't forget the two-dozen estate pipes!
Happy New Year from all of the staff at Smokingpipes!
There was a little gathering a few nights ago at Ted's new place. His wife made some delicious short bread and lemon bars to share with everyone, which were over-the-top good. My wife and I arrived a little after eight o'clock to join the fun. Which is to say, the girls squealed and laughed in their own conversations while some guys from the Smokingpipes crew filled the room with smoke. I sat in one chair smoking a clay tavern pipe with some aged McClelland 22, Eric puffed on a Sebastien Beo briar, Tom Marsh filled his pipe with some broken Penzance, and John Sutherland enjoyed his most recent pipe purchase - an Ascorti Hawkbill - filled with Luxury Twist Flake.
Us fellas sat around watching a colorized (but really good version) of "It's a Wonderful Life". I don't smoke in my apartment, but Ted's wife mentioned how much she enjoyed the smell of a pipe. And, surprisingly, cigars. She is the first woman I've met that enjoys both aromas, so what could all of us do but to make the hostess happy? Enjoying some nice stogies from Ted's humidor while laughing, talking, and observing all kinds of interesting details in the movie that are totally washed away in black-and-white, made for an eventful evening. Jimmy Stuart puffed on a sandblasted Lovat in one scene, while his uncle had a pipe stem that was chewed nearly through. Old Mr. Potter smoked cigars while a bust of Napolean stared down everyone in his office. We even noticed a neat little lighter and brass skull on his desk. The set decorators didn't pass up any little detail, it seems. I thoroughly enjoy old movies. The women were elegant, the men smoked cigars and pipes in style, and there weren't any interruptions with cell phones. If they made "It's a Wonderful Life" today, there would be hundreds of changes. Yes, part of the old charm from the silver screen is transportation into a different time. Still, it sure was a pleasant evening of guys sitting around with pipe, cigars, and cocktails. Just as it should be.
Tonight you can peruse some pipes from Rad Davis, Tsuge, Luciano, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen. There are twenty-four estates that might strike your fancy as well. If you're in the cigar kind of mood, Macanudo has some new offerings. As far as pipe accessories go, we have some newly-arrived tampers from Nolan Wiley.
Between cakes, pies, and brownies... and candy canes, chocolate bars, chocolate caramels, chocolate truffles, chocolate covered pretzel sticks, white chocolate chip cookies, fruit cakes, lemon bars, shortbread, and more chocolate, I think I’ve had my fill of the holiday. I'll admit I like sweets quite a bit, but I feel like I’m being bombed from all sides with all manner of assorted confections, more than I could ever conceive to eat. Within the Smokingpipes.com office kitchen there currently reside stacks - literally stacks, of chocolates. My wife has already been gifted a total of seven pounds of chocolate. That’s simply too much. We’re probably going to have to give away a bunch of it. We may even have to throw some out, which is really terribly sad.
We wouldn’t have this problem, year after year, if we all just gave each other pipe tobacco during the holiday season instead of sugary sweets. Pipe tobacco, when stored correctly, of course, can last decades, and many blends will improve with age, as I’m sure you know. Plus, most of us wouldn’t have to share with our wife or kids. A tin of tobacco likely fits pretty well in a stocking too. It’s just an idea. I’m simply brainstorming, you guys. But I think I might be onto something here.
So if you’re still considering sending us something delicious for Christmas, let me recommend an 8oz. tin of G. L. Pease’s ‘Meridian’. It’s the latest addition to the Pease lineup of half-pound tins, which are absolutely perfect for cellaring. And this way I can keep the treat all to myself. Again, I’m just thinking on my feet here, trying to keep the ideas rolling. Granted, some of the female staff here might have certain reservations concerning my rather, if I may say so, innovative notion.
While I let you stew on that idea for a bit, let’s present tonight’s assortment of fresh pipes. This evening we’re featuring new work from the likes of Tonni Nielsen, Kent Rasmussen, and Rolando Negoita, as well as Ardor, Ser Jacopo, Il Duca, Brebbia, Savinelli, IMP, Neerup, Nording, Stanwell, and Peterson. Last, but not least, we’re also offering 60 assorted estate pipes.
Now about that tobacco I'm getting for Christmas...
The past several days have been quite eventful, in the sense that they've been quite full of events; Thursday evening saw me driving to the southern end of the Grand Strand to catch the "Night of a Thousand Candles" at Brookgreen Gardens, the absolutely sprawling sculpture gardens founded by Archer Huntington and his wife (and sculptress in her own right), Anna Hyatt Huntington. The following night, it was the Smokingpipes/Low Country company Christmas party. Then, the night following that, it was time for a trip north, driving up to Wilmington to catch the PeepShow Cabaret (Wilmington's local burlesque troupe) in their big holiday show. Come Sunday I was, suffice to say a very happy man, but likewise also one badly in need of some sleep.
Brookgreen Garden is, quite simply, fantastic, and never more so than when they give art lovers a chance to stroll around the place after dark, the whole place lit softly by the light of the (probably well over a thousand, actually) candles placed throughout the grounds by very generous volunteers. Suffice to say that as I meandered about my favorite acres in all of South Carolina, pipe dangling from my lips, I found opportunity for many, manyphotographs.
The company party was, by far, the biggest yet, with all of us, along with various spouses and the like, all crowded into the shop downstairs to enjoy a few drinks, pipes, cigars, bad jokes, and a rather Machiavellian present-swapping game, along with a stellar bit of catering. By the time it all finally wound down, Adam, Ted, Bill, and I found ourselves sitting around in a cluster, enjoying the Padron 1926s Sykes had very generously gifted to all who wished to partake.
As for the cabaret, well, I'd embed a link or two to videos of some of the acts Wilmington's most shameless sons and daughters well and thoroughly entertained us all with, but it would probably result in my having to sit in a very lengthy meeting on the topic of "Why Eric should at least pretend to know the bounds of professional behavior". Instead I will simply say this: Firstly, I can now go to my grave knowing I've witnessed a frustrated elf roughly disrobe a remarkably... gifted, shall we say, Mrs. Claus to the tune of Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer's holiday classic, "Baby, It's Cold Outside". Secondly, if you yourself ever get a chance to catch the PeepShow troupe in action, do it, whatever explaining you may have to do to your wife afterwards be damned.
That all having been said, it's time to finally get on with the day's update - and what an impressive one it is: fresh briars from Peterson, Savinelli, Vauen, and Chacom; English and Italian classics by Radice, Dunhill, and Castello; artisan pieces by Paolo Becker and Scott Klein; loads of estates; new cigars from Alec Bradley and la Aroma de Cuba; a variety of new accessories by Brigham; lastly, but by no means least, the second edition of Gary Schrier's comprehensive history of the Calabash pipe.
This is a special time of year for us, what with office parties, plus employees and customers sending in snacks full of sugar and spice. While Sykes has been over in Japan, having fun visiting pipe makers, he's missed out on some really great treats and shenanigans (all of which are quite customary). Leila surprised everyone with a tray of home-made goodies on Monday. Not only is she great at sales, but her expertise at baking rich concoctions of sugar and butter is beyond question. Bill was giving her particular praise for her caramel-swirled, chocolate-covered pretzel sticks, and when I took my first bite of one of her home-made English toffee candies my eyes rolled back in my head with delight. It was a real strain not to lick every single piece on the tray and send out a mass email notifying what I had done, just to secure these candies from everyone else in the office. Then, yesterday, a very generous customer treated us all to pizza for lunch (which was greatly appreciated!).
Doing my own part, this morning there was a small chocolate-covered cherry on Lisa's desk. The addition of a little bit of vodka in the center balances the sweetness, I feel, though as it turns out, also makes faces nearly as cherry-warm as the sensation on the tongue. Ted didn't seem nearly as surprised by this addition, but then he came over to my home last weekend and sampled a piece of my fruitcake. A good recipe including half a bottle of Ron Zacapa rum (for flavor and embalming) makes for a weak-in-the-knees dessert that people actually like, I find. Between the vodka chocolates and fruit cake, I feel I've gotten employees pretty well inspired today in the office. Even Eric is getting in the spirit of the season. The man in black, as always, went into the kitchen with the intent to whip up a batch of eggnog for everyone. Like most men that would rather figure it out for themselves instead of taking directions, he looked up the definition of "nog" online and read: "any beverage made with beaten eggs, usually with alcoholic liquor". A horrible concoction of refrigerator ingredients such as beer, red wine, and mustard (to make it yellow) were shortly whipped up with eggs and fresh hot coffee. Experiences like this are probably why Eric usually sticks to cooking red meat in a cast iron skillet.
For once, we did a pretty good job of leaving Sykes' office alone. Aside from white packing peanuts crumbled and strewn all about floor, a busted Rudolph piñata full of glitter, and a punctured aerosol can of pine cleaner left on his desk, everything is pretty much the way he left it.
Tonight you can check out some pipes from Maigurs Knets, Tom Eltang, and Former. Don't forget to peek through new pieces from IMP, Ashton, L'Anatra, Randy Wiley, Winslow, Cavicchi, Nording, Savinelli, Peterson, and Stanwell. Rounding our the section are sixty fresh estates!
Sykes is, once again, out of the country on business this week. As you all know, this invariably spells inter-office hijinks and general on-the-job Tom Foolery until his imminent return. As far as I understand it, this is a tradition, apparently inspired by ancient myths relating to the Norse mischief-god Loki (or so participants have told me), that germinated long before I joined the Smokingpipes.com family. That’s why I don’t ask too many questions when Eric and Adam take turns completing timed laps around the facility in our newly souped-up golf-cart. I just go with the flow, even if it means our work day is to begin approximately two hours later than usual and will wind down after a company-wide luncheon fiesta, generously sponsored by Smokingpipes.com. Ditto, when Tom and Bill stop cleaning pipes to convert our restoration center into an ink studio so that everyone here can get tattooed with matching Smokingpipes.com logos. I smile, I nod, and I go back into my office, where I tell myself I'll be safe until Sykes returns ("ushering in a catastrophic period of symbolic theomachy", according to Eric). It’s just not my place to shut down all the (metaphorical?) mayhem. This week is going to be messed up.
Lucky for you, most of what went into getting this evening’s update put together was accomplished last week, when Sykes was still around. And it’s a heck of an update, let me tell you. We’ve got new pipes from Benni Jorgensen, and Chris Askwith, as well as Johs, Tsuge, Caminetto, Luciano, Savinelli, Brigham, Dunhill, Peterson, and Vauen, on top of three dozen fresh estate pipes. All that in addition to new cigars from Flor de Gonzalez, Punch, Vega Fina, and Illusione. Goodness gracious, that’s a lot of stuff.
To paraphrase Roy Scheider, from his famous role as the much-put upon protagonist of Jaws, I think we're going to need a bigger shelf. Each year with the arrival of the holiday season the size of our updates grow considerably, and as of today the counter-top which runs the length of one end of the pipe library is completely packed with a sprawling range of stacked pipe trays; a display of leviathan vastness. Or to put it another way, in a space where we normally keep two weeks' worth of update materials, there is now packed (and precariously stacked) the pipe selection for only today and next Monday's updates. There are up-sides to this state of affairs, of course, like that we tend to get to see a lot of stuff which is either on the rarer side, or entirely new, around this time of year. And then, there are also the downsides; we have a ton more work to do, crammed into the same regular deadlines, for one, and for another, Adam and I are in constant danger of our young lives being implacably snuffed out by a sudden and inescapable briarlanche.
You, our loyal customers, however, need not worry about any of that -fortunate devils that you are, this time of year means only an even bigger, broader selection of briars available for your perusal and consideration. So it is that today we present, in their multitudes: classics from Stanwell, Peterson, Savinelli, Neerup, and Brebbia; affordable Freehands by Nording, and fine meerschaums by IMP; Italian artisanal beauties by Ardor and Giancarlo Guidi's Ser Jacopo; the exceptional works of Rad Davis, Peter Heding, and Michael Lindner; last but not least, a full sixty estate pipes of Danish, Irish, English, Italian, American, German, French, and other assorted national origins.
Last weekend was a magical one, and something I enjoyed far more than I had expected: I went to Disney World. My wife met one of her friends from Russia in New York City over a week ago to shop, dine, and see the city, and our trip to the Magic Kingdom was an extension of this reunion. The girls flew down to Florida in the afternoon on Thursday to the Ft. Lauderdale airport (where I waited nine hours for them) following which we all flew to Orlando in the evening. The two had dreamed of Disney World since they were little (Russian) girls, and that dream finally came true. To be perfectly honest, I was less excited than they were, but made all the arrangements for them nonetheless. Or should I say, I made arrangements for Lisa to make the arrangements. She loves Disney more than anything and found great pleasure in being handed my credit card and permission put our whole trip together. She even printed out a detailed itinerary so we could maximize our time; she was our patron Saint.
Our first day was spent at Downtown Disney. I didn't know what to expect, but man was it great! After buying mouse ears (I had a pirate one), we ate lunch at an Irish pub. Walking around the grounds with pints of Guinness and being allowed to carry them into every shop and store seemed unusual, but we took full advantage. After so many people telling me there was no smoking allowed, I stumbled (literally) into two cigar stores. Man, I wished I'd taken my pipe! Never did I believe one could walk around with beer and smoke freely. I had pleasant flashbacks of being in Russia, of all comparisons. After a few hours of this, we got on a bus to visit several beautiful resorts before boarding the monorail to head to the Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Christmas party. Walking into the gates and through Main Street USA in its entire Victorian Christmas splendor, the girls began to cry tears of joy upon seeing the iconic castle. This, I must admit, made me really happy. When we caught parts of the parade and they saw Mickey and Minnie mouse dancing to music, they cried again. Witnessing my wife, and her childhood friend, cry tears of joy, alone made all the expense and travel-time worth it. Rides, shops, fireworks and fantastic visual effects were everywhere. I was impressed!
On Saturday, we headed to Epcot. As promised, I bombarded Lisa's cell phone with dozens of pictures throughout the parks. She said I would enjoy Epcot the most; she was right. Lunch in Japan was followed by my wife in a massive Hello Kitty shop, and that followed in turn by eating fantastic pastries and quiche in France, various beers in Germany; it all made me one happy fellow. Again, I wish I took my pipe. We spent the entire day eating, drinking, riding rides, and snapping photos. The attention to detail and amounts of money involved in huge displays of fireworks and scenery (and extremely good food) really left an impression on all of us. I did notice, however, after staying up until 3:45 a.m. to catch a (magical) bus to the airport, that the man in the mirror looked very much like the same one in Las Vegas at 3:45 a.m. Disney World kicked my butt, took names, and left its mark. I woke up later with a Mickey Mouse drawing on my arm that I don't remember getting.
What happens in Disney stays in Disney.
Back in the office today preparing for our Monday update, we are happy to share thirty-six estate pipes and new offerings from Peter Heeschen, Lasse Skovgaard, Chacom, Radice, Castello, Dunhill, Vauen, Savinelli, Peterson, and Sebastien Beo. After a weekend in Disney World, I'm happy to be back at work sharing stories and working overtime to pay for those memories!
Things have been a bit hectic around here of late - just as I returned this past Tuesday from a week spent up North, Adam has now just left to meet his wife in New York; which is just where I happened to be last Saturday. Of course, while Adam likes to engage himself in such frivolities as "planning ahead", I tend to take a much more off-the-cuff approach... which is why my best friend and I ended up spending hours trying in vain to locate Otto's Shrunken Head, a hole-in-the-wall tiki bar where his brother's band had recently played, before finally giving up and settling down in a pub near Madison Square Garden where he himself had performed last year.
Only later would we learn that, in wandering lost for forty blocks, we missed the real action of the night, when, in a now much-publicized incident, somewhere on 6th Avenue a man decided to dispose of the overwhelming majority of his clothing, pick a fight with a doorman, run into traffic, climb atop a taxi, then disable himself by doing a double knee-drop off of its roof and straight onto the asphalt. Ah, New York - if you can't make a fool of yourself there, you can't make a fool of yourself anywhere.
Of course, there is a silver lining or two to spending most of your visit to NYC wandering the streets; they're about as good a place as any to meet girls, though admittedly on that night most of those we did encounter were asking us for directions (apparently there was quite a soiree occurring on a warehouse rooftop somewhere in the now-gentrified meatpacking district), to which I freely admitted that my friend and I were completely, blissfully without bearings ourselves. And of course, the street is also just about the one last place in the city where you can still enjoy a smoke - naked maniacs notwithstanding. If you're going to be lost in one of the world's largest, most ridiculous metropolises, you might as well enjoy yourself.
And on that note, one might be excused for feeling enjoyably lost in today's update - a wide and copious selection of briars ranging from the briars of Stanwell, Savinelli, Peterson, and Ascorti, to the pale meerschaums of IMP, to artisanal works by Italian maestro Claudio Cavicchi, the Denmark's Poul Winslow, and American pipemaker Randy Wiley - not to forget, of course, an exceptional array from the likes of Tonni Nielsen, Michael Parks, J. Alan, and Former.
So I guess it’s “officially” Christmas time. Seeing as how Thanksgiving has come and gone, and now that I’m already hearing fifty-year- old recordings of songs celebrating the yuletide performed by Jimmy Boyd and Gene Autry at the Wal-Mart, it feels pretty futile to resist. That’s right, I surrendered early this year, you guys. That’s what growing up is all about. Don’t get me wrong, I like Christmas and this time of year as much as the next free-market loving American, but the holiday hullaballoo has always felt a little forced on me, year after year after year, like that heavy wool turtleneck that Mom has to help me get my head through because I can’t manage to do it by myself. You just got to throw your arms way up and let her yank the thing down and over your face and expect that it will sting your nose for a minute. That’s my advice to you. Just take it like a man. Let it pour over you. Start watching It’s A Wonderful Life as soon as possible. Maybe even wrap and unwrap a few things in the next week or so. Take it all in. Soon it will be January and the whole thing will be over and you’ll regret not having eaten as many candy canes, gingerbread men, pecan pies, apple tarts, and sugar cookies as you might have. You think I’m kidding but I’m not. I put my tree up two weeks ago. Nobody was selling them yet, I had to cut one down myself, and I might have even evicted a family of squirrels in the process. Heartbreaking, you guys. I had to special order a 60 day chocolate advent calendar. I had to buy stuff before Black Friday. I lost out on huge savings just trying to soak it all up, because when it’s gone it’s gone for a whole year. Can you even begin to fathom how many days that is? It’s at least a lot.
Speaking of days and days, it’s been a few since we had our last update. Having rolled out our last a day early in observance of Thanksgiving, we feel pretty overdue for a replenishment of fresh new smoking pipes and accoutrements. We hope you had a chance to take advantage of our Black Friday sale, and would like to remind everybody that we’re still doing our annual Peterson promotion: buy a new Peterson pipe and get a tin of Peterson pipe tobacco. Tonight look out for new works by Luciano, Savinelli, Johs, Vauen, Brigham, Peterson, and, for the first time ever on Smokingpipes.com, Scott Klein. Of course, this is all in addition to the 36 estate pipes we’re also offering in the update. And as a special bonus we’ve got new cigars from EP Carrillo, and Camacho.
And in all seriousness, with all smarminess aside, Happy Holidays!
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. As I write this, happily ensconced in my office some miles away, my wife's mother and sister are descending upon our home to help prepare for the festivities tomorrow. Tomorrow, great swathes of her family will come for Thanksgiving dinner. This is also the first time that my wife and I will be cooking for more than six people. It has become apparent that the wisest course for me to adopt is to simply not be underfoot as preparations are made. Hence my cunning plan to have to work rather late tonight and then cunningly pop up once most of the work is done. I'm also planning for some office 'mini-emergency' to happen right when it's time to clean up after dinner. I figure I can get away with a post-Thanksgiving-dinner nap in my home office tomorrow evening by closing the door and playing an mp3 file of typing noises so as to sound like I'm desperately busy. It'll have to be loud typing noises, though, to cover the snoring emanating from the room...
Accordingly it works out rather well that we've moved the update ahead by a day so that we can enjoy the festivities with our families tomorrow. I'm quite certain that I will be in no condition to work tomorrow (my cunning ruse notwithstanding).
In the meantime, we've had a number of different projects come together simultaneously this week:
1) The most pressing news is the massive Black Friday Sale we're running. We're calling it a Black Friday sale because everyone else calls it that, but we're really running it from today until Monday midday-ish, by which time I might be sufficiently cogent again to make the necessary batch edits to end the sale. With more than 1,100 pipes at ridiculously good prices, this is now very much the time to escape from family festivities for a few hours to peruse these offerings. It's actually kind of scary offering a sale of this magnitude. I'm a little worried that the good folks in the shipping department will want my head on a platter come Monday.
2) We've made serious changes to the user center making it, we think, extremely cool. We've implemented a new badge system, plus offered a list of your favorite items right from your user center home page (where you go when you log in) to make it super easy to get right at what you normally order. You can read more about these changes on our blog. We're still working on the user center. Right now, it's pretty awesome. With more time, to quote the always eloquent Ted Swearingen, Sales Manager at Smokingpipes.com, it'll be "awesometastic". I'm not sure exactly what all awesometastic-ness entails (though in Ted's defense, he's on a lot of pain medication since he had a tooth pulled yesterday), but it must be some pretty incredible level of awesomeness.
3) We now offer gift wrapping services, something that has been an extremely long time in coming. The option is offered on everything we sell at the flat rate of $4.99 for the order; irrespective of what items constitute an order. (Just for fun, I hope someone buys a huge pipe rack and has it gift-wrapped. I'm curious to see how Janice, Katie et al in shipping figure that one out.)
If all that weren't enough, we have a stupendiferous (since this seems to be the day for made up hyperbolic adjectives) update for you, ranging from a big batch of estates to new pipes from Ardor, Ser Jacopo, Grechukhin and Smio Satou. Check 'em out!
I’m having a tooth removed tomorrow. An oral surgeon will be doing the job, which means, very thankfully, I have the option of being knocked out for the entirety of the bloody procedure. This is welcome relief, as the thought of having to be awake while my jaw is wired agonizingly wide open, in some mad dentist's equivalent of the Ludivico technique is a turn off.
No, thanks kindly, but I'll pass. While I'm certain that combining flashing images of Snickers bars, sugar plums, and various other sweets with the sound of crunching bone and the high-pitch buzzing of a dental handpiece would work frightfully well at improving certain tooth-care habits, I’ll skip all that. I’d prefer to be in a drug induced black-out, thank you very much, even if it means sacrificing the rest of the day to incoherent, lethargic stupor.
Either way I’m going to miss out on Thanksgiving dinner for the second time in my life. The first time occurred fourteen years ago when I had my wisdom teeth surgically removed two days ahead of the national holiday. I see the irony, and I could point out both history’s sense of humor and knack for serendipity, but mostly the whole thing just annoys me. While everyone else in the country will be enjoying a belly full of turkey and a head full of tryptophan, I will be struggling to get through a cup of yogurt even under the effects of a large dose of acetaminophen.
And of course, worst of all, I won’t be able to smoke my pipe for a few days. I suspect this is a conspiracy propagated by the Dental Association of America to scare people into abstaining from tobacco for a few days in hopes that said patient will ‘see the light’ and decide ultimately to just ‘kick the habit’ - but that could be my serious agitation doing the talking. Can’t you just sense how excited I am to have this tooth yanked out of my head?
On the brighter side of things, though, we’ve got an awfully good update headed your way this evening. Between a new gift set from Lampe Berger, new cigars from Carlos Torano, 36 fresh estates pipes, and 130 pipes from the likes of Chacom, Paolo Becker, Radice, Castello, Savinelli, Vauen, Peterson, and Dunhill we’ve got your Monday covered.
Yesterday was not, suffice to say, the most productive day in Smokingpipes.com history. In fact, the greatest productivity of all was likely that achieved by Adam, which he manifested in the form of cooking and preparing a 20+ pound turkey. This very bird itself, along with the accompanying array of side dishes and desserts, as you may already suspect, was the primary cause of this sudden pre-holiday slump; we spent much of the morning watching and waiting and salivating, midday feasting, and the afternoon and evening struggling to merely remain conscious. To be honest, I'm still not sure we've entirely recovered, though that may simply be the result of a kitchen and refrigerator which are still filled with a thousand-and-one varieties of seductively rich foodstuffs, against which even a continuous flow of strong, black coffee seems to be no match. Hopefully you'll pardon that this introduction is so brief - but, to be honest, at this point I can barely muster the energy to do much more than contemplate whether or not my keyboard might serve comfortably as a pillow.
However! Fortunately enough, today's update was planned out and taken care of before yesterday's culinary cavalcade, so we do, nonetheless, have plenty in store: batches of Stanwells, Petersons, Savinellis, and Ascortis; artisanal briars by Jimmy Craig at Ashton, Randy Wiley, Poul Winslow, and Claudio Cavicchi; exceptional creations by Rad Davis, Kent Rasmussen, and Tonni Nielsen; and last but not least, a broad selection of estate briars.
It's been a fun, busy, and constructive past few weeks for me. Preparing for the West Coast pipe show in Las Vegas meant meeting with Pam regarding descriptions, pipes to inspect, and blurbs that needed to be completed before I left for the trip. Once my wife and I got to Vegas a couple days early in order to do some shopping, relaxing, and hanging out, the 'small world' seemed evident because of all the friends we were able to meet up with from all over the globe. As Sykes and Ted mentioned earlier, Susan had a hankering to punish them with 6:00 a.m. flights, a tactic much more effective than Voodoo dolls, which I'm not entirely certain she doesn't have hidden away in her desk next to her sewing needles. The guys would have red eyes, flinch, and feel various aches and pains during their time in Vegas and California (no doubt from Susan tossing their respective dolls around in her desk).
The Vegas show was great again this year, and the visit to Jeff Gracik's home in San Diego was a perfect tail-end of the trip. While I was shaping pipes and watching Jeff, Brad Pohlmann, and Ernie Markle work, my wife took the liberty to enjoy the San Diego Zoo, in addition to some shopping. We had a wonderful sushi dinner one night, which was amazing until I ate some sea urchin (part of the shellfish family, I later found out when breathing became difficult), but Jeff got me some Benadryl and all was good. I do get worried every time my wife and I travel, though. If it were up to her, we'd move to San Diego next week. The fact that Jeff is there and the food and weather are among the best around wouldn't be a bad idea. The little restaurant next to the hotel fed all of us every morning. Believe it or not, there is better Southern food there than we can find in South Carolina. We left California Thursday evening and landed in Myrtle Beach thirteen hours later, but coming into work last Friday felt like coming home. Sykes and Ted picked out a lot of beautiful new and estate pipes at the show and will be getting some of the pieces Jeff and I worked on independently in the next few weeks.
Thankfully the weather this week matches San Diego, so we are all full of energy to present you with an update of great pieces. Sillems has a new lighter that is silver-clad and quite beautiful. Pieces from Luciano Askwith, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen may interest you, as can the twenty-four estates.
Adam Davidson: Quality Control & Pipe Inspector
P. S. It’s not often I am called upon to write for the newsletter, but since I'm in charge of such things, Sykes thought y'all should hear the good news from me. I know prices on everything are going through the roof. Case in point: Instead of buying three pairs of shoes this past weekend, I had to settle for only two. It just broke my heart. While purchasing tobacco for Smokingpipes.com for the past five years, I have seen how the prices have increased as well. So, as an early Christmas present from us to all of you, I’ve lowered prices on most bulk tobaccos and increased the percentage discounts on multiple tin purchases. I hope this helps you guys to avoid the dilemma of which blend to buy and how much of it. I would hate to see you go through the heart-wrenching decisions I had to go through this past weekend. (And I won’t tell your wife; that way you can get even more while still staying in “her” budget.)
Pipe shows are awesome. If you haven’t yet made it to one, you’re missing out, I assure you. First of all, there are lots of cool pipes at each and every turn, most of which can be purchased at a handsome bargain (although a few collections are often present simply for display). Additionally, there can be found loads of neat pipe accessories, like vintage lighters, handmade tampers, and other pipe-related doodads, as well as tons of old tins of out-of-production, aged tobacco. But most of all, at a show there’s an opportunity to meet and greet a host of wonderful folks, including the pipe makers themselves, which one simply would not have the chance to do otherwise. All in all, it’s a fantastic way to spend a couple of days. I highly recommend getting out to one.
As you may already know, this last weekend Sykes and I were in Las Vegas for the 3rd Annual West Coast Pipe Show. This was my first time at this particular expo, and Sykes’s second, but from my understanding, the show is growing in popularity and distinction at an impressive rate. Many of you have asked if we would be picking up pipes at the event, and the short answer is: Yes. Continue to pay attention to the bi-weekly updates and you’ll soon see the smattering of new and estate pipes we managed to bring home.
All that having been said, however, pipe shows are exhausting. Not so much the shows in and of themselves, but the traveling and preparation that bookends the events are draining. This is especially so when one is required to get up between 3:30 AM and 4:30 AM to get to an airport in time to make a flight. Sykes and I were stuck doing this three times in the last week. Back in the office, today my brain doesn’t seem to want to function correctly, or at least not at the pace to which it is accustomed. Today my diet consists of ridiculously large amounts of coffee, as well as snuff for that extra ‘pick-me-up’, and as always, a pipe of strong tobacco. I’m expecting to pull through the end of the day, but just barely. Of course, this is only speaking as someone for whom pipe shows are business as well as pleasure - those who get to attend purely on the basis of the latter naturally get to enjoy a much more leisurely pace.
We’ve put together a spectacular update for you this evening, featuring fresh pipes from the likes of Alex Florov, Michael Lindner, Lasse Skovgaard, Peter Matzhold, and Hiroyuki Tokutomi, as well as Stanwell, Neerup, Nording, Ardor, Brebbia, Savinelli, Il Duca and Peterson. We’re also introducing to the site Mac Baren 7 Seas Cherry in tins and Solani Festival, which both sound delicious, if you ask me.
It's quiet here on the second floor, today. Well, relatively quiet - Pam is still running around trying to sort out both update stuff and the shipments of pipes which continue to come in as ever, but without Sykes walking up and down the hall a dozen times a day for coffee, Ted constantly on the phone with customers, or Adam... being Adam, the Smokingpipes offices are as about as tranquil as they ever get. Too tranquil, perhaps - I am not by any means unaware of the fact that, at present, Chuck and I are the only males remaining in the office, and that we are outnumbered two-to-one by the fairer sex. This isn't a problem for Chuck, of course, but then Chuck is not a shameless cad, as I am, and has not repeatedly, and quite deliberately, ruffled the feathers of certain other co-workers, as I have most certainly insisted on doing despite the self-evident inevitability that this will come back to bite me.
Just last week, in fact, I walked down to the space shared by Pam, Susan, and, of late, Cassidy, to ask if any of them had a safety pin. Susan inquired as to why I needed one, and no sooner had I answered that I had lost a button on the cuff of my jacket than she asked me to take it off and hand it to her. Having done so, she immediately produced a sewing kit and proceeded to re-attach the button for me. Well, what else to make of this, you are no doubt thinking, than that Susan has the patience of a saint? True enough, saints are certainly patient enough - but so too is a serpent waiting to strike. After having spent several days teasing her over her recent acquisition of a notably over-fed pony, such benevolence was indeed disquieting.
I am not a religious man in the traditional sense, understand - I don't have much faith in the benevolent intervention of saints; but I do most certainly believe in the patience of an ambush predator laying in wait. As boys, my friends and I were all rather fond of teasing and attempting to capture venomous snakes, snapping turtles, and the like, you see... which now that I think of it, probably explains a great deal about how it has all come to this. Regardless, what I am getting to is this: Adam, Ted, Sykes - if you return from the office and I've vanished from the face of the earth, and the girls are all saying they haven't the faintest idea as to where I could be... check the ground around the old oak tree out back, and, if it isn't too much to ask, avenge me.
On what is certainly a less ominous note, today we have quite an update in store for you all: quality briars from Sebastien Beo, Savinelli, Peterson, Vauen, and Chacom; hand-made artisanal pieces by Dunhill, Radice, and Castello; two-dozen estates pipes, split evenly between English and Italian; finally, new cigar offerings from Montecristo, Augusto Reyes, and Don Diego.
There’s a lot to do before tomorrow. Preparing for a pipe show means getting a ton of extra work done well in advance of the handful of days I won’t be in the office. It means emotionally gearing up for obnoxious, loathsome air travel. But worst of all, it means making that penultimate and heartbreakingly difficult decision: which pipes to pack?
Being a smoker, a pipe collector (although I use this term loosely), a briar hobbyist, and a tobacco enthusiast, can cause traveling to become a greater chore, and subsequently a greater source of frustration, than it already is. From a simple morning outing across town for a decent latte, to a cross-country, week long excursion, there are always considerations to be dutifully examined before the home is departed.
“Do I have the right pipe for this weather? Did I remember to grab pipe cleaners? Will I bring a tin or put a pinch of tobacco in a pouch? Is that pinch big enough? Will it dry out in the pouch? Must I refill my lighter? Should I clean the pipe with alcohol before I leave? I didn’t throw any ibuprofen in that pouch, did I?”
Perhaps I worry too much. Perhaps I should just grab a couple pipes at random and a couple unopened tins of tobacco and toss them carefree and happily into my half-packed luggage, with or without pipe cleaners, extra matches, backup tampers, and my travel-sized bottle of Everclear. Even the thought makes me shudder.
Whatever. If picking out pipes for a pipe show is the grossest source of stress in my life, I’ve got it made. I’ll see you in Vegas at the show.
As for tonight, we’ve got quite the selection of new briar. We’re rolling out fresh works from the likes of J. Alan, Brad Pohlmann, Rad Davis, Randy Wiley, Kevin Arthur and Benni Jorgensen in tandem with new pipes from Tsuge, Ashton, Winslow, Ascorti, Savinelli, Peterson, and Stanwell. And as if all that wasn’t enough, be sure to peruse the 72 estate pipes we’re adding to the site. Also, just off the delivery truck, JackKnife "Ready Rubbed", the latest from G. L. Pease.
It's been a very exciting weekend. It's been exciting in the way being charged by a rhino is probably very exciting, just in slow motion. At this point, I think Tommy and I either have everything fixed (my 99.9% fixed declaration of last night being a bit premature) or almost everything. Again, I'm really sorry for the mess and I really appreciate the remarkable patience you all have shown.
So, onto more pleasant topics. Tomorrow is November 1st. That's an important date in the Smokingpipes.com calendar. Among other things, it's the beginning of what has become our most popular promotion each year: buy a Peterson pipe and get a free tin of Peterson tobacco with it. Buy five Petersons, get five tins; by thirty, get thirty and so on. Since today is the update day and we are ever so close to tomorrow anyway (a mere eight hours from now), we're fudging it slightly and we're kicking off the offer a day early.
It seems obligatory to observe the fact that it's Halloween today. I'm not dressing up to give treats tonight, but I am looking forward to sitting on the porch with my wife and doling out Reese’s and Snickers to neighborhood kids. It's something I look forward to each year, an opportunity to sit outside in the cool Autumn air and smoke a pipe, greet neighbors and generally be that friendly gent that my wife is working so desperately hard to make of me.
So, we have two great things to offer up in addition to a great update: the website works again (hooray!) and the Peterson Promotion is starting a day early. On top of that, you'll find a bevy of beautiful briars this particular Monday, ranging from Petersons and Savinellis to Dunhills and Caminettos, plus eighteen estates and much more!
I had originally intended to weave today's intro around the subject of the cabaret I attended up in Wilmington this past weekend, the various acts of which ranged from the traditional fan dance to a highly comical burlesque reinterpretation of one of the more infamous scenes from The Silence of the Lambs. As North Carolina, of all states, has of recent years instituted a ban on smoking in bars, clubs, lounges, etcetera, this would have given me an opportunity to let my inner curmudgeon come out to play, as well as brag shamelessly about all the fun that was to be had in spite of the late revival of fashionable statism. I shall instead, however, simply suffice with relating to you more recent, and even more absurd, anecdote.
Yesterday, here, in the pipe library, on the long table near the center of the room, there was placed a very small piece of ham. On top of the very small piece of ham, was placed an even smaller piece of chocolate, and positioned closely over both was one of the bright lamps we typically use for inspecting pipes. The small bit of ham was placed there because Adam placed it there. Ditto the chocolate. The lamp was partially my fault, as I had jokingly suggested to Adam that the heat it gave off might be of aid to his efforts, forgetting for the moment just who I was talking to. Adam himself was crouched down at the end of the table, attempting to conceal himself beneath its edge, armed with a rubber band stretched taught and at the ready. He was waiting, with admirable if misguided patience, for his quarry, a lone, buzzing fly which had somehow managed to find its way into our climate-controlled office, to take the bait.
It was at this point, as I had taken in perspective all of that which was transpiring before me, that I turned to Cassidy, who was busying herself about more productive tasks amongst our shelves of briars, and asked, "Cassidy, is this what you expected when you transferred over here from the warehouse?" She handled the question well, I thought, laughing at Adam's antics, yet deigning to actually answer, and then soon, though not so soon as to appear as if she were fleeing, exiting the room with poise as well as arms full of pipes.
She will do well here, I think - though she still has not yet witnessed Adam donning his ceremonial pope/chef hat, or been challenged to try out one of his various accompanying culinary experiments (Ted and I still shiver at even a passing mention of the "C loaf" debacle). Only time will truly tell, I suppose.
Turning back to the subject of armloads of pipes, however, it's time for us to bring you this Thursday's update. Today you'll find fresh selections of Stanwells, Petersons, Savinellis, Nordings, Neerups, and Brebbias; artisanal briars from Ardor, Il Duca, and Ser Jacopo; and lastly, an exceptional bevy of beauties by Tom Eltang, Rolando Negoita, Peter Matzhold, and, new to Smokingpipes, Michael Lindner.
While walking around the mall on Sunday, I noticed the staff hanging Christmas decorations all over the place, and then realized that construction had already begun on Santa's workshop, centered near the food court. In years past, this all took place as early as September, but it seems this year they've waited a bit to get everyone in the holiday (shopping) spirit. I'm not there yet, though. We've had some cooler mornings, but even when I've started the day out wearing a sweater, the air conditioning has wound up back on by the time I'd run a few errands. I really get home-sick for Indiana in October because there are so many fall festivals going on, and it's easier to get in the holiday mood when the air is crisp. Everyone around here seems to already have given up on Halloween before the 31st even arrives (at least most of the stores, since signs of 50% off are posted all around). Not everyone forgets about Thanksgiving, though most stores do because there is no money to be made on gifts. Out with the pumpkins and in with the peppermint candles, you might say.
Both Halloween and Christmas have their respective pipes, it seems. While Dracula never cared for relaxing with a pipe, a corncob seems appropriate for many a scarecrow in various shops. Snowmen and Santa are also shown sporting a cob or clay in many postcards and little figurines, though Santa seems to be savoring a fine blend less often today than he did fifty years ago. A few artisans make Halloween pipes, and dozens of companies make Christmas pipes as gift presentations, but what about Thanksgiving? I would be surprised to discover there were no pipes at the first Thanksgiving in America. Tobacco was already a cash crop in the early Colonial times, but merchants never seem to be stocked to the gizzard with Pilgrims and Native Americans sharing some tobacco on a postcard. A turkey smoking a pipe would be funny, though perhaps less historically accurate. While not exactly the kind of advertising merchants want to invest in, it is an image which puts me more in the mood for the holidays that will be here shortly.
With a decent amount of the fall season still around, we've got some cigars and pipe tobaccos to think about smoking outdoors before the cold front comes in, and quite a variety of pipes to think about as gifts or added collectibles. Chacom, Radice, Castello, Dunhill, Vauen, Savinelli, Peterson, and Sebastien Beo all have wonderful new offerings. Not to be forgotten are the eighteen estates.
Part of the fun of the pipe smoking hobby is learning new things, though, admittedly, we are quite often being instructed as much by our mistakes as we are our fellows. Like, don’t take apart a pipe while it’s hot - that’s a rookie mistake I made once upon a time. Here’s another, which I learned just this past weekend: Look inside the pipe’s bowl before putting tobacco in it.
On Saturday, Shelly and I decided to drive up to Wilmington, NC to hang out with Sykes and Alyson, and to have dinner at a particular tapas restaurant. I’d already been there myself once before, a week prior, as a matter of fact, with Sykes and Alyson, but I was pretty eager for Shelly to partake as well. Like most people, we both like finding new places to eat. Shrimp, scallops, lamb, kangaroo, beef, fried pickles, macaroni and cheese, beet salad; all were available, even all as part of the same meal. Albeit fairly eclectic, which I suppose is part of the fun, the restaurant's assortment of appetizer-style platters made for a super tasty dinner. Plus the ambience is remarkable, in a dimly lit, jazz-lounge sort of way.
Earlier in the evening, on the porch of Sykes and Alyson’s new home, the four of us were chit-chatting before heading to dinner. I had brought along my new favorite pipe in a small, leather pipe pouch, a Tokutomi Sandblasted Blowfish (2004), my souvenir from this year’s Richmond Pipe Show. So I pulled the thing out and began packing it with Germain’s King Charles Mixture from a freshly opened tin.
Here I should mention that my wrist and hand have been bothering me lately. It’s carpel tunnel syndrome or something. Maybe I’ll have a doctor check it out one day. In the meantime I’ve taken to wearing a hand brace, something loaned to me by Adam, and popping four 200mg tablets of ibuprofen a few times a day. Also, while I’m doling out credit, Pam gave me a jar of Tiger Balm. I’m feeling better now, thanks. But that Saturday? Not so much. That’s why I threw four ibuprofen pills in the pipe pouch along with the Tokutomi and pipe cleaners, which at the time seemed better than putting them in my pocket. This was my first mistake. Or, rather as I like to see it now, it was establishing a foundation for a learning opportunity.
King Charles Mixture is a tasty, light bodied blend that features only a pinch of latakia. It’s not flavored in any way, and as a consequence many smokers find the blend a bit insipid. However, I like it very much and have become quite familiar with it. What I’m trying to say here, folks, is that I know what this stuff is supposed to taste like, which is why I was pretty concerned right off the bat, that evening in Wilmington, when the smoke took on a most unpleasant, certainly unfamiliar anise flavor. Puzzled, irritated, and thoroughly disgusted, I gave up on the bowl and emptied the chamber into the nearest ashtray I could find on the porch. This is something I rarely do. I hate to waste tobacco. Hate it. Once emptied, I examined the pipe with my nose and was filled with anxiety at the likelihood that I’d just ghosted my new favorite pipe with some wicked awful helping of the foulest tobacco. This sucker was going to have to be reamed back to the briar.
On the way to the restaurant, I was still completely mystified as to why my last smoke, with such a familiar blend, could have been so terrible. Obviously I was missing something. As I put the pipe back into the pouch I discovered what was missing exactly: a pill. That’s right. I smoked an ibuprofen. And I lived to tell about it. We all laughed about it for the next few hours. But I also cried a little inside, to be honest with you.
Pipe Lesson #65: Don’t pack your pipe without checking the bowl. Sounds rather pedantic, until you smoke something you really, really shouldn’t. Pipe Lesson #66: Prohibit putting pills in a pipe pouch. Otherwise you’re in for a potentially killer smoke, in all the wrong ways.
Which reminds me, we’ve got a killer update rolling out this evening. New pipes from the likes of Peter Heding, Rad Davis, Randy Wiley, Claudio Cavicchi, and Peter Heeschen, as well as new works from Tsuge, Peterson, Savinelli, Stanwell, Winslow, and Ashton. Rounding things out here, you’ll find another 60 fresh estate pipes. And not least of all, we're re-introducing to Smokingpipes.com Erik Nording's "Hunter Blends" which come in four distinct mixtures: Fox Hound, Pointer, Beagle, and Retriever.
In many parts of the country, a man can no longer enjoy a smoke with his pint, even at his favorite watering hole. Self-declared “more sensible” heads have decreed a man is not fit to make such decisions, either for the sake of his own well-being, or on account of that of the bar staff. (Being a former bartender who acquired the "former" bit when smoking bans destroyed the business I was working for, I might be inclined to disagree with the latter as much as the former.) Fortunately, South Carolina is not as of yet one of those parts of this country. In fact, as I discovered a few weeks ago, even a modest bit of indoor pyrotechnics is A-Okay around here. Namely, that is, that there is a hookah lounge not far from my neighborhood which features weekly fire dancers, along with other staff members taking part through a bit of occasional fireball-blowing and fire-eating. Having heard of this, how could I not be curious?
I went to check it out, naturally, and all I can say is that I approved all-around. Those present seemed to be enjoying themselves quite nicely without any need of supervision by other adults. Those of us who enjoyed smoking, enjoyed smoking, whether it meant puffing on a pipe, lighting up a cigar, taking drags off a cigarette, or sharing a hookah with several acquaintances. Those who do not smoke, did not smoke. Those who make a point of hating smoking, were, as far as I could tell, graciously absent. For the entire time I was there, I heard not a single cough, nor did I witness any individual waving their hand about while making with a conspicuously disgusted expression. When a bartender or barmaid was seen readying themselves to blow a billowing plume of flame, people stood back to watch, and likewise when a dancer came out whirling torches about. According to some people, in having been denied their guidance and wisdom, none of us should have come out of that place alive. Through some apparent miracle, however, all that happened was that a large number of adults had an entertaining and relaxing evening, acting on no one's cognizance but their own.
All that having been said, it's on with today's update. We have for you today a broad selection of briars by Vauen, Peterson, Savinelli, Brigham, Luciano, Caminetto, and Johs; a tidy trio from Posella, and nine exquisite English numbers by Dunhill, and a nice batch of both English and Italian estates; as well you'll find a new tobacco pouch humidifier under accessories, as well as a selection of new cigars.
My lovely wife decided to head up to the Richmond pipe show with me this past weekend, partly because she wanted to go, and partly because I spend so much time in my shop weeks before a show that we don't get to spend much quality time together. Knowing that Colonial Williamsburg is only a little over an hour away from Richmond, I asked her a couple months ago if we could visit there for two days (promising her extra shopping during the Las Vegas [West Coast] pipe show). Some people like Star Wars, some love the latest gadgets, and I've always been a fan of the 18th century. Thankfully, she was excited about the idea as well, so we left the show early on Sunday to head off together to my version of Disneyland.
We checked into our reconstructed 18th century home - which she thought was very cute - and I was happy to see a working fireplace a mere ten feet from the bed. Making our way around the historic town, we snapped pictures, did some shopping, and investigated the many eating establishments (many of which date back to the mid-1700s). Dinner was amazing. Understand, the food was a far cry from what I expected, but old-recipe cocktails and the fact that we were relaxing and refreshing ourselves in a room where George Washington and Thomas Jefferson themselves had dined -lit only by candlelight - and there could be no better atmosphere for me. Doing my best to ignore all of the tourists walking around in football jerseys and spandex, by taking in the surroundings and hundreds of costumed employees I felt like I was really stepping back in time. I didn't bring my clay pipe, though, as I had been in so many smoke-filled rooms the previous few days that the fresh air was a nice change of pace (but, oh man, did I still wish I had taken it with me). After dinner and libations, we headed back to our room around 11:30, and called the front desk for someone to come light our fireplace. I was concerned by the thought that the fellow they sent to us was in actually charge of such things, as he asked me if I had a flashlight to see if the damper was open and had the manner of someone who could barely buckle on his (period appropriate) shoes. Cautious that I am, I asked about a fire extinguisher, and he responded by looking confused.
"As long as you have water in the sink, you'll be OK".
Having gifted us with that bit of 18th-century wisdom, he lit the fire and stepped out. We pushed the chairs together, opened a bottle of wine, and spent some time enjoying conversation with each other in front of the crackling fire before heading to the feather-pillows and a long rest. It had been quite a day; we had dined, walked the grounds, talked with employees and craftsman, and really felt like we were back in time. Our slumber was interrupted, however, by a piercing fire alarm about an hour later. Nothing brings you back to reality like firetrucks and police lights flashing outside early in the AM. Much to my wife's displeasure, we were - again - in a smoke filled room. Apparently our friend from earlier on didn't check that the damper was open all the way, and once the fire died down, smoke had come pouring into our room. My poor wife. Given that we are already looking forward to going again next year, I've already promised her that we wouldn't have a fireplace in the room. Looking back on it now, I could have fired up my tavern clay fireside and no one would have even known.
Coming back to the twenty-first-century, we have a nice selection of pipes for you. You can browse over our selection of Beckers, Michael Parks, Tsuge, Maksim, Tonni, Ardor, Ser Jacopo, Brebbia, Nording, Savinelli, Peterson, Stanwell, and sixty estates. My only advice for tonight would be that if you decide to fire up a bowl in front of your fireplace, make sure the damper is open.
Having just returned from the 27th Annual Conclave of Richmond Pipe Smokers Show, which was held this past weekend at the extravagantly luxurious Hilton hotel, it is now safe to say that, despite rumors to the contrary, the turnout was, as far as I could discern, quite robust. There were a few who experienced obstacles that proved too difficult to hurdle or, for others, the lengthy, time consuming, and expensive travel proved too much, which taken together did keep some of the ‘usual’ pipe makers and collectors from attending the show. Nevertheless, it was evident from having had numerous conversations over the course of the two-and-half-day congregation with some of the many visitors that stopped by our table that for many attending this year, the CORPS show was in fact their first - a promising sign to be sure. All in all it was a good time and, as ever, entirely worth the six hour car ride there and back. If you’ve yet to make it out to a Richmond show, I highly recommend that you do.
Now, having finally returned to the office, I’m dragging my feet a little this morning, having consumed far less coffee than I ought to have in order to jumpstart out of a fog of still-lingering exhaustion. A pipe show generally has me pretty well worn out by the end, as well as typically requiring that we forgo all the usual weekend relaxation that helps unwind after a work week. Though attending pipe shows is always a pleasure, for vendors and pipe makers alike, it is a working pleasure. But I’m sure we’ll be all rested up by tomorrow - so don’t worry about us, and be assured we'll be happy to see any of you at the next event, old hands and newcomers alike.
We’ve got a splendid update to share with you this evening, as we add to the site new works from the likes of Chacom, PS Studio, Radice, Castello, Dunhill, Vauen, Savinelli, Peterson, and Sebastien Beo. I bought, and smoked, my first Sebastien Beo pipe this weekend, and I have to say that it’s an incredibly fantastic smoking pipe and certainly worth its modest price tag. Also, we’re putting up another eighteen estate pipes this evening, so be sure to take a look there for a remarkable deal, of which there are many. And if that weren’t enough, we’re also introducing new cigars from Tatuaje. Last, but not least, W. O. Larsen's 2012 blend will launch tonight, in addition to Villeger 1888 After Dinner, and Cocktail Hour. New tobaccos? Yes, please.
Somewhere out there on the world-wide web, on a Tumblr blog most likely, I strongly suspect there is now a photograph of myself, smoldering pipe hanging from my mouth, looking into the camera with an expression of studied patience as I am eagerly embraced by an oddly-dressed young woman I had never met until about five seconds previous. Let me explain: Tumblr is a blog website well-known as the chosen haven for the hipster sub-culture, that mid-teens-to-mid-thirties-scenesters scene which is readily recognizable by an obsession with irony, novelty, and haphazard fashion sense; the tobacco pipe has, in recent years, been absorbed into the hipster arsenal as a status-symbol of particularly rarified hipster-ism; the two young women who ambushed me this past weekend were, beyond any doubt, hipster girls in full regalia.
The weather had just taken a cooler turn, you see, from the full-on 24-7 heat of summer, the tourist crowds had thinned to something more readily manageable than a zombie horde, and I had recently acquired new boots which needed breaking-in. As such, a long stroll along the boardwalk seemed in order, and it was there, as I passed by one of the various drinking holes which appear intermittently along the way, that they suddenly set upon me without warning. It wasn't about my pipe at first, a small, dark-finished Sebastian Beo, which had gone unnoticed in my hand; they were merely young females being friendly towards a passing stranger of the opposite sex. It happens all the time throughout Western civilization. Then I stuck my pipe back in my mouth, and one of them immediately exploded.
"You smoke a pipe!" she exclaimed. "I love you!" Do get hold of yourself, woman, I thought, but she chose to get hold of me, instead, latching firmly onto my arm while passing her camera to her friend. If you've ever been attacked by a litter of over-enthusiastic kittens, you will likely understand perfectly the state of mind I was in at this point. If you ever happen upon a photo of a shaven-headed, bearded, bespectacled thirtysomething fellow in a double-breasted jacket being pounced upon by a beaming twentysomething female in ladybug-themed thigh-high socks, and note his carefully understated expression, you will no doubt know for certain. And if you're ever wandering along the street, down a boardwalk, through a park or public garden, enjoying a pipe when suddenly a girl in similarly ludicrous dress pounces on you, don't panic. It's simply the fashion of the times, not (entirely) the sign of lunacy as it may initially appear. Just play along, and smile for the camera. Consider it something of a youth-oriented catch-and-release program - and if nothing else, a far better alternative to the fake-cough-and-dirty-look one being run by other, rather less entertaining segments of the population.
Proper preparation always helps, of course, and in that spirit we today have for you: fresh briars from Stanwell, Savinelli, Peterson, and Ascorti; artisanal pieces by Poul Winslow, Randy Wiley, L'Anatra, Ashton, Kevin Arthur, and Claudio Cavicchi; and furthermore a fine selection of Eltangs, Tsuges, Rolandos, and even a few Knudsens, as well. Finally, while supplies last, we're making a special offer with any purchase of our broad selection of Savoy humidors, throwing in a free cigar sample pack containing two La Aroma de Cuba cigars, and one San Cristobal all together a $30 value.
I can't believe it's already October, can you? They say "Time flies when you're having fun", but it also buzzes like a jet overhead when we are busy. It seems like it was only a few weeks ago that Sykes was in Europe, and Eric moved into my office (I still call it my office), but he's been in here for quite a while now. He remarked, just this morning, that he was surprised he could still get sunburned in October (which he did, this past weekend). Up until this statement, I thought it was still September, though the change of seasons can be felt during the cooler mornings which have set in as of late. In truth, while autumn's arrival in most of the country is marked by the changing colors of the leaves, here in the milder South we're more likely to take notice when the tourist population shifts from hordes of beach-goers to groups of golfers.
Summers in Myrtle Beach are always swelling with tourists that drive like they've slathered sun-tan lotion on their brakes and slippery hands alike before heading out onto the busy roads. Although the tourists are fewer this time of year, it doesn't mean the crazies aren't still around, however. Just yesterday I was running errands, and approached a tricky intersection on a split road that needs to stop for cross traffic, and looked to my left to see a car (which looked like Eric's) driven by an old man, going the opposite direction down the one-way road, approaching the stop sign. Of course I looked over to him in a combination of confusion and irritation because he was a huge risk for everyone there, but he simply looked over at me, threw his hands up and gave me a laughing smile that said "I'm old, I'm going the wrong way, but I don't really care" before making a left-hand-turn without a concern for anyone else. No doubt, this will be Eric in another forty years, though he will be contently smoking a pipe and probably won't even look over or offer apologies. [Editor's note: I learned to drive in New Jersey, Adam. I don't need to wait for senility to take its course in order to drive according to my own arbitrary rules. - Eric]
Cigar fans will enjoy our update of E.P. Carillo cigars tonight, while Lampe Berger has other offerings for the home or office. Eighteen estate pipes along with new pieces from Dunhill, Caminetto, Luciano, Posella, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen. For your sweet tooth, we've also added little red-licorice pipes to bring back fond memories!
Yesterday was Inventory Day here at Smokingpipes.com, that special part of the season wherein half the office staff (including Sykes himself) celebrates by hand-counting every single one of our thousands of pipes, both here in the "pipe library" as well as those downstairs in the display cases of Low Country Pipe and Cigar. This is, sufficed to say, an extra-late work day for all involved... which, fortunately, neither Adam nor myself are not, beyond our office space becoming temporary host to these festivities. All through the day, he and I were accompanied along in our usual duties by the metronome-like call-and-response of Sykes and Ted as they saw to The Great Pipe Count.
A few hours into it, Sykes noted that this year's counting had, however unintentionally, resulted in the convergence of all of the second-floor staff's pipe smokers into a single room. Looking up from my work I noticed that this was indeed the case, and, as you might very well expect, the room's atmosphere had taken on a good and proper fogginess - the timeless and traditional sign of a room thoroughly occupied by men. This accomplishment was greatly aided by the fact that all three of the others, Sykes, Ted, and Adam, were smoking McClelleand's Wilderness, a Latakia mixture each of them have taken a particular liking to lately. Serving both to provide plentiful smoke, and to keep any and all female co-workers from having any desire whatsoever to enter the now quite aromatic pipe library, it was perfectly suited to the task of maintaining the inadvertent boys' club ambience we had achieved. In the end, it was a win-win situation; the entire day passed without either Pam or Susan coming in to surprise me with last-minute additions to the next update, while in return I, for once, went an entire day without walking down the hall to deliberately provoke them on their own turf, content as I was to remain as I was. What we had created was, in a sense, a fog of peace.
And should you wish to try creating your own, we'll be more than happy to help you along with today's update. In that spirit we present to you: Brebbias, Neerups, Nordings, Savinellis, Petersons, and Stanwells; beautiful artisnal pieces from Ardor and Ser Jacopo; and a variety of exquisite designs by Tokutomi, Heding, and Heeschen. Then there is, of course, the full seventy-two count selection of estates for your perusal. Finally, we just received a batch of Hearth & Home's "Black House" blend, winner of the 2011 Balkan Sobranie Throwdown.
With only a handful of days left to show for September, it would seem that the holiday season is in fact just around the corner. I’m already spotting Halloween costumes and jumbo bags of candy for sale at the most reputable of all-purpose retailers, which can only mean that this particular evening of spooky festivities will be upon us before I’m completely prepared. Then comes Thanksgiving. Then Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Festivus. Every year this snowball of celebrations gathers trampling momentum in the same speedy way, and every year I’m caught off-guard, surprised at how quickly the last 365 days have come to pass. Maybe I’m just dull-witted in this capacity. Then again, maybe it's just because of the way the "holiday season" seems to keep expanding with compound interest, making for an earlier starting date with every passing year.
Nevertheless, we are certainly thinking about the holidays around here. Along with putting everything together for our annual Peterson pipe tobacco giveaway, we’re already discussing this year’s Smokingpipes.com “Pipe of the Year”. Plus, Adam has begun burning his seasonal Yankee Candle. For the next few months our office building will smell like a mix of pipe tobacco smoke and a confectioner’s kitchen. No complaints here.
But the best part of this upcoming time of the year are all the grand excuses I can seem to whip up in order to justify the purchase of more pipes, tobacco, and pipe-related-accessories. And considering all the cool new stuff we continue to add to the site, I have fewer reasons not to break out the money clip each Monday and Thursday.
For instance, we’re introducing new pipe racks from the esteemed Two Cousins tonight. Yeah, I’ll certainly get one of those. The new John Aylesbury pipe tool? I’ll be needing one of those as well, please. We’re bringing back a handful of fresh estate pipes for our Monday updates (eighteen this evening, to be exact). I’ll be sure to browse through that selection, I’m sure. And finally, I might just have to pick a few pieces out of the ten brands of pipe makers we’re featuring here tonight: Chacom, PS Studio, Radice, Castello, Dunhill, Vauen, Savinelli, Peterson, and Sebastien Beo. We’re putting up 189 pipes tonight, folks; I’m sure that the arrival of the holiday season is as good a reason as any to buy a pipe. Or maybe I’m just dull-witted in this capacity as well.
I didn't smoke a pipe previous to living in South Carolina, which I think is rather understandable when you take into account the cities which defined the areas in which I had lived, and in which free time was likely to be spent. In New Jersey, that was of course New York, which is a crowded, bustling place, and something so leisurely and involved as keeping a briar going does not combine well with dodging or plowing your way amongst the masses, who go themselves about either looking at their feet or pretending not to see you.
As for when I lived in Ohio? Forget it - I lived near Youngstown. In my time there I saw things stolen I wouldn't have imagined anyone even considering worth stealing. I can imagine a nice pipe being swiped, ergo; it surely would have been, inevitably. Even the expired license plates off of a car I left there were stolen - something I only discovered when I received a parking fine for the stolen car they found their way onto. Why not steal valid plates? Why not steal my car? Why not-steal anything, instead? Why grasp for rational explanations when dealing with what are obviously willfully foolish people?
Ah, but the South, now this is a different matter altogether. With Charleston to the south, and Wilmington to the north, beautiful historical districts are readily at hand. While the former is more up-scale and gentrified, and the latter more relaxed and even somewhat bohemian, both are gorgeous. Both contain a great wealth of beautiful architecture, from long before the time so many designers and planners decided obliterating Western culture from publicly visible spaces was the wave of the future. Both are full of polite people who walk slowly, and who acknowledge the presence of other human beings as something other than obstacles, and the contents of a stranger's pockets as a private affair, and not a grab-bag of mystery prizes free for the taking. Furthermore, let it certainly not be said that they lack any sense of humor. Southern cities are, quite simply, the perfect places for a stroll, and a stroll is the perfect time for a pipe.
Now that I've rambled sufficiently enough to constitute an update intro, what else, but to carry on with the update itself? Today we have for you: most excellent offerings from Vladimir Grechukhin, Tom Eltang, Tsuge, and Paolo Becker; artisanal beauties from L'Anatra, Randy Wiley, Poul Winslow, Kevin Arthur, and the maestro Claudio Cavicchi, as well as English classics by Ashton and charming Italian numbers from Ascorti; a veritable cornucopia of Savinellis, Petersons, and Stanwells; and lastly, seventy-two estate pipes cleaned, inspected, and ready for new homes.
For the most part, I'm a Virginia or Virginia/Perique smoker these days and have been for about ten years. When first taking up the briar in college, trips to the local B&M usually took place on a Saturday where there the nice lady, Betsy, would greet me with a smile as I walked in. After glancing at the dozen-or-so tins on their counter, I always headed straight to the jars of bulk tobacco where I would commence removing the lid of each one at a time with a twist of the wrist and inhale its aroma down to my toes. Betsy didn't smoke a pipe but she knew what sold. Her most popular blend was "River Crisp", which was a blend of aromatics designed by a local customer. When someone could smoke something flecked with brown and black that smelled like the classic pipe tobacco we all think about, why change it up?
After going through a lot of these tobaccos and scorching my tongue on anything that had a label resembling pie ingredients, I decided it was time to explore. Being the self-proclaimed foodie that I am, exploring new textures, aromas, and tastes is what drives me. Looking again at Betsy’s flock of tins, I picked up Dunhill Standard Medium and took it home. Breaking the seal with a coin and folding back the paper insert to prepare for the initial waft of aroma left me a bit puzzled. Loading a pipe on the front of my fraternity house and taking a few puffs made my eyes bug out (a look similar to someone taking a swig of beer from a bottle that has been used as an ashtray). This was my first dance with Latakia. I took the tin back and she gave it to someone else. Apparently I wasn't ready for such flavors yet. During the same visit, I purchased a tin of McClelland Dark Star and from then on I knew what I wanted to smoke: Virginias; especially dark ones.
Fast-forward a decade and you will find me an employee here at Smokingpipes for almost six years. I've sold many tins of English tobaccos and memorized what makes them good (by other consumers’ descriptions) but never felt the desire to try them. Part of this is because I primarily smoke only three pipes at work, and they are all dedicated Viriginia pipes. I didn't want to foul one up with a ghost. Ted has been trying to get me to try some of his favorite English blends for a year now and recently I acquired a Dunhill 3109 estate that had a small crack on the shank that we couldn't sell. To his delight, I walked into his office and said it was time for me to explore Latakia. Ted's reaction was a bit like someone saying "OK, Adam. Let me try those marrow bones you just roasted. I also want to try all of those curries, scrapple, Russian fish things, and lye-cured Duck eggs from the Asian market." These are things that I love that make people look at me funny.
Ted brought in a tin of Wilderness he had at home. Only about a bowl and a half was left. It was quite an experience; lighting the bowl with a match, watching blue smoke dance with an orange flicker while filling my palate with the subtle flavors of this exotic blend. Smokey? Yes. Sweet? Oddly, yes (but not cloying). Spices like cloves and cinnamon at times? YES! After going downstairs to purchase ten tins of this wonderful tobacco and writing Fred Hanna (the designer of this blend for McClelland), I wondered what took me so long. This tobacco is wonderful and I would encourage all of you to try something different every once in a while. With so many tobaccos on the market, I'm freshly excited about the huge amount I never before gave a chance.
For your consideration today, you will find Dunhill, Caminetto, Luciano, Posella, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen. We are also introducing Vallejuelo cigars and Vauen Filters for smokers of 9-millimeter pipes.
I confess it. I have fallen totally in love with Mac Baren Navy Flake. It's weird, though. I've smoked it here and there for years; if a friend offered a bowl when I'd run out of tobacco, or when I was offered tobacco at the Mac Baren factory, or even just because there happened to be an open tin around the office, but I'd never embraced it with any particular alacrity. The change in my approach was first set in motion when I was in Denmark a few weeks ago, and while visiting the Mac Baren factory, asked Per Jensen for something to smoke. Earlier, as I was first getting out of the car to head inside and see him in his office, I had realized that the only tobacco I had on me was a famous blend from a famous competitor, and had decided it would be really poor form to whip that out while there. He offered me a couple of options from sealed tins he had handy and I took the Navy Flake. At the time, I just thought of it as a solid, safe choice, something I knew I kind of liked, but not something that excited me unduly.
Fast forward to the end of the trip. A few days after I got home, I polished off that tin. And then bought another 100g tin of it. A couple of weeks later, that tin is almost gone. I've smoked almost nothing else at the office. I've smoked other things at home (including some really special much-aged tobacco), but I've found myself wishing I'd brought home a tin of Navy Flake. No other tobacco lately has been hitting the spot. The combination of the almost grassy start and the rounded, well-bodied richness, with just a hint of sweetness, has just been perfect lately.
So, where am I going with this, except to extol the manifold virtues of this most lovely of flakes? Taste in tobacco is just weird. I've smoked this blend here and there for years, but without any great excitement, and then, suddenly, it seems like the best thing in the world to me. I've always thought that it was good-- everything Mac Baren does is high quality and consistently well executed-- but it had just never grabbed me before. But lately it has grabbed me and now it just won't let go. Nothing else has really changed with me. I don't have a cold. No food tastes any different. And I think we can be fairly certain I'm not pregnant.
And while it's great stuff, I'm not necessarily saying that this is some sort of Grail tobacco. My point is simply that there's a certain mystery to why we like certain tobaccos and it behooves us to explore and try different things. That process is also fun; it's a central part of what this hobby is all about.
And in today's update you'll find bunches and bunches of great pipes to choose from, all of which are ready for whatever blend it is you choose to smoke. You'll find more great pipes from Peter Heeschen, along with awesome entries from American pipe maker Rolando Negoita. Joining them, you'll find Ser Jacopos, Ardors, Brebbias, Petersons and much, much more. Enjoy!
One of the things I love most about the '85 Ford Ranger pickup I bought a few months ago is its front license plate cover. It illustrates in full (albeit somewhat washed out) color depiction a noble lone wolf atop a desert hill howling at a magnificently brilliant full moon. Cheesy? Maybe. Okay, certainly. But then again it never even occurred to me to remove it from the low-hanging front bumper, either. As far as I’m concerned it lends to the overall appearance of the vehicle a sense of the mystical that it would lack entirely otherwise. Apparently my neighbors agree.
That’s why Hilda, a middle-aged woman who lives down the way from our place, gave me a dream-catcher yesterday. She said she could just picture me in the truck smoking on my pipe when she purchased the novel thing (complete with feathers, turquoise beads and wind chimes) from a second-hand store a few days beforehand. She told me it would be “perfect” to hang from the Ranger’s rear-view mirror. She confessed that I look “so distinguished!” when I pull into the drive way each evening led by a lonesome, howling wolf, and a pipe hanging from my jaw.
I felt somewhat obliged to install on the spot my new dream-catcher over the truck’s mirror. Hilda stood by and watched with barely-bottled excitement and a carefully pursed smile. It looks really tacky and brings the Ranger to a new height of post-modern self-awareness, but I kind of dig it. I’m not sure if it’s actually going to capture any dreams or day visions, but it will at least bring some magical companionship to the solitary wolf on my bumper. And I believe my pipe adds sufficient enough dignity to my appearance as I roll around in my truck, so as that I can afford to humor a bit of others' whimsy from time to time. So, no complaints from this guy.
Speaking of magic, we’ve got a pretty enchanting update coming up this evening. New works from Radice and Castello freshen up the site, along with pipes from the likes of Vauen, Savinelli, Peterson and Sebastien Beo. You will also find two new lighters from IM Corona designed by Matt Booth, and, as a last-minute addition, two fresh, sweet aromatic blends from Peterson.
Ted Swearingen: Sales Manager
[Editor's note: We would be remiss not to note that the truck also pairs well with the various beards Ted tends to grow throughout the course of a year.]
Having eschewed our regular Spring Cleaning this year on account of the miserable heat and humidity, my wife has recently decided that we will be dusting walls, mopping floors, waxing ceilings, scrubbing bushes, bleaching furniture, and boiling the bathroom this weekend. What a bummer for me. Not surprisingly, I like to spend my weekends smoking my pipes, reading while pipe smoking, watching a little TV (as long as I’m smoking a pipe), organizing my tobacco cellar and cataloging my tins of tobacco (maybe while enjoying a little sample or two to help me along), and cleaning my pipes between smokes. I’m typically pretty easy going in my pursuits. But not this weekend.
And so, in preparation of this great scrub down and complete time-suck, my wife has begun taking stock of “all the things that need to go” as she so delicately puts it. So far it’s been useless junk that I don’t care about. I haven’t been paying attention, honestly.
Until this morning when I found taped to my pipe sanctuary (which is a bookshelf filled with pipes, tobacco and related accessories) a note that reads:
“Consider whittling down your pipe collection some.”
What!?
Brothers, I hear your collective moan and feel your common cry. However, fear not. I have a plan.
I’m selling some of my pipes off to Smokingpipes.com. It’s really the only solution available to me. I know she’d like me to “gift” some of these to my friends, family ("or Goodwill with the rest of your junk," she says) or something as charitable, but I’m too crafty for all that poppycock. Like any customer, if I sell my pipes to Smokingpipes.com I’ll get 55% in trade value towards the purchase of new pipes, estate pipes, pipe tobacco, cigars, and accessories (like a new pipe rack or maybe a pipe-shaped catnip toy for Caswell). This is what we call WIN-WIN, people. Pipes disappear today for the benefit of my little homemaker, I’ll accumulate store credit tomorrow, and in no time (gradually, so as not to draw suspicion) I’ll send new briar back to the rank of my pipe sanctuary. So smart.
In the meantime, like you, I will be perusing tonight’s selection of fine new pipes and estates alike. We’re offering a choice medley of works by Savinelli, Ascorti, Posella, and L’Anatra, as well as Stanwell, Winslow, Peterson and Ashton. And as if that weren’t enough we’re also featuring new pipes by Hiroyuki Tokutomi, Benni Jorgensen, Peter Heeschen, Claudio Cavicchi and Randy Wiley in addition to a whole smattering of estates from around the world. All told that’s 198 pieces tonight, folks. Be like me and have some fun.
I go to Denmark on business once a year. That's what I'm there for; at least that's what I tell people in the office. I try to make it sound as onerous, exhausting and generally miserable as possible. I make it abundantly clear that it is only through tremendous personal sacrifice that I bring all of these great pipes home.
I mean, we can't have them thinking that their fearless leader (well, fearless except of the extremely large mosquitos that inhabit my backyard; those things scare the crapola out of me) is off galavanting across a beautiful country, looking at some of the world's best pipes, eating extremely well, hanging out with old friends, smoking great tobacco, and generally having a blast, can we?
While I was there, I spent a night at Peter Heeschen's house. I've done this every year for six years now. We were sitting in his workshop and he showed me a really pretty sandblasted (but as of yet unfinished) pipe. And then he showed me the hole in the bottom of the shank that opened up when he sandblasted it. Since it was obviously unsellable, he joked about it being really expensive firewood and the conversation meandered on. A few minutes later, I asked him if I could have it since he was just going to pitch it. I started smoking it. It's smoked very well (through either the stem or the bottom of the shank) until moisture started dripping out of the hole onto my shirt. Peter decided to add a screw (the general household variety) to plug the hole, so we did that and it worked rather well. Thereafter, I decided to finish the stem (it just needed some more sanding and polishing) and we stained it a hideous yellow color, much in keeping with the rest of it. It's sort of like rescuing a three-legged cat at the shelter; it ain't pretty, but it's all the more precious because I'm now the proud owner of a truly unique (though not in a good way) pipe.
I've been back a little over a week now, settling into my old routine. Pipes from the trip will start arriving soon. I can't wait to see them. For the most part, I've just seen the ones I picked out half-finished. They're a lot prettier when they're stained and have stems. And Heeschens much better than my new one will be here soon, so keep an eye out on the site for those.
In today's update, you'll find the second round of pipes for our big Dunhill Estate Sale. The first round was an amazing success; I hope there's something here that grabs your attention too! You'll also find new pipes from Dunhill, great deals on some Caminettos, plus pipes from Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, Vauen and Peterson. Enjoy!
Apparently, and according to various Danish pipe makers, Denmark has had its wettest summer since Cnut the Great, then prince of Denmark, invaded and conquered England in 1016, only to be sorely disappointed that the weather was no better there.
While I missed the flooding of Copenhagen, though I was regaled with stories, pictures and, yes, YouTube videos thereof, it did rain almost constantly during my trip, with one afternoon's exception at Lars' house, where, as far as my experience goes, the weather is always perfect. I've been to Denmark at least once a year for six years now to visit pipe makers. Summer in Denmark can be a truly magical experience. And sometimes one completely understands why the Vikings of yore opted to go conquer countries with better weather. I'd have made a bee-line for Sicily too.
I'm still puzzled as to how a nation of grizzled Vikings became such world leaders in design, but I won't argue with it: I'd rather hang out with them, have some pickled herring and black bread, and look at pipes than have my village pillaged and burned. More seriously, I'm a big fan of Danish design in all its incarnations. To say that I love Danish pipes would be redundant at this point. I've spent my entire adult life as an evangelist for the world's best pipes and, especially, the Danish style artisanal pipe. But I also love the same approach to design applied elsewhere. I bought my wife some beautiful modernist candlestick holders while I was there. I'm not normally the kind of guy who gets excited about candlestick holders. In fact, as a single man, I didn't have any. Or any candles to put them in. But, as objects unto themselves, these were beautiful, polished stainless candlestick holders. Now that I'm writing it, it sounds really silly. I'll just go back to the half-truth that they were really just for my wife and what she would have wanted.
Every year, going to Denmark to visit all the pipe makers is a special experience and this year was no different. Spending time with the greats of Danish pipe making is a truly remarkable affair. It's also a great time for me to be able to hang out with my friends from that small, sometimes rather rainy, but beautiful country that sits between the Baltic and the North Sea.
Today's update is very nice. From Denmark, you'll find pipes from Lasse, Neerup and Stanwell. A host of beautiful Italians comprise most of the balance, including pipes from Becker, Ardor and others. Estates abound too, of course. It's a big update at almost 200 pipes; go check it out!
The wife and I got out of town this weekend, or actually more accurate, we got out of the state, traveling down to Warner Robins, Georgia.
While part of this trip had something to do with getting out of Irene’s way, we really decided to drive over to Georgia because we were overdue for some quality time away from home. While I get to do my fair share of traveling for the sake of pipe shows and such, Shelly has been home bound over the last year, working with old folks, washing dishes, cooking meals, doing laundry, and cleaning the bathroom; you know, pretty much the stuff any young woman loves to do more than anything else in the whole wide world. But everybody needs a break. So we bailed out of South Carolina last Friday, just in time for the weather to turn ugly. Good for us.
Believe it or not, when traveling, the single issue I struggle with most is picking out the handful of pipes that will accompany me on the trip. The longer I’m away, the more pipes I have to bring, and the more difficult this choice becomes. The process is painfully emotional, occasionally maddening and usually haunts me for the duration of any adventure. There’s no need to worry about me, though, my therapist and I are currently sorting this out. Pipe Acquisition Disorder, meet Pipe Separation Anxiety. But I digress.
Ordinarily I like to come up with a theme for the pipes I pack. The theme facilitates the decision making process - it's sort of like making a mixed tape (iPod playlist, depending on your generation). This last weekend’s motif? Dunhill estates. I brought along four of my favorite old patent-era Dunhills; two sandblasts and two smooths (symmetry is key). My old Dunhills are some of the best smokers to be found among my modest collection, and it gives me a strange sense of satisfaction to know that when smoking some of these old guys I’m also enjoying my own little slice of history. In their own way, they each make me feel like a steward of the past, and for a lot of pipe smokers and collectors this is itself a huge component of the hobby. Old pipes connect us to something, a time, an era, that’s been and gone, lost forever, though the fashion world and pop culture may still occasionally attempt to create pale imitations of it for a season or two. And of course, Dunhill pipes just happen to be exceptionally refined objects in and of themselves. Everyone should own an old Dunhill or two.
And that's all the more reason why we’re kicking off a huge sale this evening. We’re knocking an additional 25% off all the Dunhill estates we’ve already got up on the website, and, for good measure, we’re adding an extra 30 pieces today. No longer can anyone say that Dunhill estates are too expensive. At least, that’s what I plan on telling Shelly when I come home this evening with another handful of history.
As well, be sure to check out the rest of our fantastic update, which includes new pipes from Castello, Radice, Peterson, Savinelli, and Vauen. Yeah, it’s a biggie.
I took my wife to work this morning because the weather showed a chance of a thunderstorm this afternoon, and I don't want to worry about her out and about in such weather. Once I got here (work), there was some buzz going around the office about the likely possibility of a Tropical Storm Hurricane Irene. This isn't good news for a Monday morning. I can deal with rain, but a lot of rain means my workshop can look like a wet laundry room in a fraternity house basement. Realizing the likelihood of having to batten down the hatches here at the offices without our fearless leader Sykes (who is currently hanging out with pipe makers and tobacco people in Denmark), the time to take preventative action is now.
Everyone else here can take care of their own offices and all of the important blinking-computer stuff buzzing within, but Sykes would [hopefully] appreciate some of us chipping in to hurricane-proof his office. The first thing we did was to open his door and immediately unplug all of his electronic devices. Computer, phone, fan - everything. There is no time to properly shut stuff down, so yanking cords from the sockets saves valuable seconds. The next thing we did was to bubble wrap his four monitors and screw his chair to the floor in case things get nasty. His bookshelf was toppled over so each volume is safely on the floor and a sheet of plywood was screwed down and covered with cinder blocks to prevent anything from moving. We put plywood over the windows and continued our efforts by filling the entire office with packing peanuts (which we found easier to do with the door closed, and a hole cut in the ceiling which we filled from above). We sincerely hope the developing storm loses power in the next few days, as it is currently heading toward Charleston, SC. Our building is incredibly sturdy brick with Hurricane-rated windows, but we sure don't want anything to happen to put it to the test. Rest assured, Sykes, we are looking out for you.
In the interim, we've put together a healthy update of pipes, cigars, tobacco, and accessories. McBaren 7 Seas tobacco, pipe stands, Lampe Berger items, two cigars brands, and an impressive array of pipes from Europe.
"The clothes make the man," we have all so often been told. Utter nonsense, I say, as someone who has both worn tuxedos and been reduced to (borderline) rags, at one point or another. The truth, indeed, is the reverse: That how a man dresses is a reflection of who he is, or, at least, wishes people to perceive his person as. The clothes are but inanimate objects, and it is men (and women) who make them, and who ultimately make themselves as well. At one time or another most of us have probably known well-heeled slobs, sharp and fashionable frauds, and impoverished fellows who kept their boots shined and polished, even when the soles were cracked through-and-through with years of wear and tear. Many of us have also likely witnessed the first's haplessness with women, the complete absurdity and underlying desperation of the second's entire existence, and the third's eventual transcendence from his circumstances.
But what of a man's choice in pipes? No doubt these bits of briar, or morta, or meerschaum follow suit. There will always be those who collect the works of rarified pipemakers, because of their love for the art and the craftmanship which goes into their creation - and there will always be those who snatch them up only in the hope of impressing others. Adam can typically be seen smoking some light, unassuming English-classical number, which share a small stand with a number of clays - little surprise for a lover of colonial history. Ted, who holds a degree in poetry and who has been through more beards than I can count since he began working here, holds in a place of pride a couple of well-preserved 19th-century reed-stemmed pipes which were discovered hidden away in an attic, passing generations in obscurity. And who can look at a briar from the Pesaro school, without picturing their eventual owners as gregarious extroverts, or a Dunhill Shell Briar without thoughts of tweed-clad academics gathering over chess boards? Such pipes as these did not create the associations I have mentioned - it's the people who've favored them that did that.
Fortunately, no matter who you are we're liable to have your match today, as we present one very broad selection indeed: Kent, Former, and Heeschen; Ardor, Il Duca, and Askwith; meerschaums from IMP; Neerups, Stanwells, Brebbias, Savinellis, Petersons, and, new to Smokingpipes.com, the freehands of Eric Nording - and, as always, a fine selection of estates as well.
Over the weekend, my wife and I flew to New York City to visit a good friend and customer. Traveling there Saturday morning and returning Sunday evening meant we couldn't get a lot accomplished, but the idea was to relax, have fun, see some interesting places and, of course, gain a few pounds from delicious food. Since my wife is from Russia, hitting the Brighton Beach in Brooklyn was on the top of the to-do list. One year ago, we were in Russia for a few weeks and I fell in love with the food. I even got in trouble filming smoked fish and other foods in St. Petersburg (I guess it was a little suspicious). We were told by our friend not to expect too much, but when we eventually found a parking spot and meandered our way to a Russian grocery store, we were very excited. Truthfully, I thought I was in Russia. Hitting a few other food places for Russian-style meats to grill out, Russian salads and drinks fully prepared us to enjoy a beautifully sunny day in the lower 80s. At his home with his lovely family, we grilled meats, snacked on fish, enjoyed wine and spirits, and smoked our pipes like it was a pipe show. The man has more tins of vintage tobaccos than I have hairs on my head and I enjoyed more than my fair share of decade-old Orlik Golden Sliced and Dunhill tobaccos.
The following day was overcast and raining, but we headed to a well-chosen Chinese restaurant to meet with another customer and indulge in fantastic, authentic food that I've never experienced before. Driving around the city on our way to shopping in Manhattan made me want to close my eyes many times, and helped me understand why New Yorkers tend to use four-letter words so much. After a quick shopping trip with the girls, we headed to the famous Barclay-Rex pipe and cigar store that has been in the city since 1910. Whenever I can visit another fine tobacco establishment, I will. The gentleman working was very thoughtful, kind, and enjoyed discussing pipes and tobaccos as much as I do. I was surprised that we were able to smoke our Padron 1964 40th Anniversary cigars in the store with so many smoking bans around, but am very happy that such an event could still happen in the city. All in all, the weekend getaway was a great food and tobacco experience. What more could one ask for?
Today we are sharing pipes from Castello, Dunhill, Vauen, Savinelli, Peterson, and Sebastien Beo. You will also find cigars from Brick House and San Cristobal, as well as cigar cutters, a Castello pipe bag and new tobacco from Vauen.
If you can recall my introduction a few weeks ago, you may remember the shenanigans Eric and I got into when he moved into my office. I always liked to boast that I had the largest office in the building, and still do. Eric just happens to be sitting in here too. I'm somewhat like that crazy guy from the movie Braveheart that refers to Ireland as "his" island. "It's MY island," he said. "It's MY office," I say. I would not compare my observations of our resident Amish-Johnny Cash-meets-Turkish-from-"Snatch"-doppelganger to Jane Goodall studying chimpanzees, but it may be more similar that you would believe. He does a fantastic job writing descriptions; the best here, I think, so studying his habits might help the rest of us writers. I also believe Eric should do commercials for beef because, from what I've observed, he eats nothing else. Each day he goes into the kitchen and cooks a slab of seasoned, well-tenderized beef in a cast iron skillet for lunch. I asked him if he does this at home "Not always. Sometimes I eat sushi". Interesting. I am beginning to understand more about this quiet creature. One could not simply look at Eric and know what the weather was like. Every day he wears black pants, a V-neck T or button-up shirt, a black jacket, and boots. This man believes seasons, and dressing for them, is for the weak.
It has been nice talking with Eric daily, though. Prior to his moving into my office, every question he was confronted with received an answer that could fit inside a fortune cookie. Brief and to the point. The ability to bounce description ideas back and forth has proven great, and we each find quality aspects to focus on with each pipe. So many people come in here looking for pipes, unpacking pipes, or generally having a question, and in that regard Eric has done a splendid job being a bouncer/interrogator. "What are you doing here? Who told you, you could come in? Susan...leave at once". Many of us have found out that he does indeed have a humorous side because of all of this, and some employees find it irresistible not to poke him with a stick just to get a reaction. While him and I used to independently listen to bizarre music for our own amusement (and some eye-rolling from others), our office is rarely playing anything at all. Once I had to walk out because he was listening to some sort of dark, feedback, [horrible] music his friend made. I countered this (accidentally) with a really bad CD that sounded like a one-armed bagpiper falling down the stairs. Perhaps one of these days I may even find out what the "N" stands for in Eric N. Squires, but currently I should just continue quiet observations as not to disturb him too much. So far, this has been a lot of fun, and strangely educational. (Did you know that the color magenta, so often today used on the exteriors of gentlemen's clubs, was named after a bloody 19th century battlefield near Milan?)
This evening has some especially nice offerings for fans of the pipe. J.Alan, Larryson, Grechukhin, and Becker have wonderful offerings in limited numbers, and the variety continues with other artisans and companies from around the globe.
My wife often takes me places I don’t want to go. It seems that most of the time these places specialize in the selling of women’s shoes, women's pottery, or women's means of turning a bathroom into a comprehensive aesthetic presentation. I don’t know why I let her talk me into being an escort for these kinds of adventures. I’m not even sure why she would want me to follow her along in the first place. I don’t care about women’s shoes, or clothes, or makeup. But she insists, I relent, and then I end up at these department stores for hours and hours. I do end up carrying the majority of her shopping bags, so maybe that has something to do with it.
This weekend I was dragged along to "Sephora" so that my wife might purchase "foundation by Nars". I hope this means something to you because I was pretty confused when all this was explained to me. However, it was pretty clear that I was about to embark on a lady-shopping trek. I’m now skilled at recognizing when this is about to happen to me. She starts talking in a secret language; I can pick out words like skin and moisturizer, cream, shoes, purse, skirt, and a handful of others, but the majority of the code is indecipherable by the male gender. When she speaks in the secret language her eyes get real wide, her voice goes up an octave and she talks alarmingly fast. It might be because she’s naturally excited, or this is some strange Orwellian conditioning (Two Minutes Compulsion) caused by reading Vogue magazine, but I wouldn’t know. What I do know is it’s time to pack up some tobacco and a pipe. We’re about to go shopping.
Shopping with my wife looks like this: I do a quick lap around the store to establish that I have indeed fulfilled my husbandly duty of being there, report my intentions to wait outside, and then smoke my pipe. She knows a pipe will take me a while to get through, so she takes her time shopping. In this way we both win. I think I’m clever for having come up with this scheme. And honestly, I don’t mind being the bag boy to my spouse’s pampering-expeditions as long as I find a place to enjoy a nice pipe. And she knows it. And wouldn’t you guess? She’s the biggest supporter of my hobby.
But like you, I do my shopping, pipe and tobacco shopping, on-line. So without further ado, here’s our Monday evening update.
You’ll find new pipes from the likes of Savinelli, Radice, and Luciano, as well as Johs, Brigham, Peterson and Vauen. Additionally, we’re introducing the new Zino Platinum Z-Class cigar (recently a personal favorite of mine). Enjoy!
Historically, the summer is our slow time of year. We're not as seasonal around Christmas as many retailers, but the summer months are definitely a little quieter around here than the rest of the year. It's the time of year we tend to take vacations. It's also the time of year that we're prepping for the busier periods of the year. Ironically, that means that I'm actually busier while the company as a whole is a little quieter. We got home from Vegas about a week ago, after a very successful week of frantic pipe purchasing (along with tons of tobacco, and some cigars). Pipes are beginning to arrive now, coming in vast boxes of hundreds of pipes each, landing in Adam's pipe quality control area to be carefully inspected by Adam, Bill and others, all under Adam's careful aegis.
And I'm off to Denmark in another couple of weeks, to see yet more folks and buy yet more pipes. They're very different experiences, though. In Denmark, I'm handling a handful of very expensive pipes. At the IPCPR show, it's more about high quality factory pipes: Peterson, Stanwell, Savinelli and others that make up the bulk of the pipes that we sell. Of course, whether it's $50 or $5,000, it's subject to similar quality control processes and is listed individually, but as you might imagine, we see a whole lot more pipes from Peterson than we do from, well, all of the one-man artisanal pipe makers we work with combined a few times over.
Speaking of Peterson, I'm really excited by what they're up to this year, with the new Molly Malone series and the new Sherlock Holmes shapes. From a company that's almost 150 years old, they do a remarkable job of simultaneously being true to their roots and exploring new ideas. It's a tough balancing act, of sorts, but Tom Palmer et al seem remarkably good at it. Speaking of the Molly Malone series, Peterson has also done a good job of holding reasonable prices on these new series: the two pipe rusticated Molly Malone series sells for less than $250 at Smokingpipes.com. I think that's a pretty awesome deal for these pipes.
I've had Peterson on the brain lately for a variety of reasons, but in today's update, Peterson is just a component of a large, variegated selection of fine briars. You'll find new pipes from Ardor and Askwith, Peter Heeschen and Benni Jorgensen, Savinelli and Tsuge, Stanwell and Il Duca. And much, much more.
I have to admit, adjusting to the weather here in the South has been strange. I’m not used to the random thunderstorms, lightning storms, rainstorms, the unusually humid nights, the uncomfortably humid mornings, nor am I used to sweating so much, all the time, day after day after day. In California we had earthquakes; on the East Coast, what you have is weather. But I have to say, it’s not that bad once you get used to it. Shocking.
In fact, I’d go so far to say that an afternoon in the sweltering humidity and blistering heat can be downright enjoyable, provided that a few details are in order.
First off, shade and seating is crucial. Then you need beer. And finally, most importantly, you need smoking tobacco. If you want to enjoy yourself outdoors in this kind of brutal, Southern-style summer weather these are things you need. You can substitute iced tea (sweet tea, properly) for beer, but otherwise the aforementioned outline for a successful day outside when it’s 89 degrees Fahrenheit with a Real Feel of 112 (because the relative humidity is 71 percent) is less a list of suggestions and more a guide for survival as far as I’m concerned. Also, whether you prefer pipe or cigar smoking is totally your prerogative. As much as I’m a pipe guy, a cigar is perfect in this kind of deep-summer weather.
Either way we’ve got you covered. Tonight we’re offering new cigars by Vega Fina (smoked one just yesterday, they’re fantastic) as well as plenty of new pipe tobacco offerings from Planta. And if you’re looking for a new pipe to christen, check out tonight’s all-star lineup: Brigham, Castello, Peterson, Savinelli, Sebastien Beo (a personal favorite around here) and Vauen.
There's rarely a day goes by at the Smokingpipes.com offices without what we shall call, developments. Just today, for example, I discovered why, several weeks ago, I overheard Sykes discussing the purchase of a flock of goats. While I'm not at liberty to explain the solution to this mystery, I assure you it involves absolutely nothing which would prove embarrassing to my employer in any way. Other, unclassified developments within the past couple days have included Pamela and Susan taking offense at witty observations (I've actually noticed that this seems to be quite a frequently reoccurring development, at least whenever I've been personally present to observe), Adam attempting to strike a deal with a Chinese bamboo merchant who could put the wiliest and boldest of used car salesmen to shame, Adam running out of the room to escape the avant-garde musical stylings of one of my oldest and dearest friends, and our entire inventory of rarer and pricier briars being relocated not once, but twice. (Firstly, into Sykes's office for better tracking and security, and then, secondly, to near Adam and I when Sykes realized that, while his door is always open to his employees, he didn't want his door to actually have to be always open to his employees.)
What developments will await us next week? Who can possibly know? But we are quite knowledgeable regarding what awaits our loyal customers in today's update: briars from Stanwell, Peterson, and Savinelli; individual artisanal renditions from Poul Winslow, Randy Wiley, L'Anatra, and master pipemaker Claudio Cavicchi; exquisite specimens from Becker, Eltang, and Former; and last but not least, a full sixty-count update to our already copious estate pipe department.
I had a cold over the weekend and this meant that my workshop wasn't going to see any action until I got better. My wife and I loaded up the HHR with beach chairs, a cooler, and a couple towels to spend part of Saturday at the Myrtle Beach state park, which is right on the ocean. A stuffy head would benefit from the salty air and sun, we thought, and it sure felt nice to watch a choppy ocean, even though the beach and park was rather packed with family picnics - big ones - like 400 people all wearing the same t-shirt. We met with friends for dinner at a delicious Thai place, and everyone enjoyed the meal. My spicy curry was delicious and helped clear me up a bit, but the effects weren't long-lasting. Drinking copious amounts of Yogi-brand herbal teas and downing Theraflu as Doc Holiday would rot-gut in Tombstone, I began to come around.
Sunday didn't prove to be much better, but there was a slight improvement. After taking my wife to work and stopping by the pharmacy for behind-the-counter Pseudoephedrine, I figured that I may as well get used to staying inside another day to get better. To hell with excessive napping. Pan-frying pork steaks and watching Spaghetti Westerns seems like the perfect thing to do. "Red blood, yellow gold" (Nando Cicero, 1967) was one of a dozen such movies on my dvd of good [bad] movies. The grainy quality of these films with catchy guitar music are more entertaining to watch (I think) than all of the modern excessive-computer-graphic, 3-D movies of today. There were no aliens flying into the screen, nor over the top visual effects. Watching a low-budget movie like this almost seems like someone had a movie camera back in the old west. It’s entertaining, I think. Aside from fanning cap and ball revolvers at a man on a horse running on top of a mountain (and hitting him), the entertaining feats of a stick of dynamite, hidden in a bible, thrown by a pyromaniac preacher, taking down a dozen soldiers, and socks full of gun powder exploding when shot at made this film so bad it was good. Before I knew it, I was feeling better.
Sykes, Ted, Susan, and Bill are back from the IPCPR, so we will be filling future updates with all sorts of pipes, tobacco, cigars, and accessory goodies. For now, check out the vast array of P.S. Studio gems, plus Radice, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen.
The Myrtle Beach area was full of song last night; specifically, the song of power lines humming and crackling with unusual, and rather ominous volume. It is not known to me whether this was a result of just the right combination of heat and humidity itself (namely, a great deal of both), or a secondary effect, caused by everyone cranking their AC and climate control units on full blast. Accompanying this strange music were a cavalcade of rushing ambulances and, for some reason I am unaware of, a fireworks show. (That latter of which I got to witness while sitting in traffic on the main drag - which I must say is a lot better than just staring at the car in front of you. To this end, I would recommend to anyone pressuring their local city council into establishing a "Gridlock Pyrotechnics Response Team" - better to spend our tax money on entertaining explosions than on blue-ribbon councils to establish the parameters for selecting a focus group to assess the public's opinions regarding the under-representation of the tufted titmouse in modern popular media.)
All that having been said, I doubt it was anything compared to what Sykes, Ted, Bill, and Susan are experiencing in Las Vegas, that sweltering desert metropolis so many have compared to the rebirth of a certain ancient pair of notoriously, you might even say, biblically, hedonistic city-states. Granted, Sykes & company are attending a show for pipe and tobacco aficionados, who do tend to be a rather more refined, traditional lot. They should be safe, no doubt, or... no. Who are we kidding - It's Vegas. No matter how much they may try to maintain decorum, they will be at the mercy of maniacs.
But on with the update: Today we have for you - a plethora of briars from Stanwell, Savinelli, Peterson, and Brebbia; meerschaums from IMP; artisanal pipes from Kevin Arthur, Ser Jacopo, and Ardor; high-grades from Tsuge, Lasse, Knudsen, and Nielsen; last but not least, a good five-dozen-plus estate pipes, ranging from the artful to the utilitarian, the everyday to the antique.
We're moving some offices around here in the main building this week. I was under the impression that this was going to happen last week - and some of it did - but was really hoping my desk would be moved and all ready for me this morning. Nope. Alyson moved into another building across the street to be with the new photo guys, and Lisa moved from her closet office into the main area where Alyson was. There is a big whoppin' desk in her old office now - looking sad - but I want it. Eric has been by the back door for a couple years and is tired of people walking in (second floor back door) and asking if this was a [ahem] Gentleman's club. Okay - this happened just once, but it was two weeks ago. Sure, this building was a shady sort of business twenty years ago, but what kind of gentlemanly camaraderie was the scruffy fellow expecting at 2:30 - on a Thursday? Eric is moving into my office and our first task was to figure out how to get Lisa's old desk in the place of mine.
In college, I studied Industrial Design, but lived in a Fraternity house and so also learned 'Frat Engineering'. The movie Animal House is rather accurate to where I lived for three years. I had a small bedroom complete with a bunk bed, couch, bar, and fridge. On more than one occasion we needed to move things around and, as it turns out, Eric uses much the same techniques as I learned in college. Going to the gas station across the street to buy two Red Bull beverages, we ended up buying a six-pack of Miller High Life (same price). Sometime after our 24th-ounce, but before our 30th, we realized the desk just wasn't going to fit through the door. Being of solid construction and assembled by a man with a pound of nails and a hammer fetish, we needed to revert to fraternity-engineering: Sawzall. Cutting the door frame on one side through the wall (by about a foot) proved really easy. One door down; three to go. We slid the desk in the place of my old one and in celebration finished our last few ounces of the "champagne of beers". After discussing how the door to our own office was also of rather inconvenient dimensions, we closed it, screwed hinges on the other side, and used the Sawzall to cut a vertical line down the middle. Saloon doors now grace our describing palace and pipe library.
Eric and I aren't sure what Sykes will think about this (can you tell that he's out of the building for a week?). We're also not sure about what we did to his couch, either: To make our office more fraternally-designed, we stole appropriated one of the leather couches from Sykes's office. Which would not fit through the door, either. Eric quartered it like an elk and brought it in here piece by piece. After duct taping it back together, we couldn't properly fit it anywhere. The Sawzall came in handy, again, and divided it in half much like King Solomon once suggested, resulting in a pair of stylishly tilted, avant-garde chairs. Who says we can't think outside the box?
Even with all of this rearranging going on, we managed to put together a nice update for you. Six different brands of pipes totaling just over a hundred pieces are ready for your perusal.
On Saturday, at some ungodly hour that distinctly precedes dawn, Susan, Ted, Bill and I leave for the airport to head out to Las Vegas for this year's IPCPR show. This'll be my eleventh year of RTDA/IPCPR goodness. We'll spend Sunday before the show and Monday morning of the show working on pipe stuff, but then we'll break into groups to work on pipe tobacco, cigars and accessories.
IPCPR is very much a cigar focused event. In our little pipe-filled bubble here at Smokingpipes.com, it's easy to forget that the cigar industry is many dozens of times larger than the pipe industry. IPCPR is a pretty clear reminder of that. It also means that I know far less about the product than I'm accustomed to knowing. Frankly, aside from having a handful of cigars that I like, I really think my cigar knowledge is pretty lacking. Fortunately, the guys in the store and Bill the store manager know a lot more about cigars than I do so we have expertise at the show, but it still means that I feel a bit like a fish out of water there.
And speaking of fish out of water, whose bright idea was it to put a major tourist and conventioneer destination in the desert? And then, who decided that the IPCPR show should be in late July? I know I'm in the minority here, but give me the humid heat I know over the dry heat that feels like being in a pizza oven any day. Better yet, I think the IPCPR should hold the show in, say, Anchorage if they really insist on doing it in July. I'm from the South; hot and wet is what we do. As a fellow southerner once observed to me, 'you can't really trust air you can't feel'.
Disagreeable climate aside, I am really excited about the show. We'll get to see friends we rarely see. One night, we're having dinner with Brian Levine, our previous fearless General Manager before he took off to head up Brigham's US operations. I told him it was only ok that he was leaving because it meant that I'd be his customer again, which meant that he had to buy dinner when we got together. He's making good on the promise.
Of course, as always, everything here will run as normal, since just four of us are gone. Hopefully we'll also have some blog posts from the show and some videos to edit and get up on the site when we get back.
Today's update is of particular note too. There's a little Japanese invasion, with four great pipes from Tokutomi and a half dozen pieces from Tsuge. You'll also find pipes from Benni Jorgensen, Claudio Cavicchi, Poul Winslow, Randy Wiley and others. Check 'em out. Oh, and yeah, we released G. L. Pease Lagonda yesterday. You really should give that a try too.
Go figure. Just as soon as I’m back on the Latakia wagon, smoking daily favorite blends like Maltese Falcon and Quite Nights, G. L. Pease introduces another English blend to tempt my taste buds, torment my wallet and tease my cellar. But am I really complaining? No way.
Lagonda, the fourth addition to Pease’s Old World collection of handcrafted pipe tobacco, is a rare treat. Heavy, dark, creamy, smoky, tangy; this mix of Cyprian leaf, red Virginia and Oriental tobaccos is as refined as it is bold and is the perfect complement to a summer evening outdoors.
So dive in. Join the fervor. Because everyone knows how quickly a new blend from G. L. Pease will disappear on its debut.
I smoke in my car. If you know even a little about me, this probably doesn’t come as a surprise. Like most smokers I know, smoking in transit is as natural and enjoyable to me as smoking in the home or (if you live in a state like South Carolina) a favorite restaurant. Considering that I suffer from a slight-to-moderate case of Road Rage, pipe smoking when driving offers me a means to relax in traffic and the opportunity to chuckle at (rather than flip off) those outrageous tourists that know neither their way around Highway 17, nor the location of the controls to their own turn signals.
And yes, as a consequence (and much to my wife’s dismay), the car is a bit of a mess. Pipe cleaners, matches, lighters, and leather pouches half-filled with dry tobacco seem to pop out of every side panel, cup-holder, and dusty compartment the vehicle has to offer. Pair this to the pound or so of ash that’s settled into every likely cranny between the seats, dash, and transmission stick, as well as the general, all-pervasive ghost-fragrance of pipe-smoke past, and you’ve got a cabin with plenty, to put it politely, "character". Do I care? Not so much. I smoke in my car - with the emphasis on "my".
But I have to admit that I was a little ashamed this morning when delivering the automobile to our regular mechanic for a tune-up and an oil change. My wife, and the occasional (and much forewarned) passenger are those that choose to suffer my Philistine behavior knowingly; I suppose it’s not exactly fair to subject total strangers to the walk-in ashtray that is my Volkswagen. At least the thing isn’t also filled with a month’s worth of fast food discards - that inexplicable trash-hoarding behavior we've all gotten a glimpse of at one time or another, walking through the parking lots of grocery stores, shopping malls, and Walmarts. There's no chance of covering up for that with claims of it adding "character" to your lifestyle.
Nonetheless, and to make long story short, it looks like Yours Truly will still be spending the evening vacuuming out the car. If nothing else, I’ll then be able to "prove" to others that I exaggerated the state of my car for the sake of better "fiction" - at least for a week or so.
In the meantime, we’ve all sorts of treats newly available this evening. Pipes by Savinelli, Radice, PS Studio, Johs, Brigham and Peterson round out our offering of fresh works. Additionally, we’ve three new fragrances available from Lamp Berger. Happy Monday!
Between the recent local conflagrations, nights filled with the sounds of small, recreational explosions, new employees being brought up to speed, and a website assets imbroglio involving some very uncooperative file transfer protocols, the past week has been equal parts sleepless, busy, resolute in its spirit of malfunction, and heady with the rich aromatics of a burning forest (not to mention, rather short on visibility). And yet, that having been said, we adapt and overcome - in fact, Alyson and Tommy are, even as I write this, in the very act of adapting and overcoming the shenanigans of our aforementioned FTP software. Where has it sent our files? Will we ever see them again? By the time you read this, a shocking conclusion will hopefully have been reached. Or, preferably, a not-so-shocking one, which will not further involve fire, nor explosions, nor the more subdued, much quieter dysfunctions typical of computers and network systems.
All that having been said, if you are reading this, then we do have quite an update for you today; a broad assortment of briars from Stanwell, Brebbia, Savinelli, and Peterson; artisanal pipes from the Roveras of Ardor, and Giancarlo Guidi's Ser Jacopo - not to mention nine fresh, and often quite complex designs by the recently-introduced Kevin Arthur; peerless high-grades from Former of Denmark, Matzhold of Austria, and America's own Rad Davis; and last but not least, a selection of five-dozen estate pipes of various, wide-ranging origins.
Today is very warm and as such I’ve dug out from the closest a fan I’ve not seen since July or August of last year. I suppose I can’t complain too loudly of the unbearable heat seeing as how we’re in July now and high temperatures are the national norm. And I expect we’ll all be warmer still. Nevertheless, hot sunny days are far from ideal weather in my reckoning if only because my pipe smoking seems to suffer. There’s something about clasping a sweaty, 180 degree Fahrenheit block of wood enclosing smoldering leaves, on a blistering, broiling, bright summer afternoon that’s less than appealing to me and for many a pipe smoker, methinks.
So I’ve had a few more cigars in the last few weeks than to which I’m accustomed, I’ve tapered down to two or three pipe bowls a day, and I’m smoking English blends, Balkan blends, and anything with generous helpings of Latakia in a mainstay way I haven’t known since this last winter. That’s right; I’m back on the good stuff. What can I say? The Kentucky and Kentucky-burley blends just stopped working for me a few weeks ago. And I’ve got a dozen or so lovely pipes dedicated to the exotic Latakia leaf that haven’t seen any love in months and months.
How long will this last? How long can it last? I’ve never been one to get too hung up on a particular blend or style of pipe tobacco. My tastes change temperamentally. In a few months, after having smoked dozens of old favorite English blends from my cellar and loads of blends new to my palate, I’m sure my rekindled interest in Latakia will wane as the temperature cools, as new fragrances fill the air, and as I become intrepidly curious about some new aromatic cross-over thingy.
In the meantime I’m sitting at home, smoking a bowl of McClelland’s Blue Mountain from a 1964 Dunhill Shell Briar LBS, enjoying a glass of unsweetened ice tea (sorry, my southern compatriots) and considering options for tonight’s Fourth of July festivities. Whatever we decide to do will involve staying cool and a good pipe or two.
Speaking of good pipes, be sure and check out our latest offerings from the likes of Peterson, Savinelli and Brigham, as well as the venerable Dunhill and the very stylish Former-Eltang. And if you’re looking for quality cigars to enjoy during the warm weather take a look at the bundle packs we’ve available from Casa de Ortez. Happy Independence Day!
It's been an eventful past week or so here at Smokingpipes - people coming, people going, the slow encroachment of the South's sultry heat into our offices as the AC slowly gave way to entropy (though mainly only on mine and Sykes's side of the building - lucky us), even the sudden appearance of an array of cucumbers in the pipe library. That last, as some of you may have already guessed, was the work of Adam Davidson, who followed it by showing up this morning sporting a full-blown Nick Cave-style horseshoe mustache, a look which is only exacerbated by Adam having similar facial features to the aforementioned, also rather recently mustachioed musician - and which led to the use, and possibly coining of the word "beardish".
But working with our resident pipemaker isn't all weird facial hair and randomly appearing foodstuffs. Adam is also a Colonial/Revolutionary War era history buff, which most recently (just after the cucumbers) led to the appearance of a newspaper originally printed in 1798. Judging by a brief perusal of its contents, what I could assess was that the Irish and English didn't particularly care for each other, and that the petty thieves and other assorted miscreants who were made mention of in that day were every bit as incompetent and confused as those of our own police blotters. Given, some things will never change, but I will say this - our forefathers make us look like a bunch of illiterates. They could turn even a notice to the creditors of a man recently deceased into something which would make many a modern-day love letter sound like it might as well have been written in crayon.
Enough of that, though. Today we have for you solid, affordable pipes from Stanwell, Neerup, Savinelli, and Peterson; artisanal beauties from Poul Winslow, Claudio Cavicchi, Randy Wiley, and L'Anatra; last but by no means least, high-grades from Vladimir Grechukhin, Rolando Negoita, and, yes - Adam Davidson.
There was a pipe show in Kansas City last weekend, which is prime beef country. What was I craving? Long John Silvers. Coming from Indiana, where Long John Silvers' are everywhere, I could get it any time I pleased. After moving to Myrtle Beach in 2005 and noticing that there wasn't even one in the entire state (the nearest one is about four hours away), I crave it. Constantly bombarded with "Adam, you are nuts" by my co-workers and other friends because I live two miles from an ocean full of fish of many different varieties, I ignore all of the eye rolling. After being picked up at the airport by friendly locals from the pipe club, they understood my crave, but suggested we get -- you know -- Kansas City barbecue. Burnt ends and ribs filled me to my ears (twice last Friday). Understanding my quirky desire for the 'good stuff', the wife of a club member surprised me with five pieces of fish and sauces. My intoxicating (mentally and nearly physically) lunch on Saturday was frowned upon by my good friend Jeff Gracik, who kindly addressed that he thought I passed gas. Are you kidding me? The Yankee Candle company should have Long John Silvers and Kansas City burnt-end candles as far as I'm concerned.
There was a large variety of pipes at the show, including quite a few from American carvers. Lucky for all of you, we managed to bring some back for future updates. Ted and Kaye represented Smokingpipes in Kansas (or what is Missouri?). A veteran of Richmond, Chicago, and Raliegh, Ted was on his game. Both of us, and many customers, were thrilled (but not surprised) that Kaye did such a fantastic job at her first pipe show. She is one of the best in our team and countless customers shared their admiration for her kindness and enthusiasm working face to face on the show floor.
We have pipes from PS Studio, Radice, Johs, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen today. From Brigham, we have pipes as well as Humidification Jars. These little plastic jars are filled with crystals that swell with humidification fluid that you can either place in your cigar humidor or enclosed plastic container where you might store pipe tobaccos to prevent them from drying out.
There is no denying it: Summer is just around the corner (tomorrow, actually). This isn't anything shocking, really, like "Oh, by the way, bacon will be healthy tomorrow". Mother nature has been giving clues by cranking up the sun, drying out the grass, and making heated moon-bathing nearly possible. Myrtle Beach is also really busy. Tourists are everywhere and often look like they are intentionally covering themselves from head to toe in suntan lotion, as to not look like the unfortunate hundreds that look like they fell asleep under a broiler or in front of a flaming onion and oil volcano at a local Habachi. I've never liked intense heat, like many other people. Upon hearing their lust for the 90-degree temps, I will ask if they have air conditioning in 1) their home and 2) their car. Without fail, they say "yes" to both. If they really liked to sweat and risk arrest for indecent exposure they shouldn't hide away in climate-controlled environments. Similarly, people who love rain and snow don't tend to like being stuck in the elements without a quick safe-retreat. I must admit, however, that driving in the summer doesn't bother me anymore with my new vehicle.
Going out to the pool or grilling at the beach is best when the sun is up and water is near, so I’m looking forward to summer. The season also means regular trips to farmers markets to stock up on tomatoes, cucumbers, and other seasonal delights that are best to eat at this time of year. Pink cotton is how my father describes tomatoes from grocery stores in the winter. They just shouldn't crunch like under-cooked potatoes. After this weekend, my wife and I will load up on some Russian salads, fruit, and grill skewered chicken and onions (like many Russians do), while sipping on sweet tea before a dip in the ocean. Smoking my pipe when the meat is sizzling over a charcoal fire, while the sun peaks out and around the trees at the state park, has become a summer tradition for us. We hope you can also find a way to enjoy the summer, all while trying to stay cool and take full-advantage of what the season brings.
Today we are offering some cigars from Que America that are aged in Jack Daniels barrels as well as quite a variety of pipes to consider. Summer is officially just one day away, so make these final spring judgments good ones!
While my co-workers have been contemplating training for strange tobacco-fueled triathlons, teaching their wives to drive, or arguing over the merits of philandering presidents in the office kitchen, it's by and large been an uneventful past few weeks for me. Sadly, the most exciting thing I've witnessed of late was the aftermath of what appeared to be a low-speed collision on the main drag in Myrtle Beach between a tourist's minivan and a golf cart. A police golf cart, I should note - on account of which I'm open to the suggestion that it was, in fact, the result of an inexplicable pursuit which ended with the golf-cop cutting off the minivan and sacrificing his trusty, electrically-motivated steed to bring the chase into endgame. Supporting this theory was my observation, after having continued some ways farther down the street, of a bicycle cop speeding past me in their direction - he had clearly been called in for backup; the cavalry was on its way.
"But enough teasing, Eric," you are surely thinking, "...what is on the way, today?" Well, then, how about: Savinellis, Petersons, Stanwells, and hand- made Neerups; artisanal briars from Poul Winslow, Randy Wiley, L'Anatra, Ashton, Claudio Cavicchi, and, being introduced this very day, Kevin Arthur. Finally, to top it all off, we have exquisite high-grades from Vladimir Grechukhin, Peter Heeschen, and Benni Jorgensen.
In the last eight months my life has become increasingly sedentary. I suppose that’s one of the (very few) hazards of office work. I get out of bed each morning, having been on my back for eight hours, only to drive to work to spend most of the day resting upon my posterior. I will then drive home from the office and sit in front of the computer or television, or behind a book or magazine. Then I will go back to bed. Then repeat ad infinitum. I wish I could say I spend my weekends rock climbing or hiking or engaged in hand-to-hand combat, or some other such equally aggressive cardio activity, but I don’t. Recently the weekend has included sitting around on the beach.
My wife also works in an office. She recognized a trend towards physical inactivity months and months ago and has since addressed her concern with regular visits to the gym. She’s working out five or six times a week now for forty minutes to an hour at each interval. While she’s busy panting and sweating I smoke my pipe and enjoy the idleness and quietude. But I know something has got to change. A flight of stairs should not have me winded.
I'm tempted to say Shelly dragged me to the gym with her this Saturday, but alas, the truth is I volunteered, having submitted to the ever amplifying anxiety in my bosom when accounting my health. Or maybe I’m just having chest pain anymore. Either way, it means it’s high time I get my heartbeat up once in a while.
The gym is not my idea of fun. Especially when you’re not fit. Plus, you can’t smoke a pipe when you’re working out, so automatically I don’t find it very conducive to my lifestyle of choice. If I can get to the point where I can run a few miles while smoking I think I’d enjoy torturing myself in this way a lot more, and, as I’ve been told, when getting into shape you need to set a goal. So that’s my goal - as contra-indicated as it might sound to some. I will give up being a lazy slob, and I'll get back into shape... but I will do it on my terms and with my pipe.
Hey, this sounds like an excuse to buy a new pipe if I ever heard one; something light-weight, agile, and sporting a nice saddle bit. Or perhaps, for those longer treks, a proper, old fashioned, deep-chambered Oom Paul?
Tonight’s choices include new works from the likes of Johs, Vauen, Peterson and PS Studio as well as Savinelli and Radice. And what’s a new pipe without some fresh tobacco? McClelland and Altadis have you covered with this update. Now I’m actually looking forward to my next workout.
April was a very short month, or at least it seemed that way. Preparing for the Chicago pipe show meant long hours in my shop and precious little time with my wife. It was decided that we would take a small vacation in Charleston, SC to celebrate my 30th birthday, as I had begun my actual birthday with a 5:30AM trip to the airport (another thing she was not happy about). The preceding week had been bizarre enough for us. As Eric noted in the last newsletter, someone stole my wife's scooter and I was in the process of getting a healthy upgrade from the $1 (not kidding*) pickup truck I've driven for the last six years. It was time to relax. Cruising down on Monday morning in my new Victory Red Chevrolet HHR allowed us some comforts we've never had before. Air conditioning and music! Speeds in excess of 50mph, without immediate mortal peril! We eventually arrived at a little bed and breakfast in the heart of downtown that was constructed prior to the great fire of 1778, which also happened to be directly across the street from the home George Washington stayed in for a week in 1791. This is my favorite historical period, and yet I left one important thing at home: my clay tavern pipe. As we sat in the little brick house with a fire going after a fantastic dinner at McCrady's, my wife asked where my pipe was. Trying to be a caring husband, I told her I left it at home because she might not enjoy me walking around the grounds smoking Virginia tobacco and damning the British. While she might have been a little embarrassed if I was wearing my 18th-century militiaman costume, she probably wouldn't have actually minded the pipe. The next time we drive down for a visit, you can be sure there will be a proper clay in my luggage.
We have quite a spread of new and estate pipes for your perusal this week. Three pipes from Rolando Negoida - including two of his Tubos designs. For the record, Rolando made tube-shaped pipes years ago and has played around with turning them into calabash pieces. Tom Eltang and Rolando are good friends and each has fun playing with the idea, and you can be sure that Rolando's versions are completely "Rolando". Former and Lasse also make up the new pieces, along with Ardor, Ser Jacopo, and the introduction of Posella. With increasing summer heat around the country, choosing to savor a pipe in early morning or after dinner might be the best options. Just remember to bring a pipe if you take some time away from home.
* - He is not kidding; it is a $1.00 truck in every way imaginable, and yet worth every penny. - Eric
Wherever I go, I tend to carry at least one pipe, a pouch of tobacco, a couple pipe cleaners, and a lighter. I even have a stash of pipe cleaners in the glove compartment of my car for emergencies - sudden-onset gurgling, and the like. You never know when the wife will unexpectedly veer into a store, leaving you with the option to either tag along to gaze at the season’s shoe selection or sit out front of the boutique with a pipe, waiting for her to spend forty-five minutes conjecturing on foot wear. I really don’t mind. Just as long as I have my pipe.
So when we went to the beach this Saturday morning to get some fresh air, some sun, and to play around in the warm Atlantic water, along with our bag of beach towels, swim suits, cell phones, house keys, car keys, digital cameras, sunglasses, magazines, extra sandals, and a couple twenty ounce bottles of Mello-Yello, I managed to pack a Lasse Skovgaard sandblasted Blowfish, an Old Boy pipe lighter, and a leather pouch filled with my own personal blend of Gawith & Hoggarth tobacco (tweny-five percent Kendal Kentucky and seventy-five percent Kendal Light/Gold). Yeah, we brought a lot of junk for a two hour visit to the ocean. But the pipe is a must. You don’t even want to know me before I’ve smoked my morning pipe.
We’re stretched out on the beach, my beautiful wife in her new blue bikini and I in a cotton tee and blue jeans rolled up at the cuffs. I figure it’s way past time I get down to relaxing with a big bowl of burley. Because I’m a Californian native, where smoking is a no-no, this will be my first pipe smoking at the beach episode. As you may already know, I’m a great proponent of public pipe smoking. I think it’s good for the apathetic denizens of a general population starched in anti-tobacco sentiment to see us in action. I’m pretty used to the customary bemused reaction of children and grownups alike when seeing either their first pipe smoker ever or their first pipe smoker in twenty plus years. But smoking a pipe on beach is a little different.
There already exists on the beach an attitude that it’s OK to stare at anyone who also happens to be at the beach. Some people go to the beach to stare. Some people go to the beach to give other people a reason to stare. I learned that when smoking a pipe on the beach you are inviting people to stare at you.
That’s why it’s important to carry around a good looking pipe. Fortunately we’ve got you covered. Tonight we’re offering new works from Savinelli and Luciano, as well as Brigham, Peterson and the ever-stylish Dunhill. To go with these briars, you'll also find new tampers from Macek and Tsuge. Pick up a new pipe and a tin of Mac Baren’s HH Highland Blend and you’ll be worthy of all kinds of gawking, glaring, and gazing the next time you step foot near the seashore. And for when you choose to stay home, why not try out one of the fifteen new Lampe Berger fragrances on offer?
On account of the Memorial Day-lengthened weekend, it's been a short week here at Smokingpipes. Which is to say, an overly busy one, as we've attempted to pack a full week's worth of work into four days. Subtract from this the considerable amount of (what would have otherwise been productive) time we all spent Tuesday morning gawking at the unprecedented state of Sykes's office (i.e. - clean) before he and Alyson left for Italy, and our deadlines only grew that much more ominous. We were also rather perplexed, I should note, that the air conditioning was, for the first time in living memory, working quite well Tuesday, too. Fortunately, any perplexity over that was short-lived, as after Sykes an Alyson made good on their escape, it promptly gave up the ghost once more. At least, on my end of the building it did. As a final monkeywrench, some low-minded miscreant absconded with Adam's wife's scooter, putting his schedule into disarray. Conferring in the kitchen, he and I agreed that, indeed, the traditional punishment for stealing scooters from young, blonde Russian girls is, as near as either us can recall, being shot, in public, in the buttocks.
Despite all this nonsense, however, we have managed to throw quite an update together for this Thursday; pipes from Stanwell, Neerup, Peterson, and Savinelli; the introduction of English artisanal pipemaker Chris Askwith, as well as plenty from old favorites Ashton, L'Anatra, Cavicchi, and Wiley; high-grades from J. Alan, Larrysson, and Eltang. Last but not least, we're also introducing something our estate restoration department has been using for sometime: Obsidian pipe stem oil, a product which has proven for us very effective at bringing out the beauty of vulcanite and cumberland stems.
It's done - as of Sunday afternoon Smokingpipes.com's shipping and inventory has been relocated to a much, much larger building. The entire company (minus Mark, who had conveniently absconded to New Jersey on vacation) showed up Sunday morning to pack, lift, drag, cart, stack, and re-shelve the entirety of our stock of tobaccos and accessories, minus of course that which is kept available in our brick & mortar store, Low Country Pipe and Cigar. Though Tom and I grumbled a bit about the distribution of manpower once or twice (Tom doing similar work on the side, and I having worked in the mobile broadcasting industry, where loading, stowing, and unloading equipment is a daily constant, in the past) Sykes prepared the organization and categorization of all our stock well in advance, with the result being that the bulk of our inventory was relocated and ready to be placed on already marked-out shelves within only a few hours. Who knew - planning actually pays off. Especially when you're asking office workers to become impromptu movers.
Sadly, in order for us to move our inventory into the new digs, its previous treasure-trove of flea market riches first had to go. I never got to see it with my own eyes, but I hear it was an impressive assortment of no doubt very collectable items, absolutely packed wall-to-wall. That is, until Sykes had it all trucked away. So, if you were in the market for a ladybug-shaped lamp, pink plastic flamingoes by the bushel, or a twenty-year old toaster - sorry. You missed the boat on that one.
Fortunately, there are other matters in which we are quite capable of serving you, today, with an update featuring Stanwell, Savienlli, Brebbia, Peterson, and IMP Meerschaum. Furthermore, there are handmade Italian briars from Ardor and Ser Jacopo, and, new to Smokingpipes, gorgeous Danish designs from Former-Eltang. Topping it all off, Ted's got several rarified numbers from Lasse and Matzhold for you, while Sykes has covered four from Toku.
The Great Chicago Pipe Show has come and gone, and all of Smokingpipes staff members have trickled their way back into our offices - often in states of exhaustion, yet also bearing a huge number of newly acquired briars. Though I wasn't at the show, I also managed to evade the office an extra day, to spend an elongated weekend cavorting about Myrtle Beach and Charleston with a long-legged young woman. The result of all of this being that I returned Monday about as equally exhausted as the rest, plus also well and thoroughly sunburned.
Despite all of this, we've still managed to put together quite a sizable Thursday update, with briars from Neerup, Johs, Stanwell, Savinnelli, Peterson, handmades from Cavicchi, Ashton, Wiley, and Winslow, and even high-grades from both Heeschen and Lasse. Add to that some seventy-one estates Adam managed to squeeze in somewhere, and that's a lot of pipes prepped, measured, weighed, and described in quite a short time, with about a dozen other matters to juggle within the same time-window.
As for our wealth of findings from the Chicago show, we're already at work getting those ready for you, so expect to see them soon.
While you won’t read this until the evening, I’m sitting here during the wee part of Monday morning, having labored for the last seventeen hours on only three hours sleep (yet again), hopelessly trying to put together the introduction to this newsletter. I certainly can’t say I’m alone in all this last minute, sleep-deprived work. Sykes is in the same, highly caffeinated state of stupor, Tony has skipped a night’s slumber more than once this week, and Pam and Susan tirelessly dedicated themselves to the daunting task of caring for us boys as we lived like depraved college students during the seven day marathon that was our recent experience at the 2011 Chicago pipe show. Although this is my first Chicago show, thankfully I was properly warned that it would be a unique kind of crazy.
But these last few days have been truly spectacular. Besides the diverse cast of characters, hobbyists, and consumers we’ve had the pleasure to spend time with, we’ve also worked closely with a large number of pipe makers and collectors alike - I’m extremely excited to say that we are going to be bringing home not only a ridiculous number of estate pipes for the boys up stairs to polish up, but dozens and dozens of fantastic new works from our favorite, tried-and-true makers. And all that in addition to the pipes from pipe makers we’ll be introducing to the site for the very first time. Excellent news? You bet.
Of course, it wasn’t all work here in Chicago; we’ve had our fun here too. Every night has seen extraordinary dinners with exceptional people, in addition to the many visitors to our hospitality room, where we’ve shared drinks, swapped stories and shown off our pipes. At last I understand why guys will fly in from every corner of the world, year after year, just to be a part of this show.
Soon we’ll be heading home with our big bags of goodies. Very big. Seriously, we’re talking about boxes and boxes of all kinds of stuff. And to the gentleman who accidentally left behind with us a Becker in a red pipe bag, well, we’ll be bringing that back home too, so don’t worry. I’ll look after it for you and refrain from smoking it. I promise.
In the meantime, we’ve another fine addition of new pipes to add to our website for this evening’s update. Be sure to check out all we’re offering from Savinelli and Radice, as well as Peterson and Vauen.
Though the Ardor name has been in business since 1974, the Rovera family's pipemaking goes back all the way to 1911 - a full century to this date. Since the introduction of the Ardor brand, the Roveras have (with a bit of prodding by Steve Monjure), produced a select few series in honor of certain esteemed members of the global pipe community. This year, it would seem, marks not only the Roveras' one-hundredth of pipemaking, but also the year Smokingpipes.com's own founder/president Sykes Wilford gets his pipe, as it were. They even let him design it, despite the fact that Sykes, like any true, hardened academic, is a complete danger to himself around hand tools of any kind. Fortunately, our resident pipemaker, Adam Davidson, was there to guide Sykes through the design process, ensuring the Roveras received a plan which would both capture what Sykes intended aesthetically, and still be doable while living up to Ardor's standards for engineering and smoking qualities (and also to ensure Sykes did not inadvertently skewer himself with a compass or become fatally entangled in a drafting board).
Sykes is, of course, presently occupied attending the great Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana Show, leaving me free to write such things without hindrance or, for that matter, being fired. Alyson is still here, of course, but it takes little more than hinting that the stray cats outside may be doing something adorable and/or dangerous and that's her taken care of. See? How do you think I got that one past her?
But enough of my intransigence - There are pipes to be proffered. Today we present a substantial selection of Stanwells, Petersons, and Savinellis, as well as some choice Brebbias and IMP meerschaums. Joining them are briars from Ser Jacopo and, naturally, Ardor, as well as a full seventy-five estate pipes. Topping off the list, we at last come to a bevy of beautiful bamboo-shanked Tsuges, as well as five fine compositions by America's own Rad Davis.
Tomorrow morning, Ted, Susan, Pam and I leave for Chicago from here. A few hours later, Tony leaves from Atlanta. We're all arriving about the same time at O'Hare and heading out to Pheasant Run Resort, longtime home of CPCC's Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana Show. The show proper starts Saturday morning, but festivities continue the entire week preceding the show itself. We're looking forward to seeing old friends, making new friends, and just generally having a good time in a pipe-filled environment.
If you're at the show, we hope you come by our hospitality room, where we'll be displaying pipes, hanging out, offering beverages running the gamut from water and diet coke to espresso to fine scotch. Come say hi and have a drink on us. And we have a shiny, new espresso machine for those who might be wondering...
If you're not joining us at the show, the folks remaining, under the leadership of Alyson and Lisa, will be here and we'll be operating completely normally (indeed, probably better without me constantly fiddling with stuff). Five of us are gone, but twenty-one people are still here to meet all of your pipe, pipe tobacco, cigar and accessory needs.
Moreover, Alyson and Lisa have decided (perhaps out of spite for not going to the show) to run a sale in our absence. There are something like 250 pipes on sale that they picked out. While it's targeted at those not attending the show, I'd check it out irrespective of show attendance: there are some awesome deals in there.
Today, though, you'll find a big, broad selection of pipes, ranging from the new Sébastien Beo pipes to pipes from Brigham, Savinelli, Peterson, Luciano and, of course, Dunhill.
And to top off today's update, we have, yes, G. L. Pease Triple Play in stock and ready to ship. I know lots of you have been waiting on this! We have lots, but if it goes anything like JackKnife Plug went, we might run out and with C&D closed for the Chicago show, it might take a few days to restock. So, direct thyself to the G. L. Pease section, directly. You'll also find a new tasty blend from Cornell & Diehl called First Responders and from Hermit Tobacco's Captain Earle's line you'll find Diamond Head.
With the combination of fair weather, my typical night-owlishenss, and having recently, and finally properly installed a modern radio in my old Lincoln I've of late taken to meandering about at night with my windows down and a pipe hanging from my lip. I consider it my good fortune to drive something which was designed and manufactured in a time before our self-appointed betters declared such simple pleasures ideologically incorrect, and began social-engineering the ashtrays out of automobiles. (So to, of course, has gone the actual cigarette lighter - now they apparently just give you the socket. Saves about $0.20 in manufacturing each vehicle, I suppose.) Granted, the Lincoln, an '88, only has but one up front, which is nothing compared to the half-dozen or so which were scattered about various regions of the late-60s Chrysler I owned for about a decade, but one is certainly far better than none.
I've always loved to drive - the effortless speed, the search for new back-roads, the exploration of unfamiliar networks of roads, alleys, overpasses, and squares, and the thrill of discovering just how fast a 5000-pound American land-yacht can take that unexpected corner which someone decided to put in the middle of nowhere (and, so frequently, on the side of a mountain). I've also always preferred older vehicles, cars designed by men at drawing and drafting boards rather than in front of computers and in accordance to the whims of politicians and focus groups. As a rule, they are not as efficient, nor as quiet, nor so resplendent with digital gadgetry - but they do more often possess the irreplaceable feel of a machine designed to follow the commands of a driver, and not merely a cocoon designed to isolate and protect us, even from ourselves. The Portuguese language has a word, a curious, enigmatic, poetic word: "Saudade". It describes, as one man put it, the thing which is known by its absence - the longing for a distant loved one, a lost country, a time irrevocably passed. The English language, I propose, could use a similar term, a word to describe things absent due to the meddling of puritanical ninnies - a word, in short, to describe this nefarious absence of ashtrays which has come to descend upon us, and all that their silent disappearance implies.
Fortunately though, you won't be needing such an as-of-yet-unformulated word to describe pipes; at least not today anyway. Savinelli, Peterson, Stanwell, Johs, and Neerup briars are all here, in quantity, along with plenty of meerschaums from IMP, Poul Winslow, Randy Wiley, Ashton, and L'Anatra are each represented as well, and so to a fine selection of high-grades from both Matzhold and Pohlman. Finally, add to that seventy-eight estate pipes, and there's sure to be something for everyone.
Pretty soon here we are going to be moving our shipping operation. Most of this decision has to do with meeting a need for more space as our current facility has become quite crowded over the last six months. So instead of walking back and forth between headquarters and shipping we will be riding to and fro in a tricked out golf cart complete with an oversized Smokingpipes.com insignia emblazoned on its hood. For some of us, this is one of the more exciting aspects of changing our shipping location. Or maybe I’m only speaking for myself. But I digress.
Our folks in shipping work hard. They’re on their feet all day putting together hundreds of orders worth of pipes, pipe tobacco, cigars, ashtrays, pipe racks, lighters, humidors, etcetera (ad infinitum, or so it seems sometimes). It’s not easy work, especially in an environment busting at the seams with inventory. They’re very excited about doubling up the size of their warehouse. And they should be.
We’re taking all of the lessons we’ve learned since we moved into our current shipping and receiving site and are addressing them one-by-one as we plot the layout of our new building. As well as having room for everything we‘ll also have room to grow our inventory considerably. We’ll have bigger work stations and more of them. We’re even looking at a fork lift down the road. It’s a pretty exciting time.
So when you next come to visit us here in Little River, don’t be surprised to find one of our staff (namely, me) racing around like a madman in a pimped out golf cart filled with pipes and tobacco. I solemnly swear not to crash the thing.
In the meantime it’s business as usual. We’re continuing our preparation for the upcoming CPCC show in Chicago (Saturday and Sunday, May 15 and 16) as we piece together bi-weekly site updates. Today’s update features new pipes from Castello, Radice, and Savinelli as well as Brigham and Peterson. Additionally, we’re very pleased to make available another two dozen pipes from Sebastien Beo, just in case you missed the boat last week. Enjoy!
It is, apparently, tornado season here in South Carolina. I hadn't previously been informed that such a thing existed in this state, but I suppose it makes for a fine garnish to our better-known hurricane season. If you aren't reading this today, know that it is only because we were devoured by inclement weather; sorry old boy, it couldn't be helped. If you are reading this, don't ask me how you were supposed to have read that previous sentence under its qualifying conditions. That couldn't be helped, either.
But, on to more relevant matters - namely, pipes. When we first introduced Vauen briars, we were surprised at just how well they took off. Ditto the rather classical and more recent Brighams. Our tentativeness was understandable, as both are filtered (albeit filtered very differently), and filtered pipes have always been dubbed a "European thing" by most. In introducing Sebastien Beo's classic French briars, however, we have been absolutely not surprised in the least to watch them vanish from our website with an impressive rapidity. Adam, a serious stickler for quality, said they would. Sykes said they would. I didn't say anything, honestly, because if I haven't got anything caddish to say, I typically don't say anything at all. If there's but one thing Sebastien's excellent briars lack, I suppose, its grounds upon which to drum up scandal. Rest assured we'll have more of them for you come Monday.
For today, however, we have a broad selection indeed: Stanwell, Peterson, Savinelli, and Brebbia, meerschaums from IMP, a choice number from Ardor, Ser Jacopo, Claudio Cavicchi, and Il Duca, and to top off our briars, high-grades from both Heding and Benni. Of course, let us not also forget our estates - a full seventy-five, in fact.
I haven't written an introduction to the newsletter in some time. Ted, Eric and Adam have had that responsibility of late. But this week, with the introduction of the Sébastien Beo pipes, I wanted to grab the proverbial reins. A project Sébastien and I began working on together almost a year ago has now finally begun to come to fruition. We wanted to create exceptionally engineered, classically shaped French pipes. Well, specifically, I wanted him to create them and he was also excited about the project. No one, I promise, would want a pipe that I personally engineered...
We're super excited about these. Adam was just floored when he QC'ed them, far surpassing the expectations that I established by my cursory description before he looked at them. Fit, finish and quality are excellent. The engineering, modeled on Danish handmade pipes, is exceptional. The shapes, in their St. Claude style way, are delightful. And, importantly, ranging in price from $75 to $85, they're reasonably priced to boot.
Sébastien and I worked through the details together, beginning at the Chicago Pipe Show, and then when we went to visit him in St. Claude last June. Following those discussions, I was cautiously optimistic. Having now seen the first twelve dozen pipes, I'm ecstatic. Sébastien has done a marvelous job.
Joining the new Sébastien Beo pipes, you'll find other great selections from Peterson, Savinelli, Luciano and Dunhill. It's also an exciting day for tobacco releases, with new tinned blends from Cornell & Diehl and Daughters & Ryan, plus thirteen new Cornell & Diehl bulks, including a whole mess of blending components for the home blenders out there. Check it all out!
Spring break must be here - I can tell by the (surely only) modestly inebriated young ladies yelling at my car last weekend, not to mention the sudden increase in mumbling young men on the main thoroughfares at around 2:00 AM asking if I know of a restaurant that's open after 2:00 AM. The Day-Glo orange Lotus Exige I witnessed being piloted by a young man in a tank top and revving its engine to several thousand RPMs as it backed into a parking space, is likewise a sure sign indeed. As much as I do appreciate half of my home state of New Jersey (along with various New Yorkers, Canadians, Delawareans, and so on) coming down to Myrtle Beach for a visit several months of every year, it does at times get a bit trying - particularly now that I've moved into an apartment only a block or so away from the beach itself.
Still, even as tourist season begins to blossom once more into a bouquet of folding chairs, beach towels, giant umbrellas, shouting children, remarkably loud automotive entertainment systems, seasonal hedonists, and so forth, a man with sufficient patience, and properly night-owlish tendencies, can still find solace. Which is why I found myself sitting on the beach last weekend, at some unheard of hour in the deep, dark AM limbo, smoking a pipe and watching the amber-hued lightning of a distant storm dancing through clouds far over the ocean. It only goes to show that, if you're willing to look hard enough, you can find a quiet moment to be left the hell alone and allow your frontal lobe to put its proverbial feet up just about anywhere.
In order that you are well-prepared when the opportunity arises, today we present quite an extensive update. There are high-grades from both Peter Heeschen and Hiroyuki Tokutomi , fresh pipes from Peterson, Neerup, and Stanwell, an impressive selection of Winslow, Ashton, Randy Wiley, and L'Anatra briars, plus two-dozen meerschaums from IMP. There are a full ninety-two estate pipes for your perusal. Last, but certainly not least, there is the cornucopia of thirty-odd blends being newly introduced to Smokingpipes.com from Hearth & Home.
In warm and sunny weather, some of us here at Smokingpipes take to eating lunch on the small balcony which projects from the back of our offices, the door to which is a mere few feet from my desk. A further subset, namely women, simultaneously take to attempting to form bonds with the various half-feral mongrel felines which inhabit the general area. If you were thinking that where this is leading to is a feral cat scrambling, bat-out-of-hell style at me down the back stairs, congratulations; you are correct. I saw it coming myself, of course, as I returned from fetching my own lunch to see Susan and Pam sitting up on the balcony, with Susan exclaiming something along the lines of, "And now Eric is going to ruin it!", as I approached the back stairs. What could I possibly be ruining this week? I knew they weren't throwing me a surprise birthday party up there, certainly not at this time of the year.
Sure enough, I had just barely made it halfway up the second turn when a grey blur came clawing its way at me from above, only to stop suddenly with its yellow eyes wide. We paused there, watching each other, for a few brief moments before the little vagabond rushed passed me, having apparently decided that I was marginally less dangerous to the continuation of its free-wheeling lifestyle than a leap off the side of the stairs and onto the asphalt from one story up. As I myself reached the balcony, Susan (holding a small piece of meat) and Pamella began with their admonishments. Faced with their irrational laying of guilt upon me for the simple act of walking up a flight of stairs to enter a building, the most conciliatory statement I could devise was, "I am sorry that I stopped you from throwing sausage at a cat, Susan."
I've often seen comments by our customers regarding what a grand time it must be, to enjoy a (very) smoke-friendly environment, getting to try out just about any blend freely, and so forth. To those of you who envy us, consider this a warning regarding the darker side of whiling away one's days at Smokingpipes: You will be charged at by feral animals, and then women will scold you for it. I hear a lot of men throughout history (and pre-history, for that matter) have had this problem.
What so very few of them have had, however, is so very many pipes: Today we present a plentiful assortment of Stanwells, Savinellis, Brebbias, and Petersons, in addition to a fine selection from Ser Jacopo, Ardor, and Claudio Cavicchi. Last but not least come several premier briars from Benni Jorgensen of Denmark, and America's own Brad Pohlmann in addition to a whopping 92 gently used and carefully cleaned estate pipes.
This past weekend was a rather eventful one, beginning with blowing out a tire at high speed, and, in attempting to change it while avoiding having my posterior knocked off by care-free, obliviously fast traffic, managing to put the spare on backwards the first time around - thus unwittingly clamping the brake down nice and firmly with the rim. Before the weekend was through, this line of events led inexorably towards falling prey to a young woman who was very insistent that I drink whiskey until I was of a mind to tell her what I "really thought" about her, certain pieces of first-century Indian art, my neighbors, various musical acts, and no doubt a laundry list of other things regarding which I for whatever reason have maintained no recollection.
Then I came back to work again on Monday, and that's when things got really interesting. Despite Smokingpipes.com's usual "no pets" rule regarding our upstairs offices, one of the first things I was confronted with was a large, fluffy white rabbit named "Beast"- who as it turned out, has an attitude problem. This was according even to Susan, mind you, who brought the adorable little jerk in. (I preferred it last week when Ted brought Peter Heeschen in - Peter Heeschen, rest assured, does not have any attitude problem.) Though strange behavior is par for the course around here, things like the unexpected appearance of obstreperous white rabbits do still tend to catch our attention. Likewise, the shouts of "Good Lord! We can't sell this!", from Adam, when he discovered a meerschaum estate pipe whose reliefs would make the carvings on many a Hindu temple blush, turned a few heads too.
No - we won't sell it to you; We're all adults here, so we'll likely be keeping that one for ourselves hiding it away in the same drawer where we stash keep those very colorful Danish newspaper ads we often receive wrapped around certain colorful Danish pipes. (Sykes's office, for the record.) What we will be selling you, however, is quite a bevy of beauties in its own right. If you like them Italian, we've got classic Savinellis, shapely L'Anatras, and exquisite Beckers. For something wild, untamed, and American, there are Wileys. If you have a taste for the more coy and traditional, there are Petersons and Ashtons. Last but by no means least, for the superbly smooth and supple, there's no beating the lines of the Danish - in which case we have Stanwell, Neerup, Winslow, and Nielsen.
Last night I got caught up washing some dishes before bed. This turned into an impromptu kitchen sprucing which in turn became an off-the-cuff refrigerator purging. The adventure was a little overdue. Leftovers were tossed out indiscriminately. Expiration dates were examined carefully. An empty ketchup bottle was evicted. A small block of cheese that had not been sealed well enough was thrown in the garbage on principle. Nothing in the fridge was spared the passion of my exorcism. In the aftermath of this expunging there was left on our kitchen counter top more than a few glass jars filled with brine and pickle juice. As I stared blankly at the glass jars, curious as to how exactly I would be disposing of them, my mind turned to my pipes and tobacco, as it so often does, and from this turn an idea suddenly sprouted within my imagination.
I spend plenty of cash on mason jars. Of course, this is in addition to the small fortune I spend annually on the cost of pipe tobacco. There is also an expense tied up in a variety of pipe cleaners, cork knockers, briar cleaning solutions, butane, and matches. Like many, I’m a sucker for accessories: leather pipe bags of diverse dimensions, tobacco pouches, fancy tampers, and an assortment of lighters, stands and racks. Also, I like to pick up a new pipe once in a while, just like any committed pipe smoker. I’m giving myself an ulcer just fathoming what I might have sunk last year into my ‘hobby’ but it’s fun and I enjoy it, so whatever. What’s not fun is ponying up for characterless, empty glass jars that are just going to be hidden away with tobacco I can’t smoke for years from now. Maybe it’s fun for you. But I hate it.
So I’m standing at my kitchen sink, eating the last couple of blue cheese and garlic stuffed olives from an empty sixteen ounce jar filled with brine and sediment and it dawns on me that, whereas I could just throw away this perfectly dependable jar, the container could be put to good use for tobacco storage. And now I’m wondering how many empty jars I’ve disposed recently that could have gone into service for my pipe needs. I’m wondering how many bins and basins, bottles and beakers, pots, jugs and tubs I’ve carelessly abandoned over the years that could have been salvaged for the sake of my precious pipe tobacco. Then I realize that it’s one o’ clock in the morning and I’m soaking empty pickle jars in a sink filled with hot soapy water to pacify some tobacco neurosis, agonizing over every jam jar I ever bought, when I really ought to be in bed, sleeping. No wonder it’s been awhile since I cleaned the kitchen.
We’ve got some fantastic new stuff available with this update. For those of you that share my derangement for flashy pipe paraphernalia check out our new Clocktower Brass Tamper. Also, this evening we refresh the site with new pipes from Castello, Radice and Savinelli, as well as Peterson, Vauen, and Brigham.
I have writer's block. It happens sometimes. When Norman Rockwell couldn't think of an interesting subject for the cover of one issue of the Saturday Evening Post in 1938, he painted a picture of himself in front of a mostly-blank canvas scratching his head. Since it would be nearly impossible for me to take a picture of myself staring at a blank computer screen with 'Newsletter Introduction" on the screen and blank space below, I decided to have someone else write it (assuming they were willing). Ted left early not feeling well. So did Susan. Sykes is out. Eric is busy. Alyson isn't here. Katie is opening new shipments of pipes. Lisa is in a meeting, and Pam is working on the entire update. Aside from other employees downstairs or in other buildings, I'm stuck with the task. Usually I look forward to writing, but I'm just drawing a blank today, despite that we have great pipes from all over the world hitting the site this week. Peter Heding, Tsuge, Ardor, and other brands all have great pipes, but the newsletter is typically about something different. The weather is dull and rainy - which isn't very interesting. This is going to be a very exciting weekend, but that will be a topic for next week.
I can't think of anything. Sorry, folks. After discussing my idea with Lisa and Pam, we figured that the cat outside would do a better job if, by being lured inside my office with food, he might happen to walk across the keyboard. I'm really allergic to cats, so hopefully he [or she - I have no idea and don't plan on checking] will write something unique. I hope it doesn't have rabies, a nasty attitude, or a serious case of 'your face is going to be my scratching post'. Time to hold my breath, put on gloves and toss the white and brown fur-ball on my desk.
This week is very exciting for some people here at Smokingpipes.com. I'm taking a vacation day tomorrow to work on pipes in my shop and it's actually planned around my wife's work schedule. As it happens, Tuesday is also the day when some of the staff begins pipe inventory. New pipes, estate pipes, and maybe even tobacco and cigars are all getting counted, checked, accounted for, and tracked down. I'm really not sure to what extent this is happening, even though I've been here for five years and have tackled inventory extensively before. I look at this almost like being a senior at my fraternity house; which means the newer recruits did the busy work. Pam had to remind me two times about writing this introduction for today, as I was under the false-impression that nothing was supposed to be done this week, and was planning to install a kiddy-pool in my office with a floating lawn chair which would comfortably allow me to sip mojitos while playing Dave Matthews Band on my computer. This is Spring break for many people, right? We are not supposed to get any new pipes to put into the system, so I completely misunderstood that other things were still happening around here. My mistake.
Writing the introduction is often fun, though. Sometimes they are topical to happenings on the site, in the office, or the weather (which is in the upper 30s and raining [yuck] after being around 80 last week). It's supposed to be sunny and warmer tomorrow, though. Thank goodness I'm taking a vacation day (which really ends up meaning I work all day anyway). Hopefully the employees keeping track of everything will get some pizzas and have fun. This is a lot like spring cleaning and everyone will feel better when it is completed.
Today we have pipes from Dunhill, Luciano, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen. Please take a look!
Many are the wonders of renting an apartment in a building of dubious nature - the heavily twanged, if not particularly deep conversations which
come muffling through the walls, painted-shut windows (readily fixed with a flathead screwdriver or sturdy knife, at least), the painted-over peephole
on the front door, the painted-over bathtub, and of course, a handyman whom you suspect isn't so much speaking remarkably confused English, but rather
merely making what he believes are English-sounding noises at you in the hopes that they will serve in place of some form of actual communication.
Though it must be said that these are all quite meaningful elements contributing towards creating a fully novel experience, perhaps the most perfect
feature is being able to smoke whenever you want (and judging by some of my neighbors, whatever you want) within the privacy of your own rooms.
Regardless of however diligent I must be to ensure that other inhabitants of my building don't get any funny ideas about being too neighborly, I am
well aware of the fact that I am free to enjoy a simple luxury - smoking my own pipe in my own apartment - which many other men living in far fancier
digs are denied, be it by signed leases or significant others. As a refugee of not one, but two different states which have enacted invasive anti-
smoking laws even so small a liberty as this does not go unappreciated. I may be a bit of a crank, and a consummate loner, and a man who drives a car
far too long and fuel-inefficient for just one person - but like being a pipe smoker, those are things I am by choice.
And speaking of choice, today's update of course presents plenty of it for you, too: Savinelli and Peterson are represented in plentiful supply, with Stanwell making an appearance as well, there's Johs providing affordable handmades, and L'Anatra, Randy Wiley, and Ashton offering their own unique qualities.
As for the icing on the cake, Ted's gone over a dozen high-grade briars, split evenly between America's own Rad Davis and that celebrated Dane, Tom Eltang.
Yesterday was the first day of spring. Sure felt like it too. Besides the fact that it was sunny and shining out all day (at least where I live) my
wife Shelly and I spent the better half of the afternoon cleaning our home; we dusted and vacuumed, laundered our winter clothes, put away our heavy
blankets and aired out each room of stale smoke by keeping the windows open and cranking up the ceiling fans.
You see, Shelly doesn’t mind the smell of pipe smoke and is generous enough to allow me to smoke inside. This is especially welcome during the
colder season, as you might imagine. However, after months of keeping up this behavior our home now receives us with the kind of dank, musky odor that
results from having smoked too many bowls of English tobacco blends in a small, poorly ventilated space. When I got home from work Friday I was slapped
in the face with this frightening funk. It means the weather has changed and it’s time to take the pipe back outside.
So we cleaned up everything. Spring cleaning on the first day of spring. We washed the walls, sprayed down a lemon scented cleaning product on every
piece of wood furniture, burned candles, lit Lampe Berger, and, of course, opened up all the windows. And I did all of my pipe smoking outside
yesterday.
I can’t complain. This time of year in South Carolina is gorgeous. And when the weather is right, the only thing nicer than smoking a good tobacco
in the comfort of a warm home is puffing away under the clear sky of a beautiful day. Welcome spring!
Today we introduce Brigham pipes to the website, a Canadian company that has been around since 1906. We’ve also new pipes from Castello, Radice, and
Savinelli, as well as new works from Peterson and Vauen. Take a look!
Today is St.Patrick's day, which is the biggest holiday in Ireland and for many people scattered around the globe. When living in Indiana I would celebrate the day with friends from work. The guys would come over around 6:00 pm and were surprised there wasn't just pizza waiting in the fridge, but also really good food. With permission from my landlord I constructed a grill out of bricks my parents had which held together with clay from the garden and wood ash. The form was square [2.5'x2.5'] and had a brick-domed top that was about as tall as me. A fire was started in the base with hickory logs, which was later raked out and separated so they would smoke like crazy. After partly braising the corned beef in the oven with Guinness, it was hung in the smoker for hours, alongside salted salmon and pork. Thin slices of this complemented with crusty bread, blue cheese smashed red potatoes, Irish cheddar, and enough pints of Guinness to fill a bathtub made for a hearty feast while watching Boondock Saints.
Now that I'm married and live in South Carolina I no longer have the brick smoker. My buddies don't come over after work and watch the classic underground movie. If I were to compare things now to how they were six years ago, I might miss the food, but I much prefer the company of my wife. After work, we're going to go to some Irish pub and have a couple pints, hopefully some good food, and make our own traditions.
Needless to say, Peterson pipes or Irish clays rule the day in the office. I'm fond of the new Peterson 3 P's plug tobacco, Ted might favor Old Dublin, and Eric would probably go for the Whiskey. No matter what background we have, today we're Irish. Even my wife, who is 100% Russian.
There are a lot of pipes that make up tonight's update, including pieces from Ireland, Japan, and introductory works by Ernie Markle. Whatever your plans are for tonight, we hope you have a great time!
Last Saturday was very unusual for me. My wife was at work, I had all day to myself and I was master of my domain. This wasn't the unusual part, as we have varying work schedules, but I did something that had been pecking at my brain relentlessly for the last few months. The thought would never leave. This had to be the day to do it. My wife would cry with disbelief if she knew what I was going to do: I cleaned my workshop.
Proud is an understatement, so I don't know what words to use, really. After picking Lera up from work, I walked her outside to take a peek (which she did partly to see if I was telling the truth). With my work schedule and hers, multiple errands, and such, I don't get as much time - uninterrupted time - in my workshop as I would like. I remember cleaning up the area a little bit when Alex Florov and his wife came to Myrtle Beach before the CORPS show. They arrived at the end of September and I was still working on the pipes I was taking to the show. The usual floor sweep took place, as did taking out the trash and arranging the cluttered mess on the workbench into neat stacks. It's amazing how laying down a few pencils perfectly parallel to each other on a clean square foot will give the illusion of an entirely organized shop. When Jeff Gracik and Tokutomi came down for a day after the pipe show I did the usual sweep again, and lit a candle. If it looks clean for a second and smells like a country kitchen it will seem clean, right?
The fact is, a clean workspace equals a clean mind. Much like a kitchen, a workshop can be clean one moment and then look like tornadoes hit after a few short hours. It's not as easy as one would think to just sweep up the floors and throw scraps away. "What is this little button-sized thing on the floor? Oh, that's mammoth ivory! Better put that in the tray." I had to just throw some stuff away. Like most men, I will hold on to things that I'm sure will be utilized one day. So many odd screws, cut boards, empty containers, and scraps of leather. The buffalo horns I've had for five years hit the trash since they aren't solid pieces to work with. Other things got swept up, thrown out, and all of the benches were vacuumed neatly. I found a bill from three years ago, some vehicle insurance forms equally as old, and things Toku or Jeff might have forgotten on their recent visit and signs that they were there. No pipes were made over the weekend, which is never my goal, but darned if cleaning and organizing the workshop didn't make me feel great. It took a full day, which is equal to making a pipe, but was well worth the effort.
Today we have pipes from Dunhill, Luciano, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen, plus Gloredo pipe cleaner sleeves, tobacco pouches, and pipe cases. Please poke around and see what you might find.
Is there a difference between a habit and a hobby? Habit sounds bad, or at least unpleasant or gross in a bodily way. Doesn’t sound as bad as addiction. Unless you’re a real special person you’re probably not addicted to cutting your toenails. It’s just one of those base hygienic habits we all carry around. Not something I’d sweat through my shirt to get to do. Just a habit. Like tying a shoe. Something easy and comfortable that's done in a few unconscious ritual gestures which allows the mind to wander. That’s a habit.
Here’s something to talk about. Pipe Smoking: Habit or Hobby? It’s obviously a hobby, even if the pipe smoker doesn’t know it. He’s passionate about his pipe and about what he smokes and why and when he smokes even if the world doesn’t know this about him. This is a hobbyist’s passion; a worship of the details. The source is the smoke and from that everything is subsequent. This is where the habit is born.
The habit is a dance perfectly timed. Mastered after years of practice, it is evident in the way you browse through your carefully racked selection of pipes with the ease of a librarian, select your last pipe for the night, and rub-out a tricky flake set to dry the night prior. This is what you’ve learned from smoking. You’re dancing without thinking about dancing. As you smoke, now nearly unconscious of doing so, you are simply tasting the smoke, indulging the sensation, and allowing your mind to move fluidly, whether that be from task-to-task in an office, behind a treasured book, or with your very thoughts.
Pipe smoking is a habit the same as it’s a hobby. The words just look so similar. They’re related. Granted, the word habit tends to conjure a mindless autonomic process. But it’s a habit to think that way. If you keep up your hobby you will stop and adjust a habit and replace it with a new one. Explore your hobby relentlessly, examine your habit routinely, and in the process you refine a pipe-smoking craft.
While we are on the topic of exploring your hobby, we’ve got five dozen fresh estate pipes hitting the site tonight. Keep an eye out for something different. Also this evening we’ve available new works from Danish pipe maker Benni Jorgensen, American pipe-man Randy Wiley and the venerable Japanese firm Tsuge. Additionally, new pipes from Cavicchi and L’Anatra, as well as Ashton, Peterson, Stanwell, Johs and IMP are featured tonight. Big update.
Hours of Operation:
Our website is always open and you can place an order at any time. Phone/office hours are 9am-7pm US/Eastern (GMT -5:00) Monday-Friday and 10am-5pm US/Eastern (GMT -5:00) on Saturdays. Our Little River, SC showroom is open 10am-7pm US/Eastern (GMT -5:00) Monday-Saturday. We are closed on Sundays.
We reserve the right to verify delivery to cardholder via UPS. You must be 18 years or older to make any selections on this site - by doing so, you are confirming that you are of legal age to purchase tobacco products or smoking accessories. We will deny any order we believe has been placed by a minor.
WARNING: Smokingpipes.com does not sell tobacco or tobacco related products to anyone under the age of 18, nor do we sell cigarettes.WARNING:Products on this site contain chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Newsletter Introduction for Monday, May 20, 2013
Adam Davidson: Pipe Specialist
Ted Swearingen: Vice President, General Manager
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Ted Swearingen: Vice President, General Manager
Adam Davidson: Quality Control & Pipe Inspector
Susan Salinas: Purchasing Manager
