Picking up where we left off at Mac Baren, in Part II of my Danish Chronology, we wended our way from Svendborg on the southern coast of Funen to Odense in the center of the island to visit none other than Peter Heeschen. Peter was waiting for us, beer or coffee at the ready, in his workshop. We sat outside for a time, catching up, with me reintroducing Peter to Kevin, since they'd only met briefly once before. Having arrived mid-afternoon, we would spend the rest of Tuesday and Tuesday night with Peter.

Visiting Peter is an interesting experience, not least of all because he insists that I make a pipe each time I visit. He knows full well that I have about as much native pipe making talent as a large tuna, though trusting me with machinery is even more dangerous, since at least I have thumbs that can be lost in the process. I think this is why Peter insists upon this: if nothing else, it provides endless amusement, and, as a bonus, I've never bled so much as to stain anything in his workshop. This visit was no exception. He had the two of us designing and shaping pipes in no time. Kevin had never done this before, so Peter spent most of his effort helping Kevin. Plus, Kevin seemed to pick things up fairly quickly and I think Peter was delighted to have a student that was a little easier to teach than it would have been if he'd tried to instruct one of his horses in the intricacies of pipe making. Note that the picture is of Kevin with his pipe.My pipe, while it smokes beautifully (Peter did the internals for me), is so ugly that it will never, ever be seen by anyone. I will only ever smoke it, in the bathroom, with the door locked and the lights off. This is a pipe so ugly, I wouldn't show it to my mother. Peter started cooking duck and we continued to work on our pipes. We ran out of time for staining and whatnot, so I buffed each and laid a coat of wax and that had to suffice for finishing (and even there I managed to do a better job with Kevin's than mine; not only is mine lumpen, I'll have to sneak into the office in the dead of night (lest someone see the monstrosity that is this pipe) to refinish it).

Now, cooking duck is something that I actually know something about, though I have to confess that Peter might have me beat there too. Still, I found it slightly ironic (and violating all sorts of division of labor principles from Economics 101 freshman year in college) that Peter was cooking and I was making pipes (for those of you who remember first semester micro, I kinda felt like New York trying to grow oranges). With pipes (sort of) complete, and dinner ready, we sat down together for some seriously tasty duck and potatoes, and spent the rest of the evening talking pipes, pipe shows, various pipe friends and the like, smoking small mountains of pipe tobacco and, in the case of Peter and Kevin at least, consuming impressive quantities of scotch.

After breakfast the following morning, we set out for the Orlik factory near the western coast of Funen. One of the greatest things about being in Denmark on a business trip is that it seems like almost every driving stretch between appointments is forty-five minutes, which is how long it took us to reach Orlik, in spite of getting slightly turned around on our way there. Having had a little trouble figuring out where we should be, Troels Mikkelsen discovered us and rescued us from wandering the hallways indefinitely. This worked out well since Troels was exactly who we were looking for.

If I were to discuss our visit to Orlik in any detail, it would require a half dozen blog posts on its own. You've already seen two videos from the visit (and if you haven't, see below and check them out; they're amazing) and I'll probably have one more over the next little while. Troels speaks so knowledgeably and so lovingly about tobacco that one can't help but be swept up in his commentary. We started out in the big tobacco warehouses, filled with thousands of 200kg boxes of leaf, waiting for processing. Countries of origin were stamped on each box: Brazil, USA, Malawi, Indonesia, Malaysia and a half dozen countries one would never expect tobacco from. Whether he was talking about perique or the changes in tobacco growing in southern Africa, Troels was erudite and compelling.

From there, we moved into the production facility, first encountering the great rope making station. When I die, if I end up in heaven, there will be one such station there. This, my dear reader, is where they make the Escudo. On that particular day, they were making Luxury Bullseye Flake, while is almost as much fun (and uses exactly the same process). Yielding heavy pressed batons of tobacco, ready for cutting, the process was a joy to watch (check out the video here). And thence onto the pressing and mixing and blending and topping and saucing and cutting equipment, much of which is linked together by a bunch of tobacco filled conveyor belts.

And onto the packing equipment, which, frankly, might be my favorite. Yes, the processing stuff is pretty cool, but there's just so much more automated fun to see during the packaging processes. Tobacco goes in one end and tins come out the other. We watches as tobacco was automatically weighed into little hoppers, put in tins, the tins sealed, and proper labels applied, all on one big machine, managed by one woman. It was amazing.

Having enjoyed the tour of the factory, we went to lunch (about which I've posted previously) and from there visited Lasse, the Mad Scientist Tobacco Blender, in the facility used for the My Own Blend line of tobaccos for the Paul Olsen shops, now owned by Orlik. Fully eight metric tons annually come through this small room, hand blended to specification by Lasse Berg based on more than fifty component tobaccos and countless flavorings. As I said previously, it's clear that Lasse thinks he has the coolest job ever. And, if it weren't for my job, I might agree with him. Lasse whipped up two blends, one for each of Kevin and me. Heavy in perique and light in rum, my particular concoction still waits to be opened. I wanted to give it a couple of weeks to sit before I did so, and now I'm trying to smoke through open tins before I open anything else, so I hope to get to it in the next few days.

My trip chronology continues to grow faster than I can work my way through it (which is temporally odd, given that the trip ended almost two weeks ago), so there will have to be a fourth and (I promise) final episode in this little series during which we visit Mogens 'Johs' Johansen in Frederikshavn and I have dinner with Nanna Ivarsson, her husband Daniel, and children, Sixten and Mathis.

While we were visiting the Orlik factory (about ten days ago), the first thing we happened upon when we entered the production floor was a woman working on making rolls of pipe tobacco. At first, I mistook it for Escudo (y'all know where my particular heart lies), but I was almost as excited to see Bullseye Flake being made as I would have been to see Escudo (Luxury Bullseye Flake is great too). The process, by which they take a thin pressed flake and wrap it around a pressed rod (of sorts) of a mixture of perique and fermented virginias, is, frankly, pretty cool. Check it out!

Frankly, I think this is one of the coolest videos we've yet posted. Troels Mikkelsen has been in the tobacco business for thirty years, first at A&C Petersen, then at Orlik. He manages production at the Orlik factory and I can't imagine a better guide to the operation. The visit was an absolute delight, and Troel's discussion of the various tobacco varietals was one of the highlights.

by Sykes Wilford, Smokingpipes.com, and Kevin Godbee, Pipesmagazine.com

When one has an opportunity to visit two of the largest pipe tobacco manufacturers in the world on back to back days, comparing the two is all but impossible. Mac Baren and Orlik, between them, produce over half of the world's pipe tobacco. Along with the Lane factory in Tucker, GA, they make up the big three pipe tobacco producers in the world. And they're both on the island of Funen that sits between Sjaelland, the largest of the Danish islands, and Jylland, the peninsula that juts off of the European mainland. Indeed, they're an hour drive apart on either side of the island. Having had a thoroughly hospitable reception at both factories and being tremendously impressed by both operations, we nonetheless found ourselves drawing some comparisons.

Having left Orlik, we started discussing the differences between the two. Perhaps the similarities are more obvious: both operate massive, modern factories, both are fanatically dedicated to the quality of their tobaccos, and both have a long history and make famous brands that have stood the test of time. But this, our dear readers, is about the differences.

For starters, no pun intended, let's talk about lunch. Typically, large companies have cafeterias. In the United States, outside of Google, such places offer fare that make sixth grade school lunch seem palatable. At both Mac Baren and Orlik, we were pleased to discover that the Danes have a subtly different approach to such things. They serve edible lunches in company cafeterias. Offering traditional Danish comestibles, including black bread, a variety of impressive cheeses and cold meats, paté, and full salad bars, Sykes wants one of these for the Smokingpipes.com campus. Imagine visiting a tobacco company and coming away with company catering ideas. Picking a winner in this category was impossible.

Both Orlik and Mac Baren have machinery that causes otherwise reasonable grown men to act like eight-year-old boys who just saw a backhoe. Conveyor belts, automatic weighing machines, little robotic arms to fold packaging, slides, chutes, and sundry whirring doodads abound, but the nod, if only a half-nod, goes to Mac Baren, who can go from tobacco coming in from the ceiling, to pouches, to cartons, to outer cartons, to pallets, all without ever being touched by a human hand. Orlik was close, requiring slightly more human intervention, but in this category, Mac Baren is a clear winner.

Both factories produce rope tobacco. Rope tobacco is a traditional method of fabricating tobacco for transport, back when finding a way to keep tobacco smokable after a transatlantic journey on a wooden sailing ship was a serious problem. The tobacco is literally spun into ropes: the process lies somewhere in between cigar rolling and rope braiding. But, the factories' respective methods are a little different. Mac Baren uses whole leaves as something comparable to the binder and filler. Orlik uses thin pressed sheets of tobacco, similar to those used for flakes, but much thinner. Inside, Mac Baren generally uses loose leaf dark fired Kentucky, whereas Orlik uses pressed perique or black cavendish. From this process comes some of the world's most famous, most tastiest blends, including Mac Baren Roll Cake and, Sykes' personal favorite, Escudo, which is made by Orlik (which we both happen to be smoking while engaging in this absurd literary exercise). However, the nod goes to Mac Baren in this category, for they have what looks and works like a giant RYO cigarette machine. Frankly, the little machine that presses it into a rope at Orlik just isn't nearly as cool.

About an hour on the road after our visit to Orlik, Sykes turned to Kevin and said "did the tobacco blender guy make you think mad scientist too?" To which Kevin retorted with a maniacal laugh. Yes, Orlik has its very own evil genius tobacco blender. Here in Denmark they offer a personalized blending service where different stores or individuals can choose to craft their own blend. The idea started in the 1930s and grew into Paul Olsen's My Own Blend, which Orlik purchased from the Olsen family in the 1980s. Today, roughly eight metric tons of pipe tobacco is custom blended for customers and stores to the exact recipe, based on almost fifty component blends and dozens of flavorings, by Lasse Berg, Chief Evil Tobacco Genius (ok, we made up the title). It is abundantly clear that a) Lasse thinks he has the best job on the planet, and b) he played with chemistry sets as a kid. At one point, he showed us a cola flavored tobacco topping of his own creation, of which he was very proud, but then went on to admit that he doesn't use it very much because, apparently, no one really thinks of cola as a tobacco flavoring. He went on to create for us, sans cola topping, individualized blends based on our preferences. Sykes' had more perique, Kevin had more rum. Also, during this exercise, Kevin drank a bit of the rum used on the tobacco (he approves), also giving Orlik the nod for best adult beverages (Mac Baren did not offer adult beverages at 10am when we arrived there). So, two categories at once to Orlik: mad scientist tobacco blender and best adult beverages. Does it surprise anyone that the mad scientist blender was also the keeper of the adult beverages?

While we were visiting Mac Baren, after the factory tour with Per Jensen, who is something between a product development guy and a general Mac Baren evangelist, we sat and had coffee with him. As our conversation meandered from topic to topic, we ended up with Per showing Kevin, with Kevin's pipe, how to pack flake tobacco by folding it and packing it vertically. So, not only did they humor us with a factory tour, fed us lunch, plied with coffee and tobacco, they even had a Mac Baren executive pack Kevin's pipe.

On net, it was a tie. Both organizations are impressive and were wonderfully accommodating to two very excited, tobacco crazed Americans.