Ashton: Claret Calabash with Silver Army Mount (XXX) Tobacco Pipe

The Calabash is a memorable and oft-represented pipe shape, traditionally fashioned from dried gourd fitted with a removable chamber cap of meerschaum. This rendition from Jimmy Craig and Ashton, though, is the English workshop's signature take on the iconic form, being made entirely of briar and forgoing the domed, meerschaum cap of gourd versions. That said, it maintains the form's characteristically sinuous profile, the stem deeply bent and the shank curling dramatically through the transition as the Dublin-like bowl flares upward. Such shaping makes this piece a comfortable jaw-hanger, and it's dressed in the scarlet stain and sandblasted finish of Ashton's Claret line, a silver army mount adding tasteful flash and enabling the brindled orange and black stem to be removed at any time, even when hot.