Benni Jorgensen: Sandblasted Bent Apple Tobacco Pipe

A stalwart member of the Danish artisan pipe-making community, Benni Jørgensen honed his craft at the storied W.Ø. Larsen workshop, before starting to make artisan renditions under his own name. His subsequent decades of experience and roots in the Danish design tradition are both evidenced in this bent Apple, with a plump bowl perched neatly on a broad, undercurving shank. If it had a demarcating ridgeline around the transition, it could be a Cup and Ball, and certainly reminds me of that iconic design, but this iteration strikes a pose all its own, with cheeking at the transition, an undulating fish-mouth-like rim, and stout, lenticular shank.

Benni has dressed it in a rippling sandblast, shaping the briar to accentuate growth rings climbing the bowl in tight stacks, with the rim and shank face left smooth and lighter for contrast. A dusky ruby stain, buffed just slightly to make the ridges lighter, amplifies the grain's beauty without distracting from the elegant line work, and the hand-cut vulcanite stem provides the perfect counterpoint to the shank's upward curve, curling gracefully down to offer a comfortable smoking posture. My favorite feature, however, is the precise mirroring present in the top of the shank: When seen in profile, the shank's arc perfectly matches the tapering curve of the bowl's aft, as if the shank had been unfolded from the bowl.