Joura: Smooth Bent Billiard (Infinity D) Tobacco Pipe

This piece is the highest-graded offering in today's update of briars by Karlheinz Joura, a patient artisan who is well-known for strictly keeping his standards as objective as possible, with any pipe falling below the line of acceptability being completely discarded. This system is obviously successful in making sure only the finest offerings end up with the maker's name and grading stamp, with this offering receiving the grade of "Infinity D" — second only to "Infinity E", Joura's highest.

Once again, we find Joura's well known combination of curvature and rigidity, only here rendered in more robust proportions. A capacious chamber with a significant width ensures a more flavorful smoke, while a slightly stouter, tapered rendition of the artisan's thin Vulcanite bit provides a match to the weightier form. Finished in a red-orange stain to highlight Joura's always effervescent display of flame grain and birdseye, this piece should please any serious aficionado of German artisanal briars.

— Daniel Bumgardner