Advice to New Pipe Smokers on Choosing Tobacco

Hand colored Lithograph of Tobacco Grower, © 2013 Neill Archer Roan, all rights reservedIt is axiomatic in the pipe world that new pipe smokers begin by smoking aromatics, then graduate to English blends, and finally move into the realm of straight Virginias and Virginia-Periques (VaPers). Of course not everyone begins with  aromatics, but many pipe smokers do. For some reason, light aromatics seem to taste better to new pipe smokers then do other blends.

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Frog Morton's Cellar

When I read about Frog Morton’s Cellar tins including a piece of bourbon stave in the tin, I felt mixed emotions.

On the one hand, I admired what seemed to me to be a clever marketing tactic that would make the tin-opening experience memorable and differentiate the blend from others in the Frog Morton lineup. On the other hand, the move seemed a bit gimmicky. I couldn’t find any practical reason for the stave cube.

A Bourbon barrel-stave chunk is in the tinI’m a big McClelland fan. Most of my rotation is comprised of their blends. I’m also a fan of the Frog Morton series. They are a great good-morning smoke – flavorful, yet creamy and mild. So, I came to the whole notion wanting to like the tobacco.

I found two tins on the shelves of Fayetteville’s Tobacco Shop during a recent business trip to Northwest Arkansas. I bought one, popped it, and loaded a pipe right then and there.

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Sampling Sextant

Saturdays are my favorite day of the week, mainly because I rendezvous with friends for breakfast followed by pipe-smoking, conversation, and watching a great old Western movie, Redskins game, or Nationals game on the large flatscreen television in my local smoke shop’s smoking lounge.

The Nats played the Brewers last Saturday. It was a baseball lover’s event. Gio Gonzalez racked up his 20th win in one season with a closing score of 10-2 with the Nats on top. Two three-score home runs added significantly to the excitement quotient. As much as I would love to have been at the Nats stadium for the game, I couldn’t have smoked my pipe there, and Saturdays is all about smoking my pipes, trying new tobaccos, and relaxing.

There’s been a lot of buzz about Greg Pease’s new English blend, Sextant, since its release. Everybody - and I mean EVERYBODY - gives the blend high marks. Until Saturday, I hadn’t smoked the blend.

My friend, Sam – a retired mathematician and former Navy pilot – brought a tin of Sextant with him for us to give the tobacco a try. Sam made no bones about his high regard for the blend, and since Sam and I tend to like the same tobaccos, I looked forward to giving Sextant a try.

When I read the blend’s description, my stomach seized a bit when I saw that Sextant’s ingredients include Kentucky dark-fired burley. Burley of any kind is problematic for me. Its high nicotine content wreaks havoc upon me, even though I like what Kentucky dark-fired adds in flavor terms to a blend.

During the Balkan Sobranie Throwdown I had a very interesting chat with Throwdown winner Russ Ouellette. Russ mentioned that he was nearly certain that one of the key flavor ingredients in 759 was Kentucky Dark Fired burley. Well, I love 759, and as I inspected the Sextant tin’s contents, I remembered that conversation. I brought Russ’ observation up to Sam as I loaded my pipe, wondering just how much dark-fired leaf comprised Greg’s winning new blend.

As I set match to leaf and took my first few puffs of Sextant, the taste of Kentucky dark-fired leaf was overwhelmingly in evidence. This tobacco produces a signature rich, dark, and smokey flavor that is unmistakeable in a blend. There is significantly more of this ingredient in Sextant than there is in 759. The blend conveys not only strength of flavor, but also robustness and deep flavors. If Sextant were a chocolate, it would be the darkest, smokiest chocolate one could imagine.

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The Whangee

Why would anyone nurse the ambition to acquire an old Dunhill bamboo pipe? If you’ve seen many of them, you know that these pipes are all too often ungainly and decrepit things.

Dunhill Catalogue, Collector Range Page, Courtesy of Jeff FollodorUnlike the bamboo we see in contemporary artisanal bamboo pipes, Dunhill used bamboo with all manner of issues. It was often too chunky. Knuckles were oddly spaced, usually way too widely spaced for the pipe’s length. The beautiful rhythmic proportions to which we are accustomered in work by Hiroyuki Tokutumi or Smiou Satou are completely lacking in Dunhill’s bamboos.

Amazingly, these traits are plainly evident in Dunhill’s catalogues. With all the bamboo in the world, it mystifies me that Dunhill’s pipe gnomes didn’t express their customarily restrained, elegant aesthetic in their Whangee pipes. Proportional, clear, and even-knuckled bamboo is no recent product of genetic engineering. It has always been around. It has just not always been used.

Still…sometimes Dunhill’s pipe makers produced exquisite bamboo pipes. I’ve seen several, and I’ve been jonesin’ for one for decades now. As an active quest, I gave up a long time ago. I figured if and when one came along I’d carpe the diem. I wasn’t holding my breath.

Imagine my joy at finding this wonderful Whangee Shell on Lawdog’s table at the NASPC Columbus Show. I could barely contain myself.

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Pairing Pipes and Tobaccos

The joy of pipe-smoking is all about deriving intense, complex flavor from my favorite tobaccos. Like many of you, I’m sure you like more than one blend, maybe even more than one style of tobacco. I know I do.

I have a great fondness for English blends, especially those with Oriental leaf. These blends require great skill from the blender in that every component tobacco should add value to the other components present in the blend.

If you’ve been here long, you know that I have been exploring the relationship between chamber geometry and flavor delivery for years. That investigation has led me to conclude that nothing beats a large diameter chamber with square geometry when it comes to making a good English blend sing. The difference is so profound as to render comparisons obvious.

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