By John Brownlee
The only reason any one takes on a ridiculous, anachronistic affectation is to get chicks. Or boychiks, if you swing that way. Which I don’t, but please don’t tell the many effervescent queers trolling the byways of Yahoo member pages, looking for fellow “pipe smokers.” We won’t be sharing a peace pipe any time soon, but it’s nice to hear that chomping on the long, lucite stem of a briar six times a day has granted me some carnal attention, even if it’s carnal attention to an orifice I’m so shy about having plunged it’s somehow creeped three inches up my backside.
Though I did my best to posture dramatically – the mysterious poet; his black overcoat flowing around him like the dark mist of his own sexual gravitas – upon the ruddy steps of Harvard, pipe smoking did not make me sole deity in the solar system of paired, areolae-poled orbs that I hoped. Actually, women thought my pipe smoking affectation (adopted when I was 20; a humanities major; about to go on my second journey abroad) ridiculous. It should be noted this was also the period when I bought my first velvet smoking jacket and my first fez.
But like many absurd affectations you adopt in college (tattooing, genital piercing, communism) pipe smoking has wound its way deep into my psyche, like a tar-soaked tapeworm. Seven years later, I’m not chemically addicted; I don’t shake and shiver when I have to go a couple of weeks without a pipe. This happens surprisingly often: after you find yourself more annoyed by the comments about the “uniqueness” of your pipe smoking than smugly pleased by your own originality, you steadfastly avoid smoking in public. But there’s an aesthetic addiction. This co-dependency between writing and smoking, reading and smoking, relaxing and smoking. You could leave it behind your body in a blink, because pipe smokers don’t inhale, but it infuses your mind like nicotine threads through a cigarette smoker’s lungs.
I’m not going to bother to look it up, but within the pipe-smoking community, they cling to one page of a ‘70’s era Surgeon General’s Report like a small Christian cult to a page of Apocrypha. This report indicates that “moderate” pipe smokers (6-8 pipes a day; it’s accurate to translate that to hours) live, on average, longer than non-smokers. Chalk it up to relaxation. Of course, every report since then has contradicted that statistic. On one hand, there’s politics involved. But on the other – even though pipe smokers know that puffing on a pipe is far less harmful than inhaling cyanide-laced cigarettes through your lungs and into your bloodstream — we’re all terrified of losing our tongues.
But what are the pleasure of pipe smoking that make that small risk worth it? For one, there’s the tobacconist. The tobacconist is dying almost everywhere in the world, but he still exists in America more than any other place. I don’t mean a bored looking Paki selling you cigarettes at the gas station. I mean a tobacconist. They sit on three-legged stools, oiled with the grease of their own ass for decades. If they’re old, they’re ancient, like wizards; snuff and flakes of tobacco powdering their beards. If they are young, they’re the kind of guys who only wear plaid shirts, who wear suspenders, who are extremely opinionated about jazz. Who play banjo in a blues band that meets every Wednesday night on their porch. Robert Crumb caricatures. But they practice one of the few American arts.
Most people don’t know this, but America has the most varied and flavorful tobaccos in the world. There’s perique; an extremely spicy and nicotine heavy tobacco from Louisiana. A bowlful of perique will leave you in a panic attack – no hyperbole, it can’t be smoked pure. It will also prolapse your bowels, which is why it’s only ever found diluted in tobacco blends. There’s virginian tobacco. It’s sweet; it burns your tongue; it’s so red sometimes the stem of your pipe drools blood. And dozens more besides. America is the greatest country in the world for tobacco, pure tobacco, the type you stuff in your pipe to enjoy the smell and taste of. And tobacconists specializing in mixing and curing these different types of tobaccos into different tasting blends flourish in America over any other country. Tobacco is cheaper, more plentiful and more varied in America than any other county in the world. Tobacco blending is smoking jazz – America’s gift to the world. The greatest tobaccos are American; the greatest tobacco blenders American.
But pipe tobacco has been caught up in the crusade against cigarettes. Tobacconists are a dying breed, pandering mostly to cigar smokers. Outside of the deep south, there aren’t many who still mix their own blends. Cigarette smoking probably won’t ever die, because huge companies stand behind it. But tobacconists? Pipe-smoking? Caught up in the same wave of vilification, it’s taking the poison second-hand from big cigarette tobacco’s lips.
Which is a terrible shame. Because tobacco is delicious. If you smoke a cigarette, you barely realize it; it’s a cancer stick, saturated with the chemicals that make your system kick and writhe. You only taste your addiction. But pipe smoking is the purest form of tobacco smoking there is. When you stuff a pipe, you stuff it with pure tobacco… no chemicals added. And you can smell and taste the sweetness, or the slight plummy aftertaste, or a thousand other flavors besides. You can taste the sugar in the leaf, or the pepper of the natural nicotine. My favorite tobacco is latakia – it was invented when Turks began burning fires of camel dung and spice under bails of tobacco stored in barn lofts. It tastes exactly like it. It’s heady. It’s spicy and sour. It’s delicious.
And pipes themselves are works of art. Pipe carvers are artists. From the random whorls of a briar block’s grain, carvers give shape to utilitarian elegance. Some men’s pipes sit in their mouths their whole lives. Right now, I am sucking a meerschaum that I bought in Turkey in 2000. The tar and nicotine has been sucked into the meerschaum’s milky porousness, tinging it amber. It’s called a patina: the flush deepens with every smoke. This one pipe symbolizes in color my whole past with it. It also has a fire-breathing dragon carved into it – carved into it when it was still a lump of soft clay, clawed by peasants out of the muddy hills of Eskeshir.
Oh sure, pipe smoking can be disgusting. The back of my bottom front teeth have brown, filthy veins of cancer-soaked tartar that concretes about three months after every dentist’s cleaning. Threading a pipe cleaner (you know, what kids use for craft projects; cleaning smoking pipes is what they’re actually for) through a pipe smoked over the course of an entire day causes the mouthpiece to spurt a revolting oily tar.
But there’s a reason Sir Walter Raleigh was drenched with beer. Please don’t mistake what I mean by this – smoking tobacco, in its purest form, is flavorable. The spicy, velveteen sensuality of hot smoke running over your tongue is real. Tobacco smoking is delicious. It isn’t merely a habit or an addiction. When you smoke a pipe, it’s ethereal gastronomy.
About five years ago, I moved to Ireland, and I wasn’t yet out of my smoking in public phase. I was walking by Belgrave Square, which is halfway between Ranelagh and Rathmines (small boroughs of Dublin, on the south side), and I was smoking a pipe as I walked (a “second” – the industry term for a cheap pipe which is absolutely fine structurally but which contains some small imperfection in the grain of the briar that prevents it from being sold for hundreds of bucks). I passed a squinty eyed, greasy haired girl… it was my third day in Ireland, and I was happy for breaking the umbilical, so I smiled at her. She passed, seemingly without seeing it, but then whirled around in a whoosh of her head-to-toe vinyl jumpsuit and hissed, “Yeh! Yeh look like a FEKKIN’ CUNT.”
Tell me something I don’t know. But it’s worth it.
great article Joel! I’ve always enjoyed cigars and never really gotten into ciggies ..so I bout my first cheapo ($40) pipe and some tobacco back and May and haven’t been disappointed since. I pipe maybe 4 times a week, about an hour each. The relaxation factor is amazing ..the scent intoxicating …
this is one indulgence I will hold onto for the rest of my life.
Great read. I started smoking at about the same age, but have since given it up, mostly due to a string of disapproving girlfriends and the lack of a good porch on which to smoke. Still, I miss it.
This brought a tear to my eye.
I got all the way through without a single James Stewart (1566-1625) quote entering my head. Though I fear I won’t be joining this particular quiet cabal soon, the air it breathes is no skin off my nose, so to speak.
i’ve been a fan of cigars for celebrations a few times a year
and pipes for deep thinking, I tend to switch blends
to emphasize a new phase, breakthrough or new girlfriend.
never had a cigarette…
don’t plan to.
Like nearly all fun stuff, I’ve give up smoking a pipe mostly for health reasons, but I miss it like crazy. As stressed out as I am these days, maybe I need to START BACK UP for health reasons. We even have a real tobacconist (my wife’s cousin, actually) in town, conveniently located on my route to work.
I started smoking a pipe around 5 years ago now. Got myself a nice Peterson but my first was a basket special from the Tinder Box. Living down South, I don’t get to smoke too much (summer is just HORRIBLE) but I tell you what… I love smoking that thing.
It’s just a special treat. The little ritual of opening the tin of tobacco, rubbing it out a little bit and then packing the pipe. (Sounds dirty I know…) And then just kicking back, relaxing, and enjoying the flavors of the stuff. Wonderful!!
But one thing I haven’t done is smoke in public. I mean at least away from my house. Not that I’m ashamed or anything but I just know it would cause people to stare and bring about comments. And I don’t want people bugging me and questioning me. I’m sure like that girl in Ireland some would just think I’m a little austere prick just trying to be different…
Does anyone have a suggestion of a good tobacconist within Manhattan or Brooklyn?
I also started smoking a pipe at the same age (my father bought me my first nice pipe), but haven’t puffed in a while mainly because I graduated from school in Winston-Salem, NC. Tobacco was everywhere. Some mornings you could smell RJR processing that sweet shit from miles away.
Hey Chad, I’m not sure about inside NYC, but I reguarly order from Cup o Joes. They’re in Queensbury NY and Stony Creek NY. I’m unsure where those places are in relation to NYC but I’ve always had a good experience with the company.
http://cupojoes.com
One: I loved this.
Two: Even though I’m femme, I’ve tried a pipe.
So clumbsy, it was not even funny.
Three: Biggest and most famous affectation of males to get chicks: Guitar Playin’.
PS….It works.
PSS…so does the frickin’ pipe.
Cool-ski.
Unquestionably one of the most elegant and honest treatments of pipe smoking I’ve ever read. You aptly capture the paradox of smoking a pipe in the current sociopolitical climate. Your essay really cuts to the chase: The decision to smoke a pipe is vexed, but it yields so many pleasures.
For me, there is no allure at all in tobacco, except for tobacco savored in a briar pipe. The pipe smoking aesthetic taps into several senses all at once, as your essay vividly demonstrates: Smoking a pipe appeals to the tongue, to the nose, to the eye. What has always drawn me to the pipe is the combination of pure, flavorful tobacco and the craftsmanship of a well-made briar.
I’ve pretty much retreated to the underground as a pipe smoker, not unlike the people who posted before me. The main reason for my shyness is the “wave of vilification”: Few people seem to understand that smoking a pipe is not an addiction or a compulsion, but a delicious treat to be savored slowly.
I was 15 when I first experimented with a pipe, drawn to the gentle aroma of Virginia and Burley tobacco and the smart look of a simple billiard pipe. I went public as a pipe smoker in my freshman year of college, when (surprisingly) pipe smoking wasn’t really viewed as anti-social at all. Some of my friends thought it was quirky, but everyone enjoyed the aroma of my pipe. My parents raised their eyebrows at first but hardly disapproved. In fact, my dad presented me with a beautiful briar for Christmas that year.
Lately, I enjoy my pipes mostly in private. I proudly smoke them in public when I’m traveling or when I drop into a tobacco shop. I’ve observed something recently that is purely anecdotal but interesting nonetheless: If strangers notice me smoking my pipe, their reactions aren’t derisive at all. In fact, people have gone out of their way to say they like the aroma of my pipe. I overheard one passerby say something like, “You don’t see enough men smoking pipes these days.”
Yeah, we’re outliers, but I’m still willing to feel a little marginalized if that’s what it takes to enjoy the sensuous pleasures of a pipe.
John
Great article. My story seems common: I took up the pipe in college, realized I looked an ass, and dropped it — but have smoked cigarettes all along. Then a couple of years ago a friend and I stepped idly into the Nat Sherman store on Fifth Avenue and wound up meeting Erick Nording! Really nice guy. Of course, we each bought one of his virgin pipes and he signed them right there with a wood-burning pen. I haven’t smoked it in months but I will be packing it up tonight.
Thanks again. Oh, and you’re doing great work on the Table of Malcontents, so thanks for that, too and congratulations.
~Andrew
Andrew, I’m glad you’re digging Table of Malcontents. It’s still gelling, but I have to say, I love doing it more than any other blog I’ve ever worked on.
I’m totally envious you met Erick Nording. I still don’t have a pipe by him. What kind did you end up getting?
Great article, my gramps smoked a pipe from age 6 till he died at 81, so not too much of an adverse effect there….could have done without the Paki reference though….not just wasps reading the site ;-)
I, too, smoked my pipe in secret when I was in my 20’s. Gave it up. I have started again, now that I’m in early 50’s. I smoke in public. Even in my sheriff’s uniform. I get nothing but positive comments. Especially from women. Young, middle aged, even in their 60’s. Even from non smokers. OK, the guys probably joke about me behind my back, but who cares. When a young, pretty girl glides up to me in a club, and purrs about her father or grandfather smoking a pipe, and we sit together for an hour talking….well what can I say.
Oh yeah, I love smoking the pipe just for the pure enjoyment of it as well. Sitting in the back yard watching the doves, squirriels, and my dogs interact, or sitting on a rock over the Clear Fork river watching the sunset. Purely perfect peace.
Love the article. Love the replies. Good to know I’m not the only pipe smoker under the age of 50 (or 30, for that matter). I’m 18 and have wanted to try pipe smoking since I was in junior high. My late grandpa enjoyed his pipes, and my dad would occasionally fire up a briar on camping trips and in his wood shop. God, I loved the aroma of a nice Cavendish floating in the air on my grandparents’ porch or in my dad’s pickup. Good pipe tobacco just smells too good not to like. Too bad I couldn’t taste it myself. All I could do was revel in the sweet room aroma until I got a little older.
My older brother got a pipe when he was at college. When he came home from school his first year puffing on a nice Savinelli at the age of 17, I knew I wouldn’t have long to wait for my own pipe. Thanks to him, I got my first taste of the pipe’s pleasures on the sly a couple of years ago: What a delicious experience. Alas, I didn’t have the balls to smoke out in the open like my brother - I was sure my parents wouldn’t approve of their 16-year-old taking up pipe smoking.
I’ve now officially become a pipe smoker. FINALLY. My dad gave me a great pipe set for Christmas - a Comoy billiard and a Savinelli bent, along with a nice selection of tobacco blends, a lighter, and a tamper. One thing I love about pipe smoking is the equipment! The pipes were a great gift. I turned 18 last month, and I told my parents exactly what I wanted, figuring I might as well get it out in the open. I would’ve bought my own pipe and paraphernalia once I turned 18 anyway. I guess my mom wasn’t thrilled, but my dad must have reasoned with her. Like he said, better to smoke a pipe and enjoy it in moderation than to get hooked on cigarettes. Damn right.
I love smoking my pipes, and each bowl is a special treat. I’m smoking two blends right now, MacBaren Vanilla Creme and Blue Note. Absolutely no one has said anything but nice things about how they smell, and now that I’m getting the hang of keeping my pipes lit, I can actually taste the tobacco. My brother’s trying to get me to try an English blend. Not ready for that yet. He says it’s more flavorful than my aromatics, but the English seems a little strong for my current tastes. I actually smoked my pipe at a New Year’s party, and nobody laughed. I did attract a little attention at first. Guess who got to smoke his pipe in the house while his friends were sent out into the snow to smoke their cigars? Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t think my pipe would be a babe magnet, but I was ASKED to stay inside and enjoy my pipe so everybody could get enough Blue Note. It’ll be interesting to see what reactions I get when I go back to school in a couple of weeks and pull out one of my pipes.
So far, here’s what I love about being a brand-new pipe smoker -
- A well made pipe is a work of art, always beautiful to look at
- It’s fun to play around with the paraphernalia.
- The tobacco is fragrant, even when it isn’t being smoked. And when it’s burning, even nonsmokers sometimes like it.
- Smoking a pipe doesn’t addict you. It’s a very relaxing pastime and a pleasing way to savor tobacco.
- Variety. You can try a new blend of tobacco every week, if you want.
- Novelty. Aside from my brother (he’s in his early 20s), I may be the only pipe smoker in my age group that I know. The pipe is a great pleasure to smoke, but also a unique accessory. Smoking a pipe attracts attention and interest, but so far, it’s all been good for me.
- Very moderate aftertaste, compared to a cigar, anyway.
Really enjoyed this.
Seth
English blends can be very strong (although you would do very well to make the transition, as they are certainly a more sublime experience, and most pipe smokers learn to hate aromatics as cherry-flavored filler once they move to non-aromatic blends). English blends tend to have latakia or perique in it, and both have extremely high nicotine contents that can leave the neophyte light headed. The first time I smoked Dunhill Nightcap I almost passed out: the only equivalent I can describe is when I once sucked on a tea bag for ten minutes on a dare.
I’d recommend moving to a non-aromatic Virginian before you take the leap to an English. Might I recommend McClelland 5100? Virginians have a high sugar content, so they are naturally sweet, and 5100 has a delicious nutty flavor I adore. A lot of tobacconists sell it under different names, but if you just go in and ask for it, they’ll know what you’re talking about (I used to buy it in Harvard Square as Williamsburg Red). Word of warning: smoke a bowl of Virginia slow. The sugar means it burns hotter, which will give you tongue bite, especially if you’re not used to it.
From there, if you want to try an English, I’d try Dunhill’s Early Morning Pipe, which is a flavorful but light English blend. From there, go on to 965, then Midnight. If you haven’t developed a taste for English blends by then, you suck. Once you like Midnight, you can then start exploring some of the English blends made by Americans, which tend to just be flavorful sock-knocker-offers. G.L. Pease in particular.
For aromatics, this is about the best aromatic I’ve ever found, for a guy who actually loves the taste of tobacco: http://www.pipesforless.com/dantoswvaho8.html . I wish pussy smelled like this. I’ve never met a girl who didn’t love the smell of this tobacco, no matter what she might think of pipe smoking in general. Highly recommended.
I very much enjoyed reading the article.
As an addendum and testament to the longevity of the lives people have if they smoke a pipe one should remember Former President Ford !
I usually smoke my pipe outside on my Hot tub, the whole ritual of smelling the tobacco, opening the tobacco canister, choosing your briar for the day and filling it, enhances the anticipation of the smoke. It is almost like foreplay for the senses.
My point is that smoking pipe is a very slow process and it is this slow tempo that makes this experience more pleasurable and makes you think clearly on important tasks. (for eg. How to pick up this beautiful blond I met in the office the other day….)
David
I have also been smoking a pipe off and on for about six years now. My first (and currently active) pipe was a fo-cob which is really made of briar that I bought for $30 when I was 25. Smoked the cheap stuff at first but have recently changed over to a better blend. Looking forward to breaking in my new churchwarden when it arrives with its leather tobacco pouch. Will it look weird to the mass of media crazed lemmings? Yes. Do I care? Not even slightly.
I agree whole heartedly with what you’re saying. I’m a graduate student as well as a full-time “contributor” to society. Having a smoke every few days for some whatever reason seems to just level me out.
I love pipe smoking. Im 33 and started like a year ago. Where I live everyone is against smoking. I usually smoke privately or with a couple friends that I have that smoke cigarettes. I feel unconfortable smoking around my family because they are anti smoking nazis and igonrant about the difference of pipe and cigarette smoke.
I have a collection of 7 pipes and looking to get more. I’m just findiing out about many tobaccos like Frog Morton and other tobaccos im trying thanks to tobaccoreviews.com.
I wish I knew of other pipe smokers so I can hang out and smoke and stuff. It’s so sad that the world is so ignorant about the beauty and art of pipe smoking. It’s one of the greatest pleasures in life.