Advice to new pipe-smokers on selecting a pipe.

My first good pipe: A Sasiene Viscount Lascelles Bent BilliardThe longer someone is in the world of pipes, the more complicated the considerations seem, especially when it comes to selecting a good pipe. So, what is the person new to pipe-smoking to do? How does one successfully navigate the correct acquisition of pipe and tobacco in order to determine whether one might actually enjoy pipe-smoking?

If you are new to pipe smoking, one challenge you face is that you probably don’t want to spend a large sum of money for a pipe when you don’t know whether or not you will enjoy pipe-smoking. This is perfectly understandable. If you decide you dislike pipe smoking, the last thing you want in your bedside table drawer is an expensive souvenir from your regrettable adventure.

If you don’t have a good friend, father, uncle, or grandfather who is willing to bestow a reliable pipe upon you for your experimentation, you must acquire a pipe on your own. This probably means 
buying one. Here’s the problem: it will be difficult to choose an inexpensive briar pipe that will reliably deliver good flavor or a good draw.

There are five attributes that combine to produce a serviceable briar pipe which is a pipe that will yield a good quality, if not great, smoke. Keep in mind that these are basic attributes and would not be applied to a collector-quality or fine artisan-made briar pipe. Just meeting these standards usually involves higher production costs than the price for which a typical inexpensive briar pipe might sell.

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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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Be careful to whom you pay attention.

You probably shouldn’t smoke what he’s smoking, but you should defintitely seek his advice.Recently, I’ve gotten a number of letters and emails from younger pipe smokers who’ve asked me to write about tobaccos that I would advise them to try in their early pipe-smoking sojourns.

As a new pipe smoker, you should consider where you get your information and whether or not the information you’re getting would be given to you if the person providing the information knew your pipe-smoking history and experience. Let’s consider such a scenario.

Pipe Forums are wonderful places to learn. However….

Most beginning pipe smokers are men who are comfortable inside social networking environments. They are facile at searching out pipe-smoking forums in order to learn what is popular among those who they perceive as thought-leaders in those online communities.

It doesn’t occur to the researching new pipe smoker that these thought-leaders have likely smoked a pipe for decades, and that tenure matters. These thought leaders are at a different place in their pipe-smoking trajectory than is a new pipe smoker, smoking tobaccos that may be full-bodied and nicotine-laden. More mature pipe-smokers may very well sing the praises of Stonehaven or 1792 or Samuel Gawith’s Full Virginia Flake, smoking them daily, but if the average newbie were to tuck into a bowl of 1792 or Stonehaven, the likelihood is that he would experience technicolor projectile-vomiting. This is true of many popular tobaccos among experienced pipe smokers.

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You can't smoke Créme Brûlée.

The Greenhorn’s Plight

Pity the poor greenhorn. They come in many stripes. When I was a kid growing up in Wyoming, my friends and I clutched our stomachs–overcome by hilarity–while watching dudes’ first encounters with horses. I will never forget the time I watched one poor fellow put the wrong foot in a stirrup, swing up, then kick his long-suffering horse square in the head with his other foot. The horse was not amused, but we were.

These days I am more sympathetic to the greenhorn’s plight. The aspiring pipe-smoker faces many barriers to success, the biggest of which is that many tobacconists’ sales people know little about pipes or pipe tobaccos and are unable to be of much help. Most of these people have concentrated on learning about cigars, not pipes, because cigars are where the money is in the retail tobacco business. Often, these sales people may never even have smoked a pipe, themselves.

So, what an aspiring pipe-smoker will receive in advice or guidance reflects assumptions that are often far from what’s true and real about pipe smoking. Where this ignorance really impacts new pipe smokers is in helping them choose pipes and pipe tobaccos that they might enjoy.

Without guidance, those who are new to pipe smoking may easily make  counterproductive, even humiliating choices.  This post is intended to alleviate the situation by offering some guidance on the nuts and bolts of becoming a pipe smoker.

We are our own worst enemies.

Typically, men have a tough time admitting ignorance on a topic about which they have interest. This is particularly true when it comes to “manly” pursuits like drinking and smoking where tastes are gradually acquired. We feel like we’re supposed to know about these things. None of us want to look like greenhorns, especially to our friends. So, rather than owning up to our callow inexperience, we gut it out and learn through doing. This can be a tough road when it comes to either smoking or drinking. As a result, most men I know–myself included–have repeatedly endured worshipping the porcelain god during our rites of passage.

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Inspiration

Early 1930s Vintage Comoy Deluxe Straight Grain Author (256)While more than a few pipe collectors and smokers appreciate and seek out sculptural and conceptual pipes, many – if not most, of us still feel a deep connection to classic shapes. There is a reason that billiards, bulldogs, lovats, canadians, rhodesians, pots, zulus, dublins, authors, and other classic shapes have endured. Their lines, proportions, and feel have propelled them into the canon, and while there are myriad expressions of each shape, if a variation strays too far from the canonical, it becomes something else. It may be breathtakingly beautiful. Its originality may be compelling, but it is no longer a classic.

Bent Billiard by Michael ParksEvery aesthetic realm feels tension between a desire to be rooted in its canon and a desire to break free of classical restraints. For me, this tension rivets my interest. I simultaneously hunger for what’s established and for what’s fresh. Indeed, were there no classical realm, how would we measure innovation? One cannot strike out in new directions if every direction is new; one cannot wander from a path that has never been walked. We need the classics to understand invention.

It was during the late 1980s that I studied with the author, philosopher, and futurist, Jay Ogilvy. At the time, Jay was working at SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute) working with his colleagues on identifying and tracking large social and cultural trends.

During one of our seminars, Jay spoke with us about the rhythms of relative liberalism and conservatism over the centuries. Using myriad examples throughout history, Jay demonstrated that the most liberal times occurred at the end decades of centuries and the most conservative times occurred in the beginning decades of centuries.

Fat Apple by Michael LindnerAlthough these trends do not strictly follow the calendar, at the time we were entering not only the last decade of the 20th century, but also the last decade of the second millennium.  Understandably, a vigorous discussion ensued where we wrestled with how the millennial end might amplify a readily observable hypothesis observable at the end of centuries. We explored the idea in philosophical, artistic, religious, financial, social, and economic terms.

We could already see evidence of the truth of Ogilvy’s observations in books like Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations. For example, a rise of religious fundamentalism was already occurring, and not solely in Islam which Huntington so presciently described, but also in Judeaism and Christianity.

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