A Primer for the Would-be Pipe Smoker

Recently, a fellow cigar smoker on Facebook wrote to ask me for advice about buying his first pipe. I wrote this little primer and sent it to him, but I thought it might be helpful to any other would-be/potential pipe smokers out there. So, if you're contemplating taking up the briar, or even contemplating contemplating taking up the briar, please read on.

Here are some ways to make your first pipe buy (and learning curve to pipe smoking) as painless as possible:

1) Try to find a full-service pipe shop where the selection is wide, the staff is knowledgeable, and the person helping you actually smokes a pipe. This isn't so easy nowadays, but even if it means driving an hour or two, it's totally worth it. When you get to be more clear about your likes, you can buy online, but for now, in-person is the way to go.

2) Decide what your budget is before you go. Buy the best pipe you can afford. A cheap basket pipe, or drugstore pipe will smoke poorly and you'll be turned off. Look for name brands that have reasonable price ranges. Names like Savinelli, Peterson, Stanwell are all good starting points. Savinelli makes the whole range, from very reasonable, to super-premium...and every Sav I've ever owned smokes beautifully. I'd say for a first pipe, if you plan to spend $75 to $150 you'll be fine. I wouldn't spend less than $50.

3) A bent pipe is easier to manage than a straight pipe. It takes less effort to hold in your mouth, and you can keep an eye on what's happening in the bowl while you smoke. Also, if you (like most newbies) have a tendency to salivate, the juices will run back into the pipe where they can easily be swabbed with a pipe cleaner if you hear a gurgle. With a straight pipe, novices freqently end up with those bitter juices on their own tongues, and they taste gross!

4) Whatever you do, do NOT let the tobacconist sell you an aromatic tobacco. You should tell him that you are a confirmed cigar smoker, and that you're looking for a nice light to medium English (aka non-flavored) tobacco like Dunhill Early Morning Pipe (which is supposed to be available again soon). Personally, I like a bit heavier tobaccos like Ashton's Artisan's Blend and McClelland's Frog Morton, but any decent English will smoke cool and dry. Aromatics (things like cherry, vanilla, rum, etc) tend to smoke hot and wet and gunk up your pipes.

5) When you are ready to fill and light your pipe for the first time, make sure you have (in addition to your pipe and tobacco), a pipe tool, pipe cleaners, and a soft flame lighter or wooden matches. I prefer a soft flame lighter myself. No torches, no torches, no torches. Did I mention no torches? They burn too hot and will damage your pipes.

6) Trickle tobacco into the bowl until it is full to overflowing, then use the flat part of your pipe tool (the tamper) to very gently pack down the tobacco until it fills about the bottom 1/3 of the bowl. Repeat the procedure and tamp slightly harder until it fills about 2/3s of the bowl. Do it one more time, and get it really overflowing, then tamp it until the top surface of the tobacco is even with the rim of the bowl. You may have to "top it off" with a few more flakes, but you'll get the hang of it.

7) The first light is called the false or charring light. You walk the flame of your lighter around the top surface of your tobacco, drawing the flame deep into the bowl, and making sure to light the entire top surface. Then take your tamper, tamp the tobacco lightly until it's just compacted, and re-light, this time puffing slowly and rhythmically. It normally takes about 10 puffs.

8) Kick back, smoke slowly, (think of it as sipping the smoke), don't puff too fast. If the pipe gets too hot in your hand, sit it down and let it cool, then tamp and relight. If it tries to go out (which it will) tamp and relight as necessary. A good trick is also to tamp and puff at the same time, before the pipe goes out, and often it comes back to the point where a relight is not necessary.

9) Continue the slow tamping, puffing and relighting, and any time you hear a gurgle, run a pipe cleaner down into your pipe (Ooh...I forgot....when buying that first pipe, try running a pipe cleaner all the way from the mouthpiece into the bowl. If it runs right through, you have a winner. If not, keep looking.

 

9a) At no time should you intentionally inhale pipe smoke. As one does with a cigar, just puff the pipe, pull the smoke into your mouth and taste it. Then let it escape in a fragant, white cloud.

10) Smoke all the tobacco in the bowl. This is key particularly for about the first 10 smokes, as you are building up a carbon cake.

11) When your pipe is cool after smoking, empty it, clean both pieces with a pipe cleaner (or actually many pipe cleaners) until they come out as white as they went in. Fluff out your bowl with a pipe cleaner too, but be gentle not to disturb the cake. You're just looking for floating bits of debris.

12) Last but not least, it's fine to smoke the same pipe a few times in one day. But then, that pipe needs to rest for 2 to 3 days, so if you do plan to smoke a pipe on a daily basis going forward, you need to have at least 3 of them to rotate.

That should be enough to get you started. Please let me know how it goes. Good luck!!!!

A Change of Pace

In a little change from all the doom and gloom, I enjoyed the chance to smoke several pipes over the long Labor Day weekend. Theoretically I can smoke a pipe any time I like, but in recent years, I've found myself smoking cigars more often than pipes. I have mixed feelings about this, because pipes just lend themselves to certain activities more than cigars do. Don't get me wrong, I still love cigars, but reconnecting with the pipe has been relaxing and rewarding. There is just a very special feel to choosing the right pipe for one's mood, filling it with the right tobacco for that moment, and then puffing it to life slowly. Then it's all about enjoying those rolling, white clouds and feeling that good feeling of a trusty briar clamped into the jaw.

It feels completely natural for me to sit and write or read while smoking a pipe. I find smoking a cigar while writing/reading to be distracting. I guess it's because a pipe can rest for long periods in the corner of my mouth, as opposed to a cigar which must be picked up, put down, and the ash managed at all times. There's also something about smoking a pipe that just makes me feel more creative. Smoking a pipe actually seems to make my creative juices flow, while smoking a cigar gives me more of just a generally good feeling.

And with that, I will leave my blog for now, to concentrate on the slow and rhythmic puffing of my full-bent Boswell, filled with Boswell's North Woods, my favorite English blend.

An Epiphany!

Living in the same house as your ex is a uniquely confusing experience.

I've moved out of the bedroom, into the guest room, which is a good boundary. During the week, Mr. Ex goes off to work, I do my thing, and it seems like a pretty good arrangement.

Then, in the evenings, or on the weekends, when we are together, it's highly weird. We get along fine, so that's not an issue. In fact, maybe that's the problem. It's so easy to fall into the old pattern of hanging out and doing things together, that in a way it feels like we never broke up.

But, added to this mix is something I like to call "The Silence". The Silence comes about when we are both home, engaged in our usual daytime or evening activities, like watching TV, doing e-mail, reading, etc. It's as though we each live alone. We don't talk to each other very much. We're just sort of each leading a separate life, in the same living room.

Then someone forgets we are broken up, and we talk a bit, but soon it's back to The Silence.

My epiphany is that during The Silence, I feel exactly the same feeling as I do when I'm sitting in a doctor's crowded waiting room, waiting for my name to be called for some scary/painful medical procedure. Part of me wants them to just call my name so we can get it over with, while the other part hopes they forget me and my name is never called.

It would be easy to fall into the comfortable patterns of the past, but as our dear Elphie says just before the end of Act I of Wicked: "I don't want it...I can't want it any more."

How it's Done

It turns out that breaking up with your life partner is surprisingly easy:

1) Invite him to breakfast at Katz' Deli, which has the best waffles and latkes in town.
2) Enjoy said breakfast while flirting shamelessly with the server (Doug) who is gorgeous, and young enough to be your son. Not your "boy". Your actual son.
3) Go to the bathroom not to void, but to steel yourself and run your lines.
4) Come back to the table, pay the check, then lean across to your soon-to-be-ex and say: "I love you, I will always love you. I will always be your friend, but I cannot be your partner".
5) Wait an eternity for his response, as the words land and it sinks in.
6) Listen to the response. It is five words: "I want to go home".
7) Your 15-year, solid and loving relationship is now dissolved.
8) Now grieve, date, waste years and repeat as needed.

Poised on the Brink of Change

What do you do when your relationship of nearly 15 years is suddenly, drastically, permanently damaged? I'm not talking about your garden-variety relationship hurdles. I'm talking about something that has the potential to change the trajectory of the lives of everyone concerned. Right now, I'm too tired to go into the details, but suffice it to say that deception, betrayal and unthinkable revelations are all in the mix.

With that, I will take my leave for the evening, but I hope you will check back soon to see what's going on.

Warmly,
JR