When You Buy A New Briar ...

[Haebar]

How do I make these choices? It's hard to say how I decide what type of tobacco to smoke in a pipe. It's more of a decision of gut instinct and whatever type of tobacco I am infatuated with at the time I guess. I never start an unsmoked briar on aromatics.

Do you buy a pipe for a specific style or blend? Not really; when I buy a pipe it's because I like the shape, quality of materials and workmanship, and the reputation of the maker.

Do you buy the pipe and wait for it to tell you it's purpose? Exactly!

Am I really unhinged as my friends tell me? No, you just get really involved in your hobbies. If you are unhinged, then I am too.

I like all genres of pipe tobacco as long as they are of good quality. For high quality briars, I smoke only non-aromatic tobaccos in them then later decide if I want to dedicate them to English blends or let them remain for non-aromatics. For cobs, cheaper briars (estate Dr. Grabows, Willard, etc.), cherry wood, Pear wood pipes, and cheaper meerschaums, I may dedicate them to aromatics. An elder sage of our pipe club once advised me to never smoke aromatics; he said they would ruin my pipes and ruin my health. I think the world of him and he may be right (with the additives they put on some aromatics), but I still enjoy an aromatic now and then. I have this three-row pipe rack on the wall by my desk. I use it to segregate my rotation pipes into three categories, non-aromatics, English and aromatics. All this being said, sometimes the system fails and I smoke a different type of tobacco in a "dedicated" pipe. Most of the time I can't tell the difference. The exception is some Lakeland tobaccos with the Tonquin smell/taste and other additives; often I can detect this in subsequent bowls of a different type. I once had a pipe dedicated to only cherry aromatics but have lost track of that pipe in recent years.