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.

[Emperor Zurg]

I'll smoke any tobacco in any pipe. Keeping track is too much like work I've had some ghosting, but no big deal - it usually only lasts a few puffs.

Same here. If a blend smokes particularly nice in a particular pipe, I'll tend to smoke that blend in said pipe whenever I reach for said blend. Follow that? But I by no means reserve any pipe for any specific blend.

I usually avoid aromatics of the PG saturated variety but when I do reach for one of those it's a cob for sure.

I like your pipe collection; straight billiards all the way and no bullsh!t. Very functional.

[Haebar]

Same here. If a blend smokes particularly nice in a particular pipe, I'll tend to smoke that blend in said pipe whenever I reach for said blend. Follow that? But I by no means reserve any pipe for any specific blend.

I usually avoid aromatics of the PG saturated variety but when I do reach for one of those it's a cob for sure.



I like your pipe collection; straight billiards all the way and no bullsh!t. Very functional.

Thank you! I do prefer straights and the billiard is my favorite shape. I also like bulldogs and sometimes pots.

[Pipe Smoker]

Thank you! I do prefer straights and the billiard is my favorite shape. I also like bulldogs and sometimes pots.

Same here. Great minds think alike! I like the classic shapes. Except that my "billiard" is a Liverpool - a billiard with a longer shank and shorter bit. Less vulcanite to keep shiny. And my bulldog is a "squat bulldog", with the shallow, broad chamber that I like.