When You Buy A New Briar ...
Now, I understand there are people who smoke only Virginias or VaPers, and people who smoke nothing but English blends, even those who smoke exclusively aromatics, but for those of you with a more varied tobacco rotation, how do you decide what to smoke in a new briar? I usually break in a new briar with a few bowls of Carter Hall just to get a cake started, but there comes a time when I must choose a path for it. Will I dedicate it to Virginia blends or English? (I won't defile a briar with aromatics, those are for cobs only.) I have a great many pipes, far too many for any rational man to own I'm sure, but the great majority were pre-owned and a simple sniff test tells me what they were used for in their previous life. For the most part I will just continue feeding them what they are accustomed to unless they smell like the inside of a grandmother's purse, in which case it's repeated reaming, cleaning, smoking, and repeat until the ghost has been exorcised. But when I buy a new, unsmoked briar I tend to agonize over what to dedicate it to. I have pipes that I purchased years ago and I still haven't decided what to smoke in them and they sit in their boxes, waiting to begin their useful lives. So, tell me, How do you make these choices? Do you buy a pipe for a specific style or blend? Do you buy the pipe and wait for it to tell you it's purpose? Am I really unhinged as my friends tell me?
