Pipe Smoking - Getting Started

I'm sure a lot of you will identify, in one way or another, with the following story; My first experience with pipe smoking came when I attended college...up until then I had been a cigarette smoker for several years, and would continue to be one for the next fifteen years or so...I had flirted with cigars a bit, trying out Hav-A-Tampa Jewels, machine-made with birchwood tips...what the hell did I know from premium cigars? They were okay, a little on the mild side, nothing to really write home about, and I guess as time went on I sorta forgot about them...graduated from high school in 1964, and then went on to college...I never really gave much thought to smoking a pipe, but upon arrival at the campus of the University Of Cincinnati, I noticed a lot of upperclassmen walking around campus with pipes in their mouths...and some of the professors were smoking them too...at that time (before all the anti-smoking nazi's came out of the woodwork) you could even smoke in class...cool beans...now I might not have noticed all of this pipe smoking right at the beginning because college was a whole new thing to me...I was free...I lived in a dorm and I was allowed to do anything I wanted, with no parents to hassle me...since I had attended a military academy for the last three years of high school, freedom with little rules or restrictions was something new to me...of course, the work load was a bit overwhelming as I was taking fifteen credit hours each semester, and I had pledged a fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi...AEΠ...OMG...the parties...the booze...the broads...well, sorta...in those days hazing was still allowed but the brothers were pretty good...mostly they had you doing chores around the frat house as opposed to some of the ridiculous stunts the other fraternities pulled (and often got in trouble for)...as for the booze, in Ohio you were allowed to drink beer at age eighteen...actually a watered down version of beer...3.2% alcohol piss-water...it went through you so fast you might as well have been a fire hose pumping at about 300 PSI (and I should know, as in later years I would become a volunteer firefighter handling hose, but I digress)...and as for broads, well, there were a lot of groupies...mostly high school seniors, as the college girls were usually looking for the older guys...but still, plenty of girls hanging out around the frat house...way more than I was used to, as for me, as mentioned previously, high school was an all male affair, no girls...so, as I got settled in with all the coursework, and the fraternity, and all the drinking, and all the dating, I noticed something...it seemed, at least to me at that time, that the females of our species were drawn to older men (around age twenty or so) who smoked pipes...and just to clarify things, you can be sure that with all the drinking and dating and partying, my classwork suffered and I wound up on academic probation for my first semester, but I had discovered pipes, more or less.

Where to start? Needless to say, the upperclassmen walking around with pipes would hardly give a freshman the time of day, and who knew from tobacconists? So it was off to the drugstore...back then, before all the anti-smoking nazi's came out of the woodwork (notice a theme here?), drugstores sold pipes and pipe tobacco...my memory of those days is rather on the dim side but I am sure they must have stocked what we pipe smokers call OTC's today...over-the-counter...Walnut, Sir Walter Raleigh, Prince Albert, Carter Hall, Field & Stream, etc...and Cherry Blend...yep, it smelled like cherry syrup, and was liberally dosed with same...it was wet and goopy...and they had pipes...Kaywoodies, Yellow-Boles, Dr. Grabow's, Medico's...cards full of them...that was how they were displayed back then, mounted on cards...no such thing as blister packs...now you sorta have to figure here that a college freshman would be on a bit of a budget, money still being supplied by the parents, so no high end anything...no Kaywoodie Flame Grain or Super Grain...not in those days...I probably couldn't even afford a Kaywoodie Standard...only heaven knows what that first pipe was, or what it cost...what I do know is that it must have been one of the cheapest, probably a Yellow-Bole or a Medico (the filters would have been an attraction)...and you can just bet that I wound up walking out with a pouch of Cherry Blend too...I probably bought a cheap pipe tool of some kind, some pipe cleaners, and an inexpensive lighter, all recommended by the guy behind the counter...ya think he knew what he was recommending? Nope. He just went with what most of the local college pipe smokers were buying, as if they knew what they were doing...it was highly unlikely that any of the pipe smoking professors took their valuable time to pass tips on to the pipe smoking collegians, especially if they were pipe smokers of long standing...I'm sure they just considered us dilettantes.

So, there I was, pipe in hand, and open pouch of Cherry Blend on the table in front of me...having no specific information on how to load a pipe I probably stuffed as much tobacco into the bowl as I could...of course I'd never heard of a charring light, so I kept the lighter going above the tobacco until the whole thing glowed, and I'm sure I scorched the dickens out of the rim...then, being a cigarette smoker, I proceeded to puff away...hard, and fast, smoke billowing...yowwwiiieee...talk about bite, and heat and steam in my mouth...my tongue was burnt beyond recognition...this was pipe smoking? Of course, who had ever heard of pipe break-in, or sipping? Was everyone who walked around with a pipe in their mouth crazy? Or was I missing something? Needless to say, the drugstore clerk, when asked, didn't have a clue...and neither did I...so, what to do? I'm sure along the way that I asked questions of pipe smokers and got some answers, however I never quite got the hang of it...bought one or two more pipes, tried some other blends with pretty much the same results, and eventually gave up...round 1 to the pipe.

I continued to smoke cigarettes for another fifteen years or so, until 1982...when my wife was pregnant with my youngest son she had to quit smoking so I decided to do the same...since I'd been smoking for close to twenty years it wasn't easy...took about two months of cutting back to
quit, but I finally did, although I discovered something along the way, I actually liked the taste of tobacco...and that was garbage tobacco loaded with additives (thank you, big tobacco companies)...so, I decided to try pipe smoking again...this time around I was local to a Tinder Box, in a nearby mall, with another tobacconist close by in the opposite direction...wow...a place to ask questions and learn how to smoke a pipe properly...I know I bought some decent pipes, a Savinelli, a GBD, a Stanwell, a gourd calabash with a meerschaum bowl, and several others...I had some decent pipes, I knew about break-in, I learned how to pack and light a pipe but I still had a problem...tobacco...I knew nothing about pipe tobacco...so I wound up with store blends...the pipe shop guys promoted their store blends over tins so I went along with their choices, and my old adversary poked his head up again...tongue bite and scorching...I tried one tobacco after another, all house blends, never solved the problem, and gave up again...pipe 2, me 0.

Sometime in the early 1990's I took up cigar smoking on a very loose basis...a Macanudo, or a Partagas here or there, but nothing with any frequency, and quit within a few years...fast forward to 2000...I was on a cruise, and happened to pass by a large cabinet humidor that was outside of the gift shop, and was loaded with delicious looking cigars...my grandfather had been a cigar smoker...I remembered the smells in his house from when I was a child, fondly, very fondly...I was his oldest grandchild and he always made a fuss over me...he passed away when I was ten years old...how I wished he'd have lived longer...hmmm...cigars...so I looked and one caught my attention...it had a label that said RP, with the year 1992 below that...so I bought one to try...it was a Rocky Patel and it was delicious...I was off and running, and could enjoy tobacco without inhaling...could it get any better than this? Actually, yes! I found the online cigar boards and learned a ton of stuff about smoking cigars, discovered ISOM's and how to get them, and nurtured a fairly expensive cigar habit. So, you ask, what has all this to do with getting started pipe smoking? Be patient, I'm almost there. The cigar forum had, within it's bowels, a smaller pipe forum, and I got curious...I began asking questions...before I knew it one of the members of the board took pity on a newbie and sent me a gorgeous Nording freehand, and a half dozen tins of pipe tobacco...tins? I'd never seen tins before and had no concept of premium pipe tobaccos...all I knew was bulk...so I began again to try to learn how to smoke a pipe...I bought a few more pipes (the others had long been sold) and tried tin after tin looking for blends I liked...and this time I had a place where I could ask questions and get well-meaning informative answers from people who had no vested interest in selling me a pipe or their store tobaccos...I found tobaccos that didn't bite, that smoked dry and cool...I learned how to sip, how to clean a pipe after smoking it, and all sorts of sundry information pertaining to pipe smoking...I was on my way...I finally beat the pipe, or rather tamed it, and discovered what all of those pipe smokers from so long ago knew, how to enjoy a pipe...win-win!

Now for the getting started part...in close to ten years of pipe and cigar smoking I've learned a few things along the way and I've read many books dealing with these two very enjoyable hobbies, but I am by no means an expert...I do have what I hope are a few words of wisdom to get a new pipe smoker off and running in the easiest way...you don't have to spend a ton of money on pipes or tobacco and accessories to enjoy pipe smoking...it's really quite easy, and fairly inexpensive if you follow the simple guidelines I'm going to explain...first, you need a pipe or two, and I'm going to recommend the following...a Dr. Grabow and a Missouri Meerschaum, basically a drugstore pipe and a corncob...the Dr. Grabow pipes are pre-smoked (by machines) at the factory, so require very little break-in, and the corncobs don't require any break-in at all, and they smoke cool and pleasant from the start...I like the Dr. Grabow Omega, and feel it's the best that they make...it can be had for only $25 or $30, here, or here...it's a filter pipe and you can smoke it with or without the paper filters...I actually prefer them as they absorb some of the moisture of the burning tobacco (which gives off steam) and make the smoke, smoke cool...some of the other pipe smokers throw the filters away and smoke without them but I find that screws up the draw...corncobs can be found here, the Diplomat is a favorite of mine, and it happens to be a paper filter pipe also, but that's not why I like it...you'll also need some pipe cleaners, regular and bristle, and some kind of pipe tool, the 3-in-1 Czech Tool being about the best for the money...more paper filters are available here, if you are so inclined...you'll also need a pipe lighter...the best lighters for a pipe have a soft flame (not a torch as used for cigars) that comes out at a 45° angle such as these IMCO's...now, have I forgotten anything? Ah, pipe tobacco you say...what to smoke? Here's where you can score a freebie...Tobacco Trader has several of their own blends, of them, I recommend the Savannah...if you phone them you can get a one ounce free sample...why this specific tobacco? It's a mild aromatic with slightly nutty taste, and smokes with absolutely no tongue bite whatsoever...it burns cool and clean, right to the bottom of the bowl and stays cool even if you puff away like a steam engine...it's that good...you'll probably order more, like I did...and by the way, I have absolutely no connection with any of these e-tailers, although I should charge them for the advertising...about the only other thing I can think of that you might need is something to keep your tobacco humidified...these mini-brick humidifiers work wonders using propylene glycol solution or distilled water...you'll need to learn a few things along the way, how to pack and load a bowlful of tobacco, how to use a charring light to get it started, how to smoke slowly and gently, sort of sipping at it, and how to clean a pipe...I can't explain all of this here, or it would go on forever, but I would suggest clicking on one of the links below as I've listed several excellent online pipe and cigar forums where you'll find lots of pipe smokers willing to answer all of your questions...for new pipe smokers I recommend Smokers Forums, a great place to get started...so, guess what? You're now a pipe smoker!

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