Many of us mourn the loss of favorite great tobaccos of the past. Tins of vintage pipe blends fetch exorbitant amounts on eBay as tobacco lovers try to recapture smoking experiences that have long disappeared. But what if the most talented tobacco blenders tried to reconstitute a great tobacco and bring back to life what has been lost to the world?

That premise inspired the Balkan Sobranie Throwdown last year. Held at the Chicago pipe show, three of the world’s finest blenders entered their renditions of the famous and much-missed tobacco—and the results were remarkable.  So popular was the event, and so impressive the submissions, that the competition is to be repeated this year. The challenge? To recreate another lost legend: John Cotton 1&2.

The Seattle and New York Pipe Clubs, organizers of the 2011 Balkan Sobranie Throwdown, have announced the event and tobacco enthusiasts are eagerly awaiting the competition.

The contestants this year are Steven Books of the House of Calabash, Dick Silverman of Chief Catoonah, and Leonard Wortzel of Lane Limited.  Moving over to the judge’s bench this year will be 2011’s Grand Prize Winner Russ Ouellette. Also on the judge’s panel will be Marty Pulvers, and Neill Archer Roan of www.apassionforpipes.com.  “I can’t wait to experience the tobaccos that the blender-contestants create in response to the John Cotton Throwdown. Must-have blends will be coming to our cellars soon,” said Roan.

Judges and blenders have been given identical samples of 28-year-old John Cotton 1&2 tobacco. The blenders have been utilizing their vast experience and talent to recapture the original blend. Of course, this is an aged tobacco with unknown ingredients, so the challenge is significant. The entries will be compared to the original sample and evaluated according to four criteria: taste, look, aroma and overall smoking qualities. 

The judging will be blind: the judges won’t know whose blend is whose and the entries will be identified only as X, Y and Z. In the weeks leading up to the show the judges will sample the entries and evaluate how closely each comes to the original John Cotton 1&2, awarding each up to 100 points. The results will be tallied by the organizers prior to a panel discussion between the blenders and judges. Finally, the judges’ choice for the Grand Prize Winner will be revealed at the conclusion of the hour-long event.

Sutliff Tobacco Company, an Altadis company, is the John Cotton Throwdown underwriter this year.

The 2012 John Cotton Throwdown will take place at the Chicago Show in the Pheasant Run smoking tent at 5pm on Saturday, May 5th.  Everyone at the show is welcome to attend but a full tent is expected so early arrival is advised.  Free samples of the three contestant tobaccos will be distributed in the MegaCenter on Friday and Saturday mornings until supplies are gone. Accompanying each sample packet will be a ballot so that show attendees can vote for their favorite of the three blends; votes will be tallied and a People’s Choice award given to the winner and announced during the Throwdown.

There are good pipes …
and there are great pipes!

Personally, I get great satisfaction in a story told, a case argued, a puzzle untangled. This is one of those occasions. As a student of pipe history, I have a theory that the earliest tobacco pipes of wood, clay, porcelain and meerschaum that originated in one country were eventually either wholly adopted, i.e., replicated, or were adapted, i.e., slightly modified in shape or style, in neighboring countries. Sure, there were the expected individual, regional or national alterations that each craftsman applied to pipes to exhibit his unique skills or the ever-so-slight changes in a pipe’s format to suit his clients’ tastes. But there are always exceptions to every rule, right?

In the recorded annals of pipe history, few configurations or mediums are singularly distinctive or unique enough to be considered stellar contributions to pipe art. In my opinion, to qualify, such pipes must be archetypes or they must meet certain criteria, that is, formats that have not been produced elsewhere, formats that are, stylistically, one of a kind, formats that, today, are considered a nation’s symbolic offering to the pantheon of pipes. Of all the tobacco pipes—every conceivable shape, size and substance from around the globe—made for smoking tobacco, I strongly believe that only four warrant this special designation: (1) France’s Dieppe ivory pipe; (2) Japan’s kiseru; (3) Great Britain’s Jasperware (Wedgwood) pipe bowls; and (4) Germany’s Ulmer pipe, hereinafter identified as the Ulmer. Knowledgeable museum curators, antiques appraisers or pipe collectors in any of these respective countries would respond that, today, their particular pipe is the pride of their nation. Why? They were not ubiquitous; they were dirt-cheap to buy in their day, but their market values have soared of late; they are beloved by many, but they’re surely not everyone’s favorites; and, most important, they are endangered treasures that should rightfully be the preserve of national museums and archives, not the stuff of public auctions, antiques fairs, boot sales and flea markets.

an incised scene of field hands and their workhorses

Yet I would be remiss if I did not give honorable mention to China, which, some would argue, ought to be the fifth member of this special coterie. Her countrymen invented two utensils in two distinct formats to ingest smoke: the water pipe and the opium pipe. However unique their respective designs, both pipes were used for chandu, the black pill, Chinese molasses, dried latex, that treaclelike substance known by so many other street names. The poppy is a member of the family of Papaveraceae, not the family of Solaneceae within which is the genus Nicotiana. Furthermore, of late, shoddy Oriental reproductions of both have infested the West, so they do not qualify based on the aforementioned criteria, and neither pipe, however strikingly handsome, is a player in this essay. (And, as an aside, a few pipe collectors might argue that England’s colorful blown-glass pipes [from Bristol and Nailsea] should rightfully be considered a member of this elite group, but I would reason that these are not in the same league, because they were whimsies, not tobacco pipes; others might be less complimentary and call them Imperial kitsch or schlock.)

I have previously written about the kiseru and the Dieppe pipe in this magazine, and about Jasperware pipe bowls in another magazine, but the reader need not be familiar with these three pipes to appreciate the Ulmer pipe, whose development is detailed in this essay. The Ulmer is somewhat misunderstood, yet it has much appeal to not only antique pipe collectors, but also to those who like it, because they like tobacco pipes made of any wood. Strange, indeed, that so little has been published about what I consider the über-pipe of all wood pipes, a true design original. I am always searching for documentation that sheds light on or provides a better understanding of a pipe’s past, but following the Ulmer’s trail—in any language—has been rather bleak, finding a tidbit rather than a trove. Two publications, a slim pamphlet (Adolph Häberle, Die berühmten Ulmer Maserpfeifenköpfe in ihrer kultur- und wirtschaftsgeschichtlichen Bedeutung [1950]), and an illustrated collector’s guide (Anton Manger, Die berühmten Ulmer Maserpfeifen. Geschichtliches und Kulturgeschichtliches über die Pfeifenherstellung in Ulm mit über 130 Abbildungen [1998]), are the sum total of German literary output. Incidentally, I visited Manger in 2001, and I was overwhelmed by what I saw. He had already amassed an outstanding collection of more than 100 different specimens and, as he reminds me in our frequent email exchanges, he’s still hunting for more. In my considered view, Manger is der Mann mit the most-est, the Meister of the Maserpfeifenkopf … Europe’s King of the Kloben (kloben is explained later).

Dale Harrison in “Back to Basics: A journey through the jargon of the pipe,” Pipes and tobaccos, Winter 2008, advised: “Unusual pipe styles with equally unusual monikers, such as the Ulmer, can be especially mysterious for those new to pipes.” Well, I am outing the Ulmer so that it’s no longer a mystery to subscribers of this magazine. I mentioned it in passing in “Un-Briars” Pipes and tobaccos, Spring 2001. Now it’s time to tell a more complete story, or rather, as complete as one can; it is not, by any means, a deep-dive report as have been some of my past contributions to P&T. What follows, dear reader, has not been mined from www.ulmer.com!

Ulm, a city with a colorful history
If the conversation is about gothic architecture, the city of Ulm enters the discussion, because its cathedral has the highest church spire in the world. If the conversation is about complex musical instruments in Europe, Ulm is center-stage, because its cathedral has the largest organ in the country—6,564 pipes—according to published reports. Historic Ulm, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, situated on the Danube River near the mouth of the Iller River, founded in the mid-ninth century, thrived as a medieval trading and textile manufacturing center and, according to the 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1911, is “famous for its vegetables (especially asparagus), barley, beer, pipe-bowls and sweet cakes (Ulmer Zuckerbrot).” (Parenthetically, Ulm is famous for at least one more thing: the iconic pipe smoker Albert Einstein was born in that city in 1879. And, here’s a bit of coincidental trivia: Since 1995, Christopher Ulmer is the plant manager of Killinger Pfeifen, Freiberg, Germany, a company that manufactures organ pipes and reeds.)

Helen Zimmern said this about her visit to this city (“Ulm,” The English Illustrated Magazine, 1885–1886): “… in respect of wood-carving, [Ulm] may claim to stand first in all Germany.” Then she volunteered, “The introduction of machinery has interfered with its ancient trade of spinning, and of all its former specialties it only retains that in carved wooden pipe-heads of the huge type familiar in representations of the typical German, and known as ‘Ulm-heads.’” She added: “In the tower [of the cathedral of Ulm], too, is kept a typical ‘Ulm-head,’ the largest tobacco-pipe ever made …” (Could this have been, perhaps, a private hidey-hole for a pipe-smoking priest?) Whether a Zimmern fact or fiction, it is more than coincidental that a corroborative comment (of sorts) mentioning this same (cathedral’s) “Ulm-head” is found in “Traditions Relating to Ulm Cathedral” (The American Architect and Building News, Volume XIX, January-June, 1886), a trade journal: “Tradition telleth that a student from Tübingen once smoked it empty after a steady pull of nine hours.”

The Ulmer was also celebrated in fiction. Here is Berthold Auerbach, Aloys (1877): “But the most distinguished mark of a grown-up lad is the tobacco pipe. So there they stood with their speckled Ulm bowls, silver-mounted and hung with silver chains.” And this from his “The Pipe of War” (R.H. and Elizabeth Stoddard, Readings and Recitations from Modern Authors, 1884):

He had the finest pipe in the village; and we must regard it more closely, as it is destined to play an important part in this history. The head was of Ulm manufacture, marbleized so that you might fancy the strangest figures looking at it. The lid was of silver, shaped like a helmet, and so bright that you could see your face in it and that twice over,—once upside-down and once right side up. At the lower edge also, as well as at the stock, the head was tipped with silver. A double silver chain served as the cord, and secured the short stem as well as the long, crooked, many-jointed mouthpiece. Was not that a splendid pipe?

And this quatrain from “The Last Postillion” by German poet and novelist Joseph Victor von Scheffel (1826-1886) that I am ill-equipped to decipher: “On yellow coat in moonlight cold, Thurn Taxis’ buttons shine: He smokes tobacco ages old, From Ulm pipe brown and fine.” Finally, the impression from someone traveling through Ulm who, by the choice of words, must have seen an Ulmer in use (A Professional Gentleman [pseud.], “A Six Weeks’ Tour on the Continent” [1828], a book review in The Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c. for the Year 1828): “A pipe, the tube of which would answer for a cudgel, and whose bowl is as big as a breakfast-cup, seldom leaves the mouth of the owner.”

The Ulmer’s reign
Ulm is that singular place where the Ulmer, locally identified as Ulmer Maserholzpfeife (mottled wood pipe), or Ulmer Kloben (lump or block), was designed and first fabricated. In that Spring 2001 P&T article, I reported that maserholz was the German word for “any type of veined, streaked, speckled, gnarled, burred, knotted, mottled or grained bird’s-eye wood” that was used to make a pipe. All other tobacco pipes produced in that town that exhibited any of these visible surface characteristics were simply identified as Ulmer Holzpfeifen (Ulmer wood pipes). Other wood pipes produced in Central Europe took on various configurations, some similar, others markedly different from the Ulmer, and were collectively called Ungarnpfeife, or Hungarian-style pipes; the three most popular configurations were the Debrecen (a city in Hungary), the Kalmasch (stylistically similar to a chibouk, shaped like a kettle, cauldron or inverted bell), and the Ragoczy (believed to have been named after a prince of Transylvania).

an example of the Ulmer variant the Delphin

The Ulmer’s design has been dated to 1733 and attributed to a certain wood turner, Johann Jakob Glöckle (alternatively spelled Glöckler or Glöcklen):

Joh. Jakob Glöckle, ein Weber feines Handwerks (6. März 1702, gest. 3. Juli 1785), begann um 1733 Kleinigkeiten aus Holz zu schnitzeln und geriet dabei auch auf Rauchtabaks-pfeifenköpfe aus Masern. Dies der Ursprung der in Ulm Glöckles-Köpf, im Ausland „Ulmer-Köpf” genannten Pfeifen (K. Statistischen Landesamt, Beschreibung des Oberamts Ulm, Stuttgart, Zweiter Band, 1897, 338).

Joh. Jakob Glöckle, a weaver of fine handcrafts (born March 6, 1702, died July 3, 1785), began around 1733 to carve trifles out of wood and, thereby, also prospered with tobacco-smoking pipe heads from veined wood. This became the origin in Ulm of the Glöckles-Head, and in foreign countries, the so-called Ulmer-Head.

Here is what has also been reported: “Das sehr gute Gewerbe wurde 1733 von dem Ulmer Weber Jak. Glöcklen gegründet, dessen Pfeifenköpfe sehr gesucht wurden” (Beschreibung des Oberamts Ulm, 1836, 95). (The very good trade was founded by Jak. Glöcklen of Ulm in 1733, whose pipe heads are very much sought after.) One hundred years later, Wolfgang Merkle in Gewerbe und Handel der Stadt Ulm (1988), called him “Der Begründer des Ulmer Pfeifenmacherhandwerks” (literally, the Originator of Ulm Pipemaker Handcrafts). Or, as another historian put it:

… Johann Jakob Glöckle, hatte 1733 eine besonders schöne Pfeife, die Ulmer Maserpfeife, kreiert, die schnell über die Grenzen Ulms hinaus Verbreitung fand. Der Pfeifenkopf wurde aus Wurzelholz ausgesuchter Bäume und Sträucher, wie u.a. Ahorn und Walnussbaum, hergestellt (Hans Eugen Specker, Ulm in 19. Jahrhundert, 1990, 114).

… [I]n 1733, Johann Jakob Glöckle had created an especially beautiful pipe, the Ulmer veined wood pipe, that quickly circulated beyond the borders of Ulm. The pipe head was fabricated out of root wood, selected trees and shrubs, such as maple and walnut. 

Greater fame, however, was garnered by another carver, Johann Jakob Gmünder, who advertised in the local press as a “Tabaks-Pfeiffen-Köpfe-Fabrikant in Ulm.”

The Ulmer was later manufactured in at least one other German town, Schwäbisch-Gmünd, but, wherever produced, this distinctive configuration would continue to be attributed to Ulm and to Glöckle. The scope of production is unknown, because there was no pipemaker’s guild and, factually, the earliest Ulm wood turners carved pipes when they needed to supplement their income. By 1789, about 20 Ulmer pipemakers were actively engaged in that city; the number increased to around 45 makers between 1797 and 1812. Starting with Glöckle’s prototype and for the next 120 years or so, the Ulmer was extremely popular among pipe smokers, but then the Ulmer was supplanted at about the middle of the 19th century by the increasingly popular porcelain pipe, the surge in meerschaum pipe production and the acceptance of a new innovation, the cigar, as an alternative mode of smoking. According to archival information, in 1870, only two Ulmer pipe smiths were active in Germany.

Please read the rest of this article in the pages of P&T magazine or in our online digital edition).

Richard Friedman’s home is the 96-foot yacht The Alaskan Song, anchored in Bellingham, Wash., in Bellingham Harbor, where he and his wife, Nancy, stay through the seven months of winter weather that keeps them from taking charters along the Alaskan coast, as they do the rest of the year. It’s February now—almost time to get back to work, if you can call boating in a luxury yacht along some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world “work.” Nancy is the chef; she prepares astonishing gourmet meals for the guests who charter the weeklong cruises, so her job is much harder than Richard’s. Sure, he makes noises about red tape and licenses, bookings, repairs and maintenance, but he’s too happy in his work for that to be taken seriously—one suspects that his main jobs are to steer, point at the fabulous wildlife that abounds along the coast and look like everyone’s expectation of a sea captain.

That rugged sea captain appearance is an archetype that we all recognize and that Friedman fits perfectly. With chiseled features, clear farsighted eyes and tousled gray hair, he’s tan and weathered while still seeming at least 10 years younger than his 61 years. The pipe helps too. It’s easy to imagine him effortlessly maneuvering his vessel through gale-force winds, pipe clenched tightly in his teeth, sneering at the sea’s fury, master and commander of all before him.

“My wife won’t let me smoke inside,” says the rugged captain, sitting down in the covered aft deck and lighting a Dunhill billiard, “so I smoke out here.” Well, maybe not a perfect archetype, but pretty close. And it’s easy to understand the smoking arrangement: The Friedmans are hosts to many different people throughout the year, some of whom might not appreciate pipe smoke. It’s a terrific smoking lounge anyway, just as nice as inside and nicer for those who enjoy the outdoors. Today it’s 50 degrees with wind gusts up to 60 mph, but it’s remarkably comfortable nonetheless; with the bow of the boat into the wind and the cabin sheltering the aft deck, it couldn’t be better.

It seems like an idyllic life, but Friedman paid high dues to get here. He spent 11 years as a commercial fisherman in Alaska, then 12 years in the insurance business. “I was a reasonably successful insurance guy,” he says, “but I missed the water.” Nancy recognized that he wasn’t happy, and in 1994 they made a courageous decision to change the lives of their family, which included their three sons, then aged 8, 7 and 5. “It had been our dream to take the boys cruising,” says Friedman. “So we sold virtually everything we owned. We sold the business, sold our house, bought a boat—a 60-foot Norwegian coastal rescue vessel that had been refitted as a yacht—and went on a two-year cruise around North America, all the way from Maine to Alaska. We homeschooled the boys and showed them how differently people lived in different regions. We visited historical sites everywhere.” It was an unparalleled education for all of them. “I count my blessings that I married the woman I did. For her to risk the security of her family for my happiness—for our happiness—to be willing to go to sea and cast our fates to the winds.”

octopus by Stephen Downie

After two years they were out of money, so a new plan was needed. It would have been easiest for Friedman to return to the insurance business, but that seemed like purgatory to him—he couldn’t live happily away from the water. They rented a house in Washington State and Friedman started chartering cruises along the Alaska coast on their boat. And he’s been doing that ever since.

When the charter business was going well they bought a house, but things still weren’t perfect, with Friedman away from home five months out of the year. “Five years ago the youngest of our boys left the nest,” he says, “and we found ourselves with this big empty house. It was always my dream to work with Nancy rather than be away from her so much. So we sold the house and sold the boat, and bought this boat, which we live on year-round.”

Last year the Friedmans did 14 weeklong charters, which is about average for them. “One of the things that’s made the business successful is that, because I was in the insurance business, I had computer skills. When we started we were literally the first charter yacht in the world that had a website—it’s been up since 1986. It’s an international business. In those early years almost all of our customers found us on the Web. Now probably 60 percent of our business is either repeat or referral.”

porpoise by Peter Heding

Something else The Alaskan Song offers that can be found nowhere else is the opportunity to examine Friedman’s pipe collection, a small part of which is on display in the pilot house of the boat. It’s a large collection that includes a remarkable genre of pipes: the sea creatures collection.

Please read the rest of this article in the pages of P&T magazine or in our online digital edition).

What is it about pipes that makes university students give up their academic aspirations and architects and designers, musicians and educators, stone masons and farmers alike quit their jobs and end their careers? It can’t be denied: Pipes are femmes fatales, seductive yet dangerous sirens whose call is irresistible to some of us mortals. And that fascinating chant resonates not only in the renowned contemporary breeding grounds of new pipemaking talent like the U.S. or Germany. As it happens, it managed to captivate a young computer technologist living in a tiny village in Alsace, on the eastern border of France adjacent to Germany.

In 2004, at age 23, David Enrique stumbles upon a pedestrian pipe in a flea market. It’s love at first sight and the beginning of a life-changing passion. Soon he discovers through the Internet the overwhelming diversity of tobacco blends and the jaw-dropping work of master carvers. He’s particularly impressed with Danish legend Tom Eltang and with Trever Talbert, whom he meets in the American expatriate’s Breton workshop. Simultaneously, Enrique discovers he’s not exactly alone in his enthusiasm for pipes when he becomes an active member of Fumeurs de Pipe, the leading online pipe-related newsgroup in the French-speaking part of the world. It’s in this forum that he presents his very first clumsy attempt at pipemaking in 2004. He shapes two more pipes with his Dremel and is hooked. Enrique senses he has found his vocation, especially after a short stay in Saint-Claude during which he is given the opportunity to visit the Genod workshop and to extensively watch Paul Lanier, one of the most skillful Sanclaudian old-timers, at work.

In April 2005 the young Alsatian crosses the Rubicon: He quits his job as a programmer and moves to Saint-Claude, hoping to find an apprentice job in one of the pipe factories of the town that once was considered the pipe capital of the world. A few days later he is hired by Chacom as a monteur, a worker who assembles the stummels and the stems. “When I look back on my Chacom days, I have mixed feelings,” Enrique remembers. “The whole learning process was more about speed and productivity than about achieving precision and excellence. Moreover, the working conditions could get really tough at times. During the long and harsh winter in the Jura mountains, I looked like the famous Michelin Man because I had to wear several layers of clothing in order to endure the cold in the almost unheated workshop. On the other hand, I managed to learn a lot of the basics because although I was supposed to concentrate exclusively on the craft of mounting pipes, I observed the routines of all my co-workers. That was extremely important to me, because by then I knew I wanted to establish myself as an independent pipemaker.” That’s why Enrique starts to spend his hard-earned money on tools that allow him to produce some pipes during his spare time made from stummels and modified blanks. And they sell immediately.

A year later, the aspiring young pipemaker gets one step closer to the realization of his dream: He is invited by Marco Biagini, who manufactures Moretti pipes, to spend a week in his company. “A fantastic week,” an enthused Enrique recalls. “Marco was a great tutor from whom I learned by doing rather than by watching: how to read a briar block and how to shape a pipe freehand style. It was a pleasure and a revelation.” And the education is immediately evident in his work. A few months later, Enrique attends his first pipe show, organized in Rheinbach by German pipe dealer Achim Frank. He brings a few handmade pipes that are examined by Bertram Safferling, Heiner Nonnenbroich, Frank Axmacher and Cornelius Mänz. When they learn these are his very first pipes made by hand, they are genuinely amazed. At the end of the day, Enrique leaves with half a dozen telephone numbers of prominent German carvers in his pocket and an invitation to study in Nonnenbroich’s workshop. “Heiner and his family were so welcoming. I’ll never forget their kindness. And it was with Heiner that I learned a lot about Scandinavian- and German-style shaping and, even more important, about the way of turning an Ebonite rod into one of those remarkably comfortable German stems.” The short training in Nonnenbroich’s workshop is a revelation: Enrique now understands that in the Chacom factory it is impossible for him to grow, so he quits. In July 2007, he sets up his own workshop in Saint-Claude and starts selling his work through the Internet. At last he’s an artisan pipemaker. Two years later he leaves the center of the French pipe industry and establishes himself in Le Vermont, a tiny village of 50 souls in the Vosges mountains surrounded by forests and grasslands. When Enrique comments on his move, he sounds rather bitter: “Why should I have stayed? It’s a Sanclaudian tradition to try to smother the emergence of new pipemakers. In Germany, Rainer Barbi never saw the upcoming generation of artisans as a threat. On the contrary, he shared all his knowledge and experience with whomever asked for his help. In America, young pipemakers get the opportunity to visit the workshops of established carvers, to ask for advice and to get some training. Take Trever Talbert or Todd Johnson, for example: They really share their skills. Actually, when I have a problem, I can contact Trever or Rad Davis. But in Saint-Claude there’s this omerta mentality: Everybody keeps their little secrets to themselves and hardly any experienced pipemaker will share his craft with a potential competitor. Pierre Morel seems to be the only exception.”

Today, four years later, Enrique is a respected and successful pipemaker. His order book is filled, and he sells his work to pipe enthusiasts all over the world. Although he has received proposals from several prestigious American and Asian retailers, he continues to prefer a business plan based on direct sales. “I work quite slowly, so I don’t manage to produce enough pipes to make a decent living if I have to sell them at wholesale prices. Of course I could raise my prices, but that’s something I’m not eager to do. Right now I have loyal customers who appreciate my price-quality ratio, and I won’t risk alienating them. Moreover, I really like the contact with my clients. I love to try to satisfy their requests and to take into account their feedback. That’s what allows me to grow and to get better.”

Please read the rest of this article in the pages of P&T magazine or in our online digital edition).

The worldwide pipe tobacco market may be relatively flat at the moment, but don’t tell that to folks at Mac Baren. The largest family-owned Danish tobacco company is excited about the future pipe tobacco market. Staffed by knowledgeable and dedicated tobacco people, Mac Baren has recently introduced 7 Seas, a new line of American-style aromatic tobaccos, and invested a large amount of money to purchase steam presses from defunct English tobacco manufacturers to revive traditional English-style blends.

Approving the additions to the Mac Baren factory and product line is Henrik Halberg, the fourth generation of the family to run the company. To some, making the investments to bring 7 Seas to market and purchase old steam presses may be something akin to tilting at windmills in today’s antitobacco climate, but to Henrik, it’s just a part of the family tradition.

Like many Svendborg families, the Halbergs depended on the sea for their livelihoods for generations. However, a young Harald Halberg decided that he was not cut out to be a seaman. Using some connections through his father, a captain who specialized in shipping tobacco, Harald purchased S. Bønnelycke, a Svendborg-based tobacco company, in 1887. Harald changed the name of the company, which had been established in 1826, to Harald Halberg Tobaks and Cigarfabrik.

It was Harald’s grandson, Jørgen, who would lead the company to international importance in the pipe tobacco market. Stranded in the United States at the outbreak of World War II, Jørgen found work at a series of American pipe tobacco factories. As he worked at these factories, he learned the American technique of aromatic tobacco production, using the casings and flavorings for blends such as VIP, Rum and Maple, Four Seasons and Mixture 79 that were in vogue in the 1940s. These were full-bodied Burley-heavy blends—pipe tobaccos that were unknown to the Danish market. At the war’s end, Jørgen returned to the family business in Denmark. Using the techniques he learned in the U.S., he created aromatic tobaccos for Danish consumption, including Mac Baren Golden Blend in 1950 and Mac Baren Mixture in 1958. The company’s sales soared and the company became synonymous with the Mac Baren brand name—so much so that Henrik changed the company’s name to Mac Baren in 1995.

While Jørgen capitalized on the techniques he had learned in the 1940s, American manufacturers were seeking new ways to flavor tobacco, especially after the U.S. surgeon general’s 1964 report detailing the health effects of smoking cigarettes spurred a pipe boom. Manufacturers had begun to use more food flavorings on the tobacco, but these really didn’t change the fundamental blends that were available at the time.

In the early 1970s a tobacco company experimented with a tobacco that was mostly seen as a filler tobacco—Green River Burley. The tobacco manufacturer discovered that steaming the Green River Burley neutralized the tobacco’s natural flavor and increased its ability to absorb other flavors. With new changes to the top flavor, this resulted in a milder tobacco with less tobacco taste and a nicer room note, and it tended to cause less tongue bite.

The tobacco manufacturer used the discovery in new bulk tobacco blends. With this new process, the American-style tobacco was born. Other pipe tobacco companies learned of this discovery and followed suit, revolutionizing the concept of American-style aromatic tobaccos, with new tobaccos hitting the market throughout the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.

With the consolidation of the tobacco industry beginning in the middle of the 1990s, some of those popular aromatic American-style blends began to disappear. With more blends vanishing from tobacco bars at an alarming rate, Henrik; Per Jensen, Mac Baren’s product specialist; and Frank Blews, the national brand manager of Mac Baren for its U.S. distributor, Phillips & King, saw an opportunity to fill a void in the still-popular product segment with the introduction of its 7 Seas pipe tobaccos.

“If you look at what has happened with all the consolidation of the tobacco companies in the U.S., you will see a decrease of product availability and a lack of industry interest in pipe tobacco products,” says Blews, an extremely knowledgeable tobacco industry veteran who worked with Lane Ltd. for years before joining Phillips & King. “We feel like that gives us an opportunity to fill the void. If a smoker gives us a chance, we feel that the quality of tobacco plus the procedures in use make an excellent smoke.”

Mac Baren began working on the 7 Seas concept in 2007. Accustomed to using the flavoring and casing techniques brought back to Denmark by Jørgen in the 1940s, Jensen and the rest of Mac Baren’s tobacco development team had to learn the style developed in the U.S.—not so much the technique that had revolutionized American-style aromatic blends but how it affected tobaccos differently. With a vast variety of tobaccos with which to experiment, the product developed at a slow pace. Mac Baren was committed to developing 7 Seas the right way.

“They’re a great company to work with,” Blews comments. “This is a tobacco company. Tobacco people make decisions here, not some financial person who doesn’t know anything except for bottom lines. They have the commitment to create a great product.”

If anyone wishes to doubt that commitment, all he needs to do is visit the Mac Baren factory on the outskirts of Svendborg. The campus takes up space on both sides of the road, with offices and production facility on one side and several large tobacco warehouses on the other.

While many pipe tobacco collectors acquire their prized specimens by the tin, Henrik gathers his tobaccos by the ton. Each year, he travels the world seeking tobacco. The evidence of his journeys eventually finds its way to Svendborg, where it will age for at least two years before it is considered ready for use.

Cardboard boxes and burlap sacks filled with tobacco are stacked from floor to ceiling in each of the warehouses. Stenciled on each tobacco container are the names of the countries that bear witness to Henrik’s apparently massive frequent flyer account—Brazil, China, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Zaire, Zambia, the U.S. and so many others are represented inside Mac Baren’s warehouses.

If that wasn’t enough to satisfy most tobacco men, there’s even a section of a warehouse where Henrik stores the really rare tobaccos that he occasionally stumbles upon during his travels and purchases just because he can. He may not have a need for that rare or aged variety at the moment, but who knows what future blends may demand. In this special section, there are even a number of hogsheads filled with dark-fired Kentucky that was cultivated in 1974 and is used sparingly in Mac Baren’s HH series.

“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen tobacco packed in hogsheads?” Blews marvels. “The tobacco industry started to phase them out in the 1970s.”

With the vast selection of tobacco available to them and a deep understanding of the tobacco production process, Mac Baren’s product development team worked four years to create the 7 Seas line of tobaccos.

“Jørgen Halberg had a saying—there is nothing scientific to creating a blend,” Jensen explains. “All you have to do is get your thoughts right, follow through with your ideas and then fill one pipe after another until you finally have it. That is what we have been doing; take the tradition of what we knew to create something that we had never done before. That was the challenge, and it involved everyone in the company. The mixture of the raw tobaccos was completely different from what we normally use. Casing was the next item that we had to solve. And then the final step was to experiment with the top noting. We found out that the tobacco needed three more weeks of aging after the top noting was done, otherwise the flavor would not marry properly. Our target was to develop a fully aromatic line of pipe tobaccos that had a consistent taste from when you first lit it to when all the tobacco was gone. At the same time it should be mild, meaning that we had to look very carefully at the raw tobaccos. That was the main task that we had to solve.”

One of the early decisions Mac Baren made was that, instead of using the traditional Green River Burley for 7 Seas, it would use Virginia tobacco, marking a distinct departure from most American-style aromatic tobaccos.

“They have Green River Burley, but they found that the Virginia worked better for what they wanted to achieve,” Blews explains. “They’ve always been tobacco people, and the quality of the tobacco in all their blends is very important. When I first talked to them, they told me that they would not use Green River Burley because they considered it a low-end tobacco. The quality of the Virginia tobacco really complements the blend and gives it a little bit crisper taste and a smoother smoke. The Virginia is fermented the same way that cigar leaves are fermented. Then there is a little bit of heat added to it. That’s pretty unique.”

Currently, there are five varieties of 7 Seas available—7 Seas Royal, 7 Seas Regular, 7 Seas Gold, 7 Seas Red and 7 Seas Black. The tobaccos are available in colorful tins as well as 1-pound and 5-pound bags for bulk tobacco bar purchases. 

“We feel that these tobaccos can sit on any shelf in the U.S. and be accepted by the American taste segment,” Blews comments. “Even though some of them are similar in taste, all of them have a fresh, crisp taste to them that’s slightly different. The bulk tobacco is a big potential market for the product. It’s currently competitively priced in the bulk tobacco market. We’re pleased that the tins have been so well received in the smoke shops. If you look at traditional tins, there are very few American-style aromatics available in tins.”

Please read the rest of this article in the pages of P&T magazine or in our online digital edition).

In this interesting and eclectic tasting, we decided to review some new offerings as well as an established but perhaps not particularly well-known line of tobaccos. Villiger International, based in Switzerland and established in 1888, has long been associated with an excellent line of Dutch-style cigars and dry-cured cigarillos. In recent years, the company has expanded its line of premium long-filler cigars manufactured in the Dominican Republic. Concurrently, the company has teamed up with Peter Stokkebye International, a Danish firm founded in 1882 and one well-known to pipe smokers worldwide. This joint endeavor—Villiger Stokkebye International—has introduced a line of pipe tobaccos blended by Stokkebye and featuring an intriguing combination of English, Danish and Dutch styles.

As long as we were exploring things with historic import, we simply had to try the resurrected Balkan Sobranie Original Mixture, blended by J.F. Germain and distributed by Michael Gold’s Arango Cigar Co.—a firm, I should mention, that is making an admirable effort to expand access to high-quality pipe tobaccos. This is not simply an attempt to recreate a revered old blend, but a rare situation in which the rights to the original formula were obtained and followed. It has always perplexed me how stingy the tobacco companies that own the rights to classic and long-departed blends like John Cotton’s, Baby’s Bottom or Sobranie 759 have been with sharing those formulae so they can be re-created by companies actually willing to blend and sell them. Most of the time, these recipes sit gathering dust in some corporate archive. So it was a treat to sample an authentic re-creation of a classic blend.

Finally, we wanted to review Erik Nording’s Hunter Blend series of pipe tobaccos. The line, blended by McClelland Tobacco, has been around for awhile but hasn’t received the attention we believe it deserves. In fact, the line seems to have been generally unavailable for several years, but the good news is that it’s back, and you’ll find some pleasant surprises if you read on.

Balkan Sobranie Original
Gage: You have to love the tin, which faithfully if not exactly reproduces the old Sobranie artwork, including the Romany women (one smoking a cigar) and the little caravan of wooden wagons. The flat 50-gram tin is appealing, as is the crimped white paper that envelops the tobacco.

Recreating an old blend is always challenging, and Sobranie Original apparently offered a moving target. In the case of Sobranie Original, veteran smokers who puffed on the old stuff in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s say there were regular changes in the blend—particularly in the amount of Latakia used. However, this blend was always an Oriental-forward tobacco, with Latakia used as a condimental flavoring. This current iteration of the blend is an attractively mottled combination of black Latakia, tan and even lightly green Oriental leaf, and a hint of Virginia. The tin aroma delivers the light sweetness of the Oriental leaf. While there is a decided aroma of smoky Latakia, that subsides into the background when smoked.

The medium-fine ribbon cut lights easily and settles in quickly. The cut makes it a great blend for Fred Hanna’s air packing method, in which you cram a plug of tobacco into the pipe but leave a completely tobacco-less section at the very bottom of the bowl. The tobacco burns perfectly, eventually collapsing on itself and smoking cool from start to finish. But it works well with a variety of packing methods, and in large or small briars. It is quite delicate in flavor, and it performed well with more neutral pipe materials like meerschaum, clay and even cob.

Sobranie Original is very pleasant and exceptionally mild and cool smoking. The challenge facing all of today’s blends relying heavily on Orientals is a dearth of high-grade varietal leaf. Sadly, the many types of Oriental and Macedonian leaf that were once available are simply not grown anymore. For this reason, the Oriental leaf in Sobranie Original is a bit mono-dimensional. Yenidje, the “Queen of Orientals,” which played a key role in the old Sobranie Original, seemed to be missing. I wasn’t looking for the musky intensity of the more intense Oriental tobaccos like Basma, because that wasn’t what Sobranie Original was about. Sobranie Original is a credible re-creation and a very fine blend.

Harb: According to the label, this is a reintroduction of the Original Smoking Mixture. There is a temptation to compare any iteration of this well-liked blend to others that have come before it, but such a comparison is not the intent of this review. The tin aroma is definitely that of a rich Oriental blend that also contains some Latakia and a base of Virginia tobaccos. I found the cut to be mixed, with the majority of the tobaccos presented as tangles of long ribbons that were almost a shag cut. In the pipe, the Orientals gave the blend a robust zest on the palate that stimulated with growing waves of intensity, and with a faint bitterness. These are two characteristics that I enjoy. The Virginias in the blend added some sweetness, and the Latakia gave the blend a pungent complexity. The flavor profile was similar throughout the bowl. This blend, The Balkan Sobranie, smoked smooth, rich and dry to a fine gray ash. Even with the thin ribbons, there was little tendency to overheat.

Nording Hunter Blend Beagle
Gage: I love to get input from my pipe aficionado friends, and when I got a glowing recommendation of this blend from one of my pals who has tried every Virginia tobacco on Earth, I needed no more incentive to suggest the entire line for review. This is a truly overlooked tobacco that Virginia fans should buy, smoke and cellar. In the tin, this lightly broken Virginia-Perique flake has a fudgy aroma and density. Flecks of golden-orange Virginias are visible in the sliced cakes. It is not particularly moist, but it is dense. This combination flake and pre-rubbed tobacco begs to be loaded into your pipe with large chunks and a few of the rubbed-out flakes to facilitate lighting and burning.

From the start, Beagle simply bays with Virginia depth. It burns exceptionally cool for any all-Virginia blend, delivering loads of raisin and bittersweet chocolate flavor. If you find the intense flavors of some of McClelland’s heavily stoved mixtures like Christmas Cheer or Dark Star daunting, this will give you all the sweetness and character without quite so much tang. Besides that absolutely unique flavor of quality stoved Virginia, it offered hints of dark chocolate and dried cherries.

The citrusy flavor of the unstoved orange Virginia leaf is evident in the first half of the smoke. But in the second half, the very smooth Perique became a more assertive component of the flavor profile, while the orange Virginia brightness subsided. Beagle is somewhat similar to Beacon Extra (an excellent McClelland product incorporating stoved Virginia and Perique), but also distinctive, with less pronounced Perique. The cake aging sets up this mixture to deliver when purchased, but this is one that should sing if you give it a couple years of cellaring.

Harb: Produced by McClelland for the Nording series, Beagle is a partially broken flake that features matured orange and red Virginias that are spiced with Louisiana Perique. The Virginias give the aroma a rich sweet and citrus note, and the Perique lends tartness to the aroma. Once charred, a citrus flavor emerged that was nicely complemented by the mellowness of the red Virginia. The overall flavor level continued to develop depth toward mid-bowl, and the Perique blossomed as I progressed further down the bowl for a nice finish. On a second tasting, I let the blend dry more and got a light chocolate note, with the Perique emerging earlier in the bowl. Beagle is a smooth blend with body that is not overwhelming, and it smoked dry with no bite.

Nording Hunter Blend Retriever
Gage: With meaty chunks of black Cavendish offset by fine and medium ribbon-cut Virginia, this aromatic blend delivers a light honey and caramel tin aroma without masking the smell of aged Virginia leaf. The light casing meant the tobacco didn’t clump when pinched together, and it’s always nice to smoke an aromatic that still smells like tobacco. This dappled mixture packs easily and lights just like a nonaromatic. It seems most of the aromatic flavor is carried by the cake-aged Cavendish, which provided a pleasing duet between the honey-vanilla taste of the Cavendish and more straightforward Virginia tobacco flavors. The topping was light enough that it left very little scent in the tobacco bowl and burned cleanly to the end every time.

Nording Hunter Blend Fox Hound
Gage: This blend is an English wolf in a Danish sheep’s clothing. Clearly, the association with Danish pipemaker Erik Nording conjures up thoughts of Danish aromatic tobaccos. But if you’re looking for a medium-bodied English blend with superb Cyprian Latakia and top-notch Oriental and Turkish tobaccos, this is worth tracking down. The tin aroma is almost sweet—not from aromatic toppings but from the medium ribbon-cut tobacco itself. It’s simply excellent, beautifully aged leaf from the McClelland storehouse.

The premium-grade Latakia in Fox Hound has a smoky sweetness and none of the harshness found in some Latakia mixtures. It smelled so sweet, in fact, that despite it not being in the description, I wondered whether there was a bit of lightly cased black Cavendish sprinkled in. A sure way to tell is nibble the tobacco, and after going through numerous black nuggets, they were all Latakia. The Oriental and Turkish tobaccos deliver complex notes of musk and hay and an almost Virginia-like sweetness. Oriental leaf can be exceptionally sweet, if it’s the right stuff. If you enjoy a medium English blend and take the time to track this down, you’ll be in for a pleasant surprise.

Harb: Nording’s Fox Hound is described as a mild English-style blend featuring Cyprian Latakia and Orientals. The aroma from the tin is light, with the pungent Latakia nicely combined with the sweet and piquant Orientals. Once stoked to embers, it is the spice and tang of the Orientals that emerge as the primary flavors, with the smoky flavor of the Latakia underneath. This flavor profile remains the same through most of the bowl, with the Latakia contributing more at the finish. Fox Hound smoked smooth and dry to a soft gray ash. The intensity of flavor is mild, which would make this an all-day smoke for some. Fox Hound is a definite recommendation for your to-try list.

Villiger 1888 Cocktail Hour
Gage: Nobody does spun cut tobacco like Stokkebye, and I love those wonderful little disks. So popping the 50-gram tin and peeling back the crimped paper covering to reveal luscious circles of tobacco immediately got my attention. The mixture is a combination of disks and loose fine-cut ribbons, and I would probably have preferred all disks I could rub out myself, but I’m being picky. It seems Cocktail Hour is a cuvee of tobaccos: flue-cured Virginias from the U.S. and Brazil, African Malawi-grown Virginia leaf, and toppings of chocolate and pineapple.

It had a rustic, haylike tin aroma. Thankfully, in smoking this mixture, the topping flavor was positively nonexistent. It just tasted like great, straightforward Virginia goodness. The addition of the hearty Brazilian and Malawi tobaccos gives the blend some spicy punch and complexity reminiscent of a Virginia-Perique blend. The flavors were consistent from the first light to a smooth finish. I found a few hours of drying in the tin facilitated an even burn while ensuring enough moisture to promote a cool and easy burn.

Harb: This blend is presented as thin disks of dark-fired and sun-cured tobaccos. The tin aroma has a hint of chocolate and a sweet, light topping. The disks are easy to rub out and yield very thin ribbons that are easy to load. For the first tasting, I rubbed out the disks too finely, which promoted a fast, hot burn. On the second tasting, I didn’t rub them out as much, and this helped to maintain a slower, cooler burn rate. Cocktail Hour delivered a delicate flavor of chocolate and honey that continued to develop down the bowl and had a medium body level. I got a bit more flavor in a meerschaum pipe, which I think better matched the delicate flavors of this blend. It is not just for the cocktail hour; this blend can be enjoyed any time of the day and may be an all-day blend for some pipe smokers.

Villiger 1888 Early Day
Gage: Seems like everyone has their take on Dunhill’s Early Morning Pipe. Villiger’s medium fine cut shows off relatively balanced proportions of Latakia, several Virginias and a blend of Orientals. While the tin aroma was dominated by Latakia, it was a smaller component in the flavor. The Oriental leaf tasted almost like Burley, with an earthy and haylike quality, while the Virginia tobaccos lacked a sweetness that might have added balance to the mixture. Unfortunately, the Latakia lent as much of a charcoal taste as the trademark campfire smokiness, leaving behind a dusty aftertaste.

 Harb: This blend is described as a classic English blend that includes Virginia, Oriental and Latakia tobaccos, and the tin aroma highlights a light pungency of the Latakia that is combined by spiciness from the Orientals and an underlying sweet mellowness from the Virginias.

The smoky Latakia was noticeable, but to my palate, it was the spices of the Orientals that were more prominent, with the Latakia and Virginia included in the flavor profile but participating under the Orientals. I found that the character of Early Day was consistent throughout the bowl, with the Latakia slightly more intense at the finish than it was during the majority of the bowl. The components are well balanced, so the blend is smooth. I would classify it more as an Oriental blend with a medium complexity and flavor level that would make it a good crossover blend for those seeking a change of pace from the more intense English blends.

Villiger 1888 Mid-Day
Gage: This short-ribbon mixture of tan and golden Virginias, Burley and a sprinkling of black Cavendish has a potent tin aroma of coconut, vanilla and raspberry. The mixture lit easily and the topping, which is listed as vanilla and exotic fruit, did not overpower the complexity of the base tobaccos. The Cavendish provided a lightly sweet accent to the Burley and Virginia. The topping flavor seemed closer to honey and raspberry. Mid-Day is definitely a Danish-style aromatic mixture, but one that shows enough restraint to let you taste the interesting blend of tobaccos. Still, this is definitely a mixture that needs to be smoked in a dedicated aromatic pipe, as it does leave behind some flavors. However, it burns clean and dry like an uncased tobacco.

 Harb: Mid-Day is another blend that is presented as fine ribbons, and it has a prominent vanillalike fruity aroma with a faint hint of coconut when the tin is opened. It needed to be dried a bit to minimize the tendency to overheat. The blend includes a touch of Oriental leaf that adds a delicate complexity, but the Oriental character wasn’t obvious until most of the topping had burned off. Mid-Day is a very smooth aromatic blend that has lots of flavor and sweetness and is a blend that produces a pleasant room note, particularly during the first half of the bowl. Once the aromatic character began to fade around mid-bowl, the flavors of the underlying tobacco emerged.

Please see the rest of the spring issue’s tobacco reviews in the pages of P&T magazine or in our online edition.

]]> http://pipesandtobaccosmagazine.com/2012/03/trial-by-fire-3/feed/ 0 http://pipesandtobaccosmagazine.com/2012/03/cast-out/ http://pipesandtobaccosmagazine.com/2012/03/cast-out/#comments Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:08:12 +0000 cstanion http://pipesandtobaccosmagazine.com/?p=712 When the world was young, Adam and Eve enjoyed an existence like no other. The weather was perfect, the animals friendly (except for one), and the tobacco was delicious beyond our capacity to imagine. Tobacco grew wild in all varieties and was delectable right after drying, but even better after the Lord showed Adam how to cure and age it. Adam fashioned pipes from the heath trees that the Lord showed him, with 4 mm drilling through the shanks, as the Lord instructed him. And Adam was happy.

The serpent, though, did not like smoke (scholars have identified the first serpent as an early variety of the California glantz snake, also known as the viperous smoke hater). “We both dislike Adam’s tobacco,” he said to Eve.

She hadn’t thought about it before. “Maybe he can build a garage and smoke in there.”

“There are wonderful-smelling things here in the garden,” said the serpent. “Perhaps if Adam used some flowers and fruits in his tobacco, it would be improved.”

Eve suggested it to Adam: “Why don’t you add some fruits and flowers to your tobacco so it smells better?”

“Woman,” he said, “your senses have left you. My tobacco smells perfect as it is. The Lord Himself approves. It shall not be defiled.”

“Then you must smoke only at the tar pit,” she said. “It already smells bad there and you can do no harm.”

Adam hated the tar pit, so he started experimenting with fruit juices and various flowers until his tobacco smelled like cheap incense. “That’s much better,” said Eve.

Adam disagreed. “It tastes awful and smells strange. What’s that word you made up last week to describe fresh wildebeest dung?”

“Aromatic.”

“Yes, that’s it. That’s what my tobacco is now: aromatic.”

“Well, I like it,” said Eve. But her contentment was easily disrupted. “It still smells bad,” said the serpent.

“It’s acceptable,” said Eve.

“It’s a public nuisance,” said the serpent. “But there is one flavoring that can make tobacco smell wonderful. It’s called apple, from the fruit of the great tree.”

“Adam,” said Eve later that day, “your tobacco is still putrid. I think you need to flavor it with apples from the great tree.”

“Nay, foul harridan, for the Lord has said not to. You were there. He said, ‘But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, nor flavor thy tobacco with it. Leave that tree alone.’”

“Then you can smoke over at the tar pit. I don’t want you smoking anywhere else in the garden.”

So Adam smoked on a tar-encrusted rock in the one corner of the garden he didn’t like. The tar pit belched awful stenches and bubbled and spat at him, and he was discontent. “This is unnatural,” he told Eve. “I’m the man. This is my garden. I should smoke wherever I like.”

“You are indeed the man, my husband. But it is also your duty to keep me happy. And you know what happens when I am unhappy.”

Adam grimaced. “You mean what doesn’t happen.”

So Adam picked the apples and flavored his tobacco with them. But the Lord, walking through the garden, smelled the apple aromatic rather than the natural tobacco He preferred. Knowing the source of this modification, He cast the couple from the garden.

From that day, throughout history, people who believe themselves godlike have cast smokers from their places of solace, from their taverns, restaurants and clubs, their shops and offices, and sometimes from their very homes—all because of a snake with a superiority complex and ulterior motives.

If you’ve never attended the Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana show, chances are you’ve never heard of The Briar & The Burley, a full-service tobacco shop located in Bloomington, Ind., that has a selection of pipes matched by very few tobacco shops in the United States. Mike Fisher, proprietor of The Briar & The Burley since 1972, attends the show regularly, displaying part of the wide selection of briar pipes and tinned tobaccos that he sells from his shop located just a few blocks away from Indiana University.

“I do the pipe show in Chicago,” the 64-year-old Fisher explains. “It’s a neat show and it’s great to see so many people who are as passionate about pipes as I am. Of course, I spend more damn money at the show than I make. I always find something I have to have.”

Fisher has something of a collector’s mentality because that’s how he got started in the premium tobacco business, opening a 375-square-foot store that was just one block from campus. After spending eight years earning undergraduate and graduate degrees at IU, Fisher took a job working for an apartment management firm. While a student at IU, Fisher had picked up pipe smoking. As he developed his palate, Fisher sought tobaccos that weren’t readily available in Bloomington. Tired of making the roughly 50-mile drive north to Indianapolis for the premium tobaccos and high-grade pipes he sought, Fisher considered opening his own store. Bloomington being a college town, Fisher reasoned that it needed a premium tobacco shop.

While still working at the apartment management firm, Fisher opened The Briar & The Burley. His father-in-law minded the shop when Fisher was engaged with his primary job’s responsibilities, and Fisher worked at the shop on nights and weekends.

While he worked a grueling schedule between a full-time job and being a business owner, Fisher enjoyed it. And when the apartment firm decided to sell the complex to another firm, Fisher found out that his services would no longer be needed.

“I found out on a Wednesday that I would be out of a job by that Friday,” he says with a smile spreading across his face. “I was out of a job, so I made this my profession. Forty years later I’m still doing it.”

And the business has grown and evolved throughout the years. From that original 375-square-foot space, Fisher moved into a bigger store even closer to campus. Then he had an opportunity to rent a space at Bloomington’s College Mall, where he stayed for 23 years until the mall changed its policy regarding smoking inside his store. Fisher then moved to Fountain Square, where the Monroe County Courthouse is located. This past summer, he moved a few doors down to his current location, a 3,200-square-foot space that was once a bank building, on the corner of College and Kirkwood Avenues, perhaps Bloomington’s busiest intersection.

“Downtown Bloomington is pretty amazing for a small town,” Fisher explains. “Downtown is just thriving. You have a Hilton and a Courtyard by Marriott here. All the neat restaurants are downtown. Most downtowns are dying but Bloomington’s is thriving. This store probably is the prime location of all of downtown. Everybody coming to Bloomington for an IU game will come down College Avenue. Being on the corner of College and Kirkwood is the best location. When people come to town, they want to go to the mom-and-pop shops and restaurants.”

A jack-of-all-trades sort, Fisher built all of the display cases and cabinets in which he showcases his wares. Throughout the years, Fisher has added other items to complement his selection of premium cigars and pipes. He has become a seller of finer luggage and briefcases. He also displays men’s accessories, such as high-end shaving equipment. And then there is the Formula 1 and other racing series memorabilia and souvenirs, such as flags, die-cast car replicas and T-shirts for Ferrari, McLaren, BMW and Red Bull, that occupy a section of the store, surrounding Fisher’s 308 Ferrari, part of his car collection, which he plans to display inside his store periodically.

An amateur racer who regularly beat an Indianapolis 500 champion during his Formula Ford days and an avid car collector, Fisher explains why he sells such an odd, but cool, assortment of products.

Please read the rest of this article in the pages of P&T magazine or in our online digital edition).

When he was a pre-teen in Cub Scouts, Andrew Petersen was the kind of kid who won the local Pinewood Derby race every year. He and his stepfather devised a way to shave the plastic wheels on their pinewood car with an Exacto knife to a fine V-shaped point, thus eliminating surface drag and sending their vehicle barreling down the track at the annual event at winning speeds. The other kids and their dads tried to copy the ingenious design, but none could exactly reproduce the perfection of the Petersen Pinewood racer.

When the rest of us were building basic models from plastic kits we got at the hobby shop, Petersen and his father were building entire Starship Enterprises and Klingon Warbirds with hundreds of pieces, custom paint jobs and lighted windows. Andy was creating bird houses and gun racks while his father made stereo cabinets and his mom renovated antique furniture. Woodworking, you could say, was always a big part of the Petersen household’s daily routine.

So was smoking. Andy started with cigarettes in the eighth grade and worked his way up to three packs a day until he quit all at once in April 2007. His whole family smoked, but his greatest influence was his grandfather, who was rarely to be seen without a Peterson bulldog clenched in his mouth. A neighbor smoked a Dunhill with Captain Black tobacco, while Andy’s dentist puffed away on a straight billiard in the middle of teeth cleaning. When he quit cigarettes, Andy gravitated almost immediately to pipes and cigars.

“As soon as I found out how much flavor a pipe offered, I decided I had been wasting my time with cigarettes,” Petersen says. “I went out and spent $65 on a Stanwell Golden Danish in 2007, studied it for awhile, and thought that it didn’t look all that hard to make.”

The thought wouldn’t go away, in fact. After years away from woodworking, toiling at a variety of jobs such as a mechanic, truck driver and trash hauler, Petersen was looking for a change, or at least an after-hours diversion. He found it in pipes, and in short order was spending a good bit of time on the Internet soaking up any shred of instruction and technique he could find from various pipemakers’ forums. He’s turned out to be a quick study. In just a few years Andy Petersen has built a promising, thriving business under the title Quad City Pipes, named for the four cities straddling the Mississippi where Petersen has lived practically his entire life (he’s 42)—Davenport and Bettendorf on the Iowa side and Moline and Rock Island on the Illinois side.

The Quad City table had been easy to miss along the back wall each spring at the Chicago Pipe Show, but then Petersen jumped into the big leagues of pipemaking in 2010 when a half-bent blast volcano of his was selected by judges at the Kansas City Pipe Show to be encased in a special seven-day pipe set for charity alongside creations from such industry luminaries as Michael Parks, Bruce Weaver and Tonni Nielsen. There were some 36 different pipemakers competing for the seven-day honor.

“My jaw hit the floor when I was selected. I was a nobody. The name A. Petersen signed on the pipe wasn’t recognized by any of the judges, I’m sure,” Petersen says now. “This was the biggest pat on the back anybody could have given me. It has been a huge morale-booster.”

Nonetheless, making a success of Quad City Pipes has been no slam dunk since. Partner and childhood friend Mike Olsen, himself a woodworker and budding pipe enthusiast, had to drop out when he contracted a rare muscle disease that left him unable to work a lathe. The 42-year-old Olsen still helps maintain the Quad City Pipes website, which is surprisingly detailed and sophisticated for such a small business, and continues to turn out tampers as a sideline.

“With my disease I can’t work on things like stems anymore—that requires holding on to a file for an extended period of time,” says Olsen, who still works a day job as an electrician. Meantime, he’s proud of his best friend Petersen’s growing expertise. “Andy’s work gets better every week. He is a traditionalist, and so most of his pipes are fairly conservative in style. I’d like to see him do some more off-the-wall stuff eventually, and maybe he will. But for now, he’s turning out a hell of a product.”

There isn’t another pipemaker within 100 miles of the Quad Cities, so both Olsen and Petersen lacked access to any mentors who might have hired them on as apprentices when they got their starts back in 2007. Early on, Petersen made his way to Michael Parks’ website and ordered 28 blocks of briar, priced from $15 to $45 each. Then he tried to reproduce the processes he read about on pipemaker websites and blogs. He bought pipes on eBay to have some models for inspiration. He practiced drilling straight holes at the outset on scraps of wood. He made five pipes, then brought them to his first Chicago show in 2008.

“Alex Florov liked a few of my pipes. We talked about dos and don’ts. And I met people like Rad Davis and Brian Ruthenberg. They were all willing to share critiques of my pipes with me. Some of my air holes were off center. Some of my shanks were too narrow. I was making my share of mistakes, but that was OK with me at that early point. The other guys were encouraging me to continue,” Petersen remembers. “Some of the prices these guys were getting for their pipes blew me away. It suddenly came to me that this could be a pretty decent business.”

Petersen built himself a real workshop in the basement of his vintage home in Davenport, outfitted with a Midi wood lathe with special jaws for gripping briar along with belt sanders, chisels, drill presses, rasps and buffing wheels. And he ordered serious Italian briar from Romeo “Mimmo” Domenico, of Romeo Briars.

Through it all, however, Petersen hasn’t given up his day job as a trash hauler for Republic Waste Services. That’s led to an extraordinary household routine. The pipemaker is up at 2 a.m.
every day, working on briar in his basement for four hours before leaving for an early shift at work at 6 a.m. He works another 90 minutes in his basement after dinner before heading off to bed at 8 p.m. There’s little let-up on weekends: Petersen rises at his customary 2 a.m. and works until noon on Saturdays, then has a few beers while buffing stems in the afternoon.

His wife and daughter have adapted with little complaint. In fact, daughter Ayana, 15 years old and in ninth grade, is quick to give opinions on shapes and colors as a pipe progresses. Petersen figures he spends more than 30 hours a week on his pipemaking, with each pipe requiring 10 to 11 hours of attention from start to finish. He’d love to make the leap to full-time craftsman but worries about the loss of health benefits—he has a bad back—and the security of a big corporate employer. “The economy is so bad now that I just don’t see how I can make this a full-time living,” he says.

He has some patrons who continue to support him, at least in part. John Wittasek, a pipe collector and part-time refurbisher in suburban Cleveland, has acquired two dozen Petersen pipes since he met the pipemaker in Chicago in 2009. “I smoke at least one of his pipes every day. I own more than 70 pipes, but Andy is my No. 1 man,” Wittasek says. “His pipes are worth it. They’ve got great potential value. I think there will eventually be a resale market for Andy Petersen pipes, in fact. The award in Kansas City was the big step up he needed. He deserves more attention from the industry.”

Wittasek hasn’t slowed his ordering. He’s asked Petersen to make two monster Canadians, each at least eight inches long with five inches or more of shank. He’s also asking for add-ons like ribbon spacers and white acrylic stems. “Andy’s got the briar for these pipes,” Wittasek says. “Any other pipemaker would charge me at least $800 for what I want. But Andy will charge me closer to $500. He’s been very fair with his prices. I told him to keep his prices low until he’s better known. Get them off the table at shows and into people’s mouths. Once they smoke them, as I have, they’ll be back for more.”

For now, Peterson produces about 40 to 50 pipes a year at an average price of around $200, though some go for as much as $350 without custom details. About half are blasts and the other half smooths. He hasn’t graded his pipes so far but is considering a one, two and three tobacco leaf system to separate his pipes by quality, not size. Early on, a local tobacco retailer, Baker’s Street in Davenport, was an important venue for his pipe marketing, but the shop has lately downplayed its pipe business and Petersen has had to increasingly depend on pipe shows and his website, along with word-of-mouth among clients, to get his products sold.

Every block of wood is different, and you have to go where the wood takes you, Petersen likes to say. He’ll keep cutting and sanding around pits and blemishes; none of his pipes have any fills. “I’ve taken an 8-ounce block of wood and ended up with a 1-ounce little acorn pipe because I kept running into pits,” he explains.

Who are his influences? Parks is one, Teddy Knudsen is another. But he isn’t out to copy anybody. “I like to take somebody else’s ideas and then put my own twist on them,” he says.

His biggest influence is almost certainly Florov, though their styles don’t look anything alike. Petersen professes no great genius at the lathe. But “Alex is a musician writing symphonies with the way his pipes flow into unique shapes,” Petersen says admiringly.

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One Thanksgiving we learned about Side-Hill Gulchers: horrible camel-sized carnivores with teeth like scimitars, the legs on one side of their bodies shorter than on the other so they could run efficiently around the sides of mountains. They weren’t good at running up or down hills, but if they caught you they would bite off one of your feet so you would be doomed to never running uphill again too.

One Christmas we learned all about Appalachian Slavering Porcupods: over-salivating creatures that balled themselves up and rolled downhill like spiky sloshing water balloons in pursuit of errant children, shooting poison-dripping quills in all directions and latching onto victims to devour them in an agony of spit and acupuncture.

Grandpa always smoked a pipe when he told stories. He used it to get his timing right, to provide a natural pause to build suspense as he relit or tamped. One stormy Christmas evening we were all sitting around the fire between stories as Grandpa refilled his pipe from the big tin of Granger that always sat on the mantle. “What’s that other tin?” asked my brother. “You never use that one.” It was a large tin of Carter Hall layered with dust.

“That’s not tobacco,” said Grandpa. “Never, ever touch that, if you value your lives.”

“What’s in it?”

Grandpa took down the tin and weighed it in his hand. “What’s in here,” he said, “are the ashes of a Ouija board that was used to talk with the spirits of the dead.” We all huddled closer.

“My parents first used this Ouija board to try to talk with my dead brother,” said Grandpa. “But the night they tried, all kinds of other spirits arrived. Ghosts tore off all the cupboard doors. They scared all the hair completely off our cat, who had to wear a sweater until it grew back. All the paint in the living room peeled, and all the water pipes burst from being flash frozen. My mother couldn’t speak at all for weeks afterward, and my father was so scared he took the Ouija board outside and burned it.

“But everyone knows you can’t throw away the ashes of a Ouija board or the spirits will haunt you forever. No, you have to contain the ashes and never handle them or look at them again. You all know my sister Agnes, right?”

“The lady with white hair who lives at the asylum?”

“That’s right. Her hair turned white and she went insane one Christmas evening just like this, when she was 11 years old and looked inside this very tin. I shouldn’t even be handling it now. Just holding it is enough to make evil spirits come after me. I could be possessed at any minute. So never touch this object, children,” he said, “or you too could go insane from fear.” He puffed on his pipe for a moment. Then he shook a little all over and his eyes went blank. Suddenly he seemed to snap awake. He laughed a deep and diabolical laugh, and he tossed the tin through the air directly to me.

Thus began my childhood issues with bladder control.

–Chuck