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.

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

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

Solani Aged Burley Flake

Gage: In keeping with the theme of fall, is there anything more appealing than the toasty, musky aroma of autumn leaves or the sweet smell of harvested and baled hay? These sliced flakes offer a virtuoso visual palette. Dark brown aged Kentucky, bright white Burleys from Brazil and golden African Malawi Burley swirl together in perfectly cut slices that look like a combination of a pile of autumn leaves and a photograph of Jupiter. Like Jupiter, the taste is out of this world. Perfectly moist out of the tin, you can prepare the flakes in a number of ways: cubed, lightly rubbed out, torn in strips or left as whole flakes. I felt the tobacco burned better and required less relighting when lightly rubbed out than as larger flakes, with no appreciable difference in taste.

Aged Burley Flake is another fine Solani offering from Rudiger Will, imported by Monjure Interational. Will—who must have one of the best tobacco slicing machines on the planet—has created an artisan product. The quality of the flakes is on par with other Will products like Reiner Long Golden Flake. I could default to the usual description of this Burley product as “earthy,” and while it does have that quality, smoking this tobacco is more like burying yourself in a mound of hay that has been sitting in a field under the sun for a couple of weeks. There is nothing quite like the sweet, vegetal and light cocoa (not from any aromatic addition!) taste this tobacco delivers.

With the demise of Edgeworth Sliced and Orlik’s Dark Kentucky Flakes, the two artisan Burley flakes left standing are Solani’s product and Esoterica’s Stonehaven (blended by J.F. Germain & Son, even though this incorporates some Virginia leaf). Aged Burley Flake delivers a mellowness that borders on sweetness—not a sugary sweetness, but more the sweetness of good earth, growing plants and a wafting of barnyard homeyness. It’s grassy and haylike, with loamy forest and mushroom overtones. This elegant tobacco should appeal even to those who don’t generally care for Burley. If you plan to make it an occasional treat rather than a regular tobacco, I’d recommend storing the flakes in a small Mason or Ball jar to preserve the moisture. It loses a lot of subtlety if the flakes become dry.

Harb: In this blend, aged Burley has been toasted and specially processed for sweetness, then layered to form a flake. The flakes were a bit moist in the tin and had a light sweet and fruity aroma not usually expected with Burley blends. After a bit of air drying, the flakes broke apart and rubbed out easily. The special process used, the aging and the toasting gives the Burley a welcome depth of flavor with some complexity with no topping, and a medium aggression on the palate. Aged Burley Flake burned evenly and slowly for a cool smoke, with the same flavor characters staying to the end.

McClelland Blue Mountain

Gage: One of the Balkan Sobranie 759 “Throwdown” blends, Blue Mountain reflects Mary and Mike McNiel’s efforts to dissect and match the makeup of that old blend. The result is a very dark, slightly rustic medium ribbon cut with a pungent Latakia tin aroma. Interestingly, the blend utilizes only McClelland’s fine stock of Cyprian Latakia (no Syrian), which is appropriate when matching the 1980s 759 mixture. I’ve always wondered if 759 ever utilized Syrian Latakia or whether it was always Cyprian. Friends say it has been an exclusively Cyprian Latakia mixture since at least the 1960s. The moisture content of a freshly opened tin is fine to slightly moist and can certainly be dried for a couple of days. However, these tobaccos are rich in oils, so aggressive drying will seriously diminish the flavor.

The blend delivers flavors of deeply roasted meat, wood smoke and rich soil from the Latakia and Orientals, while the Virginia leaf contributed a black-currant jam character. The blend has undercurrents of sweetness from the aged red and orange Virginias I believe McClelland used: just enough to support the Latakia and Oriental tobaccos but not enough to establish their own voice. The Oriental leaf lends a pleasing yeasty character to the mixture. It’s hard to chase a legendary tobacco, especially when the last tins were produced nearly two decades ago. But the McNiels’ careful analysis of the mixture and the use of top-notch aged leaf certainly produced a worthy remake of a classic.

Harb: Blue Mountain is another of the contestant blends in the Balkan Sobranie throwdown in Chicago and was the winning blend in the People’s Choice voting as the blend most closely resembling the aged Balkan Sobranie sample. The composition is medium-tan ribbons and clumps of dark brown to black tobaccos in roughly a 30 percent to 70 percent ratio. The aroma in the tin is sweet and spicy, with the distinct character of Latakia. Once charred, the flavor was lightly sweet and spicy, with a leathery note of rich Latakia. The Orientals slowly developed and built up as I progressed to mid-bowl. Past mid-bowl, the Orientals faded slightly, letting the Latakia flavor participate more in the smoke, but toward the bottom of the bowl, the Orientals had seasoned the underlying tobaccos for a more intense finish. Blue Mountain would satisfy those who relish the Oriental blends, but it would also attract those looking for a slant toward an English-style blend.

H&H Marquee Black House 

Gage: Blender Russ Oullette took a very different approach to the throwdown challenge. Working off the character of the blend rather than the exact composition, he created a mixture that captured the bold character of 759 while taking Black House in a very different direction. While the blend incorporates the traditional elements of Cyprian Latakia, Virginias and Orientals, it also features Kentucky Burley and toasted black Cavendish—certainly tobaccos not found in the original mixture. Not as laden with Latakia as Sobranie 759, the mixture has a soft tin aroma that carries nearly as much Burley and Oriental aroma as it does Latakia.

Still, when stoked up, it’s clearly a stout, full Balkan blend. Featuring outstanding smoke volume and easy to keep lit, all the tobaccos in Black House contribute different flavors. The Virginias lend little sweetness to the mixture, the Oriental leaf and Burley deliver up toast and roasted nuts, while the black Cavendish adds a distinctive black pepper element. The result is an interesting American-style Balkan mixture with an appealing flavor—a tip of the cowboy hat to the English Bowler that was Sobranie 759.

Harb: This is one of the contestant blends developed for the Balkan Sobranie throwdown held during the Chicago Show in May, and it was the judges’ choice as the blend most closely resembling the aged Balkan Sobranie sample. It is a mix of light to medium-brown tobaccos in roughly a 50-50 ratio. The aroma is slightly sweet and spicy, with a light earthiness and smokiness of Latakia. At the charring light, the smoke was lightly sweet, pungent and spicy in one tasting, but less spicy in another tasting. The character of the Latakia was underneath the Orientals. As I progressed to mid-bowl, I enjoyed the slight bitterness that developed and the way the Orientals continued to dominate the blend. Black House is rich and flavorful, smokes smooth and dry, and leaves a nice soft ash. It is a definite must-try if you like good Oriental blends.

H&H Marquee Sweet & Savory

Gage: This was not one of those “love at first light” mixtures for me. Although the blend features an array of tobaccos, including Virginias, Orientals, Perique and dark-fired Kentucky Burley, the relatively uniform tan color and slightly dusty tin aroma didn’t offer a lot of promise. My first bowl smoked easily enough, with good moisture content, nice smoke volume and a toasty, lightly nutty profile. Even with the dark-fired Burley, I found the nicotine impact to be minimal.

Of course, one date is never enough and so a second bowl was consumed. I started to pick up nuances I couldn’t assign specific flavors to: it was just appealing. After about the fourth date with Sweet & Savory, I realized how comforting and easy this blend was to smoke. I never found much sweetness, but something about the mixture kept calling me back. In the end, I’d say the appeal is akin to some of the old-timey drugstore blends, only with the complexity of taste and quality of tobaccos that appeal to a more sophisticated palate.

Harb: Yellow and red Virginias are the base tobaccos for this blend, lending a sweet aroma and flavor to the smoke. Dark-fired Burley is added to give the blend body, and Yenidje, Basma and Perique are added for spice and complexity. The result is a delicately spiced savory blend that is different and pleasant. None of the tobaccos added to the base are in a high-enough proportion to mask or subdue any of the other components. Rather, they work together to give the blend a delicate depth of flavor and complexity, and the dark Burley provides a lightly increased level of body. The Virginias are cut as short, thin ribbons, so caution is recommended to keep the temperature in control with a soft, smooth puffing rhythm.

H&H Marquee Magnum Opus

Gage: Once in a while, a skilled blender will develop a blend that simply raises the bar. This is the case with Magnum Opus. As delightful as many of Oullette’s blends are, this mixture is one of those real home runs that a blender can’t always dictate. Sometimes, it just happens. Out of the tin, this attractive mottled mixture of black Latakia, medium- and light-
colored Orientals, a smattering of Virginia leaf and a small dose of Perique is certainly not a unique combination. But in the correct proportions, these tobaccos can yield something magical. I won’t even try to diagnose the percentages of tobaccos utilized in this blend, but it all adds up to deliciousness.

The basic medium-cut ribbon is easy to pack and light, delivering significant smoke volume. Although the blender discusses separate contributions of Orientals like Izmir, Yendije and such, I couldn’t isolate any specific flavor profiles. A deep red wine character toyed with a wonderfully sweet and slightly musky character of excellent Oriental tobacco. Yes, there was that wonderful resonance of earthy barnyard (all the good and nothing of the bad) that offers the refreshing and pungent difference of a fine Oriental tobacco.

I thought this mixture did particularly well when allowed to rest 10 minutes or so after the charring light. This brief interlude, if you have the time, allows the Orientals to develop more sweetness and complexity. In addition, the mixture develops some lightly tart citrus flavors about halfway down the bowl. The medium ribbon cut is consistently good in any size pipe. I enjoyed the fresh, tangy aspect right from the tin, but it should age successfully for several years, allowing the Latakia to soften even further and the Virginias to gain a bit more prominence.

Harb: Hearth & Home combines yellow Virginia with Izmir, Basma, Yenidje and Perique as the base of this blend, then adds a moderate amount of Cyprian Latakia to create a medium to full English blend that has a good level of complexity and flavor. The tin aroma has the smoky earthiness of Latakia with underlying sweetness and a fruity note from the Orientals. At first light, Magnum Opus was sweet and spicy, but once stoked to embers, the Latakia emerged as dominant in the flavor profile. I liked the way the Orientals came to the forefront by mid-bowl, giving the blend more of a Balkan character. Magnum Opus is a good choice for the Latakia lovers as well as those who want a flavorful English/Balkan blend that doesn’t sacrifice the delicate character of the exotic Orientals. A must-try blend.

H&H Marquee Steamroller

Gage: Blended specifically for those who just can’t get enough nicotine in their pipe tobacco, Steamroller is aptly named. A hodgepodge of Virginia, dark Burleys, unflavored black Cavendish, Latakia and Perique, this mixture, when smoked, is like getting hit head-on by a freight train at full throttle. Described as Hearth & Home’s strongest tobacco, whatever taste or nuance may be present was completely lost on me. I felt like I was sampling a science project in which pure tar and nicotine was distilled into a dish I was then required to lick. Those with stronger stomachs than me may be able to find flavor in this blend. Not for the faint of heart.

Harb: Steamroller is described as the strongest blend made for the Hearth & Home lineup. It is composed of red Virginia, two different types of dark Burley, unflavored black Cavendish, Perique and Latakia, which is a light note in the aroma. The fruits of their efforts are apparent at first light, with the blend delivering a lot of body and depth of flavor. The depth toned down a bit by mid-bowl and became smooth but still aggressive on the palate. Pipe smokers looking for a blend with a kick will enjoy Steamroller.

H&H Marquee Lakeland Brickle

Gage: Do you smoke this tobacco or eat it with whipped cream? This big, chunky hunk of crumble cake tobacco looks, feels and smells like a gooey, buttery, caramel brownie lightly seasoned with rose water. A Lakeland-style blend isn’t familiar to me, although it seems to reflect a style developed in Northwest England’s Lake District, or Lakeland. Samuel Gawith and Gawith, Hoggarth & Co. are the only makers I know to have used the moniker for tobaccos. But the general idea is a fairly assertive Virginia blend with floral, spice and vanilla flavorings.

Oullette used the concept as a springboard to develop a tobacco with more complexity, more manageable strength and less perfume and soapiness than is often associated with the Lakeland style. Despite being exceptionally dense and moist, Brickle rubs out readily and burns well. It can be dried down a bit after rubbing out, but with natural flavorings and no humectants, it will dry out quickly. As Lakeland Brickle is available only in vacuum-sealed bags at this time, H&H recommends transferring to a Mason jar or zip-seal bag after opening. I preferred keeping it relatively moist and fully rubbing out the chunks. It’s too dense to slice or leave chunky.

Brickle is unabashedly aromatic. However, the aged Virginia and dark Burleys—caked under pressure—deliver significant sweetness and spice that would be appealing even without the flavoring. The rose and tonquin/vanilla top notes lend tones of orange peel, caramel, maple syrup and butter. What I really liked was as I puffed this blend, I concentrated more on the blend than the flavorings. Unlike some Lakeland-style blends, I found the nicotine entirely tolerable—even minimal. Although the toppings are natural and delicate, I would probably restrict this blend to meerschaums or briars dedicated to aromatic blends.

Harb: This blend combines red Virginia and dark Burley that is flavored with tonquin and scented with rose essence. It is then heat-treated under pressure, formed into a crumble cake and presented as thin slices. Once broken and rubbed out, the loose shards of tobacco are of a varied coarse cut. The flavors came through at first light as sweet and tart. The flavorings have been added with a light touch so that the underlying flavor of tobacco comes through. Once stoked to embers, the character of the Virginias emerges and the dark Burley adds both depth and body to the blend. Lakeland Brickle smoked smooth and dry, without the soapiness of other Lakeland-type blends. By mid-bowl, the flavorings began to fade, leaving the tobacco character to complete an enjoyable smoking experience.

H&H Lakeland Brickle Fortissimo

Gage: The addition of Perique and hints of lavender, clove and juniper berry to slightly bolder Burleys result in a blend with a bit more spice than regular Brickle. While the original tends to be more floral, Fortissimo reminded me of the spiced whiskey liqueur Drambuie or hazelnut-based amaretto. In fact, either of these liqueurs would be a marvelous accompaniment to Fortissimo. Processed in the same dense crumble cake fashion as the original, Fortissimo is a bit like a spiced crème brulee—creamy, lightly sweet and smoky. I definitely picked up the clove and lavender.

Purist English mixture smokers might recoil from the idea of a tobacco with so many flavorings. But a few aromatics come to mind that transcend the norm, such as the mango-nut-flavored Ashton Rainy Day, Cornell & Diehl’s Apricots & Cream or Bob’s Chocolate Flake by Gawith, Hoggarth & Co. Both H&H Lakeland blends have more than enough character to satisfy both aromatic and English blend lovers.

Harb: This is a modification of the Lakeland Brickle to satisfy those who want more flavor and aroma. Perique, juniper, lavender and clove have been added with a light touch to avoid the soapiness some don’t care for. Processed similarly to the Brickle, the blend is fruitier, sweeter and more flowery, and it has a bit more flavor depth and body. The flavors don’t fade as much as with the Brickle and remain in the smoke to the end. I think of this blend more as a variation rather than as a duplication of the Lakeland style. P&T

“So these are wooden instruments,” he said, “that you fill with tobacco and set on fire? Well, I think fire insurance is out.”

“Only the tobacco burns,” I said. “I’ve had some of these pipes for 30 years. They hold up fine, but they probably wouldn’t survive a house fire.”

“I’ve seen pipes in stores,” said Bill, “and they cost about $20. Your current insurance would cover that.”

“That’s what my wife thinks. But some of these pipes were handmade by skilled artists. Some have sentimental value. Some were gifts. I’ve actually been there and watched as some of them were made. They aren’t all valuable, but every one is an excellent smoker. They’re like fine art: totally irreplaceable.”

“So what’s their estimated value?”

That was a tough question. How do you place a monetary value on something that brings such contentment, something that has been a friend for decades? “I guess if I had to start collecting all over again from nothing and build a similar collection, it would take about a year’s salary.”

He whistled. “For pipes? That’s impressive. Wait—I’m looking at your financial statement now. Your salary is … oh my. I paid more than that for my dining room furniture.”

“Hey, I get a lot of perks too. I can smoke in my office—can you do that?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“You have a hobby?”

“I like scuba diving.”

“OK, imagine you could scuba dive in the most beautiful diving environment in the world right in your office any time you wanted—wouldn’t that be worth a lot to you?”

“That would cost millions.”

“Right, then you see my point.”

I could hear Bill drumming his fingers on his desk. “We’ll have to add a rider to your current insurance,” he said. “You’ll need to submit a list of pipes, a professional appraisal and photos. Oh, and receipts—do you have receipts for all of them?”

I shuddered. “I destroy those receipts immediately. I burn them, soak the ashes in lye and bury them in a landfill two counties away. If my wife knew what I spend on pipes this conversation would be between you and her, and it would be about collecting my life insurance.”

“With a proper appraisal we can omit the receipts, but your wife will need to sign off on it too. She’s on the home policy. She’ll have to see their value.”

“Are you suggesting I tell my wife what my pipe collection is worth?”

“No way around it.”

“So if my pipes are destroyed in a house fire, I get nothing to replace them without her signature?”

“Exactly.”

I thought for a moment, weighing my options. Life without my pipes was hard to imagine, but that was merely a worst-case possibility. The consequences should I reveal their value were indisputable: My wife is very imaginative, and my death would be excruciating and its illegality undetectable. “Forget I called,” I said. “Let ’em burn.”

–Chuck

pipe photos by Thomas Looker–

Teddy Knudsen studies a large briar block, which looks more like a small lump of wood in his massive hands. Knudsen occasionally mutters to himself as he inspects the briar’s grain and envisions what shapes may lurk underneath its plateau surface. After about 10 minutes of inspection, Knudsen makes a few marks on the briar’s exterior. Before cutting some excess wood off of it, he smiles and says, “Let’s see what’s inside.”

He makes a few cuts, very sparingly, like a butcher cutting sandwich slices at the local deli. He then turns to the disc sander and makes a few passes of the briar against its abrasive surface. Knudsen pauses, studies the briar again, powers off the sander and sets the piece on which he was working aside. Lighting a Camel cigarette, Knudsen inhales and exhales luxuriantly and declares that he’s finished working on that pipe for the day.

“I have made pipemaking very difficult for myself,” Knudsen explains with a laugh, as he sits on a stool in his immaculate workshop in the backyard of his home in Aarhus, Denmark. “In the 1970s, I made between 200 and 250 pipes a year. When I made so many pipes, I didn’t have time for doing my best work. Some of them were always better than the others because of the grain, and when I found a very good piece of wood I naturally tried to do my best. That continued on into the 1980s.”

Yet in the late 1990s, Knudsen, an avid outdoorsman who enjoys fishing, game hunting and mushroom hunting, wanted to take a new
approach to his pipemaking. He had worked very hard for more than 20 years and had gained a reputation for excellence. He reduced his production, which turned out to be a blessing, because in 2005, his wife, Mette, had an accident, and he now has time to tend to her needs.

“Mette fell from a tree and broke her neck,” Knudsen states. “She’s very lucky that she can walk today because she can’t feel her body from a certain point down; she walks by memory. Her brain has no control over what she’s going to do, but she can get around. She is a very strong woman.”

The Knudsens were passionate mushroom hunters before Mette’s accident. They often collected more than 200 pounds of mushrooms each year, which they traded to local restaurants for bottles of wine—two pounds of mushrooms for two bottles of wine. They still go out into the forest and collect more than they can eat and continue their culinary trades with local restaurants. Knudsen laughs and comments that he doesn’t know whether the Danish tax authorities would approve.

Knudsen laughs often and his laughter comes in waves that shake his broad shoulders and barrel chest. They’re also the type of laugh that comes from a person who seems to enjoy a private joke and wants desperately to share it with anyone who cares to listen. There’s a harmless mischievous quality to Knudsen’s sense of humor that’s also infectious. You want to laugh with him because he’s clearly enjoying his life. While he may look the part of a Viking, with his big frame, huge hands and his gray, silver and blond hair knotted in a ponytail behind his head, and a thick gray beard covering his broad and ruddy face, there is nothing of the ferocity of his Viking forebears. The man is simply happy and content.

“I just need to have money for food and wine,” he adds. “No fancy things. I just need enough to live a normal and quiet life. The tax system is so stupid so I don’t work so hard anymore.”

Knudsen says that he has made only 150 pipes since Mette’s accident. While such a low production number would send many pipemakers to seek other types of work, Knudsen says that it makes him a better pipemaker.

“When you work in this way you have the time to see what’s inside the briar and you have more time to consider what you want to do with it,” he explains. “I sometimes use two days just to find out what to do with the block. I spend that time just thinking, both consciously and subconsciously, what I’m going to do with the pipe. On some pipes I’ve spent four days just to find the right lines in the piece of wood. This one will take me 10 days at least to finish the pipe. Now I have more time to find the details in the pipes, and it’s more fun to do it in this way. It can take days to decide what to do. Sometimes I’ve spent four or five years on a single pipe, just waiting for it to tell me what to do next.”

While Knudsen doesn’t make many pipes any more, he doesn’t really need to because the considerable time he takes to make them allows him to make pipes that approach perfection in both their sculptural beauty and their smoking qualities. As such, Knudsen’s pipes sell from $1,000 to $28,000 for his very best Double Eagle grade. Like an Italian Renaissance artist who attracted the patronage of powerful and wealthy families, Knudsen has gathered a small international coterie of pipe collectors who quickly purchase anything he produces.

“I have the time because all I need to do is make one pipe at a time to earn a living,” Knudsen explains. “If they don’t want the pipe, it’s OK. But they do, up to now.”

The comment might sound very arrogant to a person who isn’t with him as he makes it. Once again, he makes the statement with a broad smile across his face, showing that there is no intended arrogance—he is simply stating a fact and then he expounds on it.

“I never dreamed that I would someday be able to make pipes that sell for $10,000 or more. All the time I made pipes, the prices grew. Pipes became better and people got more money. Every year you had one or two pipes that were better than anything you had ever made before, so you naturally raised the price to account for it. It was not a goal; it just happened naturally. During the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s that’s how it went. Now I’m searching for pipes that meet those prices and it’s hard work to make pipes that are worth it.”

Yet all that hard work is worthwhile because there are enough people in the world who appreciate the quality of Knudsen’s work and can afford it.

“The customers are out there. The pipe must be very special. Some people spend money on Ferraris. But how is that car different from other cars? The money isn’t that important if you find something that you like. Collectors of anything pay millions of dollars for things, such as paintings—it’s the same for pipemakers. If a pipemaker has really made something very special, he should also get paid well. He shouldn’t be afraid to ask for such prices because pipemaking is an art form just as sculpture and painting are art forms. They’re more than pipes.”

Knudsen approaches pipemaking with a desire to manipulate the natural   element of the wood to bring out briar’s biggest potential. He selects Mediterranean briar from Romeo Briar in Italy because it best allows him to craft designs for pipes that exhibit a fluid movement that’s already inside the briar.

“If you can do this, it will be a nice pipe,” he explains. “This is what I’m looking for—a nice pipe with an organic form—and it’s not so easy. I like to make organic stuff—things like waves or mushrooms. I am inspired by what I see in nature. I look for it out there. I also like to do the classic shapes. It all depends on the wood. Mimmo provides the only briar I use now. I ask him not to cut so much off the briar because there might be some wood in the block that I can use to create a new shape.”

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

On numerous occasions, I have discussed with fellow pipe smokers how one may go through the process of reviewing a tobacco. This may be for others, or memorializing for one’s own purposes. My particular twist is not important. Note that, to me, the primary purposes of reviews are entertainment and consistency of information. Regardless of motivation, it is important that one develops a way of testing suitable to one’s own tastes and puffing habits; order and method are key. Some will be disappointed that the methods here discussed are not in the wine fancier’s line of critique, reminiscent of describing physical deformity (“It had little nose, was thin on top, but possessed a voluptuous body. It was a modest little wine, and it had a lot to be modest about.”). Tobacco is not wine or whiskey. It has no nose; it has an aroma. It may have a mouth feel or aftertaste. The best analogs are other tobaccos, not figs, leather or what have you. I have never knowingly put figs or leather in my pipes. Burley can taste like chocolate, Virginia like hay; Latakia can be smoky and Perique can produce the aroma of stewed fruit, but there are biochemical reasons for this. Tobacco should taste like tobacco, and the best comparators for blends are other blends. One needs to experience many of the very many available to have an informed opinion as to the best and the worst in this subjective realm.

I cannot let the occasion pass without addressing the issues on the more subjective side of the process. Some have wondered how many pipes are required to do many varieties. I have hundreds, and my wife has threatened dire consequences if any more pass over our threshold, but how can one have too many pipes? Some have wondered how much tobacco needs to be tried. I have a basement full of tobacco (no, you may not have my address, and yes, I have a security system) and tried many blends for years before reviewing them for myself or others. One cannot really know a blend without some adequate experimentation across variations in pipe and humidification, and even season and mood. This requires at least half a tin if the blend gives up its secrets right away and as much as half a pound if it requires Torquemada treatment. There comes a point where you know that there is either nothing or something desirable there, and that suddenly comes upon me based on experience. It may be a slow realization for you. There is the issue of words to describe the purely subjective experience of a blend. I am of the school of thought where one aspires to eloquence to best convey thoughts, feelings and reactions. This is not the same as describing the physical aspects, but the experience those aspects invoke. To quote Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose equals words in their best order; poetry equals the best words in their best order.” I aspire to poetry. Whether I achieve that is another thing. Writing style befits the occasion. These pages, I think, are worth a higher standard than a blog or a tweet, or a few notes for my own use. I have occasionally solicited opinions from non-puffers regarding tin or room aroma to satisfy the interests of those around me, so I know when to cloister a blend for private moments.

By habit, I never mentioned the contents other than those listed. Those listed may be wrong, as in the identification of what type of Latakia, or incomplete, even failing to mention Latakia. They may have had Syrian in 1940, but now they have Cyprian, contrary to the advertising. For that matter, the label contents are incorrect in some cases. I point as an example to an inquiry regarding Orlik Golden Sliced, which is listed as having Burley and does not, and it fails to mention Perique as an ingredient. Some old blends never contained Burley, but in the absence of Virginias of sufficient weight and gravitas, the current manufacturers add Burley to provide what their current red Virginias can’t. It is more like making champagne, which is a blended and sweetened concoction to achieve a particular taste, than a vintage cabernet, a single year and crop (which still has a sugar manipulation step). Compare like to like. Some have criticized reviews as excessively harsh or forgiving, but things need to be considered in their genre only, among what marketers refer to as the competitive set.

I would tend to apply the scientific method with a social scientist’s tilt, as is my training. That involves two primary things for our discussion: reduction and measurement. First, reduction means studying only a small, circumscribed set of characteristics at once, like flavor, coolness, burning characteristics and the like. These characteristics can become overwhelmingly detailed without much effort. Studying them involves controlling for all other external factors as much as possible that, when uncontrolled, create error in the evaluation or misperceptions. The same tobacco at different humidification levels can taste quite different, for example. Second, measurement means the development of ways to quantify some characteristic reliably. And you thought you were just going to puff a couple of bowls.

Regarding controlling for factors, I would class these in two categories: external and experimental. The external test situation is actually simple and involves doing the testing as you would normally smoke your pipe. So, for me, I puff a lot while driving and therefore test a lot while driving. If you normally light up in your easy chair, don’t give a new blend a whirl rock-climbing during a snowstorm in Antarctica. Make the circumstances as normal for you as possible to remove the atypical effects of wind, humidity, absence of relaxation or presence of outraged bystanders, though hopefully that’s atypical.

The experimental factors are a much bigger issue. These are things you purposefully change to determine their effect. This involves mainly the pipe used in testing as much as the tobacco. The pipe should be reasonably clean, so never try a pipe used with gloppy aromatics to test a delicate matured Virginia. A new pipe is as equally unsuitable as a dirty one is. Some of the physical characteristics are quite important and can be the deciding factor in making a blend work for you. This is why the pipe should be varied to get the best out of the blend for the trial. Just the right pipe can bring out hidden riches in the leaf. If we were to cover types of pipes to give control over the experiment, a list would include:

• A standard pipe—about 6 inches long made from briar with no filters or traps. This should be broken in, which in itself means different things to different people. To me, it means having adequate char in the bowl so you are not smoking wood and having adequate tar absorbed in the grain. It needs to breathe; finishes other than wax are bad, unless bark on cherry. In use, an all-Latakia pipe will be “ghosted” in subsequent smokes, so it should be kept for Latakia. This is truer of aromatics, especially true to me of common humectants. This is most true of the so-called “Lakeland” additives common mainly from old British companies, consisting of various oils and the like. Breaking in a pipe, which some people say is not necessary (not me), is best done with the most neutral leaf, typically Burley.

• A corn cob—this may economically be dedicated to a blend under review, but note (1) it must be broken in with the blend or something neutral, and (2) when you start, you are smoking corn.

• A pyrolitic pipe—like The Pipe or The Smoke, where the bowl is lined with a graphite material from the space program. See the interesting article in P&T regarding graphite bowls (Spring 2010). Overall, they smoke sub-
optimally compared to briar, rather wet, which makes them less preferable for general or definitive use to me, but you can get the most straight-up flavor with them, which is in itself unusual. Note: pack them looser than any other pipe you have ever tried, a tip from an old pipeman in an old store.

• System pipes, which are legion, like Peterson, Kirsten or Falcon.

•  Filtered pipes. I have found that those over-sweetened, unbelievably hot Scandinavian blends involving copious amounts of raw sugar or honey are actually significantly better in a pipe with a filter, which may be the norm in parts of the EU. They remove flavor with funk. There are several types of filters in two sizes:

1) 9 mm—Try with the sweet and sticky, but also with a death-by-
Latakia blend, or maybe something sooty. Surprises await!

2) 6 mm—the familiar paper filters from Medico, Dr. Grabow and others. This also is the size of the triangular balsa wood filters popularized by Savinelli, which capture moisture and don’t actually block the passage of smoke as other filters do.

3) metal trap—I usually take these out but have kept a few on for testing purposes. Try retro blends with one.

• Meerschaum—these absorb quite a bit from the tobacco. I have a few of these, but I am afraid to carry them around, having broken a couple trying to bounce them off concrete. A new one is white, but breaking in produces that lovely golden hue. Some cheap ones are made from a pressed meerschaum composite and do not color well. The coloration, except on Barlings and Petersons that have been colored artificially, is from absorbed juices and tar from tobacco. These may not be the best pipes for testing purposes from a purity perspective (especially calabashes), but if these are what you favor or you have an open mind, they are a requirement.

The other area to consider regarding your testing pipes is the morphology of the pipe. This includes:

• Shape—straight to bent. A bent will have the bowl closer to your nose and affect aroma.

• Bore—not just Uncle Harry or a business dinner meeting, but the size of the airway. Five-thirty-secondths is currently favored; older pipes are frequently smaller. Dirty pipes are always smaller.

• Bowl—conical through straight walled. The size and shape of the bowl are not always related to the size of the pipe. Measure them.

• Size—small through large. Note that large pipes may have small bowls, and thus thick walls. Some think that this contributes to coolness, and I am not convinced.

• Length—Bing liked a long billiard or Canadian, and sports pipes, pugs or vest pocket pipes are all at the other extreme. Longer means cooler generally, and I have a couple of Savinelli Bing’s Favorites that are indeed cool, but I hit the window when I turn my head in the car (almost as bad for driving as talking on a cell phone).

What are your preferences? How do they relate to your tobacco choices? Might a change in pipe change your preferences too? Perhaps a different pipe type, shape or size will open new worlds for you.

Another thing to take into account may be day part, as it is referred to by the broadcasting media guys. Many like a heavy Latakia blend as their last pipe, but I actually prefer Latakia in the morning. It definitely enhances coffee (try it with Kona sometime versus Italian roast). As the last pipe, it leaves me with an after-the-barbecue taste the next day where I was the grill. Late day means Virginia flake to me, but what about you? If you puff after a meal, what you eat may determine preference. I will not comment on the booze/’baccy interaction effect.

And then there is the seasonal factor. The esteemed Craig Tarler of Cornell & Diehl has helped me to understand that the colder the weather, the more I like Latakia. Summer is for aromatics and Perique; flakes are good anytime, especially late-night reverie. But that is entirely subjective, and I would endure the Sahara at high noon in the summer for a great Balkan blend. Spend some time determining other factors that would influence your preferences. This would include matches versus lighters, use of windscreens, pack and a whole bunch of other things that would have an influence on taste and to preference and to your testing.

Finally, we come to the methods of testing. There are two that we will cover here: paired comparisons and monadic testing. There are other methods having to do with choice models (see the work of the Nobel prize winner in economics McFadden) and conjoint measurement (Kruskal, Green, Louviere and those guys), but I promise not to bore you with them nor injure the academic literature. And, frankly, having tried these methods, it takes the fun away. Fun is a big driver to me.

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

Seventeenth-century Istanbul: An elegantly dressed woman sits cross-legged on a low cushion before her nargile, a Turkish water pipe handcrafted by the finest artisans in all of Istanbul. It is a beautifully decorated Beykoz crystal flacon, ornamented in silver with a long sinuous tube covered in velvet extending from it. The ceramic pipe bowl is filled with dark, strong Latakiyya tobacco imported from Syria. Her servant brings a nugget of oak charcoal and carefully places it on top of the dampened tobacco as the woman brings the tube to her mouth, drawing leisurely on the amber mouthpiece in a series of slow, controlled puffs. The water in the pipe bubbles, along with the small sour cherries placed in it to provide her amusement. The crisp searing sound and smell of heated tobacco and ambergris used to perfume the water fills the room. Upon every draw, the soothing bubbling sound and onslaught of unadulterated nicotine lulls her into a sense of calm introspection. She purses her lips and exhales a delicate stream of smoke. A cloud of smoke wavers in the air as she sighs and slightly reclines.

In the beginning

Centuries have passed since the scenario described above, and while the setting has changed, the allure of the exotic remains. A popular feature of Turkish, Middle Eastern and Indian culture for centuries, nargile, or hookah, use over the last decade has not only experienced a revival in those countries, it has exploded worldwide, particularly in the United States and Europe. Today, in most major urban centers and university towns where there is an international population of students, you’ll find one or more hookah or sheesha lounges catering largely to the student demographic eager to incorporate this stimulating trend of flavored tobacco cooled by water into a lifestyle of lattes, laptops and Wi-Fi access, but hookah also appeals to tobacco connoisseurs and curious suburbanites alike. Typically, such establishments offer a wide array of water pipes to rent, flavored tobacco to choose from and assorted smoking paraphernalia to purchase along with coffee and other nonalcoholic drinks, and perhaps light food. The atmosphere and décor are typically evocative of Middle Eastern culture, replete with colorful carpets, travel posters, backgammon and satellite TV broadcasting Egyptian soap operas and music videos all in an exotically collegial atmosphere.

What is behind this youth-generated global revival, and what challenges face hookah lounges at home? Let us explore the history of this intriguing bubbling phenomenon. The Turkish nargile, or hookah, as it is called in the west, was known as kalyan in Persia, goza or sheeseh in Arabia, and hukka in India, where the hookah is said to originate from, emerging on the Ottoman smoking scene in the early 17th century, around the same time tobacco from the New World arrived  and not long after coffee from Arabia had insinuated itself into the populace.

Nargile is an Arabic word that comes from the Persian nagil, which means coconut, gourd or water pipe. In fact, primitive hookahs were made from gourds, coconut shells or wood with a reed stuck in to draw on. In English- and Arabic-speaking countries you might hear it referred to as a hubble-bubble. The earliest known image of a hookah dates from 1622, published in Tabacologia medico-cheururgico pharmaceutica by Dutch author Johann Neander. Several decades later, an anonymous Persian poet wrote the earliest-known literary reference to the hookah:

From your lips the water pipe draws enjoyment

In your mouth the reed turns sweet as sugar cane

It is not tobacco smoke around your face

It is a cloud that swirls around the moon

Prior to the hookah, tobacco was smoked in clay pipes with long stems, much like European pipes of the time. While clay pipes remained popular with the masses for their portability and ease, the newly introduced mellowed combination of water and tobacco was an instant hit, and the hookah’s popularity rapidly spread through the vast reaches of the Ottoman Empire and eventually to Europe, where it was introduced via the Janissaries—the Sultan’s elite military guard. Further west, over the last century and a half, many of us were introduced to the hookah at an early age thanks to Lewis Carroll’s hookah-smoking caterpillar, brought to life by illustrator John Tenniel in Alice in Wonderland. The heyday of the hookah spanned the 17th to 19th centuries, when smoking it became a highly refined art form and beloved tradition satisfying the human predilection for ritual, relaxation and gratification. The hookah’s slow decline began when cigarettes were introduced in the late 19th century. By the early 20th century cigarettes not only changed the physical way people smoked, but also how they thought about smoking.

 Anatomy of a hookah

What is a hookah, exactly, and how is smoking one different from the average pipe? As testimony to the longevity of a well-conceived product, the hookah has seen little change to its physical structure over the centuries. With hookah demand at an all-time high, what has changed is the quality of and materials used and its transformation from artisanal to mass production. While a small group of artisans continue the handcrafted tradition using high-quality materials, the bulk of hookahs available today are mass-produced in Egypt, Syria and China. We’ll start at the bottom and work our way up.

The body of the pipe, or base, is typically made of blown glass or metal, rounded at the bottom and tapering up to a long and slender neck. Bases come in a variety of sizes, colors and decorations, with the average size around a foot high. In Ottoman times, bases were made of glass in the famous Beykoz district of Istanbul. A long metal pipe stem, of stainless steel or brass, often decorated, sometimes elaborate, connects the body and the tobacco bowl. The pipe stem can be up to 2 feet tall, adding considerable height to the hookah. On one side of the pipe stem is the release valve controlling air intake into the hookah. The valve can be closed to decrease the dilution rate, which creates more intense smoke, or to release trapped smoke out of the body. Opposite the release valve projects a socket (or two) where a long flexible rubber hose with a wood or metal end is attached. In the past, the best hoses were produced in Istanbul from high-quality, multicolored tanned leather strips wrapped around a metal rod, with the rod removed after the leather had dried, and heavily ornamented with embroidery or plush fabric. The purpose of the hose is to filter out impurities from the tobacco and soften and cool the smoke as it passes through the water and into the smoker. Given hookah’s sociable premise, pipes with multiple hoses for group smoking—some with lengths reaching up to six feet—are very popular. The tobacco bowl sits at the top of the pipe stem and is typically made from clay or metal and contains either five small holes or one large hole in the bottom.

At the base of the tobacco bowl sits a small metal tray for loose sparks and charcoal tongs. A good seal using rubber gaskets or tape on each connecting part is critical to ensuring an airtight pipe. If smoking takes place outdoors or in a drafty area, brass or stainless “wind covers” are cylindrically shaped hoods that fit over the tobacco bowl and protect the glowing coal ember.

Finally, the mouthpiece, a small tapered object typically made of plastic, is placed at the end of the tube, allowing one to draw from it. In the past, etiquette dictated owning one’s own, mainly for hygienic purposes but also as a status symbol. Amber mouthpieces were preferred over stone or metal, as they turned red upon smoking, the redness a sign that amber’s perceived ability to kill germs was at work. In the Ottoman Empire, everyday mouthpieces were colloquially referred to as goat’s teats for their shape, wide in the middle and narrow at either end. Today, disposable mouthpieces are available at any hookah lounge.

 A dog never bites a nargile smoker Turkish proverb

The hookah is prepared by filling the body with water covering at least 1 inch of the bottom of the pipe stem. Other liquids such as fruit juice, alcohol or even milk will work depending on personal taste. As in the past, some smokers like to scent their water with essential oils or fruit flavorings and perhaps place fruit like cherries or grapes (or even objects like glow sticks) in the water and watch them bob up and down as they smoke. Shisha tobacco is lightly moistened with water before it is packed inside the bowl—leaving a couple of holes exposed—and either a perforated metal cover or tinfoil pricked with a toothpick is placed over it to prevent drafts. After these preparations have been made, the hookah is brought to the customer and placed on the floor or a table. A live coal is placed on top of the tinfoil and the smoker takes slow puffs—the deep inhalations producing a pleasant bubbling sound of the water—and exhales. Inhale, and repeat. If you are sharing a single-hose pipe with several friends, the practice is for each person to slip their own mouthpiece on before smoking.

What distinguishes hookah pipe tobacco from the average pipe tobacco? In the Ottoman era a special dark, high-test nicotine tobacco called tombecki, or tumbak, was grown in Persia and Syria specifically for hookah pipe smoking (note the resemblance to the word tobacco). The leaves came from the base of the tobacco plant and were wood-cured, coarsely chopped and shredded with stems and twigs. Because of its strength and high nicotine content, it was washed several times in water to dilute it. Today, hookah tobacco is grown primarily in Arab countries such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, where it is called maasel, and this is where the bulk of hookah tobacco smoked today comes from. Hookah tobacco is almost always referred to as shisha (the Persian name of the hookah that has since come to refer to the tobacco smoked in it), and to be consistent I’ll stick with the vernacular.

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

My wife had finished scrubbing all the tile in the house with a toothbrush or disinfecting the insides of all the light bulbs or some such thing—I don’t really pay attention to what women do for fun. She’d finally decided to take a nap, so I took a break from pretend activity and concentrated my full attention on indolence and sloth.

While reclining on the couch, smoking a nice Virginia/Perique blend, I uncharacteristically summoned the energy to shift my eyes and noticed what was happening outside the window. The wind was whipping the trees around and the sky was casting a sickly yellow-green light over the entire outdoors. I made a mental note to take down the deck umbrella if I found myself out there anytime soon.

Then hail the size of Dunhill group four bowls started pelting the window, and I became curious enough to reach for the remote control and turn on the local weather. Doppler radar indicated a line of thunderstorms 15 minutes from the house—thunderstorms that had already generated several tornados. Drat, I thought, I’d better get my pipes downstairs in case the roof gets blown off.

We have a coat closet in the hall that fits snugly under the stairs and acts as our storm cellar in emergencies. The crawl space under the house would probably be safer, but the Peruvian spiders down there have seniority and are not accommodating of visitors. I emptied the closet and then went upstairs to my office, where I gathered about half my pipes into a gym bag before remembering I also needed to save my tobacco. There was little time, but I got the pipes and three cases of aged tobacco into the closet with five minutes to spare and was feeling pretty good about the accomplishment when it occurred to me that I should probably wake my wife.

She was disoriented but sprang immediately from the bed when she heard me say, “Tornado coming in five minutes.” “You get the dogs,” she said. “I’ll get the cats. Where’s Kaitlyn?”

Kaitlyn is our 16-year-old daughter. She was at her boyfriend’s house that day, a situation infinitely more worrisome than any storm. No immediate action could alleviate that and she was on her own.

So we huddled in that little closet in the dark while the storm raged outside—two humans, two big dogs, two angry cats, a bag of pipes and 45 pounds of tobacco. Then an eerie quiet descended and the storm seemed to have disappeared. I’d heard about this—the famed quiet before disaster. There was a flash of light and my wife jumped, but it was just my lighter. “You are not,” she said, “smoking that pipe in here.”

“What? Why not? This is my house, my closet, and I smoke where I like.”

The storm picked up again but eventually passed without damaging our neighborhood. I know because I watched it from the front stoop, locked outside the house, smoking a nice Virginia/Perique blend.

–Chuck

Gracik’s wicked skills have long been in evidence in his handcrafted J. Alan pipes. So has his intelligence. I expected that these traits would fuel growth, but I didn’t expect transformation. I didn’t expect to feel like I was talking to someone else, someone who had shed as much as he had added.

There is an apt word that describes what Gracik has become: compleat. Though compleat is a dusty, somewhat archaic word meaning “highly skilled and accomplished in all aspects,” it fits Gracik as comfortably as his coffee-colored, canvas workshop apron.

When I interviewed Jeff three years ago he described himself as “screaming through the briar.” He confessed that he was trying to find his voice in a world he didn’t fully understand. “I had to very consciously tame myself.”

Just a glance at Jeff’s work three years ago revealed exuberant virtuosity. Adept hands, a keen eye and no little ambition combined to dazzling effect. Jeff was capable of making nearly anything he could imagine, but as a self-aware artisan, Jeff also knew that he had to rein himself in and “speak in softer and different tones at a lower volume.”

As I perused the pipes on Jeff’s workbench, it was obvious that his efforts had borne fruit. His work remains virtuosic, but the dimensions of that virtuosity are quieter and more self-assured. His work reflects restraint, suggesting that, where beauty is concerned, there’s more where that came from. Here is an artisan who is no longer pushing limits; if limits are there, they are nowhere to be seen.

Clearly his skills have grown over the last several years, and he maintains a healthy awareness of that. “I’m less timid. I feel more confident. I’m no longer nervous or uncertain when I have to make choices.”

If there is a crueler, more fickle medium than briar, it is hard to imagine what it might be. The most beautiful of blocks can reveal a constellation of pits and flaws when it is sawn, shaped or sanded, spoiling plans and frustrating choices. Gracik has a drawer half-full of beautifully shaped pipes he was forced to abandon.

Watching Jeff at the shaping wheel, trying to prevail over this uncooperative wood, underscores how quickly shaping choices have to be made with a wheel spinning at 1500 revolutions per minute. In the past, briar’s random acts of cruelty occasionally intimidated Gracik. “When you put off your choices, it doesn’t change what they are,” he mused. “When I have a decision to make, I just make it.”

At a time when so many other pipemakers seem to be ratcheting up the complexity of their compositions, Gracik increasingly pursues simplicity. His aesthetic orbits essence. His exploration of classicism in the design and crafting of pipes has shaped him, and while he still makes avant garde pipes, they, too, seem simpler and less self-conscious than they once were.

“When I started doing avant garde work, I didn’t have that classical background. Now you can see the classical shape influence. I’m honing my design standards outside the classical form. Classical pipes are very influential, even in my avant garde work. I love making very classical pipes. I like to cut loose and make less classical pipes as well.”

Gracik feels particularly blessed by the mentors he had. “When I first started, I was most influenced by Cornelius Mänz, then Jody Davis, Todd Johnson and Tonni Nielsen. Jody’s classical work really influenced me.”

“Todd was the first pipemaker with whom I worked. When I went and worked with Todd, I learned a lot of technical things. Stylistically, somewhat, I looked to Todd, but it was Tonni who was most influential early on in developing my eye.”

“With Cornelius, I had a relationship through email and phone. He would send me things and give me advice over the phone. His advice has remained quite influential. I think of him frequently.”

Gracik’s exploration of classics—particularly his belief that the Scandinavian school of pipemaking has resulted in an extension of the classical vocabulary—has shifted who he now names as his principal influences: Lars Ivarsson, Jess Chonowitsch, Ulf Noltensmeier, Per Hansen and Bo Nordh.

“When I hold a Bo Nordh, I’m introduced to a new way to approach the same shape. Bo did it one way. Cornelius does it one way. Bang does it another way. Each has a unique approach to the same shape—the same basic idea.”

“To study these things is to find out what gives a pipe its unique spirit. It invites me to examine my own work and ask, ‘What is the spirit of my own work? What do I want to change? What do I want to adopt? Which ideas do I wish to incorporate? How will that shift the way that I shift or interpret a shape?’”

“If there’s an effect that someone achieves—and I’m intrigued by that—I want to figure out how they achieve that. Sometimes, an effect can be created by the single swipe of a file.”

While Jeff Gracik has been blessed by working with some great artisan-mentors, there’s another group that has significantly stimulated his development: those pipe collectors for whom he creates his work.

“There are some who are really interested in my interpretations of classic work—whether we’re talking Lars or Dunhill. They are interested in my interpretation of things other people have done. There are others,” Gracik explains, “who are interested in what I create. They say, ‘I love your eye. I love your hands. Make me something.’”

“These two kinds of collectors illustrate the two extremes of influential collectors—those who invite me to explore new territory, and those who invite me to go over well-worn ground. Both are extremely valuable. Exploring new things? That’s how new shapes are made. The most beautiful art came into being because someone said, ‘Make me something new.’”

“Making something new is a unique challenge—especially for connoisseurs. People who spend a thousand dollars for a pipe are connoisseurs. They know what it is. That is a challenge for me because I know it is something that will be seen and appreciated.”

Friend and collector Rick Newcombe has tried to help Gracik by periodically loaning him pipes for study. Newcombe told him, “Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Don’t be crazy for crazy’s sake.”

“When Jeff looked at my collection,” Newcombe said, “he could see a great many variations on the classical shapes. That’s what I have encouraged him to do. When he asked, my big advice to Jeff was to create his own interpretation of masterpiece pipe shapes. He’s taken that advice and created his own Swedish Tomato.”

As someone who has bought a number of Jeff’s pipes for my own collection, I particularly appreciate their marriage of form and function. They are beautiful, but they are also pipes that my hand loves. They are practical. Practicality even came into consideration when Jeff decided upon the name he would use to brand his pipes: J. Alan.

“I thought ‘Gracik’ would be hard to pronounce as a product name,” Jeff said. “So, I went with my first initial and middle name—J. Alan. Of course, this was before I’d heard of Jess Chonowitsch or Hiroyuki Tokutomi!”

Gracik strongly believes in studying the work of the great makers, legends like Lars Ivarsson, Jess Chonowitsch and Bo Nordh. “Reinterpreting the old means being able to reinterpret that which has been done. You can’t make something new if you don’t know what is old. You can’t break the rules if you don’t know what the rules are.”

“Deviating from a pattern with flexibility to express myself is important. At the end of the day, one looks at a pipe and says, ‘That’s a billiard or a Dublin or whatever.’”

Collector Brad McCluskey was attracted to Gracik’s work because of its aesthetic diversity and precision. McCluskey has added a half-dozen J. Alan pipes to his collection since he was introduced to Jeff’s work last May at the Chicago Show.

“Not only does Jeff have an eye for the European Danish work,” McCluskey opined, “but he also has an eye for the classics—billiards, apples, Canadians—your classic, tried-and-true shapes.”

“Most of Jeff’s pipes are a bit smaller,” said McCluskey. “I like bigger pipes. I saw his classics and thought, ‘If he can make them grow, that would be great!’”

As one of relatively few North American artisans who command more than $2,500 for his highest-grade pipes (the Wave grade), Jeff Gracik has crossed the chasm from up-and-comer to someone taken seriously by both peers and collectors alike. At 32 years old, he is hardly old guard, but with eight years of pipemaking under his belt, he’s no newbie, either.

“He’s become one of the greats in a very short period of time,” observed In Search of Pipe Dreams author and collector Rick Newcombe.

Although Jeff is self-effacing and easygoing, he also radiates the confidence that a large backlog of orders confers. Jeff currently makes about 100 pipes per year.

“It used to be I got an order for every pipe I made,” said Jeff. “Now I get two to three orders for every pipe I publish on my Web site. It’s liberating because I have the freedom to be confident artistically,” he observed. “When you’re a starving artist, you don’t have a choice between ‘Will I make something the market will accept?’ or ‘Will I make something that is artistically challenging?’”

“Do you ever worry that you might be the flavor of the month?” I inquired. “That your popularity might wane when the next big thing comes along? There are a lot of very talented young artisans out there.”

“Sure,” Jeff replied. “The market is fragile. You can soar one minute and run into a tree the next. You can’t control the market. I think that the abundance of new and talented makers is great for pipemakers too, if you’re up to the challenge because what they’re doing is challenging you as an established pipemaker to do even more—to explore new territory, to do your work better.”

Gracik walks his talk. It was only a few years ago when he was a protégé. Now, a steady stream of new pipemakers seeks him out, asking if they can visit, observe and learn from him. It is a rare week that Jeff works alone.

Ernie Markle, a notable new Arizona pipemaker, is one such example. Last May, Rad Davis introduced Markle to me as a promising young pipemaker in the Chicago pipemaker’s seminar. A few months later Markle was added to the Smokingpipes roster. Markle has come a very long way very quickly.

“Clearly, if I were worried about the new guys, I wouldn’t invite guys like Ernie into my shop. I’m proud of him. If Ernie threatens my business, it’s not Ernie’s fault. He makes good pipes. If I’m going to compete, I must make better pipes—every day better than the one before.”

In the nearly twelve hours we spent together, Jeff repeatedly expressed how grateful he is for his life as an artisan. “I do something I love and actually support my family. What a great blessing that is—to do what you love and make a life out of it.”

“Honestly, it’s scary to me—how much fell into place. That hasn’t been the case for many people. In my case, it was just dumb luck. I made some good choices, but it feels like a lot of dumb luck to me.”

To many people in the pipe community, Jeff’s persona is that of a golden boy. He’s articulate, athletic and poised. As a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, he is as comfortable discussing philosophy, psychology and art as he is pipes or surfing.

He and his equally accomplished wife, Melissa, have two beautiful young children whom they are raising in their hilltop home near San Diego’s Balboa Park. By all appearances, Jeff and Melissa live an idyllic life with few more serious inconveniences than the occasional dirty diaper. Appearances don’t do their story justice.

After graduating from Greenville College with a degree in religion and psychology, Jeff worked briefly in corporate sales for a large textile company. He hated the work. “That experience told me I never wanted to work for someone else ever again hawking something I didn’t care about.”

Jeff Gracik fell in love with pipemaking when he was a graduate student at Princeton Theological Seminary. He and Melissa had been married a couple of years. Melissa worked as a nanny to help put food on the table.

“At the time, I was working with a crappy, wobbly drill press that I used for multiple things. I used it for drilling holes. I’d lay it down on its side and use it as a sanding motor. All those machines in my shop? I used to do all that with one drill press—my chamber drill, my buffing wheel, my sanding disk, and my wax applicator—it was everything. My entire shop was that drill press, in terms of machinery.”

When Gracik went to buy that drill press, he pretended to be a business so he could get a discount. “I lied,” he admitted sheepishly. “I needed to get it cheap.

“We didn’t have two pennies to scratch together,” Jeff recalled. “Making a trip up to Yale to visit Todd (Johnson) was a big deal. It was a lot of money in gas.

“When I came back, I told Melissa I thought I could be very good at pipemaking, but I needed to borrow money from our limited funds for food and rent to buy a lathe. I thought I could pay it back by the time we would need it. She had faith in me. She’d spent hours and hours looking at my work and had been my partner. She saw me neglecting my studies so I could look at pipes and read the pipemakers forum. She saw what I was doing and what I was capable of. She said yeah, I could do it if I paid it back at a certain time. Thank God I was able to pay the money back on time.”

Soft-spoken, calm and thoughtful, Melissa Burt-Gracik possesses a buttery laugh. “I was his venture capitalist investor,” she proudly asserted, “albeit with very limited funds.”

Gracik began his pipemaking enterprise in the basement of an apartment building owned by the seminary. After about six months, when Melissa and he were two days from leaving for a summer internship in the Dominican Republic, he was kicked out of his basement shop. “The guy said, ‘You can’t do this. This is a seminary, not a workshop!’”

Through a friendship Jeff had developed with a maintenance person, he was told about an unused storage trailer where he could safely store his equipment and tools.

“It was a total godsend,” said Gracik, “but here’s the kicker. I got an email about three weeks before we were returning to the country that told me that the school was getting rid of the trailer before I got back. It was from the very same guy who had kicked me out of my basement shop. We were terrified. I would have lost the few tools I had. I would have lost my entire pipemaking investment. Thank goodness I was able to push it back to two days after I got back.”

When Gracik returned from his Dominican Republic internship, he had just two days to find a new shop and move all his equipment out of the storage trailer.

“I had a conversation with a friend of a friend who was a property manager at an apartment complex. He had a garage for rent, so I moved in there.”

“That garage,” Melissa recalled, “was far from our apartment. I would take him in the early morning. He’d have water and food. I’d come around noon and bring him lunch. Then I’d bring him dinner. Then I’d pick him up late at night. There was no bathroom there, so I’d take him to the grocery store down the road so he could go to the bathroom. It was absolutely inhumane. In the winter, there was no heat.”

“After Chicago that year, the guy who rented my first garage shop to me asked how I’d done. I told him I’d done well. Then, he tried to extort money from me. I found out later that he wasn’t legally renting the space to me. He was just pocketing the money.”

Gracik found himself moving yet again to another garage. “A friend rented a house just down the street. It had a garage, and I rented it for the last year I was there.”

As happy as Jeff was to be able to set up in the garage shop, there were still challenges. “I ran my whole shop on just one electrical outlet. Unfortunately, the circuit breaker was in the basement of the house. I was working 18 hours a day getting ready for Chicago. Imagine. I’m working at 3 o’clock in the morning—knowing my next three months’ income depends on the work I’m doing in the next couple of days—and I’d turn too many things on at once. The circuit blew. I knew it was lights out. There was no way I could walk through his house at 3 o’clock in the morning to go down to the basement to reset the breaker. I was working frantically to finish it all up. So I’d go home and get up really early to get there at the same time my friend gets up to reset the breaker.”

That winter, Steve Morrisette came to visit Jeff. “He was the first pipemaker to ever visit me,” Gracik said. “It was so cold he couldn’t work there. We had to buy plastic drop cloths so we could shroud the space so that it would hold the heat from the one electrical heater I had.

“I have always had these schemes to save money,” Jeff admitted, “but they rarely work out. For example, I bought a lathe on eBay one time. I had it shipped to me and it got destroyed in shipment. They offered me $25 because they paid per pound. That was going to break us, so I bought another lathe and this time I borrowed an old farm truck with no radio and no air-conditioning from a church-member friend.

“I drove all the way from Princeton to Norfolk, Va., and back in this truck that got 4 miles per gallon. I ended up spending more than I intended.

“It was a noisy and scary ride home. I would have felt so much more comfortable with a radio to drown out all those creaking sounds. I knew it wasn’t my truck, and I knew that if there was a problem, I would lose both the truck and the lathe. I could afford to lose neither.

“I never thought about the fact that they loaded the lathe into the truck with a forklift. Obviously, I didn’t have one at my shop. So, I asked some friends if they would help me move the lathe. I didn’t tell them how big it was. They looked at it and said, ‘My God!’ It weighed like 800 pounds. It was huge. One of my friends threw his back out helping me. I have amazing friends.”

Reflecting on the differences between the myth and reality of Jeff Gracik’s ascent into the world’s top tier of pipemakers, I marveled at how successfully Jeff had projected such a polished, no-problems persona. “I wish you’d told me some of these stories when they were happening, Jeff,” I blurted. “I had absolutely no idea you’d struggled at all—you know, the whole Princeton, silver-spoon thing was how I saw you.”

“I’ve never told anyone these stories. I can’t believe I’ve never told anyone,” Jeff responded. “I just tried to present a good image. I didn’t want people to know about all this because they wouldn’t think I was high-class or high-grade enough. I believed that I couldn’t show weakness because that doesn’t fit into the image I’m trying to promote.

“I’ve tried to put all this out of my mind,” Jeff declared. “I said to myself, ‘I can’t sell high-grade pipes out of these places.’ One thing is for certain. The location of manufacture has little to do with what can be made there. That’s for sure.

“The Princeton pedigree? I think it paints an inaccurate picture. I’m from a small town in Pennsylvania. My dad worked in insurance, and my mom was a teacher. My dad was not passionate about what he did. I couldn’t do that to myself, but I’m grateful that my dad did because it paid for my college. That I don’t have to work at something I don’t care about is wonderful.

“Once my folks got my brother and me through school, they quit their jobs, sold everything, and moved to Asia to do nonprofit work. I had good examples in them of people who know how to prioritize and also to pursue passion. In doing so they taught me that we all have to make choices. Sometimes the best choice is the selfless one.”

“Has it ever been hard, Melissa? Has it ever been scary that Jeff abandoned what his education prepared him for to be a pipemaker?” I inquired.

“There’s the fear of having to provide for the family—to make ends meet,” she answered. “We’re rich in life, but we’ve been poor by American standards. Any crack in that edifice feels scary. I think that’s part of it. We’ve made baby steps along the way. It never felt huge. Jeff has always been able to figure things out.

“We have a great deal of empathy for people in our income bracket or lower. We don’t take it lightly when people buy. That’s why Jeff is very persnickety about his quality standards,” Melissa explained.

“When Jeff cracks open a great block with wonderful grain, he shows it to me. He also shows it to me when a flaw shows up and the block can’t be used.

“If he can’t make a living at this, then he’s not going to do it. It’s not just for fun. This is his job to provide for his family. We’re so thankful that Jeff gets to express his artistic talent. How many people get paid for their art these days?”

“If there was any thread holding it all together,” Jeff said, “it was a shoestring. It’s always been done on a shoestring until maybe the last year. So, when I say I’m grateful to the pipe community, it’s because they’ve given me the life I have. I will continue to be grateful.”

J. Alan pipes are available at:

United States: Smokingpipes.com

Europe: Scandpipes.com and Bisgaard-pipes.com

Russia: Pipeshop.ru

Japan: Keigai.com

“Hot or cold, friend? Hot’s free. Cold will cost a nickel.”

“Hot in any case,” he replied, moving to the counter.

The proprietor reached to the side, picked up a metal cup and poured coffee from a pot resting on a small gas ring behind the counter. He handed it over with a question.

“Looking for work, mister …?

“John … folks call me John.”

“Big John, I ‘spect, from the size of you.”

“Sometimes.” He took a sip. Hot and strong. “Good coffee. Thanks.”

“Welcome.” He eyed John up and down. “They was hiring up at the mine till a couple day ago. Don’ know ‘bout now. Hungry?”

John nodded.

“Some pickled eggs and crackers at the end of the counter. Don’t eat ‘em all.”

He squished to the end of the counter, fished out two eggs with tongs and put them on a paper napkin with a half dozen crackers. There was a small table and chairs near a pot-bellied stove and he carried the eggs there before retrieving his coffee. He sat, unlaced his shoes and set them to steam near the stove. The eggs didn’t last long but he took his time with the crackers, savoring the salty taste.

The proprietor came over with the coffee pot and poured. “Coal bring ya to Harlan?”

“Yep.”

“Traveled far from the looks of ya. Where’s your kin?”

“Anjean, West Virginia.”

“Worked for Leckie Coal, huh?”

“Till two month ago. What day is this?”

“Friday… Friday the 13^th to be exact. November 1931.”

“I left Anjean the 6^th. Been thumbin’ and walkin’ ever since. I thank you for the eggs. Ain’t had nothin’ since yestiday mornin’.”

“Don’t mention it. Got about 30 hens out back. Gotta do somethin’ with the eggs. I boils up a bunch every day.”

“What’s your name?”

“Boats … they call me Boats. Navy, back in the big war.”

John fished a bent stem pipe from his jacket picket and felt around for tobacco before remembering he’d smoked his last about noon. “Got any tobacco here, Boats?”

“What ya smoke?”

“Velvet mostly but PA will do.”

“I got Velvet.” Boats walked behind the counter and took a flip-top pocket tin from a small rack of tobaccos. John, still in his stocking feet, walked to the counter.

“How much?”

“Thirteen cents.”

John fished in his overalls pocket and laid some change on the counter—66 cents.

“That all you got?”

“Got a dollar in my wallet. Left Anjean with seven.”

“Well … pay me when you get work.”

“Nah, better not. Might not be nothin’ for me.”

Boats took 13 cents from the change and put it in the register. John broke the seal on the tin, took a small pinch of tobacco and put it in his cheek before filling and lighting his pipe. The bell rang at the door and two young fellows walked in soaked to the skin. They paused, letting their eyes adjust to the light and looked around the store before coming to the counter.

“Coffee?” asked Boats.

“Yeah, coffee. How much?” Neither could have been much over 20 years old, and the one who spoke was the taller of the two and had several days’ growth of beard.

“Five cents,” said Boats with a wink at John as he poured, “And that’s with a refill.”

The taller one put a dime on the counter, picked up his cup and walked to the stove with the shorter one in tow.

“Whose stinking shoes are these?”

“Mine,” said John quietly. “I’ll move ‘em.” He walked over to the stove, picked up his boots and leaned against the counter while he put them on.

“Hey old man, they still hiring up at the mine?”

“You talkin’ to me?” asked Boats.

“Yeah. How far to the mine?”

“Road out front leads there. ‘Bout a mile uphill on the mountain. Don’t know if they’s still hirin’.”

The tall one stood up. “Come on, Charlie. We better get goin’ if we’re ta get a job.” He looked at John. “You a miner? Lookin’ for work?”

“Could be.”

“Well, ya better hustle up there with us. Might be only a few jobs.”

“Think I’ll wait a spell. Dry out a little.”

“Suit yerself. You look plum tuckered. Probly won’t get hired anyway.”

“Could be.”

After they left, John walked to the door, leaned against the sill puffing on his pipe, and watched the two of them half run, half walk up the hill toward the mine. As they gradually faded from sight in the mist, he took a few more puffs on his pipe and walked to the stove to tap it out on the wooden edge of the sandbox before putting it in his pocket.

“I ’spect I’ll walk on up there and see what goes.”

“Good luck,” said Boats. “Straw boss’ name is Monk. Tell ’im I said hello. Might help.”

“Thanks … and thanks for the coffee.”

The rain had tapered to a drizzle with a few snowflakes mixed in. He pulled his collar tight and started up the road to the mine with an easy gait that had carried him across most of two states. Within 10 minutes he was more than halfway to the mine and spotted the two fellows coming back down the hill. They were almost even with him when the tall one said, “No sense going up there. They ain’t hirin’. May as well turn back.”

When John didn’t reply, the tall one said, “You hear me? They ain’t hirin’. You’d be goin’ up there for nothin’.”

Without breaking his stride, John said, “Could be,” and kept walking. When he got to the mine, several miners were standing around a fire-box warming themselves and waiting for shift change. One of them, a barrel-chested man of medium build was leaning against a shortwall coal cutter. He’d been watching John walk up the hill. He straightened and said, “I’m Monk. Straw boss here. What do you do?”

“Anythin’ down under.”

“When can you start?”

“Now.”

“We’ll go to the mine shack and sign you up.”

John pulled his pipe from his pocket and filled it from the tin of Velvet. “Can I ask you something?”

“Ask away.”

“Why is it you turned away those other two fellows and are hirin’ me?”

Monk smiled. “I was talkin’ to those two when I saw you comin’ up the mountain, walkin’ like you could pace yourself that way forever, and I said to the boys here, ‘Yonder comes a miner, boys … Yonder comes a miner.’”  P&T

“Yonder Comes a Miner”first appeared in a collection of short stories titled Then…Now…Whenever…, copyright 2003 by Regis McCaffery.