Tobacco and Boredom

I began my day with a nice bowl of Escudo Navy De Luxe in the Matches860 Friday Savinelli 673. Every bowl I have of Escudo I can't help but think, "this stuff is actually going to improve with time." It is so fantastic fresh that it's hard to believe it will get better. I have 22 tins cellared and I intend to add more as sales pop up. Later on I enjoyed some C&D Sunday Picnic in a Peterson Rosslare 999 with a yellow saddle fishtail stem. A stunning pipe that smokes beautifully. Sunday Picnic is one of those sleeper blends that is simply a pleasure each time I pack a bowl. The components tobaccos play so well together and the casing is light and doesn't cover the natural tobacco flavors. Along the way I also enjoyed some Bernard's nasal snuff. This one is a fine schmalzler that is savory, salty, meaty and boozy to perfection. I have 4 more tap boxes of it on the way and I'm sure I'll need more in short order. This stuff is a ...

It seems as though fall has arrived all of a sudden this year. Last week I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and now long pants are in order. The evenings are a pleasant cool and a light jacket is plenty.  I was feeling like a light aromatic tobacco might be in order but I wasn't willing to commit to something overly topped. After some deliberation I landed on Peter Stokkebye Luxury Twist Flake. It's a very pleasant Virginia that gives off an exquisite vanilla aroma from the jar. In fact the jar note can be down right intense which would lead one to speculate that the flavor when smoked would be a bit too much. I don't find this to be the case at all. This tobacco smokes wonderfully and tastes sublime. My pipe today was a Kaywoodie Custom Grain Bulldog, an estate pipe I was lucky enough to nab on eBay several months ago. It smokes like a dream and has beautiful lines. There is something great about a straight up, no frills Bulldog. While I smoked that pipe I brow...

I was out at the Peddlers Mall with the wife the other day and came across a fantastic find. Although there were many pipes and tobacianna around one piece in particular caught my eye. It was a pretty beat up Decatur pipe rack with seven equally beat up pipes in it. At first I thought they were all old drug store pipes not worth the effort but upon closer inspection I found 3 very nice salvageable GBD pipes among them. A Prehistoric, a French Sablee King size and a Conquest Ebony. The price tag was $55 which I dickered down to $45...a steal! I was also lucky to find an old Kentucky Club tin and a brass cat pipe stand. I turned to the restoration work on the pipes after getting them home. The stems were removed and soaked in OxiClean while I reamed out the bowls. I started with a standard reamer and then moved to sand paper once the work got more delicate. After reaming and sanding I set each bowl up for a sweetening. I filled the chambers with salt and then topped each one with Evercle...

Today I'm in my favorite spot (the porch swing) with my favorite smoking companion (my dog Yukon) enjoying some Rattray's Old Gowrie in a Savinelli 320 series III.  I've had a productive day thus far having mowed the grass, completed a doctor's visit and updated my tobacco cellar. The day is comfortable with almost no breeze but a nice late summer temperature somewhere in the low to mid 70's. A few neighborhood dogs are communicating with one another in the distance however Yukon is paying them no mind. He is a very obedient friend and hardly ever makes a peep. When he barks then it's time to take notice. I was just thinking that this summer has been mostly marked by burley tobacco blends for me. Odd considering that warmer temperatures usually have me reaching for Virginia. Perhaps even more unusual as we creep into cooler weather when I would generally seek the comfort of English tobacco blends, I am instead now pulling out more Virginia. I'm n...

 Smoking a tobacco pipe is an act of contemplation and relaxation for me. On days when I am able I begin my day with coffee and a quiet morning pipe. My porch swing is the preferred location when the weather is conducive to sitting in the outdoors, when it is not my shop is a close second. My bowl this morning was Dan Tobacco Salty Dogs in a Peterson Summertime 2019 606.  This blend is a very pleasant Virginia with a not so subtle rum casing. You still get the wonderful hay and citrus notes of any Virginia forward tobacco but the rum really plays well. These pandemic days are really playing with my head as of late. When this thing kicked off in February I was certain it would blow over quickly...unfortunately I was very wrong. My two children are still being schooled from home and my poor wife has become a full time teacher on top of mother and homemaker. We are each struggling to carve out our own strip of personal space in our small home and mine has mostly been ...