Smoking Pipes

Bo is one of the few pipe makers in the history of the craft that has been credited directly with creating not one, but two entirely new shapes. Finding a suitable block for the carving of an Elephant’s Foot is a task in and of itself. Likewise straight grain should radiate from the end of the shank toward the back of the pipe, which like the front should also have an ample endowment of birdseye grain. An Elephant’s Foot should almost always be entirely smooth, though partial sandblasting has sometimes been executed successfully. The bowl of the Cutty is heavily canted forward, which helps differentiate it from other long-shanked pipes like the Canadian. The Cutty may sometimes display a very unique stem, which is slim, slender, and round (almost like a straw).

They consist of a downward curve that ends with an upcurve where the bowl sits. Beneath the bowl is an air chamber which serves to cool, dry, and mellow the smoke. These typically do not have an air chamber and are so named only because of their external shape. The Prince was originally fashioned for Prince Albert who would later ascend to the British throne as King Edward VII. An English dandy if ever there was one, the prince demanded elegance not offered by any shape in existence at the time. Pipe maker Emil Loewe, founder of London’s Loewe and Co., designed the shape for Prince Albert, and in doing so created an instant classic.

The slogan, “A clever chap only smokes the original Dr. Perl,” is a German re-incarnation of the better known brand’s catchphrase. That nearly all pipes made in Germany today are influenced by the 9mm filter tradition. I dropped it due to lack of training, until my father who was Fashion tobacco pipe also a pipe smoker told me the “secrets” after I turned 21. Kept the habit on and on for ten years, and then quit tobacco altogether. Aware that it is an offensive habit, I try to keep on the low side of one pipe a week but sometimes I binge. Also, according to Alfred Dunhill, Africans had a long tradition of pipe smoking asserting that by 1884, the King of the Baluka tribe of the Congo had established a hemp-smoking cult in place of fetish worship.

Those even passingly familiar with bourbon have heard of Pappy Van Winkle. In the Scotch whisky world, Brora, Rosebank, and other closed distilleries have an intense following for liquor that is getting older and rarer every year. Cigar connoisseurs chase after vintage Cubans, Opus Xs, and Padron Millenniums.

Churchwardens are very long on account of stems that reach nine inches in length or more. The smoke must travel this great distance, and so it has more time and surface area in which to cool, resulting in what many consider to be a more pleasurable smoke. Churchwardens are notoriously inconvenient to carry around, and their small bowls only allow for a brief smoke.