Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Anyone smoke a pipe anymore (with plain tobacco, not funny stuff?)

My roommate and I bought corn-cob pipes in college and a bag of good tobacco. I think I could have easily made it a habit, but most other people (especially girls) didn't want to be around it.

What sealed it for me was when my mom (a surgical nurse) described a few operations to me where they had to cut lower lips off pipe smokers, along with cheeks, voice boxes, and down into the throat. So...I decided not to pursue the pipe thing any further.

I've smoked pipes off & on for 20 years. Like some others here, I can take it or leave it. I don't think I've had a bowl since my last fishing trip in September, but over the Holidays I'll probably have half a dozen bowls.

I really enjoy McClelland tobaccos, particularly Deep Hollow and Frogmorton. Deep Hollow goes really well with a glass of port on a winter evening, and Frogmorton is my go-to smoke at Cowboy Action matches. It goes well with the sulfurous fumes of my blackpowder loads.

Wife's grand dad smoked a pipe all his life. He died at 98. Always had a can of Velvet at the ready. As he got older all his shirts were littered with burn holes from some of the stragglers that didn't get packed down in the bowl. He was always at peace with a pipe in his mouth. I'm sure a pipe and a can of Velvet went in the box with him. Good memories of a great old guy!

Similar experiences here as well. I used Cope for 20 yrs. and when I quit I substituted pipe smoking. My memories of Dad smoking a pipe, along with other comforting scenes/memories, no doubt influenced the choice.
Then Finn Aagaard (a devotee of the pipe) passed from lung cancer. I don't know the particulars, but assumed there was a connection. He was an author who had a great deal of influence on me, so I learned one last lesson from him and quit the pipe.
Still miss it, along with the Copenhagen, but am not willing to risk my health to go back.

elkjaeger

I quit the pipe around this time of year in 1953. A few years later, I smoked part of one bowl to test a gizzie that I'd made. I'd figured-out how a hookah (water pipe) worked, and I'd built one to make sure that I'd theorized right. It was a cool, sweet smoke, with all the tar and bite trapped in the water, but I never went back to the pipe.

One thing that always intrigued me was that tobaccos that had the best aromas had the worst tastes and vice versa. A room mate smoked a San Francisco blend called "Trolley Car" that convinced me that it was sweepings collected from the San Francisco trolleys. I loved the aroma of "Rum and Maple" but couldn't stand to smoke it.

Ain�t that the truth. I�d always have someone ask �why don�t you smoke the stuff that smells good?� and I�d tell them it was because the better it smelled, the worse it tastes. That Virginian, Prique, Latakia blend I like will run a buzzard of a shytwagon but man does it taste good.

Frogmorton is Good Stuff for sure...

It's been quite a few years. When I was building a race car with a friend we'd end the days work with a bs session smoking our pipes.

My wife won't let me smoke it in the house, and it's just too cold outside. Occasionally I'll just chew on my pipe while working the shop.

I definately agree with the sentiment that the fancy smelling tobacco tends to taste like moldy toenail clippings.

I don't smoke much any more but I'll be having a bowl of Davidoff scottish blend this evening. Pretty much just special evenings now.

I used to treat myself to a can of Balkan Sobranie once in a while. It smells just like pot smoke. I got lots of strange stares when I would walk between classes at Gainesville smoking that stuff. The folks must have thought I was bold, crazy, or stupid smoking what they thought was pot in such a public manner. I got a kick out a fellow at a party one time who thought I had wacky weed in my calabash (Sherlock Holmes) pipe. He tapped me on the shoulder and held out his hand for a drag. I handed him my calabash. He took the biggest drag off that stem I have ever seen and gave it back to me. I didn't have the heart to tell him he was getting stoned on Carter Hall. My uncle smoked a pipe and cigars most of his life and died at 92. He did have a good bit of his lip removed because of cancer.

A new thought just invaded my vacuum!

Maybe a hookah provides a way to have both flavor and aroma � apparently, there's no end to what you can put in the hookah water � or in place of it.

Your favorite tobacco blend and your favorite beverage � man! what an abundance of possibilities!

It's also possible that a so-so beverage will prove to be "choice" in a hookah.

The water pipe is the finest invention for enjoying tobacco, period. Think you're right that it'll change the mediocre into the palatable... I'd rather just start out with the "best" and make it even better!

Second best pipe for real smoking is a quality Meerschaum.

Next, IMO, would be a quality corncob, followed last by briar.

But briar will outlast all of them.

My "hookah" in the 70's was purple and never saw any Virginia or Perique (grin).

Yes....I have a pretty good collection of Bjarne churchwardens
and a few Don Carlos, Jirsa, and Petersons.....my fav. tobacco is
McClelland Bombay, followed by Pipesandcigars.com Sunjammer. Also
buy a lot of Iwan Ries tobacco....especially Spilman Mixture.

A buddy of mine mixed a little FFFFg in his cousin's big canister of pipe tobacco � but John just smoked away and blithely ignored the little shooting stars that popped up out of his pipe.

A twist on the old exploding cigar routine, eh?

Wasn't their jingle, "The chicks are back. Pass the word- the chicks are back"? It's too bad I can't convey rhythm, emphasis, and voice quality in a post.

Saw someone with a pipe about 2 weeks ago. It brought back a lot of memories. I quit smoking in the mid 70's, but a pipe loaded with Brokum Riff was one of my personal favorites at that time.