Do people still smoke tobacco in pipes?
I’ve just tried it. I enjoy cigars and hookahs… cigarettes, not so much. I find the pipe to be like a cigar, but for ridiculously less money.
But does anyone actually still do it?
You notice the odd person doing it outside or at the workplace, but I am of the opinion that at least in southern ontario its mainly smoked in the home.
Declan
My cousin has smoked a pipe for years and years.
He puts some sort of cherry tobacco in it, and it smells really nice. Nothing like the odor from cigarettes or cigars.
I love Pipes. The smoke from them is not obnoxious, it’s actually oddly appealing. Then again if you look at my location you’ll see where my affinity for good pipe weed comes from!
I smoke a pipe occasionally (when the girlfriend is out for at least a day, in fact, so neither the smoky air nor the smoky breath can annoy her). Indeed, there are quite a few tobaccos that have a cigarry flavor, but the span of tastes and lightnesses I find much better in pipes than in cigars. There’s flavors galore in pipe tobacco, if you find the right dealer: from the obnoxious cherry (sorry…) to the well-liked vanillas, as well as flavorless virginias, orientals and others. I prefer pure Virginia with a whisky and coffee, and a piece of chocolate to go with it – although pipe purists, whisky purists, coffee purists and chocolate purists will tell you that shouldn’t be mixed. Well, it’s never the most expensive tobacco, whisky, or coffee, so that helps.
But yes, there’s people who still do it. But as in all things, it’s only a money-saver if you stay in the low end, and you should have at least one medium to high-end pipe that smokes cool and dry, clean it regularly (with a tasteless alcohol) and keep a good tobacco close by.
I smoke mine once it cools enough in FL for the evening to be pleasant. It is my most preferred smoking method and is easily the most aromatic. I enjoy cigars during the hotter months. I never touch cigarettes.
Cool. I wish I had a porch in Florida too
I have a $15 wooden pipe. It looks just like a sherlock holmes one. It probably won’t last long, but I think it’s good enough. Pipe tobacco, however, is a bit of a problem. My corner store has an entire humidified wall of cigars, but exactly one flavor of pipe tobacco (SuperValue Cherry Cavendish). I still like it, but what might I buy online? Is hookah tobacco the same thing as pipe?
I have a church warden pipe that I enjoy once in a blue moon. I’ll smoke it maybe four or five times a year, and a cigar maybe twice a year. Aside from that, I don’t smoke at all. But I do keep some pipe tobacco around because the smell is so delightfully grandfatherly.
If you’re really going to smoke pipe, get yourself a good one – 80$ or so may cover it…try a Butz-Choquin or Stanwell, which are pretty good run of the mill pipes. Pipe tobacco now…well, I’ve parsed the stuff you can get at Pipe Tobacco (which I in no way endorse), and I envy you the chance to get all those things tried for the first time. Depending on what you like, here are a few suggestions:
Aromatics:
MacBaren PlumCake – a truly unique blend that smells and tastes just a little like dried plums. Rather strong for an aromatic.
MacBaren Vanilla Cream – the best vanilla tobacco I know.
Peterson Irish Whiskey – the Peterson blends offer quality.
Virginias:
MacBaren Virginia Flake – for Virginias, nothing beats flake tobacco, although it’s more difficult to smoke cool
Dunhill Elizabethan Mixture – with a pinch of perique tobacco, slightly strong, but one of the best
Tjrodenskold Virginia slices (Dan Tobacco) – great stuff, simply.
I would have suggested Rattray’s Hal O’ The Wynd, which is a ready-rubbed flake and my favorite, but they don’t carry it…
Others (Latakia blends; Cigar blends):
Peterson University Flake: The strongest tobacco I’ve ever smoked, but oh so delightful. Makes me nauseous in a big pipe, though.
Dunhill Early Morning Pipe: A Latakia blend, as are others, with a special, strong, smoked tobacco (Latakia). Try it – but it’s not for that faint-hearted, and not a crowd-pleaser.
MacBaren Navy Flake: Mainly Burley tobacco – something different.
As you get more experience with the pipe, you will find that you will want to dedicate pipes to different blends – at least aromatic, virginia and latakia pipes.
My husband just bought a Meerschaum (sp?) pipe and has only smoked it a few times, but LOVES it. He’s never smoked except for the occassional cigar at a party.
I like the smell, so I don’t mind so much when he comes in all smoky.
We list pipes for sale at work all the time (I work for an auction site) and they always bring in good money. Someone out there is smoking them.
I have no evidence for this but:
Pipe tobacco>hand rolling tobacco>cigarettes
in terms of smokeability and stuff. I only ever buy cigarettes because they are much easier to make joints with (I can’t handle pure weed at the strength I can get), and rollies are frankly much cheaper and better.
My dad smokes a pipe. He must own close to 100 pipes by this point. I think the only time he doesn’t have a pipe in his mouth is when he’s eating or sleeping.
A few years ago, we were in Washington, D.C. near the White House and he had his pipe going. A guy coming the other way on the sidewalk literally stopped in his tracks to stare. It was pretty funny.
My husband smokes a pipe and I love how it smells. He has several pipes that I bought for him while I was in Denmark a few years ago. Each one is beautiful- nice detail and fits perfectly in his hand. I love to give him tobacco from my travels as he has taught me how to select them. He enjoys them thoroughly.
You are right- it seems less expensive than cigars. The best part is that the pipe (or cigar) requires one to stop, take time to enjoy the smoke, and consider life from the perspective of the easy chair.
Enjoy your pipe! 
~Deborah
I smoked a pipe back in the early 1980s, and when the movie Fellowship of the Ring came out, it actually got me to try one again. But a) tobacco in any form isn’t a good idea; b) a pipe is just too damn much trouble; c) it’s never as cool as it looks when an elderly gay wizard is doing it.
I smoked a pipe in high school during the weekend. I loved the smell and they have all kinds of great tobacco available. I don’t think your are supposed to inhale but I always did. They are definitely a step up from cigarettes and probably cigars but they are hard to keep lit. I wouldn’t smoke one in the house however. One pipe smoking probably equals several hundred cigarettes although the smell is better.
Until you know what you like, I wouldn’t recommend shopping online for tobacco. You may get stuck paying for a lot of something you don’t like.
Visit a brick-and-mortar tobacconist. He or she can help you select a good pipe that will smoke well, suggest techniques for beginners, and best of all, recommend tobaccos that you will probably enjoy. Some tobacconists will even sell loose tobacco by weight–this allows you to purchase a small amount of tobacco (sometimes, even an amount as small as a pipeful) to try.
This is exactly right, and is why I enjoy my pipes so much.
I used to do it in my first semester in college. It was my thing. I also walked around my dorm hall wearing a robe a lot. As you can imagine, it didn’t take long for me to earn the nickname Hugh (for Hefner).
I gave it up, since I didn’t get much out of smoking the cheap stuff in a cheap pipe and I didn’t have the money to make a serious investment. But if you’re ever in Tucson, AZ, swing by some of the more popular headshops (Puff N Stuff was one, and there was another I can’t remember the name of) and you can buy pipe tobacco by the ounce in all kinds of flavors that they flavor right there in the store. My favorite was apple; good for rolling, too.
And while you’re in Tucson, FTR, go check out Smiley’s on 4th Ave. It’s a hookah shop run by a Lebanese giant of a man (Smiley, of course), who will talk to you for hours and explain how to get every little thing right in the hookah experience, and give you serious discounts on parts and tobacco if he likes you. If he really likes you, he’ll let you watch him make shisha. We got some amazing deals on shisha that he made right there behind the counter. Awesome guy.
I thought people only (or mostly) smoked hash in Europe.
Like coffee, pipe tobacco is one of those “smells good/tastes awful” things.
For the true Aficionado these pipes from Lilliput are true turkish works of art. I’ve got the Bacchus for special occasions…
Do try to find a tobacconist who specializes in pipe tobacco, they’ll have a rack of glass jars filled with loose tobacco that you buy by the ounce. The stuff they sell in cans is invariably very dry and harsh, it will put you off the pipe real quick. Really good tobacconists will let you get a bowl full just to try a different blend for FREE!
Pipes themselves are a real hit and miss thing. The same tobacco can taste very different in different pipes.
If you really get into it you need a number a pipes so that they can rest between uses. Run a pipe cleaner through the stem after every smoke, it helps get rid of the tar that accumulates in the stem.
Constantly using the same pipe doesn’t allow the moisture that’s in good tobacco to dry out out of the pipe’s bowl. Not doing that can give a really nasty flavor to the tobacco, and lead to the bowl rotting.
My brother (who has smoked for nearly 30 years) has ~150 pipes and NEVER smokes the same pipe twice in a row.
CMC +fnord!
BTW price does really matter don’t expect a $15 pipe to be as good as a well made pipe, from a well known maker, that costs $50 to $150. You do get what you pay for!