Pipe Smoking

[snakster]

The main thing is to be as sure as you can that the body of the pipe is high quality. I saw many inferior pipes fitted with churchwarden stems. Adding a long stem to a body made of poor briar or badly made will not turn it into a good pipe.

No worries there. J.M. (Boswell) does not make bad pipes. And his briar wood is top shelf.

[Dr. François]

Anyone have a favorite lighter?

I gave up on matches because I wasn't coordinated enough to use them. Juggling pipe, matches, and match box proved daunting. I used a bic lighter, but it wasn't very pleasing to use. Then I switched to a Ronson butane lighter, but it burned too fast and hot. I scorched the top of the bowl pretty bad. Plus my thumb.

I just picked up a Zippo pipe lighter for around 15 bucks at the outlet mall. I love the thing.

What's your favorite lighter for pipes?

[mythrenegade]

It was a blast to read this thread again!

I use an orange thing from harbor freight :-) It can be adjusted and does a great job without scorching the bowl.

It's funny to see my "four times a year" in an earlier post. That was about how often I smoked a cigar. With a pipe that can now be adjusted to "four times a month" which is a considerable increase.

A year plus in I really like pipe smoking. The flavors are fantastic, I like tinkering with it, and it's considerably cheaper than (good) cigars. The smell is also MUCH more agreeable to those around me.

My favorite is still Calypso Black. I also like McClelland MC2005. The Old Lodge is very good, but only for cold weather, and it does NOT work well with bourbon. The strong flavors fight too much. I found that it overpowered ODG 114, and then when I switched to a beer (strong beer, Stone Old Guardian if I remember correctly) I discovered that the two paired nicely.

Someone suggested that I try the Old Lodge with laophraig, and I think that's a great suggestion but I haven't gotten around to springing for a bottle of it.

Joel