What We Talk About When We Talk About Pipes

Poor Prince Albert.  He's been in the can for 90 years.

Now that the oldest pipe tobacco joke in history is out of the way, welcome to The Pipe Bit, a blog about pipe-smoking, life, and geekery.  As for "what gives you the right to another damn blog," well, aside from the First Amendment, I have been the pipe tobacconist at Uhle Tobacco in Milwaukee since 1994, before most of you were born.

Uhle's has been in business since 1939, definitely before most of you were born, and is one of the six U.S. businesses that survived the economic collapse of 2008.  As an employee there, I have learned much about pipes and tobaccos (and cigars), and know I have a lot to learn.

Uhle's has two layers in its physical plant.  The main upstairs floor is the retail store.  Downstairs are the offices and the warehouse, a windowless cavern only one cement wall away from the Milwaukee River.  I work in the warehouse, where the I make the Uhle tobacco blends.  And also several custom mixes, shipped to customers worldwide.

On the writing cred front, such as it is, I had a column for the long-gone Uhle's newsletter, which was "printed" on "paper."  And back in the mists of time, I posted on the legendary alt.smokers.pipes newsgroup, helping a gentleman called A Sophisticate Like Myself get his thoughts together.

What we talk about when we talk about pipes is the shared--your grandfather, I daresay, smoked a pipe--and the individual, such as a favorite pipe tobacco blend.  What influences us, and and how we think and act and smoke (and knowing Voyager was, of course, the best of the Star Trek series)...that's The Pipe Bit.
Twitter: @thepipebit