Pirates of the Pipe Tobacco

(Note to my blog staff: “For the next post on The Pipe Bit, I want a picture of my humble self decked out as a pirate. I can bring the peg leg and eye patch from home, but I need a cutlass and a parrot. The parrot can be the stuffed kind, if necessary.

What I’m gonna do is tie in blend cuts like rope and coin with pirates. Get it? Like Jack Sparrow and shit like that? No? Well it’s because, you know, pirates use like, rope, and they have treasure with gold coins--Ooh! I’ll need some gold coins too, real gold, for the picture. I’m sure you can take these from the store’s register. And I also want like an audio file of me growling “Aaarrgh, matey,” and a video clip of me waving the cutlass! So that’s all pretty cool, right?”

Chris--sorry, not in the budget.  Sorry--Your Blog Staff)
--


Oh, the bitter injustices we bloggers suffer. Anyway, in a continuing attempt at clarity:

Most pipe tobacco blends come neatly packaged and all ready to smoke, just open the pouch or tin and fill your briar. Some blends, though, require a touch of effort before you can smoke them.

A very old-school type of blend is rope cut. This does indeed look, and feel, like a thick, corded rope. The tobacco is twisted and bound into this shape; and since fine cuts of tobacco would not hold the shape, rope cut blends consist of uncut tobacco leaves--a true rarity in pipe tobacco blends. Sometimes called navy Gawith makes rope cut blends, like their Black XX.

Two other styles of pipe tobacco blends require not cutting, but “rubbing out” (a pause for jokes)…Okay, this term means the smoker takes the tobacco and “rubs” it “out,” between the hands, making a villain’s “heh-heh-heh” gesture, breaking the blend into smaller pieces. Once a blend is rubbed out, the pipe can be filled. Most commonly, this type of pipe mixture is called flake. A flake blend--not the blend component, see the “Basics” post below--is pressed into a “cake,” a small, thin tablet of tobacco. This is then rubbed out. Coin cut, also called birdseye, blend styles are pressed too, but cut into discs. Both flake and coin styles extract the oils in tobacco leaves by pressing; but once rubbed out, can dry quickly. Peter Stokkebye makes a coin cut blend, called Curly Cut, and Sam Gawith offers the legendary Full Virginia Flake. Also, Cornell and Diehl makes a brick-style flake called Pirate Kake (sigh).

These cuts provide a change of pace for the pipe smoker, and are a reminder of the long history and evolution of pipe tobacco blends--for pirates, and everyone else.

Twitter:  @thepipebit

Big Brother: Something on Cigars

I am one of the few people, in our current times, to work in a tobacco store. Or cigar store. Or smoke shop. Or Den of Sin. Call it what you will (just buy something!)

In particular, I work with pipe tobacco, a tiny and arcane area even in the context of a retail tobacconist. For, you see, the product that keeps smoke shops in business is not pipe tobacco. It’s cigars.

True, the image of the wizened, avuncular, corner-store tobacconist whittling away the days thinking up pipe blends is Romantic-capital-R. And it’s also true I am getting wizened and even avuncular (though my employer, Uhle Tobacco, is not on a corner). Alas, though, business does not care for things as they should be, but rather for things as they are, and the way things are regarding retail tobacconists is: MMMMmmmmoney. This means cigars. Cigarettes, too, but that’s for another time.

Blending pipe tobacco is not my only duty at Uhle’s. I also do the receiving of wholesale deliveries, which consist mostly of cigars. These deliveries are unpacked, boxes of cigars laid out on a table like huge dominos, and I then check the contents against a packing slip or invoice. If all is accounted for, I put the cigars in a walk-in humidor, take the paperwork to the office, and go back to pipe tobacco.

I can do that because of those cigars; I would not, frankly, have my job without them. I know this, and appreciate it (and enjoy smoking cigars). Still, there remains a bit of jealousy--the fact is, most customers come in to buy a product I have nothing, directly, to do with. Yes, I know that cigars are less complicated to smoke than pipes. Yes, I know very few people, by comparison with cigars, smoke a pipe. Yes, I know there is a built-in aura of…say, elegance and celebration with cigars.

All true. In the end, I am grateful that one part of the tobacco industry, cigars, can, in essence, support another part, pipe tobacco. Simply--at the retail level--no cigars means no pipe tobacco.

I enjoy and respect cigars, pipe tobacco’s big brother. Hell, there’s even pipe tobacco blends made from cigar leaves (notably by McClelland). A sign of respect--and sales. I hope all tobacco stores can have both, towards all of their products.

Twitter:  @thepipebit

Basics: Pipe Tobaccos and Pipe Tobacco Cuts

“They speak English in What?”

--Jules, Pulp Fiction

To the beginning pipe smoker (and many experienced ones), pipe tobacco terminology can be more confusing than the ret-conning done by Saw V. In a continuing effort at clarity, here are the basics of pipe tobacco and pipe tobacco cuts:

Burley is used in most blends. It has a nutty and subtle flavor. In aromatic blends, it is sometimes pressed and flavored, making it a Cavendish, as in Captain Black. It’s used in English blends to give balance and a hint of natural tobacco taste. When smoked as it‘s unflavored self, burley doesn’t smell too memorable, but this wonderfully adaptive blend component forms the base of many tobacco blends.

Black Cavendish is a catch-all name for burley that has been pressed and flavored with a sweet, sort-of-vanilla topping. Every (decent) tobacconist has at least one Black Cavendish blend; it’s very easy to smoke, flavorful but not overwhelming, and the room aroma is pleasant. All tobaccos in this category are black and flavored, but differ by manufacturer in moisture content (how “wet” a blend feels) and taste. A Black Cavendish may feel dry and smell of raisins (Toasted Black Cavendish from Altadis) or may be moist enough to stick to your hand and have the scent of French vanilla icing (Vanilla Black Cavendish from McClelland). In a blend, this can be used as a primary ingredient in an aromatic, or to give just a hint of sweetness to a primarily English mixture.

Virginia tobaccos have dedicated fans that insist Virginia is The One True Pipe Tobacco To Rule Them All. In it’s most common form, this pale-yellow leaf tastes woody and slightly sweet. Virginia can be “stoved”--exposed to very high heat in processing. This darkens the tobacco, and brings out even more of Virginia’s natural sweetness. They are used to add a bit of body and sugar to English blends, and are used in aromatics to compliment and enhance the blend’s flavors.

Latakia (“Latta-keya“) smells like the smoke from a campfire. That is how it was traditionally produced--leaves were hung from a barn’s rafters, and a fire was lit well under them, so the leaves absorbed the smoky goodness. Today, many large producers might take shortcuts like latakia “flavoring“--but hopefully not. The ultimate English tobacco, latakia is a hallmark of “serious” non-aromatic blends. It lends an earthy, meaty, savory richness when used in moderation in a mixture; but if too much is used, all other flavors are blotted out. Think of latakia as fresh-ground black pepper--a dash good, a handful too much.

And then there’s Perique (“Per-eek”), a true oddball tobacco. Ask your local (real) tobacconist to let you smell this stuff right from the bulk bag--it’s something every pipe smoker should try once. Because perique is the only tobacco that is fermented--yes, as in fermenting a pickle! Genuine perique is made by pressing the tobacco (a special strain grown correctly only in St. James’ Parish, Louisiana) and letting it stew in its oils and juices for a long length of time. Perique is used in tiny amounts in English blends for a bit of a spicy kick. Do not smoke perique by itself--doing this has been compared to, only half-jokingly, having a lobotomy. I shit you not.

And on the subject of having your brain cut out (“Isn‘t that what your blog does?”), the cut of a pipe tobacco is important due to how it affects the burning qualities and aesthetics of a blend.

The most common cut in pipe tobacco is the ribbon cut, also called long cut and sometimes shag cut. Ribbon cut is the narrow, thin, shoelace-width cut that you’ll find in some respect in nearly all mixtures, and in cigarette tobacco. It burns very easily due to its thinness and length, but can burn a bit too quickly for some smokers. The ribbon cut is also very common in Cavendish blends for easy puffing. Most popular blends, like Apple and Captain Black, are ribbon cut.

Flake cut tobacco looks a bit like a thin chip of wood (flake is also a type of pressed blend, which is another post). A very light, flat cut, it slows burning and gives a blend the visual appeal of a dash of color, for example with Virginia tobacco cut into flakes. The broader plane of this cut also adds more flavor than a ribbon cut, as there is more surface area to burn. McClelland uses Virginia flake in several mixtures.

Like a flake cut, cube cut slows burning but has even more surface area than a flake. So, it adds even more flavor and provides a leisurely smoke. The flavor and subtleties of burley are truly brought out in this cut. This is also the most difficult cut to produce of the three cuts, needing special pressing and cutting equipment, and several layers of burley, to produce a quality cube. This cut is somewhat rare, but is in Uhle’s Perfection Plug Burley and Blend 300.

There’s always more to know about pipe tobacco, and reviewing basic tobaccos and cuts is a good starting point. Now you can even try mixing your own blend--but easy on the perique.

Okay, so Detective Hoffman was really with Jigsaw the whole time….

Twitter: @thepipebit

The Smoking (Hot) Summer

“Should we talk about the weather?”

--R.E.M., “Pop Song ‘89”

Hotter Than Hell

--Kiss CD title

Time’s up, my friends.

It’s June. It’s summer.

In my part of the United States, Wisconsin and the flyover country of the Midwest, summer really begins with a fierce drinking contest called Summerfest. This year’s run is later in June, and will leave the problem of how to dispose of several hundred thousand plastic beer cups…but at least you can smoke there, as it is an outdoor event.

I’ve always been conflicted about summer. Thanks to the invention of life-saving air conditioning, I usually don’t have to deal with the worst of the season’s heat and humidity--but it does run up the electric bill. Thanks to the (sometimes) pleasant weather, clothes and inhibitions are shucked off--but this results, on occasion, in fights and accidents. And then there is the constant presence of frustrating road construction.

Smoking provides a balm to the problems of the season (and any season). But because of humidity and heat, I find my smoking adjusting to the temperature. In oppressive conditions, I find I just don’t want a burning bowl of tobacco next to me, I’m ashamed to say. Somehow, smoking a pipe in the guts of summer’s heat seems too…heavy, too thick. I get over this feeling with air conditioning, happily. But firing up my briar in the back yard, taking a break from mowing the lawn on a 95 degree day? Adding more heat to the damn furnace? Forget it--I’ll take a smoke break in my nice, cool kitchen. Cool off a bit, before going back outside and having the heat and humidity hit me like a wool blanket. (An exception: At an Arab World Festival a few years ago, my long-suffering wife and I rented a hookah, a water pipe from that part of the globe. The smoke from this pipe, coming from a long tube, was cooled by the contraption’s water, and was very enjoyable on a hot day at the lakefront).

Cigarettes are perfect for this season--quick, disposable, no fussing with pipe cleaners and tampers and such. They do not seem too heavy and thick to smoke. And wouldn’t that plastic cup, filled with cold beer, go great with a cig? Adding the cigarette’s smoke to the scents of summer--popcorn, cut grass, fried food, cotton candy, sweat--would be a pleasure, and appropriate, as would be seeing the thin, gray smoke float slowly in the steaming air.

There are some memories from summer that I cherish. I was married on an August day in 1997. In the long-ago 80s, I spent a scorching week at the legendary World Affairs Seminar in Whitewater, Wisconsin. Mostly, though, it’s my least-favorite season, too hot, too sticky, too uncomfortable.

And flip-flops. And tornadoes. And the syrupy days when motivation is smothered by humidity. And groceries expiring in the trunk of the car.

Three more months until autumn, the pipe-smoking season, and sanity--cool sanity.

Aromatic, English and Eggs (Oh My)

Every occupation and subculture, be it medicine or video games, has its own jargon.  Although specialized terms may help a given field's expert to communicate with others, clarity is more useful.  In this spirit, here's the first in an occasional series defining the dreaded pipe tobacco jargon.

The two overall categories for pipe tobacco are Aromatic and English.  Aromatic, strictly, means a pipe tobacco with added flavoring.  English blends have no flavoring added; they rely on the natural taste of the component tobaccos.  So, for example, a cherry-flavored blend is always an Aromatic; and that same blend of tobaccos, minus the cherry or any other added flavors, is an English blend.

As Alton Brown on Good Eats may say, picture two eggs.  Fry the first in a pan (heating is a process, but doesn't add any flavors not already in the egg).  Don't even add butter.  Just fry the egg and eat it plain, to enjoy the pure eggy goodness.  This is an English egg.

But scramble the second egg.  Put in a nice pat of butter and gently mix the egg with some cream and, oh, some shredded Colby-Jack cheese.  And put some chives and a bit of roasted red pepper in, too.  Cook and serve up your Aromatic egg:  The added flavors make this different from your plain old English egg.

The pan used for your eggs stands in for the processing of tobacco.  Pipe tobaccos, depending on type, are dried, steamed, pressed, stoved or undergo many other processes--but the processing of the tobacco has nothing to do with the English or Aromatic quality of the blend; only the flavoring or lack of flavoring makes the difference.

Enjoy your Wild Cherry (Aromatic) or Bishop's Move (English).  And never put an egg in your pipe.  Unless it's hardboiled--but, to again paraphrase Alton Brown, that's another post.

Whatever Happened to the Uhle Tobacco Company?

"It's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there."

                                                                                           --Bob Dylan, "Not Dark Yet"

September, 2031

Las Vegas, Nevada

Dear Paige,

I did indeed work with your mother, Caroline, at Uhle’s in the early part of this century. As you are completing your Master’s degree in American History, I will try to answer your query as to what, exactly, happened to the Uhle Tobacco Company.

Your Mom and I both worked, for a time, at Uhle’s, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She worked in the retail store, upstairs, while I worked downstairs, in the warehouse. But like everyone there at the time, we talked on occasion, and got along well.

One day, in early January of 2010, the topic we talked about was a new bill that had been introduced in the federal House of Representatives, called The Tobacco Tax Parity Act of 2010. This bill was simple: it raised the tax rate of pipe tobacco from $2.8311 to $24.78 a pound. This sounds like accounting-trick bullshit, and it was; but we knew, even at the time, the consequences of this bill passing would be severe for Uhle’s. And it was. Understand, though, many other smokers were upset at the time; a petition was circulated online, and many blogs spread the word about this bill (indeed, the “mainstream media” of the time never did a single story about it). Your grandfather, Jeff, who owned Uhle’s, also put in many hours trying to stop this bill.

The year before, the U.S. Senate had passed a bill to fun a health-insurance program for children, called SCHIP, that raised the tax on roll-your-own cigarette tobacco to, well, $24.78 a pound; and the current bill of “tax parity,” which was H.R. 4439, was meant to address cigarette tobacco being sold under the name (and only in name) of pipe tobacco.

What happened, after the bill passed as part of a large spending bill later in 2010, was that hardly anyone could afford to buy pipe tobacco anymore. Uhle’s soon had to shutter its pipe tobacco department; and soon after that the tax on cigars was raised to this same incredible, prohibitive amount. And that closed the doors of many tobacconists, large and small, including Uhle’s, ending more than 70 years of business.

How could H.R. 4439 have passed? Aside from the foreplay that SCHIP provided, you have to remember that smoking, and smokers, had been demonized for over 50 years. At that time, you could hardly smoke anywhere but in a smokeshop or--if you were lucky and didn’t live in certain apartments--your own home. 2010 was also the year the Wisconsin state smoking ban went into force (right after Independence Day, ironically). Smokers had accepted taxes, limits and personal insults about their habits and enjoyments for a long time; and maybe, but the time that bill came along, they were too tired to fight. But still should have.

The other reason, as I’m sure you have read about in your history books, Paige, was: when this came about it was a very dividing and polarizing time; we were still at the long, gradual end of the Great Recession; two wars were being fought; and many were upset with the government. Democrats blamed Republicans and Republicans blamed Democrats; bitter words were thrown around with great force, and there seemed to be no common ground. In this arena, H.R. 4439 passed with relative ease.

But that was all a long time ago. What I hope you remember about that time was that we at Uhle’s did try to survive, and fought for our survival.

I am a much older man now. As I take my daily walk with my long-suffering wife, taking in the beauty of the fading day, I sometimes think I would like to be puffing on my pipe, on a blend I had made myself. I would puff it was we walked, slow and serene, at peace with my gentle hobby of puffing, the rich smoke perfuming the early evening air. And when we got home, I would place my pipe in my ashtray, where it would wait patiently for the next time I would pass an idle hour. But pipes and tobaccos are gone now.

I do miss my pipe, though. And my tobacco.

I miss the serenity and peace pipe smoking had brought me.

And most of all I miss Uhle’s, and my friends at that long-ago place, that, as Tennyson said of his own companions, had “toiled, and wrought, and thought with me” for so long, and so long ago.

I wish you the best.

I Remain, and in Remembrance,

Chris

Twitter:  @thepipebit

Update on May 25, 2011:  Although H.R. 4439 died without a vote, in February 2011 Senator Tom Harkin introduced Senate 174, which would raise pipe tobacco taxes even higher than 4439.  The efforts to tax all tobacco out of existence will continue. 
The Uhle Tobacco Company, open since 1939, remains in business.

The Curse of The Pipe Smoker

“It smells good in here,” many customers say when they are in the pipe tobacco section of Uhle’s warehouse. The many bulk tobaccos form a pleasing scent, somewhat perfuming the air. I, sadly, don’t notice this anymore as I have been working with pipe tobacco since before Pokemon existed. But the comment does remind me of The Curse of The Pipe Smoker--you can’t smell your blend’s room aroma as you smoke.

This is a unique affliction. Gourmets can have their cake and smell it, too; the baker can enjoy the classic aroma of baking bread; and when cologne or perfume is applied, certainly the wearer can appreciate the scent. Alas, the pipe smoker cannot enjoy the same pleasure while smoking a favorite blend.

Smoking a pipe is surely pleasurable; the flavor of a blend is the main appeal, and this is definitely available for the smoker to savor. So, too, the smoke gently curling from the pipe and the warmth of the bowl in hand. Our tactile, sight and flavor senses are delighted. The poor nose, though, can’t contribute--it’s like hearing your own recorded voice: we know we don’t sound like that, because when we hear our own speaking voice it is through the dense matter of our head (right, some denser than others). Likewise, some physiological switch is tripped and we can’t savor the aroma of our currently-burning blend. We can take pleasure, though, that others in our area may enjoy the fine scent from our briar.

In this respect, pipe smoking becomes something outside the individual. Only bystanders can appreciate the room aroma of what you are smoking in your pipe. Hopefully, they can understand the uniqueness of pipe smoke which does, in fact, smell good--”I love the smell of a pipe” is a phase I’ve heard hundred of times.

And the smoker? It was pipe guru Richard Carleton Hacker who suggested a partial cure to The Curse of The Pipe Smoker: Light your pipe, puff contentedly, then put down your pipe and leave the room for fifteen minutes. On your re-entrance to your den of pipe pleasure, you should be able to enjoy the room aroma of your tobacco. And even better, you can continue smoking.

Twitter: @thepipebit