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Peterson Early Morning Pipe

I decided to try this blend based on some very enthusiastic recommendations from the Reddit r/PipeTobacco forum. It’s a blend of Oriental or Turkish, Virginias, and some Latakia. I can’t help but to compare it to Consummate Gentleman, an Ashton English blend. EMP definitely has less Latakia; it’s not as smoky either in the tin, in the pipe, or in the room after you smoke it. So it’s not quite as in-your-face. Think Johnny Walker Black to Consummate Gentleman’s Aardbeg or something similar.

I find that it burns well, if I’m careful and diligent to keep it tamped (but not too tight). The further down in the bowl I get, the more conscious I have to be about not puffing too fast. This blend will stand up and slap me with a harsh note if it gets too hot, but it rewards taking it easy and smoking it slowly. Along with that comes a slow smoke; I spent probably 45 minutes and, when I thought I was done with the bowl, found there was a pretty large dottle of unsmoked tobacco left. I could have gone a full hour or more and still not hit the end of that bowl, and that was with a pretty conservative loading of the pipe. A guy could probably get a couple hours of smoking out of a full pipe. That would, at this point, be way too much nicotine for me. I’ll have to remember, though, that I could let the pipe go out after my morning coffee, tap out the ash, and get a nice lunchtime smoke out of it as well.

I still like my aromatics, but I like EMP more and more every time I smoke it. Pipes & Tobacco sells a “Match” blend that I’m going to try out and see how it compares, since it costs about a quarter as much per ounce.

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The Gurgling Pipe

I like this pipe. It’s a nondescript Italian-made “basket” pipe, which are often factory seconds. I picked it up at Ted’s, and I overpaid shamefully for it. Didn’t know any better. But I hadn’t smoked a pipe in many years, and wanted to get started again. It’s got a couple of fills and a minor crack right at the end of the stummel that doesn’t affect the smoking at all. I just liked the look of it; I still do. I like the lines, the feel, and the finish. It’s a nice pipe.

That said, there is one issue that just irks me. This thing seems to think it’s a hookah. By the time I’m a quarter of the way through a bowl of tobacco, it’s gurgling and spitting water through the stem. It’s much worse, of course, with aromatic tobaccos since those tend to be quite a bit more moist than, say, an English blend or something not wetted down with flavorings and propylene glycol. Problem is, I like some of those aromatics. Let’s face it; Lane 1-Q won’t put hair on your chest, but sometimes a guy just wants a nice mild smoke.

I’ve found that I can minimize the issue by smoking slower… much slower. I took a look at how the pipe is drilled, and now I know the why of it. The draft hole is drilled way off. It’s OK at the chamber end, but it’s badly off center where it meets the mortise. I don’t even know how you could drill a hole that far off. As a result, you can’t even shove a pipe cleaner down to the bowl; it gets to the end of the stem and hits wood. There’s a good 1/8” gap between the end of the tenon and the bottom of the mortise; that’s probably the only way the thing can be smoked at all.

I don’t know if opening up the draft hole a bit to smooth out the airflow enough to stop some of the condensation from forming or not. I’d hate to dedicate this pipe to smoking only non aromatic blends; I like it too much for taking walks when I prefer something lighter. I’ll try smoothing things out as much as I can and see where that leads.

It’s disappointing; I have two bent pipes that I love, but both of them gurgle like mad. The Peterson Atlantic also has a poorly drilled draft hole, a lesson to me to more thoroughly inspect pipes before buying them.

UPDATE as of 10/29/22: I tried a bowl of Peterson Early Morning Pipe this morning. I loaded up about 2/3 of a bowl and paid attention to taking it easy. I smoked it slowly, and had really no issues with too much moisture. At one point I did get a hint of a little burble, but at that point I just backed off a bit. I let the pipe rest for a minute, tamped, and it went away. So maybe the answer is to limit this pipe to non aromatics. It just seems like the more moist tobaccos — those with a lot of propylene glycol (PG) or something added to keep the flavorings from drying out, I suspect — cause problems. There’s enough moisture in the smoke that the turbulent air flow in the stummel and stem of the pipe causes it to condense out and collect in the gap. It’s not ideal, but I doubt the any minor surgery I do to this pipe would improve it significantly.

It’s not the end of the world; I still like the pipe, it just requires some care and isn’t a “smoke anything, anywhere, any time” pipe like my Savinelli or a corncob.

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Mac Baren Vanilla Cream

I bought an ounce of this because I wanted to try another vanilla blend. Some of the others I have are pretty well flavored with vanilla, but this one sounded good.

The first two bowls I tried didn’t end well. Although the moisture level felt about right in the bag, smoking it resulted in a dense, soggy plug in the pipe that would neither stay lit nor pass air. The second time I actually broke it up with my pipe tool and re-lit it. Then I dumped it out, as I found it harsh and not at all pleasant to smoke.

For the third bowl I let the tobacco sit out for about 45 minutes on the deck railing. It felt quite dry and crispy after that. On the plus side, it lights well and seems to stay lit pretty well. On the minus side, it seems somewhat harsh and has a fair amount of tongue bite. On top of that, I’m smoking it in my Peterson Atlantic. That pipe tends to collect water and gurgle with almost everything, but this stuff seems to generate more moisture than most.

It’s just not what I was hoping for at all, really. I’m glad I only bought an ounce of it. I’ll probably give it one more chance in a straight pipe with a filter – either a cob or the Kildare. I don’t really think that’s going to help much, though. I’ll likely dump the last bit into a new jar to be joined with other odds and ends to make an “infinity jar” and let it hang around with some good influences for a while.

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Borkum Riff revisited

OK, I tried it again. My first experience with Borkum Riff Bourbon Whiskey didn’t end well. Tonight I loaded up my MM Country Gentleman cob with another bowl, no filter, and gave it a smoke. It was fine, all the way to the end.

Next time I’ll dry it a little less, and load a little bigger bowl. It is, in my humble opinion, pretty unremarkable. I didn’t get anything resembling a Bourbon flavor to it, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that either my palate is utterly undeveloped (or just unrefined) or I just can’t taste anything. People post tasting notes on tobacco and booze like they’re wine connoisseurs. I see claims of getting notes of chocolate, citrus, figs, plums, and so on. To me it tastes like pipe tobacco. There was a time many many years ago when I sometimes smoked Sobranie Black & Gold cigarettes; in those I could taste chocolate and spice. In pipe tobaccos… whiskeys… nope. Well, except for certain Islay Scotch. Iodine, Band-Aids, rusted sea anchors, for sure. And there’s a Latakia blend that I can taste some resinous Mediterranean or Middle Eastern woods. The more subtle points, though, escape me. Maybe I just need to be clubbed over the head to notice a flavor.

Late October 2022 update: The more I smoke of this stuff, the less I like it. I’ve got at least an ounce left, so I’ll try a few different approaches before writing it off completely, but of all the aromatics I’ve tried, this one keep disappointing me. It seems really easy to get a “scorched” taste that is really unpleasant. I don’t know if it’s too much topping that burns too hot, or what. I’ll try it in different pipes, and see if I can slow down my cadence enough to enjoy it, but so far it’s not been worth the effort. There’s no hint of Bourbon taste or anything close to it, and if it’s not going to live up to its name I’d rather be smoking 1-Q or something reliable.

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Letsencrypt, Duckdns, and Cox

Like some other ISPs, Cox blocks all incoming access to port 80 on residential connections. They also use DHCP to assign dynamic IP addresses, which can can and do change occasionally — especially when you reboot your router. That’s fine in most cases, but can be a real pain in the ass if you run any local services that you need to access from outside the home. For example, if you run your own email and want to use IMAP, you’re likely going to need an SSL certificate. You need a way to have your DNS update to point to your new IP when it changes.

One way to do all of this without paying subscription fees is with Duckdns and Letsencrypt. Duckdns is a free DNS service with an easy to use API that can be updated by a script when your IP address changes. Letsencrypt is a free SSL certificate CA; I can’t say enough good things about Letsencrypt and encourage you to support them with a donation as I have.

So. First we can use cron to run a command that updates our duckdns IP address every ten minutes or so.

echo url="https://www.duckdns.org/update?domains={my_domain}&token={my_token}&ip=" | curl -k -o ~/duck.log -K -

Simple, right? Now we have a hostname that always points to our own home IP address – or at least always does within ten minutes of an IP address change, which is probably good enough for most purposes.

Now for the SSL certificate. Letsencrypt will happily issue free a 90 day SSL cert for your domain. Normally, one runs a script from cron that renews the certificate if the cert is expiring in less than 30 days. IF you can expose port 80 to the web, even temporarily, then life is good — just run ‘certbot renew‘ once a day, or even once a week, and everything happens for you in the background. If, however, your ISP filters port 80… well, there’s the pain-in-the-ass part. The certbot script renew script will only work if you have port 80 open to the web. I haven’t found a way to get Letsencrypt’s server to use any other port to reach your web server, so forwarding a non-blocked port (8880, for example) to your local server’s port 80 does you no good.

All is not lost; it just means a bit more work. Letsencrypt will also issue certificates using DNS challenges for authentication, placing specific TXT records to prove that you have control of the domain or subdomain in question. The process looks like this:

certbot certonly --manual --preferred-challenges dns -d example.com-d -d example-com.duckdns.org

The certbot script will tell you to create TXT records in DNS for your domain, and will wait for you to do so before proceeding. You can use your DNS provider’s web or API interface to add or change the TXT record accordingly. Duckdns now supports TXT records in addition to A records, and updating yours is simple:

curl 'https://www.duckdns.org/update?domains={my_domain}&token={my_token}&txt={my_txt}&verbose=true'

Once you’ve verified that the TXT records are there using, say, ‘dig _acme_challenge.{my_domain}.duckdns.org TXT‘ — simply hit ENTER to let the script finish. You should end up with a renewed SSL cert.

My previous ISP didn’t block port 80, so I never had to do any work at all for this. I ran the ‘certbot renew’ command from cron once a day, and it automatically updated the certs for me. Now that port 80 is no longer an option, I will need to manually renew the certificate every 90 days. I’ll actually do it at around 75 days, because Letsencrypt helpfully sends out emails to let you know when your certificate is within 15 days of its expiration.

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Missouri Meerschaums

I ordered a couple of Missouri Meerschaum corncob pipes on line a couple of years back. As I recall I ordered them from Penn Valley Pipes along with a couple of clays. I’ve learned that a lot of pipe smokers like corn cob pipes for some very good reasons. For one, they are inexpensive, so one could – if so inclined – dedicate one to each blend of tobacco. Or have one for each day of the week, or whatever. They don’t require much break-in, if any. I’ve found that they don’t have a problem with condensation, and they will accept a paper Medico or Dr. Grabow filter. There’s a lot to like about them, really.

I don’t smoke them all the time, but I do use them for times when I’m not willing to risk one of my really nice pipes. Out in the garage, in the hangar, fishing, etc. If I happen to drop or lose a $15 pipe, oh well. Buy another one. Not so much the case for a really nice Peterson or Savinelli or something!

More recently I see MM has added a bunch of new pipes to their lineup. Fancy ones, Hobbit-themed churchwardens, all kinds of stuff. I don’t know that I’ll build a massive collection of cobs, but honestly — what I originally assumed were just a novelty item are really quite nice pipes that are as useful to experienced pipe smokers as they are to novices just wanting to test the waters with something cheap.

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Battle of the Codgers, Part 3: Borkum Riff Bourbon Whiskey

I should wait to post this until I’ve given it another chance. I really should. But I won’t. I’ll update later, when I have had a second bowl… any maybe a third, if the second one isn’t as absolutely horrible. You see where this is going?

I tried this tobacco the other night. The first thing I noticed was the utter lack of anything that I would describe as “bourbon whiskey” about it, either the aroma when I opened the pouch or the taste when lit. And I mean anything. But, hey, I have – apparently – a completely uneducated, uncultured palate. Still, I was a bit disappointed. I remembered Dad smoking this stuff back in the 70s, and it smelled amazing. Well, the blend has been through at least two manufacturers since then, and the years have apparently not been kind. Happens to us all, I suppose.

The first half of the bowl was entirely unremarkable. Not particularly pleasant, not particularly unpleasant. No real apparent flavoring, at least not in my uneducated opinion. Still, not a bad smoke. Just not a great one.

Then about halfway through or maybe a little further than that, something magical started to happen. And I don’t mean magical in a wonderful Good Fairy wand waving kind of way. More like magical in the witch dipping an apple in poison kind of way. The kind of magic that brings Chucky to life. The tobacco developed a very distinct flavor profile. Unfortunately that flavor profile was nearly identical to the aroma that I got years ago when I was using a propane torch to remove integrated circuits from a fiberglass circuit board. Yes, the smell of scorched epoxy is what I noted. I’m not making this up.

I’ll try it again, if for no other reason than I can remember the dating scene from Hitch, where Will Smith has a date with Eva Mendes that turns into a complete disaster. Who knows? Maybe I accidentally got a big chunk of the plastic pouch in there when I packed the bowl. Maybe one of the stink bugs that take up residence when the weather cools off crawled in and I didn’t notice. Maybe someone set fire to an old TV set and the wind was blowing int he wrong direction. But I’m all about second chances, so I’ll try it again.

Eventually.

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Ireland

This trip has completely changed my views on:

  • Lamb. Done properly, it’s heavenly.
  • Guinness. Done properly, it’s amazingly good.

It has not changed my views on:

  • Driving on the wrong side of the damn road. Just say no. There’s a reason 99% of the world does it the right way.

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Battle of the Codgers, Part 2 (Amphora)

The second of the Old Ones I decided to try was Amphora original. There are numerous flavors of Amphora, but this is the original blend and probably the one I remember from the 70s.

The aroma from the bag is absolutely wonderful, if you love tobacco. My wife doesn’t think much of it in comparison to something like BCA or 1-Q, but it’s got a lot less topping than those. I suppose technically it’s an aromatic, but mostly it’s tobacco, and lots of it.

I let this air out for an hour or so – maybe less – before loading up the Savinelli Bing’s Favorite and lightning up. The flavor is definitely stronger than the Half & Half, not too strong, and with virtually no bite on the tongue or in the nose. Now, I’m not experienced enough to know which flavor is burley and which is Virginia and which is Oriental, but the flavor is nothing at all like the H&H. It’s a little more “exotic”, I suppose you’d say. I like it, but I also noted that it seems to have a higher nicotine content than most blends I’ve been smoking. I could feel the nicotine a bit, though nothing like Bayou Morning (thank heaven).

I also noted that it stays lit better, I think, than anything else I’ve tried so far. I was fully halfway through the bowl before I needed to relight. The ash is quite fine and the smell of it reminds me of a fine Cuban cigar. Just the ash, not the smoke. It seems to burn evenly and not too hot.

Will Amphora be my new best friend and daily smoke? Probably not. Will I keep some on hand and enjoy it fairly regularly? Probably, yes. I can see it as one to enjoy when I’ve got the time to sit down and really enjoy a pipe.

As I write this, the pipe is sitting on the table a little over half smoked. I’ll finish it off in the morning and see how it does then. It’s really quite nice and I’m looking forward to it.

Update: The rest of the bowl didn’t disappoint. I tried another bowl a couple of days later in the Peterson Kildare, and it was quite nice as well. It burned to the bottom of the bowl with no excess moisture and not too many relights. It likes to be tamped a little tight to burn well.

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Battle of the Codgers, Part 1 (Half & Half)

A few days ago I decided I’d like to try out some of the so-called “codger” pipe tobacco blends. These are the ones that our fathers, grandfathers, and maybe great-grandfathers smoked. Brands like Half & Half, Prince Albert, Borkum Riff and so on. I mean, if something has been on the market for decades and is still sold, there’s got to be a reason, right?

Through the magic of the Internet and the US Postal Service, today I received a package with a few blends to try. Half & Half, Borkum Riff Bourbon Whiskey, and Amphora – plus some Mac Baren Vanilla Cream, just for good measure. I remember Dad smoking Borkum Riff and Amphora in the 70s and 80s.

I decided to start out with something completely new to me – Half & Half. The first thing I noticed when I opened the sealed pouch was the incredibly wonderful aroma of this stuff. You’re not hit with the smell of toppings or flavorings, just a rich tobacco smell. If it smokes half as good as it smells this could be a winner!

I loaded up a bowl in my Peterson Atlantic 221, a bent billiard, and tried it out. Of course, it’s a different experience than an aromatic blend. I love the mix of burley and bright Virginia. There’s just a tiny hint of bite on the tongue and in the nose, but not enough to distract. Just enough to let you know you’re smoking tobacco, not candy. There’s nothing to cover up the flavor of the tobacco, but it doesn’t try to club you over the head (looking at you, here, Latakia). My wife said the smell was “just OK”, not the wonderful smell of the aromatics and Cavendish I’ve mostly been smoking but not as bad as the Latakia blend.

Unfortunately I seem to have packed the bowl a bit too tightly or tamped a bit too much, as it quickly developed a draw not unlike a plug of concrete and required a re-light every couple of minutes. I ended up cleaning out the bowl about 2/3 of the way through, but not before developing a real appreciation for this blend. Overall it seems a solid, very likable smoke. I can understand why it’s been on the market for over a hundred years.

I’ll revisit Half & Half again with a little drying time and a more careful packing of the pipe. And don’t take my two mentions of Latakia to mean I don’t like it… I’ve got some Consummate Gentleman in a jar for those times when I’m feeling like some serious smoky flavor. I like it, but like Lagavulin it’s not an every day thing for me.

Update: The second bowl smoked well also. I should have let it dry some before packing, and I’ve really got to watch not to pack or tamp this too tight. It’s the opposite of Amphora in that respect.

Update 2: The third bowl was even better. I let it dry longer than I had planned, a couple of hours, but it still smoked well. I was more careful about packing and tamping. It smoked quite well all the way to the bottom of the bowl, with I think two re-lights and a tiny little dottle. Very well behaved and consistent all the way through. That was in my Peterson 221, so no filter.