Sunday Morning Comin' Down, Take 2
Posted on: Sun, 09/07/2008 - 05:47
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Sunday Morning Comin' Down, Take 2
Hanna's gone, Ike's coming up this week, the equatorial humidity has abated w/ 6 hours of rain, and I'm smoking ERRd in a Robert Waughtel 1/4 bent clump-shaped pipe. Bob Waughtel was a good friend and a fascinating man. Not a gifted like our own CKR pipemaker (if CKR = Maserati, then Waughtel = International Harvester Travel All), Waughtel sought the large physical presence in his pipes. Bob was more than 400 pounds, a prodigious eater, and a so-so gambler. We would meet in Phila at the Melrose Diner, an iconic grease pit. I would drive him to Atlantic City and wait while he played poker poorly and lost, and then we'd drive back.
I met Bob in the early 1980s when I stopped by his shop one morning in Harrisburg PA for tobacco and stayed most of the day while he held court, like Henry VIII. People would come and go, some brought coffee, others just took from his tobacco jars, but no one went away w/o feeling important. Until he died in July 1997, I tried to collect as many of his pipes as I could (now 8), but they have virtually disappeared from the estate market. I was fortunate to find one very inexpensively the other day. Seemed fitting to me to start a day of leisure w/ a pipe carved by the Laird of Leisure.
As always, fair winds and full pipes, gentlemen, nodding to the memory of Sailorman Jack.
__________________
"What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet, Long live the weeds and the wildness yet. " Gerard Manley Hopkins
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lived through the storm with no damages and now it's back to work. I loaded a Butz-Choquin Brumaire with Riverboat Gambler for the ride in and will most likely be smoking the tail end of Poplar Camp during the day. Just about ready for another C&D order!
"If you can't send money, send tobacco." -George Washington to the Continental Congress, 1776
Started out the day with some DGT'd Dark Star.
Now smoking some unblended Robert McConnell - Pure caribe. A blending tobacco, supposedly cigar leaf. Actually not bad in pure form. A bit like the ropes :)
This is my Pipe.There are many like it, but this one is MINE.
My pipe is my best friend. It is my life.
I must master it as I must master my life.
My pipe without me is useless. Without my Pipe, I am useless
Haunted Bookshop in a four digit KW. This has been cellared for a bit and the Virginia seems to be a tad sweeter
"Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets and watched the smoke that rises from the pipes of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?" T.S. Eliot
Blended some BnB with about 15 % of McClelland perique.
This in no way decreases its strength magnitude, but more seems to cut off that initial sharpness/harshness.
Next try will be to put some ERRd on top of the blend, to see what happens, think the critical is within the pipe being lit. A layer of softer codger burley might act as the starting engine for this power house.
Pondering what one might blend in there to further take the initial sharpness down, but still keep it at full strength. BnB seems highly nonlinear, small iterative steps seems essential.
Perhaps some C&D perique, but I suspect that to much of that will just water it down.
This is my Pipe.There are many like it, but this one is MINE.
My pipe is my best friend. It is my life.
I must master it as I must master my life.
My pipe without me is useless. Without my Pipe, I am useless
Sunny out and it would seem that anything Hannah had left in her was spent last night. That is not the reason that I feel as giddy as a kin in the candy shop. No this is a much more eventful day. This morning I had another bowl of Interlude in my fishing pipe that has yet to go fishing while cleaning up the rest of my woodies. Last but not least, I cleaned out the fishing pipe. Pretty gooey for being so new in the herd and well highlights the deficiencies in my after smoke routine. So I have all 21 pipes clean as a proverbial whistle, around 35 opens and a half dozen more flakes to pop.
First two off the pegs are my blue cherrywood knock-off of a sav full bent, an excellent shop pipe with military mount where it can easily be twisted 120 degrees left and totally out of the way of whatever is going on.
Second string for the day is my quarter bent basket brandy. I had thought the reaming had put this down a peg but on its last voyage it was gurgling. I had stuck a cleaner in and it continued to gurgle. Highly friggin' frustrated I shoved another cleaner in it and gave it a twist. It was some ribbon cut and the end of the cleaner caught some ribbon and pulled in into the shank. It wasn't much but it only took a boys finger to plug the dike and that is exactly happened. End of smoke and the famed czech pipe tool could not unclog it. I surmised that the reaming was not responsible for its under performance in the manner I had thought. I had thought the pipe was pissed off over loosing it's cake. I now believe that sanding back the cake caused a layer of fine carbon to fly into the shank. This carbon was subsequently tarred up restricting the proper airflow and the gurgle was at it's tightest point. Drilling out the stem and the amount of crud in the flutes seemed to indicate the newest theory is the most likely. Long story short, I can't wait to light up this puppy.
Well that is the state of the ckr household today, heading below with some clean pipes, a couple of tins of flake below and I think I will pop the lid on that Tired Hen and see what all the crowing is about.
Enjoy your day Gents.
Fume in pace, ckr
Thanks for trip back. I started the day with ERR'd as well but in a Kaywoodie 07 POY. Very large pipe for a Kaywoodie but the size is right for the Edgeworth. I do wish I tried this tobacco sooner, I've missed out on something here for a good number of years.
I hope everyone has a great day!
"I think people should be allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses."
(Attributed to Oscar Wilde's Cleaning lady when she testified at his trial.)
Jim
our friends that actually met Hannah are OK and that everybody escaped her full wrath. I smoked my personal blend all day and will savour the last scrapings of Old Gold as a nightcap. This is really a great tasting tobacco with a nice warm woody flavour and a lingering taste that I can't quite place. Something between Vanilla, Butterscotch and sun dried bananas.
This weather is too beautiful to be sitting here in front of the computer ... I'm outta here. Pipe ... later.
Rick Piatt
Back home and out on the patio finishing the good book: Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. Highly recomended.
Is there any tobacco better than Navy Flake? Every time I think I've found one I realize I was wrong: Navy flake is a perfect 10.
Rick Piatt
our friends that actually met Hannah are OK and that everybody escaped her full wrath. I smoked my personal blend all day and will savour the last scrapings of Old Gold as a nightcap. This is really a great tasting tobacco with a nice warm woody flavour and a lingering taste that I can't quite place. Something between Vanilla, Butterscotch and sun dried bananas.
From my experience, flavoring tobaccos, I can tell you that coconut extract, vanilla and almond will flavor a tobacco similar to bananas. Now, that is not something I care for. But, I thought I'd pass this on to you. It might very well be coconut flavoring.
This evening I am enjoying my Captain Bob's Blend with a miniscule amount of grape flavoring. Just a kiss of sweetness not distiguishable as grape but the full flavor of the six tobacco's in this blend are coming through very nicely. Much smoother after being in the mason jar packed tight for 7 weeks.
Appleton, Wisconsin USA
Captain Bob's Blend: www.cornellanddiehl....