What Are You Smoking? - March 2021

Best Brown Flake in a Willmer.  

Best brown flake in a cob. Heading out for the daily doing.

Greetings Patch.
An Aldo Morelli with a 9mm filter and.. you guessed it, Balken Sasieni!
Thinking the upside of smoking through and open jar and nothing else really.
By the end of the jar, I’m really going to like it or going to hate it.
Then I will know whether I should get more or get rid of the tins in the cellar!
Making sure I smoke it in every kind of pipe I have. Briar, Cob, Meer. Filter, no filter.

Butternut burley (surprise!) in my small Rhodesian.

I love Monday, especially today. 😁

Smoking: Best Brown Flake in a cob. Firedance in a Canadian, and SG Perfection in the yello Bole. Mild and sunny. Sherman to the vet soon. Cigar to follow... hopefully.

Dark Obsession in a Lorenzetti Nero 23.

A very strong aromatic, but man, it's good. 
Black cavendish made of burley - Cinnamon, Nuts / Beans, Spices.
Became a "favorite" on this first smoke.

After work, went to see my Dad. Granger on the way there and HB on the way home, both in same cob. Gonna fill a pipe with more Granger and head out to back porch and sit in the sun.

Happy 10k posts, Walt.

SG Kendal Cream in MM Diplomat. I hope I can get some more someday. I like.

That's a handsome beastie.

Congrats Walt!

Pegasus in a cob, as I go through storage totes of our history. Sorting things to be eliminated, via Salvation Army/Resale Shop/garbage. Will be taking a dinner break soon. Found stuff I haven't seen in 20 years. When you put things in plastic storage bins, does that make you a curator of history, or am I still a hoarder?

Sutliff. I got it from Smokingpipes.com

Times like that make you wish you had a gun...glad the blends are giving you some enjoyment.

I have quite a few Cayuga pipes as well as Spaniola's Pipes which is the other store made brand.  For their price range of $40 to 120, they are good smokers.  Some large pipes will run $145.  There is no grading but price reflects grain quality.  So, you might see the exact same shape and size pipe but one is $50 and the other is $75.  

I do recommend a close inspection as, frankly, some are great and some something like drilling isn’t quite right.  If you find one that you like but want to see options, ask Dan as he usually has multiple of the same pipe.  The pipes that you see in the public area of the shop are just the tip of the iceberg.

Depending on how you like your airflow, you may want to do some mods to the stem.  I like a wide open draft and a small button.  Cayugas and Spaniolas are made using pre-molded stems.  For my personal preferences, I usually end up funneling the slot, funneling the draft hole in the tenon, and reducing the button.

Before the shop had bowl turning equipment, old Cayugas were made from unfinished stummels.  So, you can find Cayugas with made in Italy, England, or France stamps.  Newer Cayugas are made from blocks using equipment in the basement.

Of my Cayugas and Spaniolas, there are five or six pipes that I regularly smoke.  They also make good pipes to travel with or smoke out in the woods, etc.

Disclaimer: I am good friends with Dan Spaniola and am unpaid staff at the store when I am there. I live 90 miles from the shop and haven’t been there since the pandemic started.  However, I get my second COVID shot next week and am planning going on making it to the Arrowhead Pipe Club meeting in April.