A thinking man and his tobacco pipe are almost a cliche, but these famous thinkers make the rest of us look like simpletons compared to their brilliant and often controversial accomplishments. In this third of our continuing series on famous pipe smokers we catalog eight notable pipe smoking thinkers. If you missed the first two installments, find our list of famous pipe smoking actors and smokin' authors here. 

Sigmund Freud 

Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 in Moravia. He moved to Vienna, where he would spend most of his childhood. Throughout his career he published numerous works that would strongly influence the fields of psychology, anthropology, semiotics and the arts.

Freud's most famous research centered on psychosexual development, personality, memory and sexuality.

The most notable of his more than 320 books, essays, and articles include: The Ego and the Id, Beyond the Pleasure Principle,Studies on Hysteria, The Interpretation of Dreams, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, and Medusa’s Head. 

He was a firm believer that smoking pipe tobacco enhanced his capacity for work.

As the heralded founding father of psychoanalysis, Freud sought to invent a reliable and successful science of the mind. He believed neurosis is a byproduct of past traumatic experiences that have been repressed or distorted by internal mental censors. Simply put, Freud’s research supported the idea that we really and truly don’t know ourselves. If our minds and choices are policed and governed by repressive mental censors, then, as Freud explained, internal conflicts need to be resolved in order to alleviate symptoms of neurosis and mental distress.

Freud believed that overlooked phenomena such as dreams, slips of the tongue (Freudian slips), and a varied assortment of psychiatric symptoms are evidence of the unconscious mind trying to surface.

Freud’s work is widely considered to be the genesis of modern psychoanalysis, hence his title as the “Founding Father” of the field of research.

Bertrand Russell

The development of analytic philosophy as the dominant philosophy of the twentieth century is owed, in large part, to Russell’s work.

Throughout his life, Russell also focused on contributions to the fields of the history of ideas, ethics, political theory, educational theory and religious studies. Though he was born into British Aristocracy, he gave away much of his inheritance. The three passions that governed his live where “the longing for love”, “the search for knowledge”, and “the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”

He championed numerous political causes and remained constantly involved in political and social controversy until his death in 1970. He believed that the ultimate objective of philosophy was to seek personal serenity and peace throughout the world. He was opposed to World War I, The Vietnam War, Nationalism and persecution. He was an anti-war activist and was fiercely anti-imperialist. The redemption of mankind, he believed, lies in cooperation. He also supported suffragists, free thought in religion and morals.

His controversial outspoken stances landed him in jail on more than one occasion. He actually penned his Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy while behind bars.

During an interview in 1959, Russell explained that smoking tobacco was his favorite vice. He smoked a pipe all day long. At that point, he had already been an avid pipe smoker for seventy years. “In fact” he said, “one occasion it saved my life.” He apparently had requested a seat in the smoking art of an airplane. The plane crashed into a Norwegian Fjord and all of the passengers in the non-smoking section were drowned, and those in the smoking section lived to be rescued. Thus, he concluded, that he owed his life to smoking.

Alexander Graham Bell

Born in Edinburgh in 1847, Alexander Graham Bell took an early interest hearing, speech and communication with the deaf.

His father, uncle and grandfather all worked in the field of Elocution (The study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar and tone). Bell’s father, Alexander Melville Bell published Visible Speech: The Science of Universal Alphabetics in 1867. Young Alexander Graham bell would go on to become so proficient in his father’s writing system that the elder Bell employed him for use in his demonstrations. By the time he was sixteen, Bell was in charge of his father’s operations in London.

Bell moved, with his family to Ontario in 1870, where he’d continue his research of speech, acoustics and the transmission of sound. A year later, he moved to Boston where he began work on “a device that would allow for the telegraph transmission of several messages set to different frequencies.”

Backed by local investors, he undertook another project that involved transmitting the human voice over wires. A skilled electrician named Thomas Watson partnered with Bell in order to bring his idea to fruition. On March 10th, 1876 they succeeded. The first telephone call had been made between the two men.

The telephone was displayed at exhibitions and public demonstrations over the next few years. By 1877, the Bell Telephone Companywas up and running. After defending his telephone patent against numerous lawsuits, the invention took off.

By 1886 over 150,000 people in the United States owned a telephone. Throughout the rest of his life, Bell remained involved with other projects, including his work with the deaf. He also formed the Aerial Experiment Association with Glenn Curtiss (famous airplane pioneer and inventor) and several other associates.

As a tribute to the life’s work of the great inventor, Bell was invited to make the first transcontinental phone call in 1915. The man on the other end of the line was none other than Thomas Watson.

Noam Chomsky

It’s hard to imagine a world devoid of Noam Chomsky’s influence. His contributions to the field of linguistics and criticisms of political systems and policy have been groundbreaking and revolutionary at times, as well as controversial and hotly debated at others. He has become one of the most prominent intellectuals in modern linguistics as well as an enduring figure on the global stage of political issues and mainstream ideologies. He is respected, revered, debated, and sometimes persecuted for his research, opinions and views regarding philosophy, linguistics and politics.

Whether or not one agrees with him, it’s impossible to deny Chomsky’s intellectual clout.

He made his first foray into the realm of global issues and politics at ten years old when he wrote an article on the spread of fascism in Europe following the fall of Barcelona in the Spanish Civil War.

He discovered politics at an early age. Although he described his parents as ideologically center left, Chomsky was introduced to far left politics through other members of his family. He described his discovery of anarchism as a “lucky accident”, which allowed him to formulated critical viewpoints regarding other radical left wing ideologies. He still identifies as a social anarchist.

At age 16, Noam Chomsky enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a B.A in 1949, an M.A in 1951 and a Ph.D. in 1955. He’d go on to earn honorary degrees from dozens of universities around the world throughout his lifetime.

He was identified, in 2005 by the British magazine, Prospect, as the most influential living scholar in the world.”

Chomsky became a tenured professor at MIT in 1957, where he has worked in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy ever since, while he also held a position as a visiting professor at New York’s Columbia University.

His image as a public figure of political dissent began and activism began with the onset of the Vietnam War. In 1969 he wrote his first political book, American Power and the New Mandarins. From then on, he has been viewed and credited as both a leading intellectual in linguistics, as well as an opinionated looming figure in the realm of left wing activism.

His public talks and outspoken position on issues have been perpetually met with the lion’s share of controversy. He was arrested multiple times, and was included in Richard Nixon’s “Enemies List.”

Noam Chomsky is also a fierce proponent of free speech and is, likewise, highly critical of censorship. "With regard to freedom of speech there are basically two positions”, he stated, “you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist standards".

There is no way to summarize the life and work of someone with the mental capacity and caliber for far reaching and indispensable work that Noam Chomsky has demonstrated. He has authored countless books, papers and articles, has been the recipient of numerous awards, and has influenced a broad spectrum of social and academic fields. One might call him a veritable “Renaissance Man” of culture, wisdom, and academia of the twentieth and twenty first centuries.

He was voted the leading living public intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll conducted by the British magazine Prospect. That sort of notoriety is perhaps as close as one might get to defining his global impact. Then again, he isn’t finished yet.

Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung was born in Switzerland in 1875. His father was protestant clergyman. Even as a small child he displayed an unusual inquisitiveness. At four years old he tried to make sense of the human behavior displayed by adults.

Jung attended the University of Basel from 1895-1900, where he studied biology, zoology, paleontology and archaeology before settling on medicine. He was also interested in philosophy, mythology, early Christian literature and religion.

Carl Jung worked closely with and collaborated with Sigmund Freud from 1907-1912. Freud considered Jung his “adopted eldest son, his crown prince and his successor.”

Despite their productive history together, Freud and Jung ceased working together because of the difference of opinions that the two held regarding the significance of libido and sexuality in human development and life, as well as differing opinions on the unconscious. Disagreements regarding Freud’s reluctance to acknowledge Jung’s ideas also played a role in their professional split. The last time they met, Jung gave a talk on personality types (introverted and extroverted) in analytical psychology. The introduction of these concepts helped many distinguish between the works of the two men.

Jung was interested in the symbolic meanings of the unconscious. The philosophies of Hinduism became elemental in this research following his world travels that spanned nearly twenty years. He has become one of the best known contributors to the study of dream analysis and symbolism.

He used alchemy as a metaphor for the transition from impure soul to pure soul through the psychoanalytical process. He also believed in the healing power of art to alleviate anxiety, trauma and fear.

Robert Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer was born in New York City in 1904. He attended Harvard, initially intent on studying chemistry, he switched to physics and graduated summa cum laude in 1925.

Oppenheimer Studied under Max Born at the University of Göttingen, where he received his Ph.D. at age twenty four. He returned to Harvard in 1927 to study mathematical physics, followed by a stint at California Institute of Technology in 1928. Together, they published many works that influenced and contributed to the emerging field of quantum theory. While at California Institute of Technology, he also accepted an assistant professorship in physics at the University of California, Berkeley.

He was the first to conduct research that suggested the existence of black holes. He also researched astrophysics, nuclear physics, spectroscopy and quantum field theory, while also making important “contributions to the theory of cosmic ray showers, and did work that eventually led toward descriptions of quantum tunneling.”

Oppenheimer became involved in research to develop the atomic bomb at the onset of World War II.

He was appointed “Director” of the Manhattan Project in 1942. The laboratories at Los Alamos were built under his direction. The first nuclear detonation took place at Alamagordo on July 16, 1945. From 1947 to 1952, Oppenheimer served as Chairman of the General Advisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). He used this position to voice his opposition to the development of the hydrogen bomb.

As Director of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, Oppenheimer researched and led discussions on quantum and relativistic physics in the School of Natural Sciences.

He retired in 1966.

Leon Lederman

Leon Lederman received his bachelor’s degree from the City College of New York in 1943, his masters from Columbia University in 1948, and his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1951. He served in the United States Army during World War II.

After he completed his studies at Columbia, Lederman remained with the university for thirty years. He became a full time professor in 1958, and directed the “Nevis Laboratories in Irvington, the Columbia physics department center for experimental research in high-energy physics” from 1961 until 1979. Along with his colleagues at Nevis, Lederman’s experiments lead to major advancements in "weak interactions, one of the fundamental nuclear forces.”

Lederman discovered a new particle in 1956.

Lederman and his colleagues identified the muon neutrino in 1962, using the most powerful accelerator in the world. Previously, only the electron-neutrino was known. He also discovered the bottom quark in 1977. Following these discoveries, his reputation as a top particle physicist was secured.

In 1988, Lederman received the Nobel Prize for Physics along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger.

Other notable distinctions and awards Lederman received include the National Medal of Science (1965), the Elliott Cresson Medal for Physics (1976), the Wolf Prize for Physics (1982) and the Enrico Fermi Award (1992). Lederman was also a member of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Advisory Board [13&91; and CRDF Global.

Though he published more than 200 papers, Lederman’s is perhaps most famous for writing The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? He coined the nickname “the God Particle” for the Higgs Boson.

Throughout his career, Leon Lederman received numerous honorary degrees from colleges and universities around the world.

Ferdinand Porsche

Ferdinand Porsche was born in 1875 is Maffersdorf Austria.

Porsche displayed an interest in electricity and technology at an early age. He was a vehicle engineer for several companies from the late 1800’s until 1931. In 1905, Porsche was recognized as Austria's most outstanding automotive engineer.

In 1906 Porsche achieved the position of chief designer for Austro-Daimler. By 1916 he was promoted to Managing Director. He left Austro Daimler for Daimler in 1923. The latter company would later go on to become Mercedes-Benz. The last company Porsche would work for before starting his own company was Steyr Automobile from 1929-1931.

During the 1930’s, due to Germany’s bleak economic climate, the need for an affordable car arose. Porsche was appointed to design the government funded “volks wagen” in 1933. The first prototypes were completed by 1935.

Porsche was asked to “adapt the Beetle chassis and drivetrain to simple military vehicle, the 'Kübelwagen' and then the layer the amphibious 'Schwimmwagen'.” He also worked on numerous tank and aircraft designs for the German armed forces.

Following World War II, Ferdinand and his son Ferry were imprisoned as war criminals for their roles in the development of Nazi military vehicles. Ferry served six months, while Ferdinand was imprisoned in Baden-Baden, Paris and Dijon.

After being released from prison, Ferdinand joined his son in Stuttgart, then Gmünd in Carinthia where the first model car with the Porsche name was developed. Forty nine Porsche 356’s were made. Each was built entirely by hand.

Porsche and his family returned to Stuttgart in 1949 and restarted their business. Later Ferdinand was contracted by Volkswagen to do consulting work. He received royalties for each Volkswagen Type 1 (Beetle) that was manufactured. 

The Porsche name is synonymous with style and performance.

Learning how to pair your favorite pipe tobacco with one of your favorite drinks can be a very finicky process and is often hard to figure out without some help.

While pipe smoking is a very personal hobby, few smokers have been able to perfect smoking a tobacco pipe on their own. We often need advice from other smokers and outside information in order to refine our process and learn the specifics about the hobby.

With our simple suggestions and knowledge of basic principles of flavor and how it affects tobacco and drink pairings, you can take your smoking experience from ordinary to extraordinary.

Why Pair Tobacco and Drinks?

I am sure there are many of you saying, “Why should I bother to pair my tobacco with a drink? Why do I want to make this more complicated? What possible good could come out of this for me?”

There are many reasons why you should pair your tobacco and drinks together. The key to a great recipe, whether it’s a tobacco blend or a dinner entree, is the correct combination of flavors. Tobacco and drinks work much the same way.

Consider a parallel in the culinary world. There are few things in this world that are as delicate and expertly crafted as homemade Italian pasta served with a homemade marinara sauce. While this entree is delectable and as perfect as it can be by itself, it is still missing something: A drink.

Of course you could always eat this Italian dish while drinking water, but that doesn’t enhance the flavor. What you need is a decadent red wine. A red wine will act as a magnifying glass, making it easier to detect some of the more subtle flavors in the dish.

Without the right drink to match with your food, some of the best flavors will be forever lost.

In many ways, pipe tobacco works the same way.

You may have a perfect tin of Virginia tobacco that has been aged for 30 years. You can crack it open, smoke it, and enjoy it for what it is. But unless you are enjoying it under the right conditions, you are missing something.

Another reason to pair these two is that it makes your smoking experience more personal. Before you enjoyed smoking your tobacco in your pipe, and it was wonderful. But now you can start adding another layer of flavor on to your already delicious hobby.

A Few Suggestions for Pairing Tobacco and Drink

Now that you are motivated to begin refining your smoking experience, you have to figure out what goes well together.

Many of the same principles for pairing tobacco and drinks are overarching principles in the larger world of pairing food and wine. While the specifics may change, the basic principles of flavor pairings are similar. With this in mind, it is not as difficult as you may think to match your tobacco with a drink that enriches its flavor.

Keep these principles in mind when experimenting with pairings...

Flavors should have an equal body

This is the most important rule for pairing drinks with your tobacco. It is imperative -- if you want to have the best pairing possible -- that you pair a medium bodied tobacco with a medium bodied drink, full with full, and mild with mild. Smoking a big bodied tobacco while sipping on a “weak” drink means that the tobacco will overpower the drink, and you will not be able to taste the subtleties in the drink. Likewise, do not have a strong drink with a mild-bodied tobacco.

Here are some examples of good mild, medium, and full-bodied combinations:

Mild - Mac Baren Modern Virginia and a lager, such as Yuengling.

Medium - McClelland Frog Morton and an Old Fashion cocktail.

Full - Samuel Gawith 1792 Flake and bourbon, such as Woodford Reserve.

The whole purpose of smoking, and drinking too, is to taste as much as possible. You want to taste the subtle little notes that sometimes hide underneath more powerful flavors. If you do not balance the body of smoke and drink, then one will disappear and the pursuit will become rather meaningless.

Pipes Magazine created a fantastic, concise resource that lists a generic body ranking of some common drinks that are paired with tobacco:

Mild Bodied - Water, most tea, flavored waters, clear fruit juices, most lager and pilsner beers, many dry white wines, light rums, gin, and vodka.

Medium Bodied - Enhanced teas, most other fruit juices, amber and red beers, ales, heavier white wines and blushes, golden Rums, lighter Scotches and Whiskeys, lighter liqueurs and cordials, and most mixed drinks.

Full Bodied - Medium to dark roast coffees, dark juices (grape, dark berry), Stouts and Porters, dark Rums, full Scotches, Bourbons, and deep red Wines.

To get you started, here’s our favorite recipe for an Old-Fashion, Florida-style, to get you started. As suggested above, pair it with a bowl of Frog Morton and you’re likely to uncover a few flavors you never knew where there.

Match Complimentary Opposite Flavors

Perhaps the most well known pairing of opposite flavors is sweet and salty.

When you take a bite of salted caramel brittle and then eat a piece of kettle-corn you understand how well salty and sweet flavors compliment each other.The same principle applies to pairing pipe tobacco and drinks. If you are smoking a very sweet aromatic blend, then a slightly salty drink would pair well.

Other great flavor combinations are: smoke and oak, acid with richness, sweet and spicy, and even sweet with other sweets.

Another great way to compliment is by using the tobacco’s or drinks’ origins as a means of pairing. For example, McClelland tobacco (made near St. Louis, MO) and a St. Louis crafted beer, like a Perennial Artisan Ale. They may not match together perfectly with flavor, but the theme and reasoning you put into the decision make it worthwhile.

Keep in Mind when and where you are Smoking

This may seem like common sense, but there is definitely a right place and a right time for smoking and drinking.

For example, no matter what type of tobacco you smoke first thing in the morning, a good cup of coffee will always pair well. Conversely, when smoking late at night, a cup of caffeinated coffee may not be the best choice, even if the flavor is right. On the other hand, a stiff scotch may not be the best choice to pair with your tobacco in the morning or at lunch, but should instead enjoyed in the afternoon and evening.

It is also helpful to know where you are smoking. If you are traveling through Kentucky, it may be nice to smoke with bourbon. If you are on the coast of North Carolina or in the mainlands of California, a good wine may be a good choice.

Make your Pairing Process Personal

The art of pairing tobacco with drinks is a very personal process.

It is also a fairly unknown, yet demanded art that smokers want to experience. This is why organizations such as Cigar World go through extensive culinary and mixology training sessions, in order to make their organized events a symbol of perfect smoking and drinking.

Be encouraged by the fact that you CAN pair your favorite pipe tobacco and drinks with each other, and that you can do it in a manner that elevates the taste of each one. With these simple suggestions, you now have the ability to match the perfect drink with your favorite tobacco.

Chris Hopkins is a pipe blogger and former tobacconist. Chris worked for his first tobacco company at the age of 17 in Kentucky, then later as a tobacconist in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Chris currently operates an in- depth blog review of pipe tobacco and products at Pipe Tobacco Critique. He is currently a graduate student of theology at Kentucky Christian University and a minister in Winston Salem. Chris' passions include pipe blogging, movies, and cooking for his beautiful wife Emily.

Tell us, what drink do you typically have with your favorite blend?

In my first interview with artisan pipe maker, Paul Menard, I called him something of a Renaissance man. Watch this interview and you will see it too. Paul talks vinyls, fly fishing and more than a little about making smoking pipes in this hour-long hangout with chat with our founder, Ben Atanat.

Highlights from Paul’s interview:

• Within the first five minutes Paul schools us on the complications of turning a perfect stem.
• At around 16 minutes he explains the Janka Scale and why it matters for carving pipes.
• From 21-32 Paul talks about his favorite fellow pipe makers and the artisan carvers who mentored him, with a serious love-fest with his friend and well-loved carver, Walt Cannoy, who also joined in with a few thumbs up for Paul’s stories.
• At 45 minutes Paul shares the things you need to know when buying an artisan pipe and how to understand the cost differences.
• Around 1:04 you’ll learn what makes a reverse calabash so unique and why the shape typically comes with a higher price tag.
• Finally, we end with a giveaway and an introduction to Paul’s Golden Retriever.

Thank you to Paul, and everyone who joined us on the hangout!  

Politicians, both well known and slightly obscure, are far more likely than the average guy to turn to a pipe for relaxation and stress-relief. In th3 fourth of our continuing series on famous pipe smokers we catalog ten notable pipe smoking politicians. If you missed the first three installments, find our lists here:  Famous Pipe Smoking Actors, Smokin' Authors Here, and Famous Smokin' Thinkers.

Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis was elected to be the first, and ultimately only president of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. Prior to taking office, he was a military man, United States Senator and a cotton farmer.

Jefferson Finis Davis was born on June 3, 1808, in Christian County, Kentucky.

All of Davis’ uncles and his father were veterans of the Revolutionary War. Three of his brothers fought in the War of 1812.

Jefferson Davis attended The United States Military Academy at West Point from 1824-1828. He graduated 23rd in his class.Davis fought in the Blackhawk War of 1831.

Davis left the military in 1835 because his commanding office (future President Zachary Taylor) was opposed to the engagement of his daughter, Sarah Knox Taylor, to Davis. His new bride died of malaria later that same year.

After his abrupt departure from the military, Davis studied constitutional law and made a living as a cotton farmer.

Davis was made Secretary of War by President Franklin Pierce in 1853.

He ran for, and was re-elected to, the Senate in 1857.

Initially opposed to the secession of the southern states, Davis remained with the Senate until Mississippi resigned from the Union in 1861.

After briefly serving as a major general of the Army of Mississippi, Davis was inaugurated as President of the Confederacy in 1861. He set up his government in Richmond, Virginia in May of 1861.

As President, Davis has been criticized by historians for his military strategy, failed strategic choices, and for appointing his friends for military commands. Widespread belief that the Union Blockade of the Confederacy would prompt European Nations to side with the Confederacy was proved wrong. European powers remained neutral. After the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Confederate support lost nearly all appeal throughout Europe. By the end of the Civil War, The Confederate States of America had never once been recognized by a single foreign nation.

After the Civil War ended, Jefferson Davis was indicted for treason. He served two years in prison in Virginia before being released in 1867.

He believed that secession before the outbreak of the Civil War was constitutional. He continued to hold firm to controversial views regarding African American inferiority and the inner workings of slave based industry.

He was barred from serving a third term in Congress by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, though he was elected in 1875.

He remained popular throughout the American South. Speeches he gave at ceremonies helped the South accept the defeat of the Confederacy and furthered reconstruction in the decades following the war. He urged southerners to be loyal to the Union.

Regarding pipe smoking, Jefferson Davis was known to have preferred a corncob dating back long before his ties to the Confederacy. One of his pipes is on display at a museum in Virginia Beach.

Douglas MacArthur

Douglas MacArthur was an American military icon who served in both World Wars. His name is still synonymous with Allied Victory in the Pacific during World War II.

The military affected MacArthur’s entire life, from his birth in 1880 to his death in 1964.

He was born on an Army base in Little Rock, Arkansas. His father, Captain Arthur MacArthur, was a decorated Union Army Civil War veteran.

During his formative years, Douglas MacArthur learned the importance of conducting himself as a scholar and a gentleman. He learned these virtues from his well -established and accomplished grandfather, Judge Arthur MacArthur.

After high school, Douglas MacArthur attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he graduated with honors in 1903.After graduating from West Point, MacArthur received assignments that sent him to the Philippines, Mexico, and Milwaukee.

His first brush with fame came during World War I, where he was promoted to Colonel. He was the most decorated American soldier of the war. His personality, charm, appeal and demeanor were the embodiment of the idealized American war hero.

In 1930, MacArthur was promoted to General and made Army Chief of Staff during a time when the Great Depression had made a lasting crippling impact on the military. MacArthur believed, and spoke about, a looming threat that communism and fascism posed to the world. He was chosen as military advisor to the Philippines by President Roosevelt in 1935.

MacArthur was recalled to active duty in 1941, and became Commander of the U.S. forces in the Pacific. Over time, his name has become synonymous with Allied victory in the region.

He remained in Japan after the war, and oversaw the rebuilding of the country.

In 1950, MacArthur was placed in charge of UN forces and drove back the invading North Korea army from South Korea. His forces were forced to retreat when China got involved.

He wanted to expand the war to include China. However, President Truman disagreed and insisted that MacArthur keep silent in regard to his opinions of the matter.

The Missouri Meerschaum Company designed a customized pipe according to General MacArthur’s specific instructions. He was an avid pipe smoker who favored a corncob. Though his deep bowled and long stemmed pipe was often used for a prop during photo opportunities, it was difficult to smoke. Therefore, MacArthur was provided other pipes to smoke at his leisure.

Stanley Baldwin

Stanley Baldwin served three terms as Great Britain’s Prime Minister during the 1920’s and 30’s. He held office during the abdication crisis involving King Edward VIII, an event that was detailed in 2010 historical drama film “The King’s Speech”.

Rudyard Kipling was a first cousin of Baldwin on his mother’s side. Kipling was an English writer who authored, most notably, The Jungle Book.

Baldwin attended Cambridge University and then went into his family's’ iron mongering business.

In 1922 Baldwin was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer (The Exchequer is a government department of the United Kingdom responsible for the management and collection of taxation and other government revenues.)

In 1923, Baldwin became Prime Minister and Conservative Party Leader upon the resignation of Andrew Bonar Law.

Baldwin again became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1924, following the demise of England’s unsuccessful Labour Government, which had briefly attained power and was backed by Liberal support.

The Labour Government returned to power in 1929, and Baldwin’s Conservative Party lost the general election.

By 1935, he would become Prime Minister for a third time.

Baldwin was Prime Minister during the abdication crisis involving King Edward VIII.

Baldwin was partially blamed for Britain’s military unpreparedness at the onset of World War II. He was blamed for not accurately estimating Germany’s military might. He had taken a conciliatory approach to the armament of Nazi Germany. Britain’s own rearmament regarding the Royal Air Force, Navy and Army was inferior and ill prepared to handle the might of the German Luftwaffe. Though he admitted that he had been wrong, Baldwin still received criticism from Winston Churchill among others. He spent a great deal of time during his retirement defending his actions and responding to negative press, letters and criticisms.

Many historians now believe that Baldwin had done all he could in the context of the time period, especially considering the fact that pacifism dominated British mainstream politics following the end of the first World War.

Allen Dulles

Allen Dulles is best known as the first civilian director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He is widely considered to be one of the creators of the United States’ modern intelligence system, and played a pivotal role in Cold War operations.

Allen Dulles’ older brother John Foster Dulles was the Secretary of State during the Eisenhower Administration. Washington Dulles International Airport was named for him in 1962.

After graduating from Princeton University in 1916, Allen Dulles became a diplomat.

After initially being assigned to Vienna, then Bern, he served as chief of the Near East division of the Department of State from 1922 to 1926.

Dulles earned a Law Degree from George Washington University in 1926. He then took a job at a firm where his brother was a partner.

He became a director of the Council on Foreign Relations in 1927. He also served as the Council’s Secretary from 1933 to 1944.

During the 1920’s and 30’s Dulles served as a legal advisor to the delegations on arms limitation at the League of Nations. He subsequently met The European leaders of the time. Upon returning, his anger with the Nazi treatment of German Jews prompted him to lead a movement to close his brother’s law firm’s office in Berlin.

During World War II, Dulles worked for the Office of Strategic Services. He gathered and worked on intelligence regarding Nazi plans and actions. He remained with the OSS in Berlin and Bern for six months following the war.

In 1952, Dulles became the first civilian Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA’s covert operations played a major role in Cold War security policy.

President Eisenhower demanded that Senator Joseph McCarthy stop issuing subpoenas to the CIA at Dulles’ request.

For nearly ten years Dulles was involved in many notable covert operations, including; the Coup in Iran, the Coup in Guatemala, and the Bay of Pigs (the failure of which led to his forced resignation). However, he has received criticism for implementing unpopular and corrupt pro-American regimes in Guatemala and Iran.

The numerous failed assassination attempts on Fidel Castro didn’t do much to help the CIA’s image with the new Kennedy Administration.

In 1963, Dulles was appointed as one of seven commissioners of the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of the U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Considering the fact that Kennedy himself had forced Dulles to resign as Director of the CIA, this move by Lyndon Johnson was met with a bit of criticism.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower was the Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II. He oversaw the D-Day invasion and was later elected President of the United States in 1952.

After graduating from the army's Command and General Staff School in 1926, Eisenhower served as the legendary General Douglas MacArthur’s aide in the Philippines. He returned to the United States in 1939 and became Chief of Staff of the Third Army.

Eisenhower became chief of the War Plans Division of the U.S. Army General Staff at the onset of World War II in 1941.

In 1942 he became Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in May of 1942.

On June 6, 1944(D-Day) Allied forces successfully invaded Normandy under Eisenhower’s command. Later that year he was promoted to Five Star General.

After Germany’s unconditional surrender in 1945, Eisenhower was made military governor of the U.S. Occupied Zone. Following his return home, he was made U.S. Army Chief of Staff.

In 1950, Eisenhower accepted an offer from President Truman to command NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

Although he had never previously expressed an interest in politics, Eisenhower ran for President as the Republican Party candidate in 1952 and won by a wide margin. He was re- elected in 1956.

After his initial election, Eisenhower effectively campaigned for an armistice to end the Korean War.

Eisenhower strongly supported the Civil Rights Movement. He signed laws that enforced desegregation in schools, and in 1960 made resistance to desegregation a federal offense.

Andrew Jackson

With a long standing reputation as a war hero, Jackson was a veteran of the American Revolution and the War of 1812. During his political career, he was named the first provincial Governor of Florida and served as the seventh President of the United States.

At thirteen years old, Jackson joined a local militia as a courier during the American Revolution. He and his brother were captured by the British in 1779. Both brothers contracted smallpox while in captivity. Robert Jackson died soon after their release.

Andrew’s mother died of cholera later in 1779. At fourteen years old, he was an orphan. He would go on to be raised by his uncles in North Carolina.

Jackson became a lawyer in 1787. In 1796, Jackson was a member of the convention that established the Tennessee Constitution and was elected Tennessee's first representative in the U.S. House of Representatives. The following year he was elected to the Senate. He resigned a year later and was elected judge of Tennessee’s superior court.

In 1812, he was later chosen to head the state militia, when war again broke out with Great Britain.

His leadership during the war earned him the reputation of a national war hero.

While acting as Commander of the Army’s Southern Forces, Jackson captured Spanish posts at St. Marks and Pensacola. Florida would become part of the United States a few years later in 1821.

By 1824 Jackson’s popularity had earned him a Presidential nomination as well as a seat in the Senate. Entangled in a five way race when no candidate received a majority of electoral votes, Jackson lost to John Quincey Adams when the election was left up to the House of

Representatives. Many of Jackson’s supporters criticized this move as “corrupt.” Jackson would resign from the Senate soon after.

In 1828, Jackson was elected as the seventh President of the United States. His supporters and opponents would form two emerging political parties, the Democratic Party and the Whig Party. His presidency came at a pivotal moment in American history.

Jackson’s Presidency was most notable, perhaps, for his action against South Carolina when the state “adopted a resolution declaring federal tariffs passed in 1828 and 1832 null and void and prohibiting their enforcement within state boundaries.” Jackson was credited for preserving the Union by sending troops into South Carolina to enforce federal laws.

Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger

As the first President of South Africa, Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger oversaw the most prosperous state on the African Continent.

Kruger had almost no formal education beyond his reading of the Bible. Even as an adult, he claimed that the Bible was the only book that he’d ever read. Because of his interpretations of the scripture, he believed that the earth was flat.

Kruger and his family took part in the Great Trek. Discontentment with British rule led many Dutch speaking Afrikaner emigrants to move to the interior of modern day South Africa from the British ruled Cape Colony.

Kruger and his family became impressed with the idea of a sovereign Boer Republic.

During the 1830’s the “Voortrekkers” met resistance from offshoots of the Zulu Kingdom. Fighting broke out numerous times. Kruger’s family settled at the foot of the Magaliesberg mountains in the Transvaal. Kruger himself fought in three battles before his thirteenth birthday, and more so as his teen years waned.

Pioneer life hardened young Kruger. He was gruff, stern and fearless.

In addition to Dutch, Kruger could speak English and several African languages fluently.r

In 1863 Kruger was elected commandant general of the Transvaal government. Transvaal “is a geographic term associated with land north of (i.e., beyond) the Vaal River in modern-day South Africa.”Disputes within the government ultimately led to civil war.

After political stability somewhat returned to the region, Kruger was a favorite to win the presidential race of 1877. Due to British annexation, the election never happened.

After diplomatically opposing the British annexation in London, Kruger led Transvaal during the war of independence, after which independence was restored to the region.r

In 1883 Kruger was elected President. He made it his mission to restore complete independence to the region. He succeeded, and the "Zuid-Afrikaansche" republic was born.

“Within a few years Kruger presided over the most prosperous state in Africa.”

Much of Kruger’s presidency involved opposition to and conflict with Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes was preoccupied with spreading British influence and made attempts to incorporate Transvaal economically with the British Territories.

War again erupted when Britain refused to accept Kruger’s conditions regarding the full franchise status of British subjects in the region.

The South African Republic was again annexed by the British Empire in September of 1900.

Kruger was exiled and continued to raise support for the Boer cause. He died in exile in Western Switzerland in 1904 at the age of 78.

The Oom Paul tobacco pipe was originally named after Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger.

Fiorello H. La Guardia

Fiorello La Guardia is a New York City political icon. Three times elected the mayor of the city, he made it his mission to fight organized crime and corruption, improve the police and fire departments, and improve infrastructure projects.

Fiorello La Guardia was born in New York City and raised in Arizona. At sixteen he moved with his family to Italy.

He worked at consulates in Hungary and Croatia before returning to the United States in 1906.

He studied Law at the prestigious New York University, and was admitted to the bar in 1910. While in school, he worked as an interpreter at Ellis Island.

He ran politically, as a progressive republican, and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1916. His term in office was interrupted by World War I, where he would serve as a pilot.

He returned to Congress in 1918, and was re-elected to the House of Representatives in 1922.He was elected four more times. He is noted for having supported child labor laws and women’s suffrage. He also opposed prohibition.

“He cosponsored the Norris–La Guardia Act (1932), which restricted the courts’ power to ban or restrain strikes, boycotts, or picketing by organized labour.”

He successfully ran for Mayor of New York City in 1933. He ran on a reform platform, backed by the Republican Party and the City Fusion Party. His support base wanted to unseat Tammany Hall and do away with its corrupt practices.

La Guardia spent a lot of time and effort fighting organized crime. He also improved police and fire departments and expanded social welfare programs.

He undertook building projects included numerous roads and bridges, as well as the La Guardia Airport.

“After being reelected twice, La Guardia in 1945 refused to run for a fourth term as mayor. He was appointed director of the U.S. Office of Civilian Defense (1941) and director general (1946) of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.”

Ronald Reagan

With a career that began in Hollywood and ended in the White House, Ronald Reagan has become a legend of the GOP for his post-recession economic policies.

His father nicknamed him “Dutch” when he was a child.

During school, Reagan was a naturally gifted athlete. At Eureeka College, he played football, ran track, captained the swim team.

Having always had an interest in film and theatre, Ronald Reagan signed a seven year contract with Warner Brothers in 1937.

As a Hollywood actor, Ronald Reagan appeared in more than fifty films from 1937 to 1964. His most notable were perhaps 19442’s “Kings Row” and 1951’s “Bedtime for Bonzo.”

From 1947 until 1952, he served as president of the Screen Actors Guild. During this time he met actress Nancy Davis. The two were married in 1952.

Reagan first achieved political notoriety when he gave a televised speech for Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater in 1962.

He became Governor of California by a landslide in 1966, and was re- elected in 1970.

“Ronald Reagan won the Republican Presidential nomination in 1980 and chose as his running mate former Texas Congressman and United Nations Ambassador George Bush.” Due to a weak economy and the recent Iran Hostage Crisis, Reagan easily defeated Democrat Jimmy Carter.

At sixty nine years old, Reagan became the oldest President elect in the nation’s history.

Early on in his presidency, Reagan was shot, but recovered quickly. His poise and wit during the ordeal earned him even more popularity with the American people.

Due to his economic plan, dubbed “Reaganomics” the nation began to temporarily recover economically. He reduced social programs, limits on business and implemented tax cuts.

“In 1981, Reagan made history by appointing Sandra Day O'Connor as the first woman to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

During his second term in office, Reagan began a diplomatic relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev, chairman of the Soviet Union. “In 1987, the Americans and Soviets signed a historic agreement to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles.”Later in Reagan gave a speech at the Berlin Wall, and challenged Gorbachev to tear it down. Twenty nine months later, Gorbachev allowed the people of Berlin to dismantle it, thus ending Soviet control over East Germany.

In 1990, after the end of his second Presidential term, Reagan went back to Berlin and took several symbolic swings with a hammer at a remaining section of the wall.

Franklin Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President of the United States an unprecedented four times. He displayed unparalleled strength in leadership qualities as the world was at war for a second time in barely two decades.

Franklin Roosevelt’s family was rather wealthy. They made their fortune in the real estate and trade businesses.

Young FDR was an only child and enjoyed a childhood marked with privilege and self- importance. He was educated by tutors and governesses until he was fourteen years old.

After high school, Roosevelt attended Harvard University.

During his senior year at Harvard, Roosevelt met and became engaged to his fifth cousin, Eleanor.

After supporting Woodrow Wilson during the 1912 National Democratic Convention, Roosevelt was made Assistant Secretary of the Navy, the same position that his hero Theodore Roosevelt had held prior to his own presidential bid.

Roosevelt contracted Polio while on vacation in the summer of 1921. Although he battled his illness with numerous therapies and a great deal of effort, he never regained the use of his legs. For a while, he believed that his political career was over.

Due to encouragement from his wife, Eleanor and his longtime political confidante Louis Howe, Franklin Roosevelt continued his political career in 1924. By that time he had taught himself to walk brief distances with braces on his legs, and was sure to never allow photos of him in a wheelchair to surface publicly.

In 1932, Roosevelt defeated incumbent Herbert Hoover and became the 32nd President of the United States.

By the time Roosevelt took office, the nation was in peril. Thirteen million Americans were unemployed.

Immediately after taking office, Roosevelt proposed a plan for economic relief and reform. His “New Deal” successfully helped the country get out of the Great Depression. By 1936, the country’s economy began to improve.The same year, Roosevelt was elected President for a second term.

Since World War I, America adopted an isolationist policy in regard to participating in foreign wars. The sentiment began to wane at the onset of World War II. Any hope of staying out of World War II ended on December 7th, 1941 when the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. At the time, Roosevelt had begun serving his unprecedented third term as President.

Roosevelt displayed great military prowess as Commander in Chief during the War. He helped bring an end to Nazi rule in Europe through a series of invasions and strategy. At the same time, America was on the verge of winning the war in the Pacific.

During the later years of World War II, Roosevelt promoted the creation of the United Nations.

In 1944, Roosevelt was elected President for a fourth time. After returning from a conference with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin regarding post-war reorganization, Roosevelt suffered a massive Cerebral Hemorrhage and died in April of 1945. His vice President, Harry Truman, became President afterwards.

Roosevelt’s death shocked Americans. His leadership had led them through an unprecedented economic crisis and a Second World War. America had established itself as a leader on a global stage thanks, in part, to his effective leadership.

We don’t have to tell you who Joe Case is. If you follow the pulse of the tobacco pipe world online, you’ve probably heard of Joe Case Pipes. An early personality in the YouTube pipe world, Joe uses his savvy marketing skills--learned during a 40-year history in media--to showcase his skills as a carver.

I sat down for a phone call with Joe to find out what he thinks makes a good pipe, what inspires him to be constantly learning, and what Elvis Presley taught him about marketing. 

Talking Tobacco Pipes with Joe Case

Renia: How did you get into smoking a pipe?

Joe: I smoked a pipe in my early twenties, like many men my age did. Then, I smoked cigarettes for awhile, but I quit that right before my first son was born. One of the reasons I enjoy making pipes is that it gives cigarette smokers another option. It’s a revelation to discover the pleasure of the pipe and it helps many smokers make the migration.

Over the years my brother-in-law, Rick Farrah of Briarville Pipe Repair, and I would smoke a pipe around the holidays. I see pipe smoking as a leisure activity, something to be enjoyed with friends and/or family.

Renia: I think a lot of us associate pipe smoking with leisure, but I never really thought about it as celebratory. I like that idea! Is that what motivated you to start making pipes, to give them as gifts?

Joe: No. It was mostly just to see how the process worked.

I’ve been a hobbyist woodworker since the early 1970s, when I first came to Nashville. Over the years I accumulated quite a large collection of tools in my shop. In 2011, when I left the broadcast industry, I had a bit of free time on my hands. One day I was sitting in my local B&M and the manager suggested that I try making a pipe. So I did.

Around the same time I started making YouTube videos and so, naturally, I showed off what I was learning to my new friends there. A bunch of guys asked to buy my pipes and it kept growing. By 2012 making pipes was a full-time job for me and it has been ever since.

Excuse this interruption, for a throwback moment:

We did some digging on Joe’s YouTube Channel and found this early video where he contemplates making pipes. We’re sure glad he decided to use all those tools to benefit the pipe smoking community! 

Watch this throwback video from when it all began:

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Renia: YouTube and other forms of social media really came on hard just as you were rediscovering pipe smoking. How do you think your background helped you early on?

Joe: I didn’t start out thinking to make pipes full-time, but I’m sure all the years I spent in broadcasting helped. I started at a radio station in Jackson, Tennessee when I was 15, and spent most of the next 40 years in the industry. YouTube wasn’t the first time I stepped in front of a camera, but it’s very different from traditional media.

Most of what might seem like “natural” marketing ability I learned from studying Colonel Tom Parker and how he promoted Elvis Presley. He was a genius and I think most of us who have an interest in getting our name out there would be smart to study how he promoted “The King”.

Renia: So if studying Colonel Tom Parker taught you about promoting and getting your name out there, who would you say mentored you as a pipemaker? Or are you mostly self-taught?

Joe: Most of what I learned early on came from watching YouTube videos and taking apart pipes that I bought. I watched every single video on pipe making that I could find in the early days.

Grant Batson, Steve Morrisette, Mark Balkovec helped me a bunch after I got started. I’ve also spent lots of time on Skype with a number of pipe makers. It’s a giving community, once you do the early ground work.

I’ve made many friends through social media and spending time talking with pipe smokers and carvers all over the world. Those connections, whether they are with pipe makers or enthusiasts, really helped shape my designs.

We interrupt Joe’s story, with an example of one such “visit”

The Dagner Slayer Poker is one of Joe Case’s best selling pipes. We think an October 31, 2012 “visit” from the pipe world’s favorite YouTube personality might be why. Regardless, it’s a classic example of why the pipe world loves Joe Case:

And now back to the Q & A…

Renia: Do you have a favorite pipe that you’ve made, or a favorite in your collection?

Joe: I’ve made over 1,200 pipes since 2011. Most of them are Pokers, because that was my favorite shape when I 

started. I still favor it, but choosing a single favorite would be extremely difficult.

I did make a greenish brown Blowfish just a few months ago that I’m fond of. It was one of the few that I thought, “Gosh, I hope that one doesn’t sell.” Then it could become part of my collection. But it sold the day I posted it. My own pipes rarely make it into my collection. Pretty much only when they are seconds.

Over the years, I’ve built quite a tobacco pipe collection. I have 40-50 these days. My Savinelli Pipes, Winslows, Kevin Arthur, Steve Morrissette, Dagners...all are favorites for different reasons. I don’t think I could choose just one. It all depends on my mood.

I do have a Dunhill pipe for my birth year that I am particularly fond of, but primarily for sentimental reasons.

Renia: That’s understandable, it’s sort of like choosing a favorite child. What about your process, do you tend to follow a specific routine? Are you a planner or more spontaneous, when it comes to your work?

Joe: I guess I’m somewhere in between.

I like to sit down and plan, the majority of my business is in fairly standard pipe shapes for me, but I don’t want to get stagnant either. For instance, I look at my list today and know I’m going to make a Devil’s Anse. I’ll look for a block that will work for that shape and the finish chosen by the customer. Then, I get to work.

I only make one or two pipes at a time. I know other pipe makers who can work on 20 pipes at once, but that’s not me. I get distracted too easily. It typically takes me about a day to make a pipe. In fact, some of my long-time Instagram followers know when I’m taking a day off, because I’ll post a pipe every day when I’m working.

Occasionally I’ll squeeze in two pipes on the same day, but always of the same style. My brain won’t tolerate doing a couple of very different styles together.

Renia: It sounds like you know yourself well. Do you smoke when you work?

Joe: Nah, I’m too much of a clencher. Besides, I see smoking a pipe as a leisure activity, not a part of the workday.

Renia: That makes perfect sense. Do you have any strong opinions about what makes a good pipe?

Joe: The thing has to smoke well!

That means it should have a good, easy draw and smoke effortlessly. The smoker should be able to draw all they want, or just and sip at it.

Beyond smoking well, a pipe should be aesthetically pleasing to the owner. Of course, that’s highly subjective. My pipes tend to be closer to traditional shapes with surprise accents, but I’ve seen some extraordinary work that breaks every mold around what makes a pipe--it’s all about finding the right fit for the right person.

Watch Joe articulate his thoughts on the evolution of design.

Joe told me during our chat that he believes if you’re not learning every day, you need a new career. We’ve watched his style evolve over the years, as he learns new things and/or takes on new design challenges. 

Here’s a good example of what that process looks like:

And now let’s wrap it up...

Renia: Joe, you have an intimacy with your customers that many artists do not. Through YouTube, Instagram and now Periscope, you talk almost on a daily basis. But can you think of something you wish a new customer knew before they buy from you?

Joe: Only that the difference between an artisan pipe and a production line pipe is that EVERY SINGLE artisan pipe is unique. They will all be different in some way. That’s why you buy a handmade pipe.

I am always striving for perfection, but I’m not perfect. If a customer ever has a problem with one of my pipes, I will stand behind it. I feel like a little piece of me goes into each pipe I make and I want it to be a special experience for my customer.

Renia: That type of ownership is undoubtedly part of your success and one of the reasons we are so excited to work with you. Thank you for taking the time away from your workshop to talk with me.

Joe: Thank you guys for your interest in my work. It’s been a pleasure.

Our team has followed Joe Case’s work for several years and we are beyond ecstatic to carry his unique artisan pipes. Please take a moment to welcome Joe to the TobaccoPipes.com family in the comments below. 

Brian Levine, Phd DOP (Doctor of Pipes), said it best on the Pipes Magazine Radio Show, 

“Reaming your tobacco pipes is a necessary evil.”

We all know how hard it is to build up that cake of carbon in your tobacco pipe. It might have happened over a few years or hundreds of bowls of tobacco. But, in order to preserve your pipe and keep it in pristine smoking condition, preventative maintenance is imperative.

Use this basic guide to reaming pipes, to equip yourself with the knowledge you need to care for your precious collection.

A Word on Cake

While this article is about reaming, we must include some basic information about cake.

The cake is simply the built up carbon left over from the burning oils and leaf in your tobacco. This cake is what gives your pipe character and flavor over time.

Good cake is the key to a better smoke.

The more you smoke, the more your cake will build up. The optimal thickness for cake is 1.5 mm, or about the thickness of a dime. Once your cake becomes overly thick, usually at the point where you can’t fit your finger in, you enter the danger zone. Thick cake absorbs more heat. Heat causes things to expand. This means you are in danger of cracking your bowl when the cake expands too much.

Types of Pipe Reamers

Before we go into what types of pipe reamers you should consider, a word of warning:

One tool that you should not use is a knife.

While it is tempting, and you probably have some sharp pocket knives lying around, using a knife willstrip the carbon from your pipe rather than sand it off. And you are likely to stab or scratch your briar bowl, which is bad news.

Pipe Tool Attachment

Most smokers have an abundance of 3-in-1 tool style pipe tools nestled around their home, office and car. These tools come with a tamper, pick and a reamer.

While the scoop tool is called a reamer, its purpose is to loosing and shovel out the ash. The reamer attachment was not designed to scrape the carbon from the inside of the bowl. Attempting to ream with this tool can result in taking out chunks and damaging the briar underneath the cake.

Sandpaper

Some people love the direct, hands-on approach. They often like to take a thin piece of sandpaper, apply it to a finger, and slowly sand down the cake.

This tool can be precise, but only in the hands of experienced woodworkers and crafters who know how to properly sand. If you’re a novice with sandpaper, we don’t recommend this method.

Dremel Tool

Another tool favored by woodworkers is the dremel tool method. A rock sander attached to the end of the tool can be a quick and easy method, but only in the right hands. This is a dangerous way to ream. It takes the most steady of hand and perfect attention to detail to be done correctly. I advise you to not try this method unless you are a very experienced restoration expert.

If your confidence as a woodworker isn’t so high, there are plenty of more common tools for reaming your bowl that come with a much lower risk factor. These are:

British Buttener

The British Buttoner is a classic tool, and the most economical at that. This reamer is spring loaded, causing it to always fit snuggly in the bowl, which means it will apply pressure. These are typically ¾ of an inch thick, which fits most standard pipes.

This tool is perfect for pipes with a U shaped chamber. What makes this tool so popular is its ability to reach the bottom of most chambers quite easily, a characteristic which most other tools have trouble with.

Multi-Tool T Reamer

A Multi-Tool reamer is the preferred tool of restoration artists and those who have multiple sized pipes to care for.

The advantage in this model is its variety in bowl size and shaped reamers. The downside to this is the lack of adjustability. If you happen to not have a reamer that fits your pipe, you are out of luck.

Senior Pipe Reamer

The Senior Pipe Reamer is the most popular quality pipe reamer. With tapered sharpened edges, and a V shaped bottom (which obviously works well with V shaped chambers), this reamer is perfect for most every pipe.

This reamer is beloved because with a little torque the diameter of the reamer changes. This means that as you ream you can slowly enlarge the reamer to match the cake, making it the safest reamer to use on your pipes.

A Word of Caution

Once you select your tool of choice, it is probably a bad idea to jump in and start reaming your pipes.

I suggest you go to eBay, or a local antique market, and buy some beat up estate pipes that have loads of cake. Use these to practice. If you don’t know what you are doing, odds are pretty high that you will mess up your pipe instead of repairing it. Please practice first.

Reaming

First and foremost, have a stable and secure workplace. You will want to have a steady hand when reaming, and doing so on the couch, in your lap, car, or some other unstable place can keep your hand from being steady.

The key to reaming is gentle and consistent torque.

When you insert your tool, you only want a small amount of friction between the cake and your tool. At this point you will twist until the friction disappears. Dump the dust out, expand your reamer, and continue the process. You should be creating a fine dust of carbon. If you are taking out chunks, you will need to scrape more gently and see if you can decrease the size of your reamer.

It is tempting to ream inconsistently around the bowl, such as pushing harder on the shank side of pipe. Avoid this. Ream equally all around the diameter of your bowl.

Do not ream all the way to fresh wood!

This is a mistake many, including myself, have made. Even profession pipe restorers don’t always ream down to the fresh wood. It is best to leave a light layer.

When you make your way to the bottom of the bowl, be very careful! There is often only a little, if any, cake at the bottom of the bowl. You will want to prevent reaming this area as much as possible.

Once you have completed reaming, you will want to carefully clean the pipe.

Dump the carbon dust out and begin running pipe cleaners through your pipe. For those of you that use alcohol to clean your pipes with, Everclear is a great place to start. If using alcohol is not your thing, then using a pipe cleaning solution will work well as an alternative.

Now, your pipe is ready to go! Start building your cake back up to about 1.5mm and enjoy smoking your newly perfect pipe.

Chris Hopkins is a pipe blogger and former tobacconist. Chris worked for his first tobacco company at the age of 17 in Kentucky, then later as a tobacconist in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Chris currently operates an in- depth blog review of pipe tobacco and products at Pipe Tobacco Critique. He is currently a graduate student of theology at Kentucky Christian University and a minister in Winston Salem. Chris' passions include pipe blogging, movies, and cooking for his beautiful wife Emily.

For questions or concerns about reaming your pipe, leave us a comment in the box below. We will respond to your comment.

Photograph by Jackalyn Herron

Brandon Brooks refers to the tight-knit community of pipe makers at Briar Lab as “The Justice League” and his place among them as sort of like “Batman”. It is an apt introduction to a slightly-below-the radar carver. You may not know his name, but you’ve almost certainly seen his work if you spend even a passing moment in the online pipe world.

With his base in Kentucky, Brandon Brooks Pipes exist a little outside the hot Nashville scene. His creative aesthetic is clearly influenced by Music City, yet not beholden to it. It’s a combination we find particularly exciting.

I sat down for a phone chat with Brandon while he logged miles, returning home from the Nashville Pipe Show. Read on to find out how making drums gave him the confidence to make pipes, what he learned about creative work from the music business, and more...

Talking Tobacco Pipes with Brandon Brooks

Renia: How did you get into pipe smoking?

Brandon: It’s an old cliche´. My grandfather smoked a pipe and I wanted to smoke one too. I worked for a drum company for several years and knew a fair bit about building things from that experience, so I decided I could make my own. I knew how to work with my hands and figured that was enough.

Renia: So you made your own pipes from the beginning? How did you learn?

Brandon: I did a lot of silly and dangerous stuff that I wouldn’t recommend anyone else trying. I won't even say it, in case someone would. My early work was just trial and error. Some of my first pipes were pretty embarrassing. I won’t show them to anyone.

In the beginning, most of what I learned came from Pipe Makers Forum. Then, after a couple of years I decided to get serious. I went and sat with Bruce Weaver and Todd Johnson. Bruce has been instrumental in my growth.

I have a bit of an art background and several other pipe makers told me to start sketching. That helped my work tremendously, but much of my development was simply trial and error. Oh, and great mentors. I’ve been lucky to work with many talented people.

Renia: You’ve been fortunate to work with a number of other pipe makers. Who would you say influences your work the most?

Brandon: Hekthtor Wiebe and his radiator pipes are a definite influence. I make bowls for them now. Of course, Michael Lindner, Nate King and others from Briar Lab have helped me tremendously. Chris Morgan, Steve Liskey, Bruce Weaver, Joe Case and my friends Tony Warner and Simon Landrum of Blue Mountain Studios--both up and coming makers--all come to mind.

I spent a lot of time in the music world and have always really enjoy working in groups. I like learning from others and the creative energy of groups. There are plenty of makers who are uptight about sharing their craft, and I try hard not to be one of those. That attitude helps me to build relationships where I am sometimes the student, sometimes the teacher and always a partner in making our corner of the world a more interesting place.

Renia: After working with so many other artisan carvers, I’m sure you have some strong opinions about what makes a good pipe.

Brandon: Only a few. Function before form. The pipe needs to smoke well first, then work on how it looks. I don’t care how cool the design is, if it doesn’t smoke well you’ve got to go back to the drawing board.

Other than “smokeability”, I think the experience of smoking a pipe should be comfortable. It should feel right to hold the pipe, put it to your mouth and puff. Again, comfort shouldn’t be sacrificed for looks.

Renia: Those sound like two rules that are simple, but not always easy to execute. How do you ensure that your own work meets these measures? What does your process look like?

Brandon: I sketch and draw out my design first. It shows me how the lines of the pipe come together and how they all work in harmony. Sometimes it’s easier to see structure in two dimensions. Then I make a template.

My process looks somewhat like an assembly line. I usually work on batches of six or more pipes at a time. I try to work on a few of the same or similar shapes at the same time. I always have plenty going on and I carry that through to my workshop.

Renia: It sounds like you have a good system down. Do you have favorites among the pipes you’ve made?

Brandon: The Paneled billiard and the Brandy you guys have are two special ones. I think that brandy could be the best blast I’ve ever done.

Awhile back I made a creature pipe that I’m pretty proud of. It has removable tentacles and a story to go with it. Jake at Kraken Pipe Leather, who makes all my bags, made a special case for it.

Renia: That’s a super cool pipe! Do you have something you wish your customers knew when they buy your pipes?

Brandon: Most often, just how much care went into making their new tobacco pipe. Many of my pipes have special finishes that don’t translate well in pictures, like my vintage 3D finish. In addition, all of my bags are made by Jake to coordinate with that specific pipe.

Renia: We’re honored to help shepherd those creations on their way to their new owners. It’s been a pleasure talking with you.

Brandon: Thank you.

Follow Brandon on Instagram and leave him a comment below to welcome him to the TobaccoPipes.com family.  

Although most of the notable pipe smokers we have record of were male, women have enjoyed the calm provided by a bowl of pipe tobacco for as long as men have. However, the habit of smoking a pipe has usually been considered "unladylike". These bold women broke the mold, at varying times in their lives, to take up a pipe and smoke it in public. This is the fifth and final installment in our series on famous pipe smokers.

Angela Davis

Angela Davis is a prominent civil rights activist, philosopher, scholar and writer. She is best known for her affiliations with the Black Panther Party and the Communist Party throughout the 1960’s and 70’s.

Angela Davis was born in 1944 in Birmingham Alabama. There, she was exposed to discrimination and racial prejudice very early on.

The 1963 church bombing by a member of the Ku Klux Klan deeply affected Davis because she knew the young victims involved.

When Davis was young, her mother was a national officer and leading organizer of the Southern Negro Youth Congress. This organization was strongly influenced by the communist party.

After studying philosophy at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, Davis attended grad school at the University of California, San Diego.

Between her undergrad and graduate studies at the University of California, Davis attended the University of Frankfurt in Germany.

During a trip into East Berlin, she decided that East Germany was dealing with the after effects of fascism better than West Germany. Many of her roommates were active in the Socialist German Student Union.

When she returned to the United States, Davis became active with branches of the Black Panther Party and the Communist Party USA.

By 1969 she was an acting assistant professor in the philosophy department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

That same year, at the urging of Governor Ronald Reagan, Davis was fired for her affiliation with the Communist Party.

After being reinstated, the Board of Regents of the University of California continued to try to find a reason to have Davis permanently released from her position at UCLA. In 1970, they succeeded in firing her for use of inflammatory language during her speeches.

In 1970, Davis was charged and imprisoned for her alleged role in the escape attempt of the Soledad Brothers. She was acquitted in 1972.

After teaching and traveling for some years, Davis returned to teaching. Today she is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has authored several books, including Women, Race, and Class (1980) and Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003).

Millicent Fenwick

Millicent Fenwick was a four-term Republican member of the United States House of Representatives who was outspoken in favor of civil rights and the women's movement.

She has been credited as the inspiration behind Lacey Davenport in Gary Trudeau’s “Doonesbury.” Trudeau has denied this claim.

Millicent Fenwick was born in 1910 in New York City.

In her younger years, Millicent Fenwick modeled for Harper’s Bazaar.

She then worked as a writer and editor at Vogue magazine for 14 years.

Fenwick didn’t become involved in politics until the 1950’s. Due to her intelligence, wit, and charm she quickly ascended the rungs of the Republican Party.

She was elected to the Bernardsville Borough Council in 1957.

From 1958 until 1974 she served on the New Jersey Committee of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

She was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly in 1969 and served from 1970 to 1973.

Afterwards she became director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs under Governor William T. Cahill.

Millicent Fenwick was elected to Congress from New Jersey in 1974. By this time she was a popular figure with the media. Walter Cronkite had referred to her as the “conscious of Congress.”

She was one of the most liberal conservatives in the House of Representatives. He was often at odds with the leaders of her party.

In 1982, she ran for a United States Senate seat, and defeated conservative Jeffrey Bell in the Republican primary election. She would, however, go on to lose the general election to Frank Lautenberg. She subsequently left the House of Representatives.

In 1983 Fenwick was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as United States Ambassador to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome, Italy. She would retire in 1987 at the age of 77.

When she died in 1992, Charles Millard called Fenwick the “Katherine Hepburn of politics.”

Greta Garbo

The three times Academy Award nominee for Best Actress, Greta Garbo is a legend of the silver screen.

Greta Garbo was born in 1905 in Stockholm Sweden.

When Greta was fourteen, her father died of Spanish flu. To help her family make ends meet, she dropped out of school and took a job in a department store. The store used her as a model in its ads.

After acting in a department store ad, she was discovered by Erik A. Petschler, a comedy director. He gave her a small role in one of his films.

Following her role in the film, she applied for a scholarship to a Swedish drama school and got it.

Greta Garbo began her Hollywood career in 1925 when she was 19 years old. She was offered a contract with MGM.

Garbo became an international film superstar and legend of the silver screen. She was voted the 25th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

For many years, Greta Garbo was MGM’s highest paid actor.

Although she never won an Academy Award, she received an honorary one. True to her mysterious nature, she didn’t show up to the ceremony.

In 1950, she became an American citizen.

Garbo was never married, nor did she have any children.

Garbo always preferred to be alone. She didn’t sign autographs, answer letters and rarely ever gave interviews. Throughout her life she perpetuated a distant and socially withdrawn mystique.

She was once designated the most beautiful woman who ever lived by the Guinness Book of World Records.

Garbo won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress for both Anna Karenina in 1935 and Camille in 1936.

She retired at the age of thirty five after acting in twenty eight films. Though she was offered numerous chances to return to acting, she turned them all down. She spent most of her retirement in private.

Forugh Farrokhzad

Forugh Farrokhzad is widely considered one of the most influential Iranian female poets of the twentieth century. In her short life she published four volumes of poetry and directed an award winning documentary.

Forugh was born in Tehran in 1935. She had six brothers and sisters.

She went to a regular school until the ninth grade. Afterward she was sent to a girl's school for the manual arts where she was taught painting and sewing.

She was married at sixteen. A year later she gave birth to her only child, Kāmyār.

Farrokhzad and her husband divorced in 1954. She won custody of her child and moved back to Tehran to write poetry.

She published her first volume, The Captive, in 1955.

As a female divorcee, who wrote poetry in a strong feminine voice, Farrokhzad often was the subject of negative attention and disapproval.

During 1958, Farrokhzad spent nine months in Europe. When she returned to Iran, she met filmmaker and writer Ebrahim Golestan. After publishing two more volumes of poetry, she made her directorial debut with the documentary The House is Black.

The House is Black is about Iranians affected by leprosy. The film won several international awards.

While shooting her film, Forugh became attached to a child of two lepers. She adopted him and brought him to live at her mother’s house.In 1964, she published Another Birth.

In 1967 Forugh Farrokhzad was killed in a car accident at the age of thirty two.

Her poem, Let us believe in the beginning of the cold season was published posthumously. It is considered by some to be one of the best-structured modern poems in Persian.

After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Farrokhzad’s poetry was banned for over a decade.

Helene Knoop

As one of Norway’s premier figurative painters, Helene Knoop has garnered recognition for her “kitsch painting.”

She is one of the founders of worldwidekitch.com.

Kitsch painting, according to Knoop, involves “pathos, poetry, drama and sincerity communicated through the mastery of craft.”

From 2003 to 2003 Helene Knoop studied figurative painting with world renowned figurative painter Odd Nerdrum.

After leaving Nerdrum’s studio Knoop studied ancient sculpture in Italy.

Helene Knoop always paints using a live model. When she paints landscapes, she paints inplein air.

Her paintings are strongly influenced by the Italian Renaissance and Baroque art.

Knoop has held solo exhibitions in London, Stockholm and New York. She has also participated in many group shows. Her paintings are represented in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, England, Italy, Nicaragua and the United States.

She currently lives and works in Oslo.

Andie MacDowell

American film actress Andie MacDowell was born in 1958 in South Carolina.

She dropped out of college and signed a contract with the prestigious Elite modeling agency in New York City in 1978.

In the 1980’s, MacDowell modelled for “Vogue magazine and appeared in ad campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent, Vassarette, Armani perfume, Sabeth-Row, Mink International, Anne Klein and Bill Blass.”

She got her big break in acting after she garnered attention from a series of Calvin Klein television ads as well as billboard ads in Times Square.

Her first movie role was in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes in 1984. During post-production, MacDowell’s lines were dubbed by Glenn Close because her southern accent was too pronounced for the role of an Englishwoman.

After studying method acting with teachers from the Actors Studio, and working privately with the renowned coach Harold Guskin, MacDowell landed a role in Steven Soderbergh’s independent film Sex, Lies, and Videotape 1989.

For her performance, she earned an Independent Spirit Award, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress and several other award nominations.

She world achieve movie stardom following the success of Harold Ramis’s 1993 comedy “Groundhog Day” and Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994.

Through all of her success in acting, MacDowell has kept modeling. Since 1986 she has appeared in print and television advertisements for the cosmetic and haircare company L'Oréal.

Though she took time toward the end of the 1990’s to spend time with her children, Andie MacDowell has long since returned to acting in television series and independent films.

Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria's father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of the reigning King of the United Kingdom, George III.

Victoria was the only daughter of Prince Edward, who died shortly after she was born.

Because her three uncles did not have any surviving child of their own, Victoria became heir to the throne upon the death of King William IV, and was coroneted in 1838.

From 1876 onward, she used the additional title of Empress of India.

Her reign lasted sixty three years and seven months, which is longer than that of any other British monarch and longer than any female monarch in history.

Victoria was a naturally gifted artist and dedicated diarist. At the time of her death, Queen

Victoria’s detailed journal encompassed 122 volumes.

Her reign took place during, what many consider, the golden age of the British Empire.

In 1840 she married Prince Albert. Between 1840 and 1857 the two had nine children.

When Albert died in 1861, Queen Victoria was very depressed. To show her dedication to her late husband, she wore black for the rest of her reign.

The general influence of the middle years of her reign was the support of peace and reconciliation. In 1875 she helped to avert a second Franco-German war with a letter that she sent to the German Emperor.

There was also a noticeable shift away from sovereign rule during Victoria’s reign. A series of Acts broadened the social and economic base of the electorate.

During her reign the role of constitutional monarch became prevalent. The monarch would remain above political parties there forth. She was still a very strong supporter of Empire.

Though conservative, Queen Victoria supported many progressive measures involving the poor and charities.

She was active in her royal duties right up until the time of her death in 1901.

Rachel Jackson

Rachel Jackson, wife of President Andrew Jackson, was the subject of some of the most malicious smear campaigns in American History.

Rachel Jackson was born Rachel Donelson in Virginia in 1767. She had seven brothers and sisters.

When Andrew Jackson moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1788 he boarded with Rachel Donelson’s mother.

Believing that the divorce from her first marriage was final, Rachel Donelson and Andrew Jackson married in Mississippi.

Rachel and Andrew Jackson’s marriage was deemed bigamous and invalid when it was discovered that her divorce was not completed.

The two remarried in 1794, but the debacle surrounding the end of her first marriage and her second haunted Jackson’s Presidential campaign in 1828.

Supporters of John Quincy Adams accused Rachel Jackson of being a bigamist. Jackson still won the election by a landslide.

Rachel Jackson died suddenly just as Andrew Jackson was set to assume the role of President in Washington DC. Her death left the President Grief Stricken. He never remarried.

Gertrude Stein

American writer, poet, art collector, and influential Lost Generation figure Gertrude Stein was born in 1874 in Pennsylvania.

Her father was a wealthy merchant, so her family spent a lot of time in Europe during her childhood before settling in Oakland, California.

Gertrude Stein’s parents died when she was only a teenager. Her oldest brother then sent Gertrude and her sister to live with maternal relatives in Baltimore.

“From 1893 until 1897, Gertrude Stein was enrolled in Radcliffe College. She studied under William James, a psychologist.“

Later, Gertrude Stein studied medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School. She never fully completed her studies.

In 1903, Gertrude Stein moved to Paris. For eleven years she lived with her brother, Leo.

Leo and Gertrude became collectors of post- impressionist paintings in 1904. She would famously collect many works by Pablo Picasso, who would eventually go on to paint Gertrude’s portrait.

They also acquired paintings by Henri Manguin, Pierre Bonnard, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Honoré Daumier, Henri Matisse, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

In April 1914 Leo relocated to Settignano, Italy, and their art collection was divided.

Gatherings at Gertrude Stein’s home at 27 rue de Fleurus would become famous for defining modernism in literature and art. Such talented people as Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, Gavin Williamson, Thornton Wilder, Sherwood Anderson, Francis Cyril Rose, René Crevel, Élisabeth de Gramont, Francis Picabia, Claribel Cone, Mildred Aldrich, Carl Van Vechten and Henri Matisse regularly frequented her home on Saturday nights.

Stein preferred to host organized gatherings as to avoid impromptu visits. That way, she could focus on her own writing in peace.

Upon the birth of his son, Ernest Hemingway asked Stein to be the godmother of his child.

Around this time, it is said that Gertrude Stein famously coined the term the “Lost Generation.”

In 1933 she published her only commercial success, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

After lecturing in America in 1934, Gertrude Stein returned to France where she would remain throughout World War II. She died shortly after the War ended.

The thing you have to understand about Jayson Dagner, founder and designer behind Dagner Pipes, is that he never really stops. Whether he’s out on the asphalt practicing his favorite form of meditation--skateboarding--or video chatting with his Italian manufacturers (as he was when I interrupted him for our interview), he is always, in pursuit of his goals.

Read on to learn what skateboarding and business have in common, the two rules Dagner lives by, and how he started down the rabbit hole of producing his own tobacco pipe collections.

Talking Tobacco Pipes with Jayson Dagner

Renia: How did you get into pipe smoking?

Jayson: It started as a way to save money, because smoking cigars costs a fortune.

Of course, like many of the people you talk to, my grandfather and father smoked a pipe. I smoked a corn cob when I was around 18, but smoking a pipe started with YouTube videos as an alternative to the cigars that were draining my bank account, back when I was racing motocross.

Pipes appeal to me because they last. Once you smoke a cigar, it’s gone. There’s maybe a memory, if it’s a particularly good one, but that’s it. A good pipe, on the other hand, will be a companion--even an heirloom--the sense of history was something that really drew me in.

Renia: What motivated you to start creating your own line? How did you get started?

Jayson: I like figuring out how to make things work and spent a lot of time messing with the pipes to fix them up and make them smoke as optimally as possible. I pretty much do this with everything.

Around the same time that I started thinking seriously about making some pipes of my own, I started to think it might be a good idea to have another career options. The company I was working for went through a buy-out and lots of jobs were going by the wayside. I knew what I wanted out of a pipe and figured I could make it, but making a couple of pipes per day would mean I would need to price them pretty high to make a living doing it. Instead, I wanted to work with someone to make pipes for working guys like me, pipes that most of us can afford.

Renia: Working with a manufacturer right from the beginning is rare in the artisan world. How do you make sure you’re pipes live up to your expectations?

Jayson: Dagner pipes are not made on an assembly line exactly. I think when most of us think of manufacturing, we think of an autoplant or something. Every one of my pipes are designed by me and each piece of the pipe is custom made for that pipe.

The first time I worked with the Italian company that makes my pipes, it took nearly eight months of going back and forth. It took awhile for us to learn to work as partners and to get things exactly how I wanted them. Now the methodology is, “Measure twice, drill once.”

Every one of my pipes is inspected and if it doesn’t meet my standards, it doesn’t get sold.

Renia: That’s a lot of drill holes to check! So what do you think makes a good pipe?

Jayson: What makes a pipe smoke well is all about the aesthetics of flow. If the tenon is flat, then it’s going to change the direction of the airflow and cause moisture to pool in the bowl. Specific drilling is essential to a good smoking experience.

When it comes to pipes--no, scratch that, when it comes to anything--the little things matter. I learned that from skateboarding and it applies to everything.

Renia: Your experiences as a skateboarder have a big impact on your brand. How do you think that 

unique perspective influences your role in the pipe world?

Jayson: There’s tons of cross-pollination. Pretty much everything I’ve ever learned about life came from skateboarding. Skateboarding taught me that everything counts.

That 7-ply board taught me how to meditate, and how to notice the little things that add up to big things. You have to be one with the board and notice the tiny movements that are the difference between flying and failing.

I’ll go to the park knowing what tricks I’m going to do, and somedays are good. Other days I’ve got to do the same thing a dozen times to get it right. So much of the time it’s just a little lean in my body that’s the difference. Skateboarding taught me patience and precession, which are absolute musts if you’re going to make pipes. I don’t care if they are handmade, machine made, or whatever.

Even bigger than tobacco pipes, skateboarding forces me out of my head where I have to face the fear and commit completely. You need that in business...hell, you need that in life. Once you’ve committed you start to be able to see what’s going to happen--to anticipate--maybe just two or three seconds early, but that’s all you need. It allows you to make the right move without even thinking.

If I’d quit skateboarding when I was young, I might have ended up in jail. Instead, I ended up with a couple rules about life that serve me pretty well in and out of the pipe world. First, never lie...not to other people and not to yourself. Second, don’t be an asshole. Being nice is really underrated.

I didn’t skateboard for 10 years, from 2001 to 2011, but every single day I thought about it. When I recovered enough from my accident to get at it again, I had to learn different ways and what my limitations are. That’s good for us too--understanding our limits and choosing whether to stay or push a little farther. There’s a big difference between making a choice to only go so far and quitting because you’re afraid.

Renia: It sounds like you learned a lot from skateboarding, both at the beginning of your life and more 

recently, the perspective is a little different on either side. How has the way you view pipe smoking changed over time? What about your tastes?

Jayson: Well, I can’t 50/50 grind down a ten stair handrail anymore, but I can use those old tricks to come up with a new way of doing things.

Smoking pipes works the same way.

In the beginning it’s all about the new stuff, and learning about the different pipe tobaccos. Today, I use my own smoking time more as a time to focus. It’s less about learning new tricks and more about thinking up new ways to make the experience better for more people. I’ve filled more notebooks than I can easily count while I’m enjoying a smoke. Today, one of those old ideas came back around again and we’re starting to work towards doing it.

Renia: What does your process look like when you’re working on design ideas?

Jayson: I watch everything and I hear everything.

Most of what we do with Dagner Pipes starts four to six months before we actually make anything. It allows me to be really clear about the resources we will need and what the future is going to look like. Again, skateboarding taught me about this. You’ve got to balance looking down the road with paying attention to what you’re doing today.

Design ideas can come from anywhere. It’s hard for me to pin down where a particular thing comes from, most of the time.

Renia: You are original in many ways and you said that you notice everything. Who influences your work, whom do you go to for advice?

Jayson: Hmmm...Tom Eltang has helped me, both as a businessman and as a pipe maker. Joe Case and Paul Menard are both excellent pipe makers and good friends. Really, I sort of owe it all to Salam (aka One Man Smokes). It was his YouTube videos that I first stumbled on. I wouldn’t be here today if I never made any videos and I made videos because of seeing Salam do it.

Renia: Those guys are awesome. What about your pipes? You have a huge collection of pipes. Do you 

have a favorite?

Jayson: I have a Parker that is always in my truck. It’s a Dunhill second, a little light Dublin, that I bought from Glenn Quelch. I probably smoke that thing more than anything.

I have a pipe rack by my desk that hold 12 pipes. Every Sunday I go to my cabinet and pick out 12 pipes I think I might like to smoke for the week and put them on that rack. That’s how I make sure most things get a chance to come out once in awhile.

As far as the Dagner Pipes go, I reach for the Blue Collar Poker a lot. The one I smoke is a prototype. I love it because it’s a beginning, you know? The Whiskey Barrel also comes out a lot. Those two sit on the table by my desk.

Renia: What do you want your customers to know about your work that you don’t always get to tell them?

Jayson: Just how much work goes into or pipes. When you smoke a Dagner Pipe, it’s always going to smoke well.

Renia: Thank you for taking a break from your day to share with me. It’s been a pleasure.

Jayson: Thank you. Exciting things are coming, stay tuned.

We are honored to offer Dagner Pipes at TobaccoPipes.com. Get yours with a tin of your favorite tobacco and save $10, this week only. Use coupon code: dagner2015 at checkout.

Shopping for your loved ones is a roller coaster of emotion. You can quickly go from being clueless about what they would like to experiencing the joy of knowing you chose the right gift. In the end, nothing compares to seeing their joy when opening up your gift.

The odds are if you clicked on our link and arrived at this article, you are shopping for a pipe smoker. But unless you are a smoker as well, it can be difficult to decide what your loved ones need or would like to have.

Knowing Your Tobacco Pipe Smoker

The more you know about the smoking habits of your smoker, the easier it will be to shop for them. To help get you 

started we will include a pipe gift suggestion after each.

• Are you shopping for a beginner (someone looking to get into the hobby), the regular (someone who regularly smokes), a hobbyist (someone who loves the art of pipe smoking), or a collector (someone who is an “afficianado”)?
  • Because they are so affordable and very easy to break in, we suggest a Chapuis Comoy pipe for the beginner.
  • A regular smoker would appreciate a pipe like the Brebbia 1960 Sabbiata Nera for it is very unique and can handle a lot of smoking.
  • As an incredibly unique piece made in Germany, someone who is a hobbyist would be joyous to receive a Vauen Duke pipe.
  • The collector would love an artisan Cardinal House pipe by Walt Cannoy, a brand new line of handmade pipes.
• Next, if he has a collection of pipes or tobacco, go and take a look at it. It is likely to show you a pattern or preference. They could have straight pipes, bent pipes, smooth pipes, or even rustic pipes. If your smoker has all of one kind, or if you see a common theme, the odds are they like that style.
• Think about where he or she smokes. Most of the time smokers like to smoke certain pipes depending on where they are going to smoke.

For instance, if he likes to smoke his pipe while working in the yard or in the garage, an inexpensive but easy 

smoking Missouri Meerschaum corn cob pipe is a great place to start. If he loves smoking indoors, then a pipe from the Rossi Siracusa collection is a great choice. But, if the spends most of his time traveling to tobacco shops or pipe shows, he may appreciate a bit more “show”, like that offered by the Peterson Spigot series.

The same scenarios can also be applied to tobacco. If your loved one loves to smoke in the house, then a lovely aromatic blend that would smell great, like the Mac Baren Seven Seas Regular Blend, would be a great choice. If they smoke outdoors more often, then a heavier tobacco, like McClelland Frog Morton is a great place to start.

• Finally, you should ask yourself “what are they most likely to need?” Along with a tobacco pipe or a tobacco blend, your smoker is likely to need other accessories.

Your beloved pipe smoker will always be in need of pipe tools. For the holiday season, it is nice to spoil him with a handmade tool that they would not normally buy on their own. Tampers such as Vauen and Savinelli are some of the best pipe tools in the world but are inexpensive enough to be stocking stuffer gift for your smoker.

If the smoker you are shopping for is a traveler, if he takes his pipes away from home frequently, then a pipe and tobacco pouch like the Jobey Lambskin case is the perfect gift for them.

Maybe your smoker has plenty of tobacco pipes already, but he doesn’t have a way to display them. In this case a pipe rack, holding anywhere between one and seven pipes is a great idea.

Shop for Pipes Accordingly

If you are like us, then your holiday shopping is guided by a semi-strict budget. Have no fear, we offer plenty of pipes and accessories that are cheap enough to become stocking stuffers. With this small sample size we offer you a diverse series of pipes ranging from easily affordable to truly fantastic.

Stocking Stuffer Pipes:

• Choosing a separate Falcon Bowl and Falcon Stem is a great way to personalize your pipe gift.

• The Jobey Stromboli collection is a wonderful rustic pipe, perfect for the smoker who loves the outdoors.
• A perfect pipe for someone who just loves to smoke is one from the Dr. Grabow Smooth line.

Mid-Range Tobacco Pipes:

• For a pipe that is a true one-of-a-kind, see the Nording Signature or Black Smooth collection.
• A colorful and independent line of pipes are the Chacom Atlas pipes.
• And of course, one of our best mid-range tobacco pipes are those that are a part of the Vauen Shanghai series.

Premium Level Pipes:

• A gorgeous premium level pipe, that all smokers love, is a Peterson Rosslare Classic model.
• For a pipe that is of the highest quality and has an interestingly unique finish, check out a Savinelli Sunset Italian pipe.
• Or if you are looking for something a bit more inspired, take a look at the Chacom Eltang collaboration pipes.

Dream Tobacco Pipes:

• To find one-of-a-kind-pipes, made by one of the most notoriously great pipe companies in the artisan world, see the Ardor Pipe Company selection.
• But if you would like something made by hand, by an artist not a company, and carved in the USA check out pipes by Joe Case, Brandon Brooks, Paul Menard, or Steve LaVoice Jr. of Owl Pipes, all of whom are some of the most popular pipe carvers in the country.
• For a pipe that is both coveted and highly collectable, visit the Savinelli Autograph page and take a glance at these gorgeous masterpieces.

Holiday Themed Sets

If you are not looking at a certain price range, you are just looking for a holiday-themed gift, we have those as well.

Some of our Christmas/holiday edition pipes are (all are limited edition pipes):

• Savinelli Christmas edition
• Peterson Christmas series

Our holiday season inspired tobacco blends include (each being a limited edition tobacco):

• McClelland 2015 Christmas Cheer
• McClelland 2015 Holiday Spirit
• Samuel Gawith Winter Time Flake

You could also be interested in gifting your favorite a holiday themed gift set, which may include a pipe, tobacco, tool, cleaners, or something else. To see our sets, view our Smoker Gift Sets page.

What to Remember when Shopping

Even though you are looking for a knockout gift, one that will floor the smoker you love, you should remember that you are the one picking out the pipe or other item. Forever, when they hold that pipe, they are going to remember it as a gift from you.

The gift you choose should represent you just as much as it should please your loved one.

We want your gift to be perfect.

If you have question or are looking for a more specific suggestion, leave us a comment or contact us for help. We would love to assist you in finding the perfect gift!

If you’ve ever smoked a pipe while watching Youtube videos, you’ve probably heard of OMS Pipes founder, Salam Sipes.

Salam, better known as OneManSmoke, created a new genre. In the fast-growing early days of Youtube personalities, Salam’s authentic and entertaining way of making videos planted the seeds for an online pipe community that is vibrant, growing steadily, and producing a whole crop of new pipe makers all over America (and beyond).

A few weeks ago, I sat down for a phone call with Salam.

I am the granddaughter of Kentucky farmers who grew up on tobacco farms during The Great Depression. Talking to Salam reminded me an awful lot of walking down the dirt road I grew up on, listening to my grandfather tell stories of harvesting brilliant green leaves.

Salam is in touch with Kentucky’s unique heritage and, in his unassuming way, is bringing those stories to the world. It’s a combination of affinity for technology and respect of the past that has earned Salam a committed following. That community helped him to turn his long-time hobby into a business this year.

We are honored to have his new pipes here and wanted to know a little more about what motivates Salam to keep on making videos and smoking pipes. Here’s what he had to say...

An Interview with Salam Sipes

Renia: How did you get into pipe smoking?

Salam: My grandfather was a cigar smoker. His daily routine always included a cigar. It was his ritual to come home after a long day and have a beverage with a cigar. He was my mentor and I wanted to be the kind of man he was -- someone who took care of his family. When he passed I picked up cigar smoking because it made me feel connected to him.

My friends kinda didn’t know what to think. I was 18-21 years old and no one else around me was smoking cigars. In 2000, I went into a tobacconist in Chicago for a cigar and came out with a tobacco pipe. I didn’t know any other pipe smokers, so I smoked it a few times and put it down.

A few years later, when I came back to Louisville, I started looking around at what was here and noticed that I was living in the Burley Belt. It’s something I always knew, but didn’t look at super close. It got me interested in pipes again.

Renia: Yeah, you do live in the perfect place for a pipe smoker, it makes sense. Today you’re known as the godfather of the YouTube pipe community. How did that get started and how has that impacted you as a smoker?

Salam: Youtube is where I first started searching for information about smoking pipes. I found a few, but there wasn’t much there. A lot of what was there was weird stuff, not the community like we have now.

Renia: It’s odd to think about you searching Youtube for pipe videos. I think a lot of us think of you as the original Youtube piper.

Salam: Yeah, I wasn’t the only one or the first, but I could probably count everyone on my fingers. OneManSmoke is a reference to being all alone, from feeling like the only one at that point. No one in Kentucky predates those early videos and I don’t know of many others anywhere else.

I actually had two accounts. The first one, called OneMansSmoke, I had to close. I didn’t want it mixed up with my employer. That’s when I started One Man Smokes.

The early videos were about showing this interesting piece of American culture that is being erased. The world of the tobacco farmer has always been a tough one, but was always full of life too. These days it’s starting to die out--at least here in Kentucky. I wanted to preserve it and show it to others.

The soil here in Kentucky is made for tobacco and the culture that built up around this place doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world. Before you know it, this will all be erased. Because it isn’t glamorous, it isn’t documented well enough. But it is beautiful and I want people to know about it.

I want to show people the values of this community and how hard farmers work. Through my videos, I’ve been able to help people I admire too. A few pipe makers found an audience from my videos and that makes me proud.

I try to do my videos the way I do, and make my pipes the way I do, and I guess live the way I do to honor this place and these people.

Renia: So is that what motivated you to start making your own pipes? How did you get started?

Salam: OMS Pipes are designed to be exactly like the pipes I like to smoke myself. They are made for a guy who works hard to provide a good life for his family.

My pipes are heavily rusticated not just because it’s the look I like. The band on them is something I’m kind of known for. The rustication is practical. It provides a firm grip and makes the pipe easier to hold. Anything I sell is because it’s something I’d like to smoke myself.

My friend Jayson Dagner worked with an Italian company to make his pipes and suggested that I could put my own knowledge to good use. It was a perfect way for me to turn my passion into a way to provide for my family.

Renia: It sounds like you have a specific type of pipe you like. Besides the rustication, what do you think makes a good pipe?

Salam: Well what’s a good pipe and what I like aren’t always the same. I like my pipes rusticated, but there are plenty of amazing pipes that are not done that way. For all pipes, the draft hole has to be straight and the pipe has to be put together in a good way.

For me, I want a pipe for a working person. It’s a tool, not a painting. My pipes can be dropped without breaking and I want to smoke other pipes that are that way too. Otherwise, they are just not practical for my lifestyle.

Renia: How do you make sure that happens when you’re not the one constructing the pipe. What would you tell your customers about why they can trust your pipes?

Salam: I think of it like an architect. He’s not the one actually building the house, but he’s got to make sure it’s constructed right and to his vision. I check everything obsessively and am sure anyone who buys one of my pipes is going to love it for a long time. So I give them a lifetime warranty, so they can be sure too.

If you burn through it, drop it, whatever...I’ll replace it. Just please, don’t run over it with a truck.

My brand is me. It’s really personal. I want to know my customers and I want them to know me. You can only do that if you know you’re always giving them something worth having.

Renia: You’ve seen a lot of pipes. Do you have a favorite pipe that you’ve come across?

Salam: Jake Hackert and Mark Balkovec pipes are my favorites. They are my friends, as well as master craftsmen. It makes smoking the pipe even more fun, because I’m connected with someone I know when I smoke it. My pipes from them, made specifically for me, are my favorites.

Of course, I’m not immune to the greats like Dunhill pipes or Tom Eltang. My Dunhill Cherrywood is a prize pipe in my collection.

Renia: You’ve watched the pipe community and the tobacco world grow and change. Do you have any thoughts on what do you think the future looks like?

Salam: I think the Youtube and Instagram pipe communities will continue to expand. We may be losing the American tobacco farms and their culture, but I don’t think the pipe community is going anywhere.

I like things that are old and am a fan of the American way of life, especially the South. I like to hunt, fish and spend time with my boy out in the mountains. I think people our age are starting to reconnect with some of that. You know, sometimes they just want to put down their smartphones and go out in the woods. Smoking a pipe puts you back in connection in a way that a phone just can’t.

I want my son to grow up with those values my Grandfather showed to me. Maybe he’ll be what the future looks like.

Renia: I think you’re on the right track. Is there anything else you want the community to know about you?

Salam: Sometimes they’ll catch me on a good day, and sometimes a bad day. If you really want to know anything about me, you can see it on my Youtube Channel.

I’m a survival case. I’m here because of this community. So I guess what I want to say most is thank you.

Hop into the future of pipe smoking with Morgan Pipes

Chris Morgan is a veteran tobacco pipe maker and a young artisan creator. It’s a combination of the traditional and new ideas that leaves you wondering what might be next.

Morgan Pipes are well known in the American market. But Chris Morgan the man is something of an unknown personality. He has relationships with many other makers and smokers, but you won’t find him at a pipe show. Chris won't be traveling the country anytime soon. He prefers, instead, to keep close to home and to his shop, doing what most inspires him: creating.

Morgan hails from the same area of Northern California as many of the world’s tech giants. The tech world's influence over his style isn’t obvious at first, but it is there. The entrepreneurial spirit, fueled by possibility and something in the California air, finds its way into every story Chris tells.

Chris Morgan is something of a bridge between the past and the future of the pipe world. With the introduction of his Blackjack and Bones lines, he's become a bridge between the elite and the masses as well.

His stories and philosophies kept me furiously scribbling notes throughout our nearly four-hour conversation. When you are talking with Chris Morgan, you get the feeling you're standing between two places--both sides accessible, if only you have the right guide. It's one of those special moments that remind a creative person how many options there are. Chris seems to know this place well and has built a life and a business which allows him to freely explore it.

Read on for more on my interview with Chris Morgan…

An Interview with Chris Morgan

Renia: How did you get into pipe smoking?

Chris: I’ve been making pipes for about 10 years. Living in this area, tech was the big thing. But I’ve always found myself drawn to the outdoorsy stuff. I am an Eagle Scout, a fan of scruffy facial hair, and like to see the stars at night. That’s how I grew up and how my family is.

While I was in high school I took up ceramics, mixed media art and sculpting. I’ve always liked working with my hands. Eventually, I saw that this was just shaping materials. I discovered that woodworking is just the opposite. It’s a subtractive art, but on the same plane. The transition felt natural.

I started smoking a pipe to do something with my friends while they were doing stuff I didn’t want to get into. But it was just a passing the time sort of thing.

We had a pottery teacher tell us that we would go to the principal’s office if we made pipes out of our clay. So of course, we spent a lot of time figuring out how to disguise our pieces and still make them like pipes. Technically, that was my first experience with pipe making, but it would be a few years before I came back to it.

When I went to college I had some trouble with anxiety. I didn’t know where I was going or like what I was doing. It took me awhile to find my way out of that. Pipe making helped me find a place in the world that felt right for me, even though it was really different from what everyone around me was doing.

Working with my hands, turning a block of wood into something useful and beautiful, is a meaningful process. I picked up some Pimo briar blocks and a kit. Then I started working.

At first I bought a lot of kits. After awhile I met Steve Norse and started buying pre-drilled blocks.

When I started, new guys didn’t do everything themselves. It took me a year or two to get into that.

Learning to make pipes was a different process when I started. YouTube and Instagram didn’t give you a community the same way they do now.

I found pipe maker forums and made some connections. Over the course of a few years, I built up my skills and started shaping my own brand.

Renia: Many of your newer pipes are a departure from the higher end stuff you are known for. What inspired the shift?

Chris: It’s partially about democratizing something I love, and partially about a new challenge.

I spent eight years focusing just on handmade pipes. There are a few challenges to making pipes that I feel like I’ve wrapped my arms around. I’m certainly not a master, but I felt like it was time for another challenge.

The Blackjack pipes allow me to reach more people with my work. New smokers and those who like to smoke while they are working need an alternative to the high-end pipes. I can’t reasonably handmake a pipe that everyone can afford, but I can design one.

Through the process, I’ve learned a lot about teaching, engineering, and designing for others. It’s been an eye-opening and valuable experience for me.

Renia: That makes complete sense. After working with both machine-made and handmade pipes, what do you think makes a good pipe?

Chris: Well, there are plenty of different ways to look at what makes a good pipe. None of them are necessarily wrong.

There’s a big difference between a machine-made everyday smoker and an artistic masterpiece. Neither is “better” than the other. It depends on what you want the pipe for.

One of the cool things about having Blackjack and Bones pipes is that I have something for everyone. Whether you like a high-end pipe or are new to smoking a pipe. While I was creating these lines, I learned the only thing that matters is that you like the pipe and it smokes well.

I brew beer at home, and it’s a similar thing.

I just like the taste of beer, but you can make it as complicated as you want to. Everyone can have different tastes and like what they do. No one thing has to be right.

Maybe a baker is a better analogy.

You can go to a bakery and order a $10,000 wedding cake. But you can also just buy a cookie. I want my business to be like that, accessible to everyone who has a craving for something to break up the day a bit.

Renia: You have a well rounded product line, how do you balance the business side with the fun hobby side of pipes?

Chris: Basically I have two rules: 1) Don’t be an asshole; and 2) Treat people how you would want to be treated.

If you do those two things you can have a lot of fun and make a decent living...at least that’s how it’s worked out for me.

Renia: That’s a good philosophy for being happy! Of all your pipes, do you have a favorite?

Chris: I don’t know if I have a favorite, but I have one I’m the most proud of--The Calabashian Smoke Box.

That pipe was an act of love. It’s steampunk and intricate, but completely smokeable.

The Smoke Box came about as a gift for a friend. He has a disability that makes it impossible for him to smoke a pipe in the regular way. I wanted to make a pipe he could actually enjoy.

While I was working on his pipe, my friend was working on a special picture for me and we kept upping the ante. By the time we finished, we had both completed epic pieces that were thousands of dollars worth of work.

I spent over six months making that piece. Every single thing, except the compass casing on the top, is handmade.

Renia: You’ve created memorable pipes, innovated the industry with your Briar Cigars, and brought two more affordable lines to the market. Yet you’re only in your early 30s. Do you feel like you’ve ‘made it’?

Chris: Never. There’s always another challenge. I look at my life and feel both confident and lucky.

My brand is internationally recognized in the pipe world. I have a distribution network all over. Someone can buy Morgan Pipes in Europe or Malaysia. I am able to live a pretty decent life in an expensive area, but I have a lot to learn still.

Recently I’ve decided I might like to learn about blacksmithing. I make pipes and beer. I’ve worked at a tech startup. Who knows what might still be in the future.

There is always something to learn.

Renia: Do you have a mentor/teacher or are you self-taught?

Chris: I am mostly self-taught. Although I am, of course, influenced by others.

Renia: What other carvers and/or artist influence your work?

Chris: Tom Eltang’s incredible work is always both inspiring and humbling.

Jim Deshane and his incredible aptitude for learning.

Scott Harris of Sparky’s Pipes is a close friend and incredible carver.

Hiroyuki Tokutomi’s organic shapes and designs inspire me with their uniqueness.

There are others, friends and masters, that I’m sure I am missing. I think my style is unique, but I take bits and pieces of influence from all over.

Renia: On the topic of inspiration, what does your process look like? Are you spontaneous or a planner, when it comes to your work?

Chris: I like to stay up late at night watching Harry Potter and sketching. My workdays look a lot like most people’s days off. I do overnight work a lot. So, I guess I’m more spontaneous than most.

Renia: You push the boundaries in a traditional arena. How do you balance the traditional and the new?

Chris: I try to respect the classic shapes, while still putting my own spin on them. Although I admire some of the more organic stuff, it’s not the way I work.

If you’re going to break the rules, you need to have an idea of what they are first. That’s why I think new pipe makers starting with kits is a great way to get going. You learn a little bit about what you don’t know that you don’t know.

I live in the same town as some of the tech giants, I don’t think I can help breaking with tradition a little bit. Hopefully, I’m striking a good balance between respect for the classics and my own style.

Renia: We think you have done a masterful job Chris, and we’re honored to have Morgan Pipes here.

Chris: Thank you.

Say hello to Chris and welcome him to the TobaccoPipes.com family in the comments below. You can join us for a live chat with Chris on Tuesday, January 19 at 8 pm EST. Learn more about that here.

What family name do you most associate with tobacco?

Did you answer Stokkebye?

You’re not alone. Most of us would.

The Stokkebyes have been integral to the tobacco market for well over a century. Odds are pretty good that every tobacco shop in the western world has at least one of their blends in stock.

The current “overseer” of the family business is fourth generation tobacconist and seventh generation Stokkebye, Erik.

As one of the most revered names in the pipe tobacco industry, Erik wanted to honor the family with a line of pipes and premium tobacco by launching 4th Generation Tobacconist. Each pipe and tobacco blend honors a year of special significance in the Stokkebye family.

4th Generation Pipes and Tobacco

To learn more about Erik Stokkebye, the family business, and 4th Generation, visit the history page at 4th Generation Tobacconist.

Each pipe and tobacco blend was handcrafted in the family's home country of Denmark by the best carvers and tobacconists. If you are looking to spruce up your collection, or even buy into the history of the prestigious family, then add one of these spectacular pieces to your shelf.

Photograph by Jackalyn Herron

Brandon Brooks refers to the tight-knit community of pipe makers at Briar Lab as “The Justice League” and his place among them as sort of like “Batman”. It is an apt introduction to a slightly-below-the radar carver. You may not know his name, but you’ve almost certainly seen his work if you spend even a passing moment in the online pipe world.

With his base in Kentucky, Brandon Brooks Pipes exist a little outside the hot Nashville scene. His creative aesthetic is clearly influenced by Music City, yet not beholden to it. It’s a combination we find particularly exciting.

I sat down for a phone chat with Brandon while he logged miles, returning home from the Nashville Pipe Show. Read on to find out how making drums gave him the confidence to make pipes, what he learned about creative work from the music business, and more...

Talking Tobacco Pipes with Brandon Brooks

Renia: How did you get into pipe smoking?

Brandon: It’s an old cliche´. My grandfather smoked a pipe and I wanted to smoke one too. I worked for a drum company for several years and knew a fair bit about building things from that experience, so I decided I could make my own. I knew how to work with my hands and figured that was enough.

Renia: So you made your own pipes from the beginning? How did you learn?

Brandon: I did a lot of silly and dangerous stuff that I wouldn’t recommend anyone else trying. I won't even say it, in case someone would. My early work was just trial and error. Some of my first pipes were pretty embarrassing. I won’t show them to anyone.

In the beginning, most of what I learned came from Pipe Makers Forum. Then, after a couple of years I decided to get serious. I went and sat with Bruce Weaver and Todd Johnson. Bruce has been instrumental in my growth.

I have a bit of an art background and several other pipe makers told me to start sketching. That helped my work tremendously, but much of my development was simply trial and error. Oh, and great mentors. I’ve been lucky to work with many talented people.

Renia: You’ve been fortunate to work with a number of other pipe makers. Who would you say influences your work the most?

Brandon: Hekthtor Wiebe and his radiator pipes are a definite influence. I make bowls for them now. Of course, Michael Lindner, Nate King and others from Briar Lab have helped me tremendously. Chris Morgan, Steve Liskey, Bruce Weaver, Joe Case and my friends Tony Warner and Simon Landrum of Blue Mountain Studios--both up and coming makers--all come to mind.

I spent a lot of time in the music world and have always really enjoy working in groups. I like learning from others and the creative energy of groups. There are plenty of makers who are uptight about sharing their craft, and I try hard not to be one of those. That attitude helps me to build relationships where I am sometimes the student, sometimes the teacher and always a partner in making our corner of the world a more interesting place.

Renia: After working with so many other artisan carvers, I’m sure you have some strong opinions about what makes a good pipe.

Brandon: Only a few. Function before form. The pipe needs to smoke well first, then work on how it looks. I don’t care how cool the design is, if it doesn’t smoke well you’ve got to go back to the drawing board.

Other than “smokeability”, I think the experience of smoking a pipe should be comfortable. It should feel right to hold the pipe, put it to your mouth and puff. Again, comfort shouldn’t be sacrificed for looks.

Renia: Those sound like two rules that are simple, but not always easy to execute. How do you ensure that your own work meets these measures? What does your process look like?

Brandon: I sketch and draw out my design first. It shows me how the lines of the pipe come together and how they all work in harmony. Sometimes it’s easier to see structure in two dimensions. Then I make a template.

My process looks somewhat like an assembly line. I usually work on batches of six or more pipes at a time. I try to work on a few of the same or similar shapes at the same time. I always have plenty going on and I carry that through to my workshop.

Renia: It sounds like you have a good system down. Do you have favorites among the pipes you’ve made?

Brandon: The Paneled billiard and the Brandy you guys have are two special ones. I think that brandy could be the best blast I’ve ever done.

Awhile back I made a creature pipe that I’m pretty proud of. It has removable tentacles and a story to go with it. Jake at Kraken Pipe Leather, who makes all my bags, made a special case for it.

Renia: That’s a super cool pipe! Do you have something you wish your customers knew when they buy your pipes?

Brandon: Most often, just how much care went into making their new tobacco pipe. Many of my pipes have special finishes that don’t translate well in pictures, like my vintage 3D finish. In addition, all of my bags are made by Jake to coordinate with that specific pipe.

Renia: We’re honored to help shepherd those creations on their way to their new owners. It’s been a pleasure talking with you.

Brandon: Thank you.

Follow Brandon on Instagram and leave him a comment below to welcome him to the TobaccoPipes.com family.  

The thing you have to understand about Jayson Dagner, founder and designer behind Dagner Pipes, is that he never really stops. Whether he’s out on the asphalt practicing his favorite form of meditation--skateboarding--or video chatting with his Italian manufacturers (as he was when I interrupted him for our interview), he is always, in pursuit of his goals.

Read on to learn what skateboarding and business have in common, the two rules Dagner lives by, and how he started down the rabbit hole of producing his own tobacco pipe collections.

Talking Tobacco Pipes with Jayson Dagner

Renia: How did you get into pipe smoking?

Jayson: It started as a way to save money, because smoking cigars costs a fortune.

Of course, like many of the people you talk to, my grandfather and father smoked a pipe. I smoked a corn cob when I was around 18, but smoking a pipe started with YouTube videos as an alternative to the cigars that were draining my bank account, back when I was racing motocross.

Pipes appeal to me because they last. Once you smoke a cigar, it’s gone. There’s maybe a memory, if it’s a particularly good one, but that’s it. A good pipe, on the other hand, will be a companion--even an heirloom--the sense of history was something that really drew me in.

Renia: What motivated you to start creating your own line? How did you get started?

Jayson: I like figuring out how to make things work and spent a lot of time messing with the pipes to fix them up and make them smoke as optimally as possible. I pretty much do this with everything.

Around the same time that I started thinking seriously about making some pipes of my own, I started to think it might be a good idea to have another career options. The company I was working for went through a buy-out and lots of jobs were going by the wayside. I knew what I wanted out of a pipe and figured I could make it, but making a couple of pipes per day would mean I would need to price them pretty high to make a living doing it. Instead, I wanted to work with someone to make pipes for working guys like me, pipes that most of us can afford.

Renia: Working with a manufacturer right from the beginning is rare in the artisan world. How do you make sure you’re pipes live up to your expectations?

Jayson: Dagner pipes are not made on an assembly line exactly. I think when most of us think of manufacturing, we think of an autoplant or something. Every one of my pipes are designed by me and each piece of the pipe is custom made for that pipe.

The first time I worked with the Italian company that makes my pipes, it took nearly eight months of going back and forth. It took awhile for us to learn to work as partners and to get things exactly how I wanted them. Now the methodology is, “Measure twice, drill once.”

Every one of my pipes is inspected and if it doesn’t meet my standards, it doesn’t get sold.

Renia: That’s a lot of drill holes to check! So what do you think makes a good pipe?

Jayson: What makes a pipe smoke well is all about the aesthetics of flow. If the tenon is flat, then it’s going to change the direction of the airflow and cause moisture to pool in the bowl. Specific drilling is essential to a good smoking experience.

When it comes to pipes--no, scratch that, when it comes to anything--the little things matter. I learned that from skateboarding and it applies to everything.

Renia: Your experiences as a skateboarder have a big impact on your brand. How do you think that 

unique perspective influences your role in the pipe world?

Jayson: There’s tons of cross-pollination. Pretty much everything I’ve ever learned about life came from skateboarding. Skateboarding taught me that everything counts.

That 7-ply board taught me how to meditate, and how to notice the little things that add up to big things. You have to be one with the board and notice the tiny movements that are the difference between flying and failing.

I’ll go to the park knowing what tricks I’m going to do, and somedays are good. Other days I’ve got to do the same thing a dozen times to get it right. So much of the time it’s just a little lean in my body that’s the difference. Skateboarding taught me patience and precession, which are absolute musts if you’re going to make pipes. I don’t care if they are handmade, machine made, or whatever.

Even bigger than tobacco pipes, skateboarding forces me out of my head where I have to face the fear and commit completely. You need that in business...hell, you need that in life. Once you’ve committed you start to be able to see what’s going to happen--to anticipate--maybe just two or three seconds early, but that’s all you need. It allows you to make the right move without even thinking.

If I’d quit skateboarding when I was young, I might have ended up in jail. Instead, I ended up with a couple rules about life that serve me pretty well in and out of the pipe world. First, never lie...not to other people and not to yourself. Second, don’t be an asshole. Being nice is really underrated.

I didn’t skateboard for 10 years, from 2001 to 2011, but every single day I thought about it. When I recovered enough from my accident to get at it again, I had to learn different ways and what my limitations are. That’s good for us too--understanding our limits and choosing whether to stay or push a little farther. There’s a big difference between making a choice to only go so far and quitting because you’re afraid.

Renia: It sounds like you learned a lot from skateboarding, both at the beginning of your life and more 

recently, the perspective is a little different on either side. How has the way you view pipe smoking changed over time? What about your tastes?

Jayson: Well, I can’t 50/50 grind down a ten stair handrail anymore, but I can use those old tricks to come up with a new way of doing things.

Smoking pipes works the same way.

In the beginning it’s all about the new stuff, and learning about the different pipe tobaccos. Today, I use my own smoking time more as a time to focus. It’s less about learning new tricks and more about thinking up new ways to make the experience better for more people. I’ve filled more notebooks than I can easily count while I’m enjoying a smoke. Today, one of those old ideas came back around again and we’re starting to work towards doing it.

Renia: What does your process look like when you’re working on design ideas?

Jayson: I watch everything and I hear everything.

Most of what we do with Dagner Pipes starts four to six months before we actually make anything. It allows me to be really clear about the resources we will need and what the future is going to look like. Again, skateboarding taught me about this. You’ve got to balance looking down the road with paying attention to what you’re doing today.

Design ideas can come from anywhere. It’s hard for me to pin down where a particular thing comes from, most of the time.

Renia: You are original in many ways and you said that you notice everything. Who influences your work, whom do you go to for advice?

Jayson: Hmmm...Tom Eltang has helped me, both as a businessman and as a pipe maker. Joe Case and Paul Menard are both excellent pipe makers and good friends. Really, I sort of owe it all to Salam (aka One Man Smokes). It was his YouTube videos that I first stumbled on. I wouldn’t be here today if I never made any videos and I made videos because of seeing Salam do it.

Renia: Those guys are awesome. What about your pipes? You have a huge collection of pipes. Do you 

have a favorite?

Jayson: I have a Parker that is always in my truck. It’s a Dunhill second, a little light Dublin, that I bought from Glenn Quelch. I probably smoke that thing more than anything.

I have a pipe rack by my desk that hold 12 pipes. Every Sunday I go to my cabinet and pick out 12 pipes I think I might like to smoke for the week and put them on that rack. That’s how I make sure most things get a chance to come out once in awhile.

As far as the Dagner Pipes go, I reach for the Blue Collar Poker a lot. The one I smoke is a prototype. I love it because it’s a beginning, you know? The Whiskey Barrel also comes out a lot. Those two sit on the table by my desk.

Renia: What do you want your customers to know about your work that you don’t always get to tell them?

Jayson: Just how much work goes into or pipes. When you smoke a Dagner Pipe, it’s always going to smoke well.

Renia: Thank you for taking a break from your day to share with me. It’s been a pleasure.

Jayson: Thank you. Exciting things are coming, stay tuned.

We are honored to offer Dagner Pipes at TobaccoPipes.com. Get yours with a tin of your favorite tobacco and save $10, this week only. Use coupon code: dagner2015 at checkout.

We don’t have to tell you who Joe Case is. If you follow the pulse of the tobacco pipe world online, you’ve probably heard of Joe Case Pipes. An early personality in the YouTube pipe world, Joe uses his savvy marketing skills--learned during a 40-year history in media--to showcase his skills as a carver.

I sat down for a phone call with Joe to find out what he thinks makes a good pipe, what inspires him to be constantly learning, and what Elvis Presley taught him about marketing. 

Talking Tobacco Pipes with Joe Case

Renia: How did you get into smoking a pipe?

Joe: I smoked a pipe in my early twenties, like many men my age did. Then, I smoked cigarettes for awhile, but I quit that right before my first son was born. One of the reasons I enjoy making pipes is that it gives cigarette smokers another option. It’s a revelation to discover the pleasure of the pipe and it helps many smokers make the migration.

Over the years my brother-in-law, Rick Farrah of Briarville Pipe Repair, and I would smoke a pipe around the holidays. I see pipe smoking as a leisure activity, something to be enjoyed with friends and/or family.

Renia: I think a lot of us associate pipe smoking with leisure, but I never really thought about it as celebratory. I like that idea! Is that what motivated you to start making pipes, to give them as gifts?

Joe: No. It was mostly just to see how the process worked.

I’ve been a hobbyist woodworker since the early 1970s, when I first came to Nashville. Over the years I accumulated quite a large collection of tools in my shop. In 2011, when I left the broadcast industry, I had a bit of free time on my hands. One day I was sitting in my local B&M and the manager suggested that I try making a pipe. So I did.

Around the same time I started making YouTube videos and so, naturally, I showed off what I was learning to my new friends there. A bunch of guys asked to buy my pipes and it kept growing. By 2012 making pipes was a full-time job for me and it has been ever since.

Excuse this interruption, for a throwback moment:

We did some digging on Joe’s YouTube Channel and found this early video where he contemplates making pipes. We’re sure glad he decided to use all those tools to benefit the pipe smoking community! 

Watch this throwback video from when it all began:

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Renia: YouTube and other forms of social media really came on hard just as you were rediscovering pipe smoking. How do you think your background helped you early on?

Joe: I didn’t start out thinking to make pipes full-time, but I’m sure all the years I spent in broadcasting helped. I started at a radio station in Jackson, Tennessee when I was 15, and spent most of the next 40 years in the industry. YouTube wasn’t the first time I stepped in front of a camera, but it’s very different from traditional media.

Most of what might seem like “natural” marketing ability I learned from studying Colonel Tom Parker and how he promoted Elvis Presley. He was a genius and I think most of us who have an interest in getting our name out there would be smart to study how he promoted “The King”.

Renia: So if studying Colonel Tom Parker taught you about promoting and getting your name out there, who would you say mentored you as a pipemaker? Or are you mostly self-taught?

Joe: Most of what I learned early on came from watching YouTube videos and taking apart pipes that I bought. I watched every single video on pipe making that I could find in the early days.

Grant Batson, Steve Morrisette, Mark Balkovec helped me a bunch after I got started. I’ve also spent lots of time on Skype with a number of pipe makers. It’s a giving community, once you do the early ground work.

I’ve made many friends through social media and spending time talking with pipe smokers and carvers all over the world. Those connections, whether they are with pipe makers or enthusiasts, really helped shape my designs.

We interrupt Joe’s story, with an example of one such “visit”

The Dagner Slayer Poker is one of Joe Case’s best selling pipes. We think an October 31, 2012 “visit” from the pipe world’s favorite YouTube personality might be why. Regardless, it’s a classic example of why the pipe world loves Joe Case:

And now back to the Q & A…

Renia: Do you have a favorite pipe that you’ve made, or a favorite in your collection?

Joe: I’ve made over 1,200 pipes since 2011. Most of them are Pokers, because that was my favorite shape when I 

started. I still favor it, but choosing a single favorite would be extremely difficult.

I did make a greenish brown Blowfish just a few months ago that I’m fond of. It was one of the few that I thought, “Gosh, I hope that one doesn’t sell.” Then it could become part of my collection. But it sold the day I posted it. My own pipes rarely make it into my collection. Pretty much only when they are seconds.

Over the years, I’ve built quite a tobacco pipe collection. I have 40-50 these days. My Savinelli Pipes, Winslows, Kevin Arthur, Steve Morrissette, Dagners...all are favorites for different reasons. I don’t think I could choose just one. It all depends on my mood.

I do have a Dunhill pipe for my birth year that I am particularly fond of, but primarily for sentimental reasons.

Renia: That’s understandable, it’s sort of like choosing a favorite child. What about your process, do you tend to follow a specific routine? Are you a planner or more spontaneous, when it comes to your work?

Joe: I guess I’m somewhere in between.

I like to sit down and plan, the majority of my business is in fairly standard pipe shapes for me, but I don’t want to get stagnant either. For instance, I look at my list today and know I’m going to make a Devil’s Anse. I’ll look for a block that will work for that shape and the finish chosen by the customer. Then, I get to work.

I only make one or two pipes at a time. I know other pipe makers who can work on 20 pipes at once, but that’s not me. I get distracted too easily. It typically takes me about a day to make a pipe. In fact, some of my long-time Instagram followers know when I’m taking a day off, because I’ll post a pipe every day when I’m working.

Occasionally I’ll squeeze in two pipes on the same day, but always of the same style. My brain won’t tolerate doing a couple of very different styles together.

Renia: It sounds like you know yourself well. Do you smoke when you work?

Joe: Nah, I’m too much of a clencher. Besides, I see smoking a pipe as a leisure activity, not a part of the workday.

Renia: That makes perfect sense. Do you have any strong opinions about what makes a good pipe?

Joe: The thing has to smoke well!

That means it should have a good, easy draw and smoke effortlessly. The smoker should be able to draw all they want, or just and sip at it.

Beyond smoking well, a pipe should be aesthetically pleasing to the owner. Of course, that’s highly subjective. My pipes tend to be closer to traditional shapes with surprise accents, but I’ve seen some extraordinary work that breaks every mold around what makes a pipe--it’s all about finding the right fit for the right person.

Watch Joe articulate his thoughts on the evolution of design.

Joe told me during our chat that he believes if you’re not learning every day, you need a new career. We’ve watched his style evolve over the years, as he learns new things and/or takes on new design challenges. 

Here’s a good example of what that process looks like:

And now let’s wrap it up...

Renia: Joe, you have an intimacy with your customers that many artists do not. Through YouTube, Instagram and now Periscope, you talk almost on a daily basis. But can you think of something you wish a new customer knew before they buy from you?

Joe: Only that the difference between an artisan pipe and a production line pipe is that EVERY SINGLE artisan pipe is unique. They will all be different in some way. That’s why you buy a handmade pipe.

I am always striving for perfection, but I’m not perfect. If a customer ever has a problem with one of my pipes, I will stand behind it. I feel like a little piece of me goes into each pipe I make and I want it to be a special experience for my customer.

Renia: That type of ownership is undoubtedly part of your success and one of the reasons we are so excited to work with you. Thank you for taking the time away from your workshop to talk with me.

Joe: Thank you guys for your interest in my work. It’s been a pleasure.

Our team has followed Joe Case’s work for several years and we are beyond ecstatic to carry his unique artisan pipes. Please take a moment to welcome Joe to the TobaccoPipes.com family in the comments below. 

Photograph by Jackalyn Herron

Brandon Brooks refers to the tight-knit community of pipe makers at Briar Lab as “The Justice League” and his place among them as sort of like “Batman”. It is an apt introduction to a slightly-below-the radar carver. You may not know his name, but you’ve almost certainly seen his work if you spend even a passing moment in the online pipe world.

With his base in Kentucky, Brandon Brooks Pipes exist a little outside the hot Nashville scene. His creative aesthetic is clearly influenced by Music City, yet not beholden to it. It’s a combination we find particularly exciting.

I sat down for a phone chat with Brandon while he logged miles, returning home from the Nashville Pipe Show. Read on to find out how making drums gave him the confidence to make pipes, what he learned about creative work from the music business, and more...

Talking Tobacco Pipes with Brandon Brooks

Renia: How did you get into pipe smoking?

Brandon: It’s an old cliche´. My grandfather smoked a pipe and I wanted to smoke one too. I worked for a drum company for several years and knew a fair bit about building things from that experience, so I decided I could make my own. I knew how to work with my hands and figured that was enough.

Renia: So you made your own pipes from the beginning? How did you learn?

Brandon: I did a lot of silly and dangerous stuff that I wouldn’t recommend anyone else trying. I won't even say it, in case someone would. My early work was just trial and error. Some of my first pipes were pretty embarrassing. I won’t show them to anyone.

In the beginning, most of what I learned came from Pipe Makers Forum. Then, after a couple of years I decided to get serious. I went and sat with Bruce Weaver and Todd Johnson. Bruce has been instrumental in my growth.

I have a bit of an art background and several other pipe makers told me to start sketching. That helped my work tremendously, but much of my development was simply trial and error. Oh, and great mentors. I’ve been lucky to work with many talented people.

Renia: You’ve been fortunate to work with a number of other pipe makers. Who would you say influences your work the most?

Brandon: Hekthtor Wiebe and his radiator pipes are a definite influence. I make bowls for them now. Of course, Michael Lindner, Nate King and others from Briar Lab have helped me tremendously. Chris Morgan, Steve Liskey, Bruce Weaver, Joe Case and my friends Tony Warner and Simon Landrum of Blue Mountain Studios--both up and coming makers--all come to mind.

I spent a lot of time in the music world and have always really enjoy working in groups. I like learning from others and the creative energy of groups. There are plenty of makers who are uptight about sharing their craft, and I try hard not to be one of those. That attitude helps me to build relationships where I am sometimes the student, sometimes the teacher and always a partner in making our corner of the world a more interesting place.

Renia: After working with so many other artisan carvers, I’m sure you have some strong opinions about what makes a good pipe.

Brandon: Only a few. Function before form. The pipe needs to smoke well first, then work on how it looks. I don’t care how cool the design is, if it doesn’t smoke well you’ve got to go back to the drawing board.

Other than “smokeability”, I think the experience of smoking a pipe should be comfortable. It should feel right to hold the pipe, put it to your mouth and puff. Again, comfort shouldn’t be sacrificed for looks.

Renia: Those sound like two rules that are simple, but not always easy to execute. How do you ensure that your own work meets these measures? What does your process look like?

Brandon: I sketch and draw out my design first. It shows me how the lines of the pipe come together and how they all work in harmony. Sometimes it’s easier to see structure in two dimensions. Then I make a template.

My process looks somewhat like an assembly line. I usually work on batches of six or more pipes at a time. I try to work on a few of the same or similar shapes at the same time. I always have plenty going on and I carry that through to my workshop.

Renia: It sounds like you have a good system down. Do you have favorites among the pipes you’ve made?

Brandon: The Paneled billiard and the Brandy you guys have are two special ones. I think that brandy could be the best blast I’ve ever done.

Awhile back I made a creature pipe that I’m pretty proud of. It has removable tentacles and a story to go with it. Jake at Kraken Pipe Leather, who makes all my bags, made a special case for it.

Renia: That’s a super cool pipe! Do you have something you wish your customers knew when they buy your pipes?

Brandon: Most often, just how much care went into making their new tobacco pipe. Many of my pipes have special finishes that don’t translate well in pictures, like my vintage 3D finish. In addition, all of my bags are made by Jake to coordinate with that specific pipe.

Renia: We’re honored to help shepherd those creations on their way to their new owners. It’s been a pleasure talking with you.

Brandon: Thank you.

Follow Brandon on Instagram and leave him a comment below to welcome him to the TobaccoPipes.com family.  

Although most of the notable pipe smokers we have record of were male, women have enjoyed the calm provided by a bowl of pipe tobacco for as long as men have. However, the habit of smoking a pipe has usually been considered "unladylike". These bold women broke the mold, at varying times in their lives, to take up a pipe and smoke it in public. This is the fifth and final installment in our series on famous pipe smokers.

Angela Davis

Angela Davis is a prominent civil rights activist, philosopher, scholar and writer. She is best known for her affiliations with the Black Panther Party and the Communist Party throughout the 1960’s and 70’s.

Angela Davis was born in 1944 in Birmingham Alabama. There, she was exposed to discrimination and racial prejudice very early on.

The 1963 church bombing by a member of the Ku Klux Klan deeply affected Davis because she knew the young victims involved.

When Davis was young, her mother was a national officer and leading organizer of the Southern Negro Youth Congress. This organization was strongly influenced by the communist party.

After studying philosophy at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, Davis attended grad school at the University of California, San Diego.

Between her undergrad and graduate studies at the University of California, Davis attended the University of Frankfurt in Germany.

During a trip into East Berlin, she decided that East Germany was dealing with the after effects of fascism better than West Germany. Many of her roommates were active in the Socialist German Student Union.

When she returned to the United States, Davis became active with branches of the Black Panther Party and the Communist Party USA.

By 1969 she was an acting assistant professor in the philosophy department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

That same year, at the urging of Governor Ronald Reagan, Davis was fired for her affiliation with the Communist Party.

After being reinstated, the Board of Regents of the University of California continued to try to find a reason to have Davis permanently released from her position at UCLA. In 1970, they succeeded in firing her for use of inflammatory language during her speeches.

In 1970, Davis was charged and imprisoned for her alleged role in the escape attempt of the Soledad Brothers. She was acquitted in 1972.

After teaching and traveling for some years, Davis returned to teaching. Today she is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has authored several books, including Women, Race, and Class (1980) and Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003).

Millicent Fenwick

Millicent Fenwick was a four-term Republican member of the United States House of Representatives who was outspoken in favor of civil rights and the women's movement.

She has been credited as the inspiration behind Lacey Davenport in Gary Trudeau’s “Doonesbury.” Trudeau has denied this claim.

Millicent Fenwick was born in 1910 in New York City.

In her younger years, Millicent Fenwick modeled for Harper’s Bazaar.

She then worked as a writer and editor at Vogue magazine for 14 years.

Fenwick didn’t become involved in politics until the 1950’s. Due to her intelligence, wit, and charm she quickly ascended the rungs of the Republican Party.

She was elected to the Bernardsville Borough Council in 1957.

From 1958 until 1974 she served on the New Jersey Committee of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

She was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly in 1969 and served from 1970 to 1973.

Afterwards she became director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs under Governor William T. Cahill.

Millicent Fenwick was elected to Congress from New Jersey in 1974. By this time she was a popular figure with the media. Walter Cronkite had referred to her as the “conscious of Congress.”

She was one of the most liberal conservatives in the House of Representatives. He was often at odds with the leaders of her party.

In 1982, she ran for a United States Senate seat, and defeated conservative Jeffrey Bell in the Republican primary election. She would, however, go on to lose the general election to Frank Lautenberg. She subsequently left the House of Representatives.

In 1983 Fenwick was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as United States Ambassador to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome, Italy. She would retire in 1987 at the age of 77.

When she died in 1992, Charles Millard called Fenwick the “Katherine Hepburn of politics.”

Greta Garbo

The three times Academy Award nominee for Best Actress, Greta Garbo is a legend of the silver screen.

Greta Garbo was born in 1905 in Stockholm Sweden.

When Greta was fourteen, her father died of Spanish flu. To help her family make ends meet, she dropped out of school and took a job in a department store. The store used her as a model in its ads.

After acting in a department store ad, she was discovered by Erik A. Petschler, a comedy director. He gave her a small role in one of his films.

Following her role in the film, she applied for a scholarship to a Swedish drama school and got it.

Greta Garbo began her Hollywood career in 1925 when she was 19 years old. She was offered a contract with MGM.

Garbo became an international film superstar and legend of the silver screen. She was voted the 25th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

For many years, Greta Garbo was MGM’s highest paid actor.

Although she never won an Academy Award, she received an honorary one. True to her mysterious nature, she didn’t show up to the ceremony.

In 1950, she became an American citizen.

Garbo was never married, nor did she have any children.

Garbo always preferred to be alone. She didn’t sign autographs, answer letters and rarely ever gave interviews. Throughout her life she perpetuated a distant and socially withdrawn mystique.

She was once designated the most beautiful woman who ever lived by the Guinness Book of World Records.

Garbo won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress for both Anna Karenina in 1935 and Camille in 1936.

She retired at the age of thirty five after acting in twenty eight films. Though she was offered numerous chances to return to acting, she turned them all down. She spent most of her retirement in private.

Forugh Farrokhzad

Forugh Farrokhzad is widely considered one of the most influential Iranian female poets of the twentieth century. In her short life she published four volumes of poetry and directed an award winning documentary.

Forugh was born in Tehran in 1935. She had six brothers and sisters.

She went to a regular school until the ninth grade. Afterward she was sent to a girl's school for the manual arts where she was taught painting and sewing.

She was married at sixteen. A year later she gave birth to her only child, Kāmyār.

Farrokhzad and her husband divorced in 1954. She won custody of her child and moved back to Tehran to write poetry.

She published her first volume, The Captive, in 1955.

As a female divorcee, who wrote poetry in a strong feminine voice, Farrokhzad often was the subject of negative attention and disapproval.

During 1958, Farrokhzad spent nine months in Europe. When she returned to Iran, she met filmmaker and writer Ebrahim Golestan. After publishing two more volumes of poetry, she made her directorial debut with the documentary The House is Black.

The House is Black is about Iranians affected by leprosy. The film won several international awards.

While shooting her film, Forugh became attached to a child of two lepers. She adopted him and brought him to live at her mother’s house.In 1964, she published Another Birth.

In 1967 Forugh Farrokhzad was killed in a car accident at the age of thirty two.

Her poem, Let us believe in the beginning of the cold season was published posthumously. It is considered by some to be one of the best-structured modern poems in Persian.

After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Farrokhzad’s poetry was banned for over a decade.

Helene Knoop

As one of Norway’s premier figurative painters, Helene Knoop has garnered recognition for her “kitsch painting.”

She is one of the founders of worldwidekitch.com.

Kitsch painting, according to Knoop, involves “pathos, poetry, drama and sincerity communicated through the mastery of craft.”

From 2003 to 2003 Helene Knoop studied figurative painting with world renowned figurative painter Odd Nerdrum.

After leaving Nerdrum’s studio Knoop studied ancient sculpture in Italy.

Helene Knoop always paints using a live model. When she paints landscapes, she paints inplein air.

Her paintings are strongly influenced by the Italian Renaissance and Baroque art.

Knoop has held solo exhibitions in London, Stockholm and New York. She has also participated in many group shows. Her paintings are represented in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, England, Italy, Nicaragua and the United States.

She currently lives and works in Oslo.

Andie MacDowell

American film actress Andie MacDowell was born in 1958 in South Carolina.

She dropped out of college and signed a contract with the prestigious Elite modeling agency in New York City in 1978.

In the 1980’s, MacDowell modelled for “Vogue magazine and appeared in ad campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent, Vassarette, Armani perfume, Sabeth-Row, Mink International, Anne Klein and Bill Blass.”

She got her big break in acting after she garnered attention from a series of Calvin Klein television ads as well as billboard ads in Times Square.

Her first movie role was in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes in 1984. During post-production, MacDowell’s lines were dubbed by Glenn Close because her southern accent was too pronounced for the role of an Englishwoman.

After studying method acting with teachers from the Actors Studio, and working privately with the renowned coach Harold Guskin, MacDowell landed a role in Steven Soderbergh’s independent film Sex, Lies, and Videotape 1989.

For her performance, she earned an Independent Spirit Award, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress and several other award nominations.

She world achieve movie stardom following the success of Harold Ramis’s 1993 comedy “Groundhog Day” and Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994.

Through all of her success in acting, MacDowell has kept modeling. Since 1986 she has appeared in print and television advertisements for the cosmetic and haircare company L'Oréal.

Though she took time toward the end of the 1990’s to spend time with her children, Andie MacDowell has long since returned to acting in television series and independent films.

Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria's father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of the reigning King of the United Kingdom, George III.

Victoria was the only daughter of Prince Edward, who died shortly after she was born.

Because her three uncles did not have any surviving child of their own, Victoria became heir to the throne upon the death of King William IV, and was coroneted in 1838.

From 1876 onward, she used the additional title of Empress of India.

Her reign lasted sixty three years and seven months, which is longer than that of any other British monarch and longer than any female monarch in history.

Victoria was a naturally gifted artist and dedicated diarist. At the time of her death, Queen

Victoria’s detailed journal encompassed 122 volumes.

Her reign took place during, what many consider, the golden age of the British Empire.

In 1840 she married Prince Albert. Between 1840 and 1857 the two had nine children.

When Albert died in 1861, Queen Victoria was very depressed. To show her dedication to her late husband, she wore black for the rest of her reign.

The general influence of the middle years of her reign was the support of peace and reconciliation. In 1875 she helped to avert a second Franco-German war with a letter that she sent to the German Emperor.

There was also a noticeable shift away from sovereign rule during Victoria’s reign. A series of Acts broadened the social and economic base of the electorate.

During her reign the role of constitutional monarch became prevalent. The monarch would remain above political parties there forth. She was still a very strong supporter of Empire.

Though conservative, Queen Victoria supported many progressive measures involving the poor and charities.

She was active in her royal duties right up until the time of her death in 1901.

Rachel Jackson

Rachel Jackson, wife of President Andrew Jackson, was the subject of some of the most malicious smear campaigns in American History.

Rachel Jackson was born Rachel Donelson in Virginia in 1767. She had seven brothers and sisters.

When Andrew Jackson moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1788 he boarded with Rachel Donelson’s mother.

Believing that the divorce from her first marriage was final, Rachel Donelson and Andrew Jackson married in Mississippi.

Rachel and Andrew Jackson’s marriage was deemed bigamous and invalid when it was discovered that her divorce was not completed.

The two remarried in 1794, but the debacle surrounding the end of her first marriage and her second haunted Jackson’s Presidential campaign in 1828.

Supporters of John Quincy Adams accused Rachel Jackson of being a bigamist. Jackson still won the election by a landslide.

Rachel Jackson died suddenly just as Andrew Jackson was set to assume the role of President in Washington DC. Her death left the President Grief Stricken. He never remarried.

Gertrude Stein

American writer, poet, art collector, and influential Lost Generation figure Gertrude Stein was born in 1874 in Pennsylvania.

Her father was a wealthy merchant, so her family spent a lot of time in Europe during her childhood before settling in Oakland, California.

Gertrude Stein’s parents died when she was only a teenager. Her oldest brother then sent Gertrude and her sister to live with maternal relatives in Baltimore.

“From 1893 until 1897, Gertrude Stein was enrolled in Radcliffe College. She studied under William James, a psychologist.“

Later, Gertrude Stein studied medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School. She never fully completed her studies.

In 1903, Gertrude Stein moved to Paris. For eleven years she lived with her brother, Leo.

Leo and Gertrude became collectors of post- impressionist paintings in 1904. She would famously collect many works by Pablo Picasso, who would eventually go on to paint Gertrude’s portrait.

They also acquired paintings by Henri Manguin, Pierre Bonnard, Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Honoré Daumier, Henri Matisse, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

In April 1914 Leo relocated to Settignano, Italy, and their art collection was divided.

Gatherings at Gertrude Stein’s home at 27 rue de Fleurus would become famous for defining modernism in literature and art. Such talented people as Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, Gavin Williamson, Thornton Wilder, Sherwood Anderson, Francis Cyril Rose, René Crevel, Élisabeth de Gramont, Francis Picabia, Claribel Cone, Mildred Aldrich, Carl Van Vechten and Henri Matisse regularly frequented her home on Saturday nights.

Stein preferred to host organized gatherings as to avoid impromptu visits. That way, she could focus on her own writing in peace.

Upon the birth of his son, Ernest Hemingway asked Stein to be the godmother of his child.

Around this time, it is said that Gertrude Stein famously coined the term the “Lost Generation.”

In 1933 she published her only commercial success, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

After lecturing in America in 1934, Gertrude Stein returned to France where she would remain throughout World War II. She died shortly after the War ended.

The thing you have to understand about Jayson Dagner, founder and designer behind Dagner Pipes, is that he never really stops. Whether he’s out on the asphalt practicing his favorite form of meditation--skateboarding--or video chatting with his Italian manufacturers (as he was when I interrupted him for our interview), he is always, in pursuit of his goals.

Read on to learn what skateboarding and business have in common, the two rules Dagner lives by, and how he started down the rabbit hole of producing his own tobacco pipe collections.

Talking Tobacco Pipes with Jayson Dagner

Renia: How did you get into pipe smoking?

Jayson: It started as a way to save money, because smoking cigars costs a fortune.

Of course, like many of the people you talk to, my grandfather and father smoked a pipe. I smoked a corn cob when I was around 18, but smoking a pipe started with YouTube videos as an alternative to the cigars that were draining my bank account, back when I was racing motocross.

Pipes appeal to me because they last. Once you smoke a cigar, it’s gone. There’s maybe a memory, if it’s a particularly good one, but that’s it. A good pipe, on the other hand, will be a companion--even an heirloom--the sense of history was something that really drew me in.

Renia: What motivated you to start creating your own line? How did you get started?

Jayson: I like figuring out how to make things work and spent a lot of time messing with the pipes to fix them up and make them smoke as optimally as possible. I pretty much do this with everything.

Around the same time that I started thinking seriously about making some pipes of my own, I started to think it might be a good idea to have another career options. The company I was working for went through a buy-out and lots of jobs were going by the wayside. I knew what I wanted out of a pipe and figured I could make it, but making a couple of pipes per day would mean I would need to price them pretty high to make a living doing it. Instead, I wanted to work with someone to make pipes for working guys like me, pipes that most of us can afford.

Renia: Working with a manufacturer right from the beginning is rare in the artisan world. How do you make sure you’re pipes live up to your expectations?

Jayson: Dagner pipes are not made on an assembly line exactly. I think when most of us think of manufacturing, we think of an autoplant or something. Every one of my pipes are designed by me and each piece of the pipe is custom made for that pipe.

The first time I worked with the Italian company that makes my pipes, it took nearly eight months of going back and forth. It took awhile for us to learn to work as partners and to get things exactly how I wanted them. Now the methodology is, “Measure twice, drill once.”

Every one of my pipes is inspected and if it doesn’t meet my standards, it doesn’t get sold.

Renia: That’s a lot of drill holes to check! So what do you think makes a good pipe?

Jayson: What makes a pipe smoke well is all about the aesthetics of flow. If the tenon is flat, then it’s going to change the direction of the airflow and cause moisture to pool in the bowl. Specific drilling is essential to a good smoking experience.

When it comes to pipes--no, scratch that, when it comes to anything--the little things matter. I learned that from skateboarding and it applies to everything.

Renia: Your experiences as a skateboarder have a big impact on your brand. How do you think that 

unique perspective influences your role in the pipe world?

Jayson: There’s tons of cross-pollination. Pretty much everything I’ve ever learned about life came from skateboarding. Skateboarding taught me that everything counts.

That 7-ply board taught me how to meditate, and how to notice the little things that add up to big things. You have to be one with the board and notice the tiny movements that are the difference between flying and failing.

I’ll go to the park knowing what tricks I’m going to do, and somedays are good. Other days I’ve got to do the same thing a dozen times to get it right. So much of the time it’s just a little lean in my body that’s the difference. Skateboarding taught me patience and precession, which are absolute musts if you’re going to make pipes. I don’t care if they are handmade, machine made, or whatever.

Even bigger than tobacco pipes, skateboarding forces me out of my head where I have to face the fear and commit completely. You need that in business...hell, you need that in life. Once you’ve committed you start to be able to see what’s going to happen--to anticipate--maybe just two or three seconds early, but that’s all you need. It allows you to make the right move without even thinking.

If I’d quit skateboarding when I was young, I might have ended up in jail. Instead, I ended up with a couple rules about life that serve me pretty well in and out of the pipe world. First, never lie...not to other people and not to yourself. Second, don’t be an asshole. Being nice is really underrated.

I didn’t skateboard for 10 years, from 2001 to 2011, but every single day I thought about it. When I recovered enough from my accident to get at it again, I had to learn different ways and what my limitations are. That’s good for us too--understanding our limits and choosing whether to stay or push a little farther. There’s a big difference between making a choice to only go so far and quitting because you’re afraid.

Renia: It sounds like you learned a lot from skateboarding, both at the beginning of your life and more 

recently, the perspective is a little different on either side. How has the way you view pipe smoking changed over time? What about your tastes?

Jayson: Well, I can’t 50/50 grind down a ten stair handrail anymore, but I can use those old tricks to come up with a new way of doing things.

Smoking pipes works the same way.

In the beginning it’s all about the new stuff, and learning about the different pipe tobaccos. Today, I use my own smoking time more as a time to focus. It’s less about learning new tricks and more about thinking up new ways to make the experience better for more people. I’ve filled more notebooks than I can easily count while I’m enjoying a smoke. Today, one of those old ideas came back around again and we’re starting to work towards doing it.

Renia: What does your process look like when you’re working on design ideas?

Jayson: I watch everything and I hear everything.

Most of what we do with Dagner Pipes starts four to six months before we actually make anything. It allows me to be really clear about the resources we will need and what the future is going to look like. Again, skateboarding taught me about this. You’ve got to balance looking down the road with paying attention to what you’re doing today.

Design ideas can come from anywhere. It’s hard for me to pin down where a particular thing comes from, most of the time.

Renia: You are original in many ways and you said that you notice everything. Who influences your work, whom do you go to for advice?

Jayson: Hmmm...Tom Eltang has helped me, both as a businessman and as a pipe maker. Joe Case and Paul Menard are both excellent pipe makers and good friends. Really, I sort of owe it all to Salam (aka One Man Smokes). It was his YouTube videos that I first stumbled on. I wouldn’t be here today if I never made any videos and I made videos because of seeing Salam do it.

Renia: Those guys are awesome. What about your pipes? You have a huge collection of pipes. Do you 

have a favorite?

Jayson: I have a Parker that is always in my truck. It’s a Dunhill second, a little light Dublin, that I bought from Glenn Quelch. I probably smoke that thing more than anything.

I have a pipe rack by my desk that hold 12 pipes. Every Sunday I go to my cabinet and pick out 12 pipes I think I might like to smoke for the week and put them on that rack. That’s how I make sure most things get a chance to come out once in awhile.

As far as the Dagner Pipes go, I reach for the Blue Collar Poker a lot. The one I smoke is a prototype. I love it because it’s a beginning, you know? The Whiskey Barrel also comes out a lot. Those two sit on the table by my desk.

Renia: What do you want your customers to know about your work that you don’t always get to tell them?

Jayson: Just how much work goes into or pipes. When you smoke a Dagner Pipe, it’s always going to smoke well.

Renia: Thank you for taking a break from your day to share with me. It’s been a pleasure.

Jayson: Thank you. Exciting things are coming, stay tuned.

We are honored to offer Dagner Pipes at TobaccoPipes.com. Get yours with a tin of your favorite tobacco and save $10, this week only. Use coupon code: dagner2015 at checkout.

Shopping for your loved ones is a roller coaster of emotion. You can quickly go from being clueless about what they would like to experiencing the joy of knowing you chose the right gift. In the end, nothing compares to seeing their joy when opening up your gift.

The odds are if you clicked on our link and arrived at this article, you are shopping for a pipe smoker. But unless you are a smoker as well, it can be difficult to decide what your loved ones need or would like to have.

Knowing Your Tobacco Pipe Smoker

The more you know about the smoking habits of your smoker, the easier it will be to shop for them. To help get you 

started we will include a pipe gift suggestion after each.

• Are you shopping for a beginner (someone looking to get into the hobby), the regular (someone who regularly smokes), a hobbyist (someone who loves the art of pipe smoking), or a collector (someone who is an “afficianado”)?
  • Because they are so affordable and very easy to break in, we suggest a Chapuis Comoy pipe for the beginner.
  • A regular smoker would appreciate a pipe like the Brebbia 1960 Sabbiata Nera for it is very unique and can handle a lot of smoking.
  • As an incredibly unique piece made in Germany, someone who is a hobbyist would be joyous to receive a Vauen Duke pipe.
  • The collector would love an artisan Cardinal House pipe by Walt Cannoy, a brand new line of handmade pipes.
• Next, if he has a collection of pipes or tobacco, go and take a look at it. It is likely to show you a pattern or preference. They could have straight pipes, bent pipes, smooth pipes, or even rustic pipes. If your smoker has all of one kind, or if you see a common theme, the odds are they like that style.
• Think about where he or she smokes. Most of the time smokers like to smoke certain pipes depending on where they are going to smoke.

For instance, if he likes to smoke his pipe while working in the yard or in the garage, an inexpensive but easy 

smoking Missouri Meerschaum corn cob pipe is a great place to start. If he loves smoking indoors, then a pipe from the Rossi Siracusa collection is a great choice. But, if the spends most of his time traveling to tobacco shops or pipe shows, he may appreciate a bit more “show”, like that offered by the Peterson Spigot series.

The same scenarios can also be applied to tobacco. If your loved one loves to smoke in the house, then a lovely aromatic blend that would smell great, like the Mac Baren Seven Seas Regular Blend, would be a great choice. If they smoke outdoors more often, then a heavier tobacco, like McClelland Frog Morton is a great place to start.

• Finally, you should ask yourself “what are they most likely to need?” Along with a tobacco pipe or a tobacco blend, your smoker is likely to need other accessories.

Your beloved pipe smoker will always be in need of pipe tools. For the holiday season, it is nice to spoil him with a handmade tool that they would not normally buy on their own. Tampers such as Vauen and Savinelli are some of the best pipe tools in the world but are inexpensive enough to be stocking stuffer gift for your smoker.

If the smoker you are shopping for is a traveler, if he takes his pipes away from home frequently, then a pipe and tobacco pouch like the Jobey Lambskin case is the perfect gift for them.

Maybe your smoker has plenty of tobacco pipes already, but he doesn’t have a way to display them. In this case a pipe rack, holding anywhere between one and seven pipes is a great idea.

Shop for Pipes Accordingly

If you are like us, then your holiday shopping is guided by a semi-strict budget. Have no fear, we offer plenty of pipes and accessories that are cheap enough to become stocking stuffers. With this small sample size we offer you a diverse series of pipes ranging from easily affordable to truly fantastic.

Stocking Stuffer Pipes:

• Choosing a separate Falcon Bowl and Falcon Stem is a great way to personalize your pipe gift.

• The Jobey Stromboli collection is a wonderful rustic pipe, perfect for the smoker who loves the outdoors.
• A perfect pipe for someone who just loves to smoke is one from the Dr. Grabow Smooth line.

Mid-Range Tobacco Pipes:

• For a pipe that is a true one-of-a-kind, see the Nording Signature or Black Smooth collection.
• A colorful and independent line of pipes are the Chacom Atlas pipes.
• And of course, one of our best mid-range tobacco pipes are those that are a part of the Vauen Shanghai series.

Premium Level Pipes:

• A gorgeous premium level pipe, that all smokers love, is a Peterson Rosslare Classic model.
• For a pipe that is of the highest quality and has an interestingly unique finish, check out a Savinelli Sunset Italian pipe.
• Or if you are looking for something a bit more inspired, take a look at the Chacom Eltang collaboration pipes.

Dream Tobacco Pipes:

• To find one-of-a-kind-pipes, made by one of the most notoriously great pipe companies in the artisan world, see the Ardor Pipe Company selection.
• But if you would like something made by hand, by an artist not a company, and carved in the USA check out pipes by Joe Case, Brandon Brooks, Paul Menard, or Steve LaVoice Jr. of Owl Pipes, all of whom are some of the most popular pipe carvers in the country.
• For a pipe that is both coveted and highly collectable, visit the Savinelli Autograph page and take a glance at these gorgeous masterpieces.

Holiday Themed Sets

If you are not looking at a certain price range, you are just looking for a holiday-themed gift, we have those as well.

Some of our Christmas/holiday edition pipes are (all are limited edition pipes):

• Savinelli Christmas edition
• Peterson Christmas series

Our holiday season inspired tobacco blends include (each being a limited edition tobacco):

• McClelland 2015 Christmas Cheer
• McClelland 2015 Holiday Spirit
• Samuel Gawith Winter Time Flake

You could also be interested in gifting your favorite a holiday themed gift set, which may include a pipe, tobacco, tool, cleaners, or something else. To see our sets, view our Smoker Gift Sets page.

What to Remember when Shopping

Even though you are looking for a knockout gift, one that will floor the smoker you love, you should remember that you are the one picking out the pipe or other item. Forever, when they hold that pipe, they are going to remember it as a gift from you.

The gift you choose should represent you just as much as it should please your loved one.

We want your gift to be perfect.

If you have question or are looking for a more specific suggestion, leave us a comment or contact us for help. We would love to assist you in finding the perfect gift!