Russian and American carvers in Pipe Stuff

My idea was to make this booklet photo rich. Photobucket phucked me, ate all my old photos and wants me to pay to put new ones up. They claim 99 a year is a screaming deal and I best act fast or cry loud and long. Yeah, neither of those are happening. I found a free hosting site, haven’t read the fine print yet, but the link for embedding, don’t.

A few years back, shit, must be at least five, I got this little nose warmer from an all but unknown company that was out of St. Petersburg, I believe, at the time, called PS Studio. A few months ago, when I dusted off my old pipes and decided to significantly cull the herd, I had to try the pipe to remember if I liked it or not. It’s not particularly pretty, though the design is eye catching, I have like five pipes that look like it. I like short fat pipes. The draw was very open and the walls were thick and I hung onto it and it planted a seed that Russian pipes were well made.

There’s a company out of Hong Kong, I think, called HS studio, that make a shit ton of factory tooled and cut pipes in popular sizes and shapes. It’s a bad idea to confuse the two as a google search so often does, there being a billion HS studio hits and only a handful of PS studio.

The pipes I purchased to fill the culling holes (though it wasn’t the plan in the darkest recesses of my reckless heart, I knew I was making room for mo’ better and not downsizing) have been, besides the one obvious Danish choice, mostly American and Russian. Both countries have sprouted a whole new generation of artisan pipe makers. Granted, some are just exploiting a market niche, figuring the compulsive will lump them in with the others, and those folks make a reasonable pipe with an inflated pipe. In a year or two eBay will be flooded with pipes from what history will prove to be no names and have very few of the real geniuses at Van Gough prices.

Among the genius Russians is Sergey Ailarov. Seems like the first name is spelled wrong, the pipe doesn’t have a logo with his first name, and that’s how Americans spell it and I don’t read Cyrillic. I’m not sure but I think he was one of three that started PS Studio. Either way the pipe of I his I purchased is beautiful, unique, and has a wide-open draw.

Among the young American carvers Micah Cryder out of Montana (somewhere far enough outside Missoula to look like Grizzly Adams home), might be my favorite. He has a unique style, both traditional and innovative (though in the pipe industry 99 percent of innovations just look like novelty). He works under the name Yeti pipes, does everything by hand and by himself. As best as I can tell he only sells through smokingpipes dot com, Facebook, and commissions (you tell him what you want and he makes it). I wouldn’t have been able to afford any of those. I was fortunate enough to find one on eBay. I’m about to smoke it for about the fifth time since I got it around the turn of the year.

In general, pipe smokers who, at least on the written page, are a very methodical and didactic lot, when they aren’t being all set in their ways and pedantic, smoke VA/Pers in the Summer and Balkan/English/Generally dark blends in the winter. In some aspects of my life you will always win if you bet on me going against the grain. As a pipe smoker I really don’t try going against the grain (except with reviews, I hate the standard reviews, and would rather wax poetic for realz than talk about the nuttiness of the burley component, tin scent, the Virginians sweetening halfway through, that kind of too common shit) but, I prefer VA/pers in the winter and Balkans in the summer. Not just to be contrary, it’s how my taste buds feel.

VA/pers are an unfortunate shortening of a name. The sound has meant anything from fainting Victorian women to high end e-cigs. It stands for Virginia and Perique. Virginian tobacco by itself tends to be singular in it’s flavor, some much better than others but singular just the same. Um, you know, like a single malt, if I were to make a smart-ass comparison. Perique is a type of curing process that, apparently, can only be done right in St. James parish in Louisiana. I think lately there are a few other places that have succeeded enough to be able to sell their perique, but it’s really not the same, it just doesn’t suck as bad as earlier attempts.

I think it’s damn hard to make a living as an independent tobacco farmer these days and the bulk of tobacco goes to domestic cigarette production, which, I’m sure, is way down. The few types of American tobacco used in pipe tobacco and boutique cigars probably barely keeps the water and lights on for a handful of farmers. Although there are a couple of big American pipe tobacco companies supported by American pipe smokers, 1) I don’t care for them much, there’s a similarity to all the blends, a vinegary scent to their Virginians, and 2) they use exclusively American tobacco.

What I’m about to smoke in my Micah Cryden Yeti is a VA/per made by Gawith and Hogarth, an almost 200-year-old British company in Kendal, the Lakeland district. The perique comes from St. James parish, the Virginians? I don’t know, but given how old this blend is, I’d guess Virginia. These days a good Virginian can be grown anywhere without noticeably adverse effects. It’s the way it’s processed by the handful of American companies that gives in the vinegary to ketchup-y taste, nothing inherently wrong with the tobacco. Like our cigarettes and until recently our beer, American production has always gone for quantity and speed over quality. There are a lot of folks who would argue with me. They’re probably wrong in general, to my tastes they are exceptionally wrong subjectively.

And taste really is the bottom line. Anybody who smokes a pipe because they think it makes them look cool … well, it’d be surprising if they knew which end to light or what any given current cultural trend is. You have to be in your sixties with a long white beard to remotely look cool smoking a pipe, and even then, the coolness factor is relative. Often, unique and against the grain is a very definite kind of cool. However, the pipe sticking out of your face is not a look many can pull off. I saw an ad for an Italian pipe company where a very handsome male model wore a pipe in his well-cut Italian suit jacket in the place where a folded handkerchief goes. He looked cool. But he’d probably look cool with smurf water wings and a two-beer baseball cap that says I’m with stupid (which probably even sounds cool in Italian). Incidentally, the ad was for one the worst, cheap ass, pipe companies in Italy which is the home to many a fine artisan of the craft that don’t advertise at all.

Ok, I’m going to enjoy my Yeti and Lakeland VA/Per. Y’all be good to one another.