September 26, 2020

Player’s Navy Cut Flake, “The best there is.”

Roald Dahl

The genius of Roald Dahl
As a child, I had several pipe-smoking influences, such as my grandfather, an uncle and the father of a friend. Only recently, I discovered there was another source of inspiration; the great and late writer Roald Dahl. While the generation after me grew up with J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter saga, me and my young contemporaries were enchanted by timeless stories such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches and Matilda. And, if you think my English is pretty readable, you can thank Roald Dahl. At primary school, we learned the language with excerpts of his tales. Later I discovered his adult novels, amongst them one of my all-time favourite books: My Uncle Oswald.

Goat’s tobacco
Being a youngster I devoured every Roald Dahl book I could lay my hands on in the local library. Like his autobiographical Boy: Tales of Childhood. Recently, being in a nostalgic mood, I re-read it. One of the stories there is called “Goat’s tobacco” and describes how a young Dahl on holiday in Norway with his family secretly puts some dried goat’s droppings in the pipe of his half-sister’s lover who then smokes it and almost chokes (if he would have used a Lakeland tobacco it surely would have had the same effect). But before the lover smokes the droppings he boasts about his tobacco. I quote from the book, of course all copyright things go to the Dahl family:

dutch_pipe_smoker_players navy cut flake quentin blake

We could hardly bear the suspense. The sister who was seven couldn’t bear it at all. ‘What sort of tobacco do you put in that thing? (the pipe)’ she asked with superb innocence. ‘Navy Cut,’ the male lover answered. ‘Player’s Navy Cut. It’s the best there is. These Norwegians use all sorts of disgusting scented tobaccos, but I wouldn’t touch them.’ ‘I didn’t know they had different tastes,’ the small sister went on. ‘Of course they do,’ the manly lover said. ‘All tobaccos are different to the discriminating pipe-smoker. Navy Cut is clean and unadulterated. It’s a man’s smoke.’ The man seemed to go out of his way to use long words like discriminating and unadulterated. We hadn’t the foggiest what they meant.

Scoring a pouch of Player’s Navy Cut Flake
My head jolted up after I read this while thinking: “Damn, I have a pouch of Player’s Navy Cut Flake in my tobacco closet!” In 2015 a good friend of mine, a true gentleman, went on holiday to England. But before that he asked if he could buy some tobacco there for me. The range of available pipe tobaccos is different in England. They have blends we (European mainland) don’t have. So I browsed through the website of a British tobacconist until suddenly my eye fell on Player’s Navy Cut Flake. Perhaps it had rung a bell in the back of my head (it was before I re-read Boy) but that was the blend I wanted and got. Sadly, when I began my research for this blogpost I discovered Player’s Navy Cut Flake had been discontinued since the end of 2015. So yes, I am very sorry, but this is another write-up about a blend that does not exist any more..

Broadmarsh factory

Early beginnings of John Player & Sons
First some history about the manufacturer, John Player & Sons. The man himself, John Player was born in Saffron Walden in Essex in 1839. In 1862 he came to Nottingham and some years later began a shop on Beastmarket Hill where he sold agricultural manures and seeds. As an extra income he also sold pre-wrapped tobacco. That went so well that it soon became his main business. So in 1877 he bought the tobacco factory from William Wright in the Broad Marsh, began manufacturing tobaccos and cigarettes and opened 2 more shops. Business quickly expanded and in 1881 he bought land in the Radford area of Nottingham where in 1884 the Castle Tobacco factory arose. Sadly Player died in the same year of liver cancer. In the 1890’s his 2 sons, William Goodacre Player and John Dane Player, took over the business.

Shipping department

The Americans attack
In 1901 a powerful attack by American tobacco manufacturers on the British market led to the formation of the Imperial Tobacco Group in which 13 British tobacco manufacturers joined forces. Although they continued business under their own names and competed with each other. Since John Player & Sons was one of the founding companies they served on Imperial’s first board of directors. The first few decades of the 20th century were good for the company as sales began increasing rapidly. Mainly because of the success of the company’s mass produced, machine-made cigarettes.

The Player’s Navy Cut brand
Already in 1883 the Player’s Navy Cut brand (cigarettes and pipe tobacco) was launched and proved enduringly popular. It was one of the most smoked brands in WW1 and besides Capstan the favourite pipe tobacco of J.R.R. Tolkien and a favourite of C.S. Lewis. Over the years the brand’s sailor and lifebuoy trademark became synonymous with John Player & Sons. But more about that below. Now I could ramble on about the rest of the history but then this blogpost would really become long and focus on cigarettes, and this is a pipe smoking blog. In short Player’s peak was in the late 1950’s. They were employing 11,000 workers (who all got an allowance of 50 cigarettes a week) and produced 15 brands of pipe tobacco and 11 brands of cigarettes. After that it slowly went downhill due to various reasons, factories got closed etc. although to this day Player’s is still in business.

Not Orlik but…
Like I said the curtain fell for the Player’s Navy Cut Flake brand in 2015. I always thought that in the final years it was made by Orlik (read: the Scandinavian Tobacco Group) in license for the Imperial Tobacco Group like Tobaccoreviews.com says. But by someone on Instagram I was pointed in another direction: the mighty MacBaren. To verify this I contacted MacBaren mastermind Per Jensen. He had to say this: “Since 2006 we produced the Player’s Navy Cut Flake for Imperial Tobacco Group, but only for sale in the UK. When we bought the pipe tobacco portfolio from Imperial we did not buy the the Player’s Navy Flake, so production stopped in 2015. The reason, plain and simple, was that Imperial wanted to keep the Player’s name for their cigarettes.”

Package / tin:
My Player’s Navy Cut Flake came in a (with a health-warning desecrated) pouch with inside a foil covered tray. Most of the pouch is navy blue with the logo of the sailor and lifebuoy in the top middle. The sailor image was first used in 1883 and the lifebuoy was added 5 year later. The sailor was known as “Hero”. Why? Just take a good look at the name on his hat band. Then you also can see the HMS Brittania on the left and HMS Dreadnought on the right. The image of Hero changed for a while (apparently the poor lad had no beard for a short period!) until he was standardised in 1927.

Contents / Cut / Ingredients:
Inside the foil covered tray are 2 rows of neatly stacked attractive looking brown cold pressed flakes with golden highlights. It is a Navy Cut, the slices you get when you cut a navy plug. Originally these had a round shape. Later tobacco manufacturers used the term more broadly and a Navy Cut could also be a rectangular flake or slice. The ingredients are Virginia and Burley with a slight topping of rum.

Smell from the tray:
When I removed the foil and stuck my nose near I was kind of surprised. It smelled a bit like Esoterica Stonehaven! Hay, treacle, dark chocolate and liquor with a certain fruity sourness in the background. Although the liquor smell fades away a bit after the tray is opened for longer.

Taste:
The flakes are easy to handle, not too moist, not too dry. I rubbed out the flakes a little bit, bigger chunks on the bottom of the bowl and the smaller ones on top. Lighting it was effortless and when the first smoke hits your my buds I immediately relaxed, it was smooth and creamy. Above all, it has a great basic taste. Many blends of old had a distinct flavour that set them apart from others. With Player’s Navy Cut Flake you get an almost perfect mix between the grassy, tangy, earthy, toasted, stewed fruits lighter and darker Virginias, the nutty Burley which fills up the holes in the tasting spectrum and the rum which doesn’t do much other than providing a slight dark sugar treacle taste. All by all the different elements are expertly harmonised. The taste throughout the bowl is not a rollercoaster. You get that distinct comforting creamy and smooth Player’s Navy Cut Flake flavour which only deepens and intensifies in the later part of the smoke.

Miscellaneous:
Nicotine-wise this blend is surprisingly mild to my relief. I expected more because of the Burley and the fact it had been around a long time, in the old days they made blends more “manly” with more vitamin N oomph. When pushed Player’s Navy Cut Flake has a tendency to bite a bit. But that is ok, it commands puffing slowly which is a good thing. And by doing that you get the most out of this tobacco taste-wise.

Room-note:
When I smoke this one I get almost no comments from the old battle-axe. Only downside is the cigarette-like odour that still lingers the next morning.

Conclusion:
All by all I was pleasantly surprised by this essential British tobacco. I can fully understand why it was like “bread” for years for the English pipe smoker. Although I would think of it more like that delicious cookie your grandmother used to give you when you were visiting her. And every time you eat it now it reminds you fondly of the old lady. Player’s Navy Cut Flake has something comforting. It is an easy smoke. It is not a roller-coaster of tastes nor bland. It just delivers good ol’ tobacco tastiness when you sit in your chair relaxing after a day of hard work. I smoked it in different pipes and each time was satisfying. I really regret Player’s Navy Cut Flake got discontinued. If today it was available I would surely buy it. Maybe it is the added Burley or the bit of rum flavour, but I burned through the pouch in no time. @MacBaren, perhaps you can convince Imperial to sell you the rights to Player’s Navy Cut Flake, release it worldwide, thus bringing back a little classic gem.

May 20, 2020

Robust Rustica

Prototype of the new MacBaren Rustica flake

The Rustica story begins
For me this story began at the Inter Tabak fair in Dortmund last year. Or better said, in a private room in the nearby Dorint hotel, only a short walk from the Westfalenhallen. There the mighty MacBaren was holding court and when the doors swung open we were warmly greeted by product manager / master blender / tobacco ambassador Per Jensen. One of the highlights of the conversation we had was when he produced a blank tin while telling that it was another project on which he was working. It was a blend which also contained the powerful, vitamine N rich Nicotiana rustica. He asked me to smoke it, a prototype, which I did in a small pipe. Of course I said it was good but the truth was that my tasting palate was totally shot after a day of smoking at the Inter Tabak. Not to mention my stomach was pretty empty so the nicotine wreaked havoc on my body. I did not finish the bowl. But I made a firm mental note to keep an eye out for it in the time to come. It had certainly piqued my interest. I mean, I had Nicotiana rustica before in the shape of snuff (Toque USA Whiskey & Honey, which kicked like a mule) but never as a pipe-tobacco, unique!

Ancient “creative” uses of tobacco
Most tobacco consumed by us humans is from the Nictotiana tabacum variety, a tall broad leafed plant. Nicotiana rustica looks alike but is shorter with slightly thinner leaves. Both species are native to the Americas where mankind stumbled upon them roughly 18,000 years ago. But the first area where tobacco was cultivated was the Peruvian/Ecuadorean Andes around 5000-3000 BC. Throughout the years the use of it moved northwards. It was used by all kinds of cultures and civilizations for all kinds of purposes in all kinds of ways. For rituals but also purely for personal pleasure. I can’t begin to describe how “creative” the South-American tribes were in the use of tobacco. It was chewed, snuff was made out of it, it was smoked in the form of cigars or in pipes etc. Even some kind of tea was made of it which would be “drunk” anally with the help of a clyster/enema, like a bulb made of animal skin and a tube made of bone or reed. Or a man would flay his gentleman sausage and soak up the blood in pieces of paper or strips of cloth, add some tobacco and then burn it as an offer to the gods. I am glad that nowadays we only smoke, sniff or chew it orally…

John Rolfe and his wife Pocahontas

The savior: John Rolfe
By the time Columbus discovered America in 1492 tobacco had reached every corner of the continent. At 14 May 1607 a group of settlers from the Virginia Company of London established the Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia. In May 1610 John Rolfe arrived there after a long and difficult journey and he was shocked by what he found. The Virginia Colony was almost destroyed by famine and disease. They had tried selling the local tobacco smoked by the Powhatan and Chesapeake Indians (hint: that was Nicotiana rustica) but the settlers themselves and more important the English market did not like it. It burned poorly and hot, tasted bitter and was very strong. THE tobacco back then was called “Spanish Tobacco” (Nictotiana tabacum) because Spain had the monopoly on it. But somehow John Rolfe had obtained seeds of the Spanish Tobacco, even though Spain had declared a death penalty to anyone selling such seeds to a non-Spaniard. In 1611 he was the first to commercially grow Nicotiana tabacum in North-America. And in 1612 the export of this sweeter tobacco, called “Orinoco” by Rolfe, made the Virginia Colony a success. And what about the Nicotiana rustica? Well, it still exists today, it is known as ucuch in southern Mexico, mapacho in South America, thuốc lào in Vietnam and makhorka in Russia. Also it is used for Swedish snus and chew bags.

Nicotiana rustica leaf

Backstory
And those snus and chew bags is where the MacBaren part of the story begins. It is damn difficult to make a decent pipe-tobacco out of Nicotiana rustica. But at the end of 2018 MacBaren began producing chew bags. The ingredient was Nicotiana rustica although different from the original tobacco smoked by the Indians. These leaves were sun-cured which means there is more sugar in them. It was then that the idea sprang into Per’s head to create a blend from the original tobacco that made smoking popular in the Western world. But the journey was long and difficult because he did not know how to combine the rustica with other tobaccos, a process of experimenting, trial and error. In the end a dark air and fire cured Virginia in the style of the old colonists was used, which was a big step forwards. The use of some modern Burley to balance out the tobaccos was the final ingredient. Last but not least the result was steam-pressed, so all the flavours could optimally meld together, and cut in flakes.

Package / tin:
MacBaren Rustica comes in a pretty plain flat 50gr. tin with artwork in the vein of the other HH blends. You see the MacBaren lions on a dark background with in the middle the HH logo with underneath it “Rustica, hot pressed flake”. My tin is German and on the backside it says (translated): In order to make this strong pipe-tobacco Nicotiana Tabacum and Nicotiana Rustica are being blended together. Since the beginning of pipe-smoking in the 17th century this style of tobacco is rare. The tobacco is being hot pressed to let the natural aromas blend together perfectly.

Contents / Cut / Ingredients:
As I open the tin I am greeted by a classy golden MacBaren wrapper. Inside that are neatly stacked thin brown flakes with lighter spots throughout them. One thing I have never seen before, the top flake is laid down diagonally. The ingredients are of course Nicotiana rustica, dark air and fire cured Virginias and modern Burley.

Smell from the tin:
When I first opened the tin the flakes smelled like fermented straw (cattle feed) with a slight sour funky undertone. I liked it because it immediately transferred me back to my youth and the farm of my uncle and aunt. However, when I now smell the remaining flakes it is more earthty, woody and I detect a faint BBQ odour.

Taste:
First of all I have to honestly admit that I am a bit of a Burley noob. For some reason I rarely smoke the stuff and mostly stick to English / Balkan / Virginia / VaPer blends. And boy, am I at a loss! I was honestly positively surprised when I first lit up Rustica. I expected a full assault of pungent tobacco taste but instead it was, ok, still bold, but round, creamy, cool and inviting. Taste-wise I noticed earth, wood, nuts (sometimes even a bit almond-paste like whiffs), toast with unsalted butter, roast and the gentle perfectly dosed sweetness of the Virginia. There is no roller-coaster of tastes throughout the bowl like with a good Balkan. But in the last half the flavours intensify a bit, more wood, more toast, more pure robust tobacco taste while the Virginia sweetness remains until the end.

Miscellaneous:
Because of the steam-pressing Rustica is smooth like Ellen her buttocks after a hot shower. Of course when smoking I tried to put the pedal to the metal several times by puffin’ really hard but no bite, it keeps smoking cool. The flakes are moist but immediately smokeable from the tin. Fold them or break them into smaller pieces. I choose the latter method. Make sure to not pack the bowl too tightly and try not to tamp too much during the smoke. Now nicotine… Whoooaaaaa….. Nicotiana tabacum leaves have a nicotine content of about 1 to 3%. Nicotiana rustica leaves contain 9%! The curing and steam-pressing processes made the rustica somewhat friendlier but still.. The only way I could smoke and enjoy it was in a small pipe (Dunhill group 1-3) right after dinner with a sweet beverage beside me to counteract vitamin N effects. Then there is the “Limited Edition”. USA pipe tobacco giant Smokingpipes.com says that only 7100 tins of this special edition blend were produced worldwide. Uhmm… My German tin does not mention any kind of limited edition. After some careful reading I found out, the limited USA version is 3.5 oz (about 100 gr.), the regular not limited German version is 50 gr.

Room-note:
This is a strong tobacco and has a strong room-note. Most noticeable by the fact that when I had smoked it in the evening Ellen used the Lampe Berger the next morning.

Price:
In Germany you pay €12,- for a 50 gr. MacBaren Rustica tin. In the USA you pay $21,- for a 3.5 oz.

Conclusion:
MacBaren Rustica really surprised me taste-wise in a very good way. Loved it! Robust, bold, strong, yet refined flavours that make you look out to smoking a bowl of it. Technically it also is a very good flake, well made and when properly handled it burns ok. My own personal concern is the level of nicotine. Each time I smoked it it was like stepping into the ring with Muhammad Ali. You know you are going to be knocked-out but when… All you can do is make the proper preparations, sit back in your favourite chair, brace yourself and go ahead. I swear I grown some extra chest-hair in the past weeks! For some reason when smoking this, perhaps it is the flavour or the hallucinative rustica, I imagined myself sitting on the porch of some farm-house looking out over the fields. Ha! If the Vikings had MacBaren Rustica they would have stayed at home with their blond wives instead of trying to conquer Europe!

April 2, 2016

Pleasures of life in Belgium 2016

Group picture

Like every year for me the annual meeting of the Dutch/Belgian Pipe Smokers Forum (PRF) at Wuustwezel (Belgium) halfway March always marks the beginning of spring. The lengthening days, the slowly rising temperatures and the anticipation of the meeting make all the shadows in my mind from the dark, grey and rainy winter disappear. For some reason (probably the location in Belgium near the Dutch border and cheap beer) the Wuustwezel meeting always has been the best attended one. This year about 70 people applied and like last year Matron, a Scotch-man and Florian, a German, both from the (in)famous Kaervaig Pipe Club, were there. Tobacconist Rudi even brought a special guest, more about that later.

Gates at the Deventer train station

The day of the meeting began at 07.30 am but I was already awake because of my bad back… Great, ageing… But when I came from under the shower and had a small breakfast (their would be plenty of food and drinks during the day) I felt re-energized and ready for the day. Normally good friend Ed would have picked me up but he moved away from his old town near me to a location pretty far away due to some private stuff. So now I had to first pick Mark up at the train station in Deventer. I parked my car there and texted him where I stood but no response. And I waited, and waited.. In the end he turned up. At the train station they have small gates and Mark’s public transport pass malfunctioned so only after a lot of trouble with the security guards he could get through. That soon was forgotten and we drove to a parking lot somewhere beside the highway where Ed waited for us together with Johnny.

Pipe-smokers munching away

After a pleasant ride we arrived in Wuustwezel where, just like the other times, our first stop was the local liquor store. Only once a year I get the chance to properly re-fill my beer basement and I take that chance with both hands (while carrying a stocked beer-crate of course). “No cash payment because we got robbed” said a sign on the door. How sad.. I mean, Belgian beer is so delicious that one could steal it but to actually do that.. Bastards.. Inside the store I noticed I was not the first Dutchman there that day because the shelf with the delicous St. Bernardus Abt 12 was already half empty. Luckily there was enough left and together with my standard favourites and a few tips from Johnny my beer basement bulges out again now. Then we went to the snack-bar. Unfortunately Zodiac from last year closed down permanently. No not the recession, the owners were old and decided to quit. Thank the fried-heavens another snack-bar was open, the one we went to in 2014: Fritsnack, with the remarkable choice of Dutch (sweet) and Belgian (sour) mayonnaise. I went for the Belgian one this time together with a snack called “Twijfelaar” (doubter), which includes small bits of all their meat snacks on one stick, very yummie! Half the establishment was already taken by hungry familiar looking pipe-smokers under which Matron and Florian (this time with no hang-over from the previous evening). Matron had brought the prices which I won at the KPC raffle with him: a tin of Bothy Flake and Holger Danske Royal Navy Flake. Thanks! I sat across Arjen who had a big portion of fries (and in Belgium that is BIG, I had a medium fries which was too much for me..) together with two more snacks. While we were talking I watched with amazement how he devoured it all in no time. Wowzers!

Rob and his home-made tin-guitar

When we arrived at the Bellekes Hoeve, the location of the meeting, organiser Jan sat beside the door to collect the money for the traditional Belgian sausage rolls and rent of the place. Which by the way was only €1 per person due to the fact we drank so much last year. Jan used the profits he made then to keep the entrance fee low for us. First thing I did when I put away my belongings and shook a few hands was order a Vlaamsche Leeuw at the bar. Utterly delicious! Which was also the opinion of Matron, Florian and Ed who all praised the Belgian beer. Then I bumped into Rob who had made a guitar out of an empty tin of WO Larsen Indigo, hilarious! On a table I made some space to place a mason jar which had to serve as a money box. In September my girlfriend Ellen is going to climb the Mont Ventoux in France for a cancer fund. Louis, one of the forum members, suggested that I put a money box at the meeting so people could make a small contribution. Well, small, in the end €131,60 was put in the mason jar! So unbelievably great! By the way, supporting Ellen is still possible through this site.

Marielle

For Marielle I had some Amphora pouches. The evening before the meeting she asked on the forum if anyone had some and could bring it to Wuustwezel. Last year on the Inter Tabac PipesMagazine.com host Brian Levine gave me some Amphora pouches since MacBaren produces them. I never smoked Amphora and to be honest the blend not really seems my cup of tea, so giving hem away to a lovely lady was pretty easy. And in return she gave me a tin of one of the only aromatics I smoke: DTM’s Sweet Vanilla Honeydew. But I had more for Marielle. For some years I own a small 1980 Dunhill group 1 pipe which in essence is a ladies pipe. It came from the time when I snatched up every Dunhill below a certain price but I never had a click with it. So Marielle could have it, I mean, a pipe is meant to be smoked. But surprisingly she did not want it. What I did not knew was that Marielle is a filter-smoker and the Dunhill is non-filter. So she said “Give it to someone who really wants it and is really going to smoke it.” Ok, so if any female pipe-smoker reads this and you want this Dunhill, mail me at arnovangoor@gmail.com with a picture of yourself while smoking pipe and perhaps you are the lucky one! And gents, please no pictures of yourself in a dress or lingerie while puffing away ok? Thank you.

Per Jensen and his wife

Talking about Amphora and MacBaren, Rudi tapped me on the shoulder, “Look there, our special guest, he wants to speak you”. I turned around and saw Per Jensen, the product manager of MacBaren who I already met at the Inter Tabac. Wow! I know he goes to big American meetings but a humble Dutch/Belgian one.. So nice to see and speak to him again. He brought all kinds of MacBaren tobaccos that are not for sale here so we could try them out. I lit up a pipe filled with the excellent HH Pure Virginia. Per had a question for me, he was busy with re-creating an old Amphora blend but he could not find any info of it. So if I perhaps could dig up some information. I’ll do my best Per! Of course I also had question for Per. This year I am busy with a new forum tobacco made by Samuel Gawith, but over 2 years perhaps MacBaren is a nice option. So a bit hesitant I asked Per if he was interested in producing one of our forum tobaccos. Hesitant because I know MacBaren only produces large quantities and around 250 tins is just total peanuts for such a company. But surprisingly he was willing! I get back to you in 2 years Per!

Freek

The generosity of the people on the forum never ceases to amaze me. I saw Freek sitting and he motioned for me to come closer. Last year at the Heukelum meeting I got a bottle of Westvleteren blond from him. One of the best blonde beers I ever drank. But now with a sly smile he produced 2 bottles of the mythical Westvleteren 12! “Here, these are for you. They were a gift to me but I don’t really like the beer.” Wowowowowowow!!! I mean, Westvleteren 12 is chosen as best beer in the world multiple times. What Balkan Sobranie is in the pipe-tobacco world, Westvleteren is in the beer world in my opinion. Last week I drank one bottle and I must say, a truly exceptional brew! Thanks Freek!

Klaas on the left

Still with a smile I bumped into Klaas, one of my pipe tobacco mentors. “Arno, I enjoyed your Upper Ten blogpost so much, here is a tin of De Graaff Kegelbaan for you.” Wow again! One of the earlier latakia blends I smoked through Klaas was the no longer made Kegelbaan, one of the house-blends of the once famous tobacconist De Graaff in The Hague. This mixture is really something special and spoiled my taste buds. It contains Syrian latakia, Old Belt Virginia, Brown Cavendish and the elusive Yenidje. Thanks Klaas! Later I spoke with Andre, who has a very good site where he sells refurbished estate pipes for beginning pipe smokers or people with a small budget. At Heukelum he gave me a blasted Orlik bulldog, a surprisingly fine smoker, and now he produced another Orlik, a good looking billiard. I could also have that one. Thanks Andre!

Suddenly every one was being hushed to silence. Nick took the floor and directed himself towards Arjen. In a couple of months Arjen is getting married with a lovely Canadian woman called Misty. Behind his back the forum members collected money so we could give them a dinner at a restaurant. Well, we ended up with giving the soon to married couple a 5-course meal at the fancy Las Palmas restaurant, a night at the Hotel New York Rotterdam and two glasses and a bottle of bubbles.

You probably know the feeling when you see a pipe and that it just speaks to you like in, I am beautiful, I will smoke good, buy me! I got that when I looked at a pipe amongst Rudi’s wares. A gorgeous D-grade Winslow bamboo. It was precisely what I was looking for, a small to medium sized pipe in which I could smoke Virginia or VaPer mixtures and flakes. And Winslow bamboos are relatively rare. I already have one (a B-grade) which is a terrific smoker. I must say, all my Winslows are excellent smokers and I can’t say that of all my Dunhills.. Rudi saw me (almost drooling) looking at the pipe but the only thing holding me back was the price. But Rudi knew he had the fish on the hook and only needed to haul it in. He made me an offer I could not refuse, a discount. I immediately shook his hands, the deal was closed.

I am a big fan of Lemmy from Motörhead and so is Matron. When we heard about his death we were both devastated. During an e-mail conversation we came up with the idea to bring a toast to Lemmy in Wuustwezel. Of course that would happen with the favourite drink of Lemmy, a Jack Daniels/cola. So I brought half a bottle of Jack with me (the other half I drank on the evening of the day I heard Lemmy died..) and to my delight I saw that Matron had taken 2 Motörhead shirts with him. His shirt was without sleeves. “You know, this shirt once had sleeves. But on a day when I was hiking I realized I forgot to bring tissues with me when I just had taken a shit. So I ripped off the sleeves of my shirt…” The shirt he had for me was a perfect fit, “size fat bastard” he said to me with a wink. We filled our glasses and raised them in honour of our fallen hero. R.I.P. Lemmy!

My acquisitions

In the morning when we drove to Wuustwezel Johnny said “Always when I go to a meeting time suddenly goes very fast from the moment I enter the building until I leave it.” I also precisely had that. It was a fun day as always, I had spoken with lots of people, also did not speak with lots of people (better next time!), the sausage-rolls were delicious, the tobaccos great, the beer tasty etc. Around 20.30 we shook hands with the remaining forum members and half an hour later (you know how it goes..) we finally sat in the car on our way home. After a long journey which seemed short we arrived at the parking lot beside the highway. It appeared our cars were well guarded by some men around and in a van who were.. Ehmm.. Jerking off. So we hastily said goodbye to each other (and of course wished the masturbating men a pleasant evening) and went on our merry way.

I want to thank Jan, Sas, Miep and Dirk for organising the meeting and keeping us all hydrated. All pictures were made by Klaas, Jan, Dirk, Nick and Jef.

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EDIT 09-05-2016: The Dunhill ladies-pipe has a new owner! Lots of pictures of ravishing pipe-smoking ladies were send in. Some even showed me totally new and quite interesting ways to smoke a pipe.. And no you pervs, I won’t show those photos! In the end there was a clear winner: Italian pipe-smoking lady Emilia. She is the vice-president of the Pipa Club Italia and owner of one of the biggest pipe-smokers website communities: Fumare la Pipa. She started smoking when she was 21 years old. Her first pipe, a Savinelli, was given to her by a friend. Her second pipe she bought at the Peterson factory during a study-holiday in Dublin. Today Emilia attends many events where she had the opportunity to meet many pipe-smokers and pipe-makers (like Tom Eltang and Manduela). For 90% Emilia smokes Italian made pipes. Her favourite is the Kronos pipe, made by Bruto Sordini from Don Carlos. Surprisingly (for a woman) Emilia likes the taste of latakia! Her favourite tobacco is GL Pease Maltese Falcon and she often likes to smoke Tuscan cigars. Emilia is also participating in the slow smoking Italian Championship for several years. Last October she even contented in her first World-Championship in Italy near Venice: 71st out of nearly 300 participants. Currently she holds the women’s title in Italy. Emilia, I wish you lots of happy smokes with your Dunhill!

Dutch Pipe Smoker

Tag Archives: per jensen

Player’s Navy Cut Flake, “The best there is.”

Robust Rustica

Pleasures of life in Belgium 2016