Quote Originally Posted by Emperor Zurg View Post
This weekend I smoked a bowl of SPC Mississippi River in this really nice Canadian that was restored and sent to me by @NeverBend It looks like a Barling but there's no Barling stamp on it. It just says "DE LUXE" on one side, "309" on the other and "France" on the bit. Regardless, it's a very nice pipe with a bigass bowl (for me anyway) and a very good smoker.


On to the tobacco. It was delicious; sort of a cinnamon on baked fruit sort of taste with just a touch of pepper in the background, slightly smoky, nice and sweet.

Today I smoked a bit of the very same bacco in my oldest, filthiest, favoritest cob; a Missouri Pride replete with Forever stem. This pipe usually smokes any tobacco well. In fact it's been my go to - the best smoking pipe I have. However, the tobacco that was so nice in the briar, just didn't cut it in the cob; it was nothing special at all. I've read all sorts of posts claiming differences in taste between briar and cob but I've never experienced it first hand before. However the difference was undeniable and remarkable. I wouldn't even bother with this weed if I only ever smoked it in the cob.

All this can only mean one thing. I'm going to 'need' MOAR briar pipes.
Darn you Pete! (but I've always wanted an army mount anyway)
Hi Bill,

So glad that the French canadian (pipe, not person) is smoking well. The French don't get their due as good pipe makers and they were the cradle of the briar industry. I believe that your pipe is a Butz second line from the 1960s/70s. I don't think, other than shape, that you would have recognized it before I restored it (did I take pictures before / after?)

Briar smokes very differently than a cob, as you've experienced, but most cobs will be more consistent than a bad briar. Briars are somewhat a hit or miss proposition and even some good smokers may have a narrow latitude (better with VA than Latakia for example). I don't agree with the idea that you can smoke a briar into being a good performer, (you just get used to the funky smoke), but it's my opinion that no other material rivals the smoke of a good briar. It takes time to build a rotation of fine briar smokers.

I never, (with the rarest of exceptions), gift a pipe that I've smoked. I actually have (and had) a lot of pipes that I've not smoked. The reason's simple, I don't want to give away an ace smoker and I don't want to give someone a sucker pipe. If I smoke it, and like it, I keep it. If I smoked it and don't like it, I'll sell it with a warning, something that I started in my shop. I smoked many of the estates that I restored, (hundreds), and I'd tell people about how it smoked. Amazing how many smokers think that they're such superior smokers that they can squeeze honey out of a turnip.

I only kept one pipe from all the estates that I had in the store, a 1940s Barling's Make Ye Olde Wood EXEL Fossil (taper) Poker that blew my mind and literally changed my life. Every pipe that I've ever smoked since has been compared to it and I spent the next 15 years working to make briar pipes of this quality.

Thanks for letting me know that you're enjoying the pipe. I love the shape.

Regards,

Pete