Introducing my newb self

[Hellraiser]

Nice place y'all got here, been reading everything in this pipe forum for the last week or so. I do smoke cigars but am brand new to pipes. I got a cheap briar pipe off ebay a couple weeks ago and of course it's a piece of crap (bowl too small, poor draw) but gotta start somewhere. I also signed up for that free Altadis pipe tobacco thing so I'll have plenty of new tobaccos to try in a while.

I went to the local B&M yesterday to pick up some tobacco so I could get started. I asked for something that new pipe smokers might enjoy and he handed me an oz of something called Kava or Kiva or something like that and I also picked up an oz of Dunhill Nightcap, had read about it here or somewhere that is was a strong smoke and I prefer strong full bodied cigars so I thought I would try that as well.

I had read the FAQs on how to load the bowl and also on how to break in new briar pipes (though it probably won't help the POS I got) so off I went and loaded the bowl halfway and fired it up (the Kava or whatever). It was a very mild but tasty smoke. It kept going out, probably due to the very wet tobacco, poor bowl loading skills, and maybe because the pipe is crap as well. But some of the hits were quite good and I can see myself enjoying this at some point, though I was not quite "satisfied" compared to a good strong cigar. I think the Kava is very weak in the nicotine department. Well tonight I'm gonna try the Dunhill Nightcap, that should give me the nicotine kick I am used to getting from my cigars.

I realize now that I'm going to have to pick up some quality pipes and start picking up some quality tobacco to age (which I already do with cigars). I've never been a fan of flavored cigars (I like tobacco flavor) but the Kava (or whatever blend it was) tasted pretty good and it was obviously flavored so I'll try some other flavored tobacco that I've read about that many people seem to like (MacBaren Vanilla Cream for instance) but I'd really like to try some non-flavored stuff as well.

Questions:

Can you recommend me some good "tobacco flavored" pipe tobacco that has a nice kick like I would expect from my strong full-bodied cigars.

Is the Dunhill Nightcap considered a flavored tobacco?

[RPB67]

Welcome to Club Stogie !

[Scott M]

Originally Posted by Hellraiser

Questions:

Can you recommend me some good "tobacco flavored" pipe tobacco that has a nice kick like I would expect from my strong full-bodied cigars. Smoke the Nightcap first, (link). It's considered an English blend, albeit perique laced. Quite a few folks think it's "tobacco flavored" enough, and some report a significant nicotine spanking from it, moreso than with cigars. Go through this one... whether you enjoy it or not, (the tobacco... not the potential room spinning), you'll have a better idea of which direction to head.

Is the Dunhill Nightcap considered a flavored tobacco? Not with anything other than differing types of tobacco.

Head up to the new gorilla forum and intro yourself.

And welcome aboard!

Scott"reallyoughtagetspellcheckatwork"M

[Dogwatch Dale]

Welcome to the jungle!

[King James]

welcome to the forums!

[CAOlover]

Hello and Welcome to CS and Pipes!

[Mr. Pink]

Recommend you buy yourself a $5 corn cob. Then you have something you can just kick around for a while and decide things a bit before you sink some cash into an expensive pipe.

First of all welcome Hell

"Can you recommend me some good "tobacco flavored" pipe tobacco that has a nice kick like I would expect from my strong full-bodied cigars."

Might i suggest, Cooner a bulk from Cornell & Diehl, it is cube cut burley with deer tounge and this in my corncob has sat me on my butt before(i'am not a small man either). The tounge gives off a vanilla taste(which i have yet to sense) and the burley is good strong nutty tobacco. Also what i have found is
don't try to find a cigar in a pipe, same mother different father, if you know what i mean. You can get close, some blends do use cigar leaf such as McClelland's DOMINICAN GLORY or GL Pease's Robusto though i haven't tried these yet.


"Is the Dunhill Nightcap considered a flavored tobacco"
No ,as scott M said.
Though you will meet my mistress Latakia. (at this point i really need a smile covering the floor with drool) Tasty, she is, i hope you enjoy her in the nightcap because it seems to be that a lot of cigar smoker crossovers do.

Good luck and keep at it
Root

[Moglman]

Welcome to CS, Hellraiser!

[carbonbased_al]

Welcome to CS! My current favorite non-aromatic is Black Frigate by C&D.

[IHT]

welcome to CS. very nice intro, more newbies around here need to read yours as an example.

[PaulMac]

Originally Posted by IHT

welcome to CS. very nice intro, more newbies around here need to read yours as an example.

Great intro...especially the part about reading the faq's lol
Welcome to CS! May your stay be long and your ashes be glowing

[Hellraiser]

Thank y'all for the warm welcome.

I have some more pipes on order, a dozen corn cob pipes to try the various samples and then I'll be looking hard at some good briar pipes, I'm really liking the nordic freehand types in the looks department, but I'm gonna do my research before buying the next pipe.

I never got around to trying the Dunhill Nightcap last night, after putting the wife and kids to bed, a buddy came over and we ended up smoking cigars (Ashton VSG Illusions - yum) with a beautiful 18 year old (scotch that is). But my buddy also is interested in pipes so I think we'll have another convert shortly, hence the order of the dozen corncob pipes - splitting it with the buddy, and got him to sign up for the free samplers.

I'm already feeling the pull, looking at vintage pipe tobaccos and looking to buy preaged tins and classic Dunhill pipes and I've only smoked half a bowl so far.

Tonight I'll get to that Dunhill Nightcap and see how that goes.

[5thDan]

Greetings Hellraiser and welcome to Club Stogie.

[Hellraiser]

Well I finally got around to trying the Dunhill Nightcap on both Saturday and Sunday night and I thought it was good and could be quite satisfying with a decent pipe. But I think I really need to wait til I get a better pipe before I smoke any more pipe tobacco, the pipe itself is making the experience less than fulfilling I think.

See if y'all think this is a pipe problem or user problem:

Poor draw - after 10 or 15 minutes the draw starts getting harder and I hear some gurgling from inside the pipe. If I pack it really tight, then no draw at all from the beginning, even if I pack loose, the draw is not great at the start and gets worse. With no tobacco in the bowl, drawing through it makes quite a noise, so plenty of resistence to start with. It's like a plugged cigar, you suck and suck but don't really get alot of smoke.

Poor burn - the hole at the bottom of the bowl is not centered, hence it burns more on one side of the bowl than the other.

I think I'll throw it away just to make sure I never smoke out if it again on accident. Also the pipe is tainted by the aromatic blend I smoked thorugh it first, I could still taste it pretty strong in the background even on that 2nd bowl of nightcap. I can definately see a need for different pipes for different tobaccos/blends.

I got some corn cob pipes on the way so I'll give it another try when they show up.

Looking for a good first pipe, I seem to like the looks of the danish freehand pipes, any reason not to consider these, or should I look at more classic pipes like Dunhills and other english pipes. I'm more concerned with performance than looks at this point.

Thank y'all for your suggestions,