Do you remember your first pipe tobacco?

[Cadfael]

965

That is one heck of a "first!" - yikes

 

[HamishMcDowell]

Local B & M blend called Ideal. Still smoke it to this day.

 

[Fr_Tom]

I tried Half and Half first because that is what my father smoked.

Then I went through the Amphora and Sail catalogs and landed on Amphora Red and Sail Yellow.

 

[Storm_Crow]

In my case it was a Grabow and an OTC aromatic (Captain Black Cherry I would guess)...which did nothing for me. I stepped away from pipe smoking at that point, but a few years later I was reintroduced with some MacBaren Dark Twist Roll Cake in a LOTR Strider replica. Again, I wasn't thrilled (the pipe smoked hot and that baccy was bitey), but I had greater tenacity at that point and as I did with beer when at first I didn't like it, I went on a research and tasting odyssey and discovered there was indeed great enjoyment in tobacco smoking once you had the right pipe, the right tobaccos, and the right technique.

 

[oldmike]

First bought was Mixture 79. First smoked was stripped out Camel cigarette tobacco and Bull Durham in a small cob.... needless to say I have moved on.
Mike

 

[Centurian 803]

When I first started the pipe (in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth) I smoked Borkum Riff Whisky exclusively. Then I stopped smoking for about twenty years. When I started again I found that I could not abide the taste of Borkum Riff. I started back with a burley from a B&M in Gatlinburg (oddly enough named Gatlinburly) and then went on to Squadron Leader. Now I don't have enough room to list them all.:face: 

 

[idbowman]

"Sailor's Delight" from Pipes and Pleasures in Columbus, Oh (just their house name for RLP-6 or a RLP-6/1Q combo...can't really remember, now).

I liked it then, enough to smoke it more often then everything else combined for the first three or four years that I smoked a pipe. I don't do many aromatics these days, but when I do its usually some similar cavendish concoction from Lane.

 

[skaukatt]

It was my Dad's "Holiday Pipe Mixture", the one with the cruise ship and palm trees and one of his many pipes. I was 15. It was 1976.

 

[Dave_In_Philly]

Back around 1999, 2000, when I was in college I worked as an EMT (contracted to Albany Fire Dept.) and one of my supervisors smoked a pipe. He smoked a house brand burley. One day my roommate and I decided to give it a try. We went to a B&M that sold cobs and cheap basket pipes and got a few one ounce samples of blends (based solely upon the name on the jar). The first we dug into was the burley that the Sup smoked.

 

[mejoshee]

Local B&M "rum raisin" aro. Just exactly what it sounds like. Looking back, using a bent pipe, this was not the best combo. But, it got me interested and I know what I like now. I still have the pipe (which I opened up), but I dry all my tobacco a lot and I skip out on the lighter aros.

I read somewhere, I forgot where, that starting a piper on aros is a disservice and they don't understand the ordeal it'll cause. I tend to agree and were I to go back and tell myself how to do it, I'd have said start with a lighter English blend that smokes cool and dry.

 

[Anonymous]

I bought a Dr Grabow meerschaum-lined chimney (billiard) and a pouch of Borkum Riff from Winn Dixie when I turned 18. Smoked some of it. Wasn't impressed but I loved my pipe. I still use it. Took the metal stinger(?) out though.

 

[Briarbabe]

If I'm honest my first pipe tobacco was Captain Black's as that's what my dad smoked. I was 15. And I'll even admit to still liking it. Put that in yer pipe and smoke it.

 

[SteveS]

It was either Sail or Mixture 79

nothing good in either case

 

[gnossos]

Half and Half followed by Penzance. I can't abide latakia any more.

 

[Isagar]

The first I ever tried was Davidoff's blue mixture. It was my father's in fact, and being a non smoker, the smell was too good to be true. I couldn't wait to try it when my first pipe arrived.

The taste? Blunt and unsatisfying!

 

[RonA3597]

PA from a tin, then Borkum Riff Whiskey. Rex Bowers at the Squire's Den in Memphis introduced me to Matured VA in 1979 and I never looked back.

 

[KevinM]

I think it was Sail in the blue pouch in a nice little Dr. Grabow half bent which I still have.

 

[Zeno Marx]

I don't remember my very first because it was random from a grocery store aisle.  It was cherry or peach, and I didn't get much pleasure out of it.  I smoked on hikes, and though I would bring the pipe with me, I didn't get excited about the ritual.  I got tired of it not being satisfying, so I went to our tobacconist.  My first real tobacco was Rattray's 7 Reserve, and I was hooked.  From there, I had Nightcap, 759, and Escudo in my first batch of experiences.  It was also when I picked up my first good pipe.  Until then, I'd smoked Grabows off an aisle display rack.  Glad I no longer have those pipes, but I wish I had the rack.

 

[rmason]

My first tobacco was Lane's 1Q and I had no idea I had tried it until a few months ago, mainly because it was a B&M title and I had no idea what I was buying, just whatever smelled nice.
~Ron

 

[the macdonald]

My first pipe was a tiny, crappy meerschaum Indian head. The tobacco was some sort of "roll your own" cigarette tobacco. It was the worst ever. I clearly had no clue what I was doing.

My first actual pipe tobacco experience was a Dr Gabrow meer lined, with some Capt Black. I smoked the hell out of that pipe. I think I gave it to a friend who I miss these days. I'm listening to Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac and remembering my own Beat period full of cheap booze, philosophy and tobacco.