Where did you start...and where did it lead?

[DrT999]

After 20 years of Captain Black and assorted drug store bags, I left the pipe and just smoked the occasional cigar for 15 years. When I came back 10 years ago, I tried some different things, and I liked many, but the first wow (and first flake) was GH Brown Flake Aromatic. Despite now having a too big cellar, I would be quite happy with a few GH Lakelands, Brown Flake Unscented, and St Bruno.

 

[Timbo]

Started smoking a pipe in uni on Amphora Red, I don't remember any tongue burn/bite so I must have been doing things semi OK even witout guidance. A friend and I decided to take up smoking and the convo went, cigs? too common, cigars? too expensive, a pipe, that sounds just right.

I switched to cigs as a convenience when I left uni and was going to gigs/clubs alot with my mates. Even then it was the Indonesian clove ciggies I smoked as I've always been about flavour.

After a while I went for a more pure tobacco flavour and smoked Mild Sevens which a mate put me onto. They out Malboro'd Malboro in the flavour department IMO.

Then I switched to rolling Port Royale ciggs, a port flavoured baccy from Holland.

Which led me back to pipes when I encountered a workmate smoking one and he gave me some GLP Westminster and I was back again on the pipe and haven't looked back.

Would be a totally different story today with the harsh anti smoking regs in Aus currently, rather than 30 odd years ago.

 

[SteveMKentucky]

I was a Blackwoods smoker too. Still have a can or two but can't bring myself to open them. Same with my Esoterica blends.

 

[Donk93953]

At 16, on my first dig in Guatemala, we were engulfed by mosquitos at night. They worked their way through the netting over our hammocks. Guides and crew all huddled together smoking cigarettes around a fire hoping the smoke would alienate the creatures. My professor's husband (my track coach) always had a pipe in his mouth filled with SWR. As we sat shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh forming a scrum around the fire, he handed me a pipe, "Start puffing, maybe this will help keep the little *******s off." I puffed and puffed.
Mosquitos eventually moved on...and I moved on to drugstore pipes (Medico) and SWR and Sail (yellow). Hiding the pipe and tobacco wherever I could from my parents. It led to me still smoking SWR and too many pipes with a white dot on their stem, as I look back at 70 years.

 

[ftrplt]

Years ago, it was Troost Slices and Bengal Slices. Then later, my next real flake 'baccy I was really into...Aged Burley Flake. Steve Monseur hooked me on to it at the TAPS probably ten years ago. Followed up with FVF, Larus Bros. Sliced (yeah, the old stuff!!), Watch City Slices, Peretti's Cambridge Flake, Capstan Flakes, GLP Flakes, ad nauseum!!) FTRPLT

 

[Natch]

At 16, on my first dig in Guatemala, we were engulfed by mosquitos at night. They worked their way through the netting over our hammocks. Guides and crew all huddled together smoking cigarettes around a fire hoping the smoke would alienate the creatures. My professor's husband (my track coach) always had a pipe in his mouth filled with SWR. As we sat shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh forming a scrum around the fire, he handed me a pipe, "Start puffing, maybe this will help keep the little *******s off." I puffed and puffed.
Mosquitos eventually moved on...and I moved on to drugstore pipes (Medico) and SWR and Sail (yellow). Hiding the pipe and tobacco wherever I could from my parents. It led to me still smoking SWR and too many pipes with a white dot on their stem, as I look back at 70 years.

That many years ago, in Guatemala, could it have been some of the early work in the Paten, perhaps Tikal?

 

[Mikem]

When I started smoking a pipe thirty plus years ago it was from a local pipe shop and I believe his renamed version of Lane 1Q that he called Gold Duck. Wasn't long after I started on English blends which if memory serves me correctly was Frog Morton. I still smoke my first pipe I bought from that shop, a rusticated Gefapip Giant.

 

[Donk93953]

That many years ago, in Guatemala, could it have been some of the early work in the Paten, perhaps Tikal?

Near Tikal...that was our HQ....hike out from there to the sites surrounding that massive city in the Peten....Worked in Tikal for a number, indeed a number of seasons.

 

[Natch]

Interesting. I spent two years in the area (Peten over to Cayo Belize) working on my dissertation back in the mid-80s. My interest/research was not so much on archeology but on the flow and economic impact of tourism. Small world.

 

[Donk93953]

Then you know Melchor & Benque Viejo. When the British still controlled (?) British Honduras (Belize), we always looked forward to our supply runs to Melchor. Land Rovers or mules loading up on masa (for tortillas) sugar, coffee, black beans, some chilies...all available in Melchor. But trying to time it so we had a night on the border was paramount. Cross the ditch/stream/river (depending on the time of year) into British Honduras, wave a passport at the soldiers on duty, and head to a real pub. You went from the privations of 3rd world, deep tropical rainforest into electricity for 24 hours, bottles of J&B, running water (a hot shower!) and Watney's on tap, rock and roll on the phonograph...Many happy nights in the Cayo Belize area and many I can't remember.

 

[ftrplt]

Watney's on tap...Boy does that bring back a few memories!!! FTRPLT

 

[Ranger107]

Like others on here I started smoking a pipe in college in the early 70's. There was a great little pipe shop in campus town and I bought several pipes from there, Savs, Comoys, GBD, BBB, and a couple of Sasienis. Started with bulk blends, moved on to tins, mostly McBarens, some Rattrays, but my everyday smoke was BSOSM for most of my college years. When I moved away tried a lot of drugstore stuff, amphora, sail, etc. Gave up the pipe for a few years then picked it up again in 2001 when I moved to Little Rock and found a neat little pipe shop there by the university. The first flake I remember trying was McC Dark Star. One of the gents there gave me some and also coached me on how to smoke it. He was a fold and stuff guy. Tried a few others like Blackwoods Flake but didn't take hold back then. After I joined BoB last year you guys got me interested in trying some flakes. Have had PS LNF, McB navy flake and recently ODF. On a trek to try others but have to smoke down some of my stash as I'm running out of room in my baccy cupboard. Have a couple of tins of Escudo that I haven't opened yet so those may be next. I'm way behind you guys but I will get there in time if I live that long, lol.

 

[Deleted member 4028]

I'm not even sure I can remember the first flake I ever smoked...I tried Mac Baren's coins in the 1990s but never got to fancy them (it's a very different story nowadays, mind you). There was St Bruno in the mid 1990s but, back then, it was an extremely potent and strong tobacco, much more so than today. Jet black flakes and the nic hit made me give up on it. It was the first tobacco that actually defeated me.
Where it led me over time is to the fact that I do have a significant amount of flake blends in my cellar. Erinmore Flake, University and Irish Flakes, Escudo, Orlik Dark Strong Kentucky (no more available and that sucks), St Bruno Flake (we became much better friends over time), Ennerdale Flake and McConnell Scottish Flake, to name a few. Scottish Flake and Ennerdale sure hold a special place in my favorite tobaccos but considering their sparsity, I strongly refrain from smoking them too often as I couldn't stash them up too much. I have had better luck with Best Brown Flake #2 (G & H) than Ennerdale for sure, which is hugely popular and I can obviously see why.

 

[RDPipes]

Don't even remember what tobacco blend I started with but, I remember it was nasty, some kind of Virginia Burley blend. Then there was Mixture 79, that didn't impress me either. Until one day a very generous fellow here that is long gone sent me a package with a tin of Escudo with two other tins, one being Squadron leader which I promptly gave away the other I don't remember, Maybe Davidoff navy rolls.
But, the Escudo really hit the spot and I've been smoking it ever since. I believe it was in 2011 so I smoked a lot of garbage up till then and must thank him again
for sending me my Holy Grail.