Pipe Smoking Rises From Ashes to Be Hip

 

(ABC) Pipe smoking had long gone the way of grandads' elbow patches, and when cigars surged in the 1990s, the pipe was most frequently seen as a prop to lampoon characters as tweedy or pompous.

Sales are heating up, however, thanks to a young, digitally wired crowd that no longer see pipes as an embarrassing anachronism.

It's a "slight upsurge," but it's also the first time in decades that the sales of pipes and pipe tobacco hasn't gone down, according to Jeff Moran, spokesman for the International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers Association.

Moran's anecdotal assessment is backed up by store owners and pipe makers in college towns across the country. Continued