My Favorite Pipes

A Nording Partially Rusticated Churchwarden, smokes as good as it looks.
(Photo courtesy of smokingpipes.com)

(Firecured) Now that I’ve been smoking pipes for ten years, I thought it may be a good time to reflect a little. I’ve accumulated a good number of pipes in my decade of pipe smoking, but there’s just a few that I find myself going back to, time after time.
My third most favorite is a Nording Partially Rusticated Churchwarden. I bought this one because I liked the looks of it, but I’ve kept it in my rotation because it smokes so well. I also like the practicality of a military bit and the looks of the spigot. It’s not that I need a military bit in order to spring into action at a moment’s notice, it’s just that I often forget to clean my pipe if I don’t do it right away. I have nothing to criticize about this pipe, but it’s on the newish side, so I’m ranking it 3rd of 3.
My second favorite is a Stanwell Hans Christian Anderson Churchwarden with a smooth finish. Unlike the Nording, which is a little short for a churchwarden, the Stanwell is a classic long stemmed pipe, though it also comes with a short stem that I rarely use. There’s something about this pipe that spells relaxation. I like to stuff it full of Virginia flakes. It doesn’t suffer wet tobacco gladly, otherwise, first rate. It has been in my rotation for about 8 years.
My first favorite pipes (I have 2 of them), are my Dr. Grabow Omegas. I don’t know what keeps me coming back to these pipes again and again, but I do. Perhaps it’s the fact that they aren’t very costly, so I don’t worry about them. Perhaps it’s the military bits. I do know that they smoke quite well, with or without a filter. (I like smoking them with a Savinelli balsa filter.) Whatever it is, I’ve had these two little workhorses going on a decade and plan to add a third to the collection. I’m not crazy about the p-lip. Out of all the Grabow’s I’ve tried, and that’s quite a few, the Omega stands tallest.
My 2 runners up, the ones that fill out my rotation the most, are a Savinelli University, an affordable pipe that burns like a champ. And lastly, a Chacom Bel Epoque #622 Churchwarden that has such a large bowl, you can light it in the morning and smoke all day – it’s the Henry Rifle of pipes, and one of the best looking pipes I’ve ever seen.
I also have pipes by Peterson, Brebbia, Genod, La Rocca, Falcon, etc., and have great things to say about all of them, but they aren’t the ones that get used day, after day, after day.